Mavi Boncuk |K. Volarić (Ed.): The Istanbul Letters
Klara Volarić (ed.), The Istanbul Letters of Alka Nestoroff. Bonn: Max Weber Stiftung, 2015. (Memoria. Fontes minores ad Historiam Imperii Ottomanici pertinentes, 1) ISSN: 2364-5997.
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Memoria. Fontes minores ad Historiam Imperii Ottomanici pertinentes
This publication series makes accesible in English primary sources on Ottoman history for academic research with an emphasis on narrative texts, which have gone largely unnoticed.
Dr Richard Wittmann gave a presentation[1] on The Istanbul Letters of Alka Nestoroff, the first volume of a new publication series which he has edited. The aim of this series is to make accessible primary sources on Ottoman history in English for academic research, with an emphasis on narrative texts that have gone largely unnoticed.
Alka Nestoroff’s letters from Istanbul, published here for the first time in a volume edited by Klara Volarić, afford the reader with a rare glimpse into the cosmopolitan world of Istanbul’s high society and foreign diplomats during the last years of peace in the Ottoman Empire leading up to the Balkan Wars and World War I. Alka Nestoroff, neé Mažuranić, the granddaughter of the Habsburg governor of Croatia and the wife of a Bulgarian diplomat to the Sublime Porte, regularly sent letters from Istanbul to her parents and extended family in Zagreb.
Alka Nestoroff is a keen and eloquent observer of everyday life and the conviviality of the capital’s residents. Her letters contain an invaluable trove of information on everyday life in the Ottoman capital, including the scenery and architecture, its street dogs and the latent danger posed by the numerous fires in the city. As a self-narrative they provide a fascinating eye-witness account of the turmoil and temporary breakdown of civic order in Istanbul surrounding the Young Turk Revolution in July 1908.
This particular presentation is made in conjunction with the Istanbul Memories Project, an interdisciplinary and international research project aimed at collecting, recovering and rereading personal narratives of the late Ottoman period as sources for the study of late Ottoman social realities. Source
[1] Street Dogs, Diplomacy and the Sweet Waters of Asia | Book presentation of ‘The Istanbul Letters of Alka Nestoroff’
November 11, 2015 | 19.00 | The Orient-Institut Istanbul, Susam Sok. No:16 D:8, Beyoğlu
The Orient-Institut Istanbul is an independent Turcological and area studies research institute of the Max Weber Foundation. Much of our work is conducted in cooperation with universities and independent academic institutions, both in Turkey and abroad. The institute also contributes to the scientific exchange between Germany and Turkey.
The Orient-Institut Istanbul is located in the neighbourhood of Cihangir, conveniently close to Taksim Square, one of the major cultural, entertainment and transport centres of the city. With Istanbul’s rich archives, manuscript libraries, museum and art collections, the institute offers unique opportunities for research on Islamic, Mediterranean and Turkish culture, society and history.
The Orient-Institut Istanbul is also home to an ever-growing research library open to the public. Its collection consists of approximately 39,000 volumes and 1,300 periodicals focusing on Ottoman as well as contemporary Turkish Studies. In addition to its comprehensive Turkish collection, the library is a valuable resource for often hard-to-find academic literature in German and other foreign languages. The Institute hosts public lectures, symposiums and scientific conferences on a regular basis. Now a branch of the Max Weber Foundation, the Orient-Institut Istanbul was from 1989 to 2008 a subsidiary of the Orient-Institut Beirut, which was originally established in 1961 by the German Oriental Society, or the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG). Since January 1, 2009, the Orient-Institut Istanbul has been independent of the Orient-Institut Beirut.