Halil İnalcık (7 September 1916 – 25 July 2016) was a Turkish historian. His highly influential research centered on social and economic approaches to the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
. His academic career started at
Ankara University
Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...
, where he completed his PhD and worked between 1940 and 1972. Between 1972 and 1986 he taught
Ottoman history at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. From 1994 on he taught at
Bilkent University, where he founded the history department. He was a founding member of the Eurasian Academy.
Biography
He was born in
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
on 7 September 1916 to a
Crimean Tatar family that left
Crimea
Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...
for the city in 1905.
He attended
Balıkesir
Balıkesir () is a city in the Marmara Region, Marmara region of Turkey. It is the seat of Balıkesir Province, which is also a Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality. As of 2022, the population of Balıkesir Province ...
Teacher Training School (current
Balıkesir University), and then
Ankara University
Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...
, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of History, from which he graduated in 1940.
His work on
Timur
Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1320s17/18 February 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeat ...
drew the attention of
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (December 5, 1890 – June 28, 1966), also known as Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad, was a highly influential Turkish sociologist, Turkologist, scholar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Rep ...
, who facilitated his entry as an assistant to the Modern Age Department of the university. He completed his PhD in 1942 in the same department. His PhD thesis was on the Bulgarian question in the late Ottoman Empire, specifically during
tanzimat
The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...
, and constituted one of the first socioeconomic approaches in Turkish historiography. In December 1943, he became assistant professor and his research interest became focused on the social and economic aspects of the Ottoman Empire. He worked on the Ottoman judicial records of Bursa and in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. He became a member of the
Turkish Historical Society in 1947.
In 1949, he was sent by the university to
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, where he worked on Ottoman and Turkic inscriptions in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
and attended seminars by
Paul Wittek at the
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...
. Here, he met other influential historians such as
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British-American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...
. He attended a congress in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
in 1950, where he met
Fernand Braudel
Fernand Paul Achille Braudel (; 24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian. His scholarship focused on three main projects: ''The Mediterranean'' (1923–49, then 1949–66), ''Civilization and Capitalism'' (1955–79), and the un ...
, whose work greatly influenced him. He returned to Turkey in 1951 and became a professor in the same department in 1952. He lectured as a visiting professor in
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
in 1953–54 and worked and studied as a research fellow at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1956–57. Upon his return to Turkey, he lectured on Ottoman, European and American history as well as administrative organization and Atatürk's reforms. In 1967, he lectured as a visiting professor in
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
and the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. He joined the International Association of Southeastern European Studies () in 1966 and held the presidency of this institution between 1971 and 1974.
In 1971, Harvard University offered him a permanent teaching position and the University of Pennsylvania offered him a five-year contract. He refused these, wishing to stay in Turkey. However, in the meantime, the political turmoil in Turkey worsened and students became increasingly involved in conflict, hindering education. In 1972, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty of the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, where he taught
Ottoman history until 1986.
Between 1990 and 1992, he lectured as a visiting professor at Harvard and Princeton. In 1992, he returned to Turkey after an invitation by
Bilkent University, where he founded the history department, teaching at the postgraduate level,
and taught until his death.
In 1993, he donated his collection of books, journals and off-prints on the history of Ottoman Empire to the library of Bilkent University. He had been a member and president of many international organizations, he was a member of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , SANU) is a national academy and the most prominent academic institution in Serbia, founded in 1841 as Society of Serbian Letters (, DSS).
The Academy's membership has included Nobel Prize, Nobel la ...
in Department of Historical Sciences, also a member of the
Institute of Turkish Studies.
İnalcık died on 25 July 2016 and is buried in the
Fatih Mosque in Istanbul.
Work and impact
İnalcık's work was centered upon a social and economic analysis of the Ottoman Empire.
[ He aimed at both countering what he saw as the hostile, biased narrative presented by western sources at the onset of his work and what he saw as an exaggerated, romanticized and nationalistic historiography in Turkey itself. He exemplified the biased western narrative he tried to dispel as Franz Babinger's depiction of ]Mehmed the Conqueror
Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
In Mehmed II's first reign, ...
as a bloodthirsty, sadistic personality. He criticized generalizing approaches to Ottoman history as such approaches, he argued, lacked social or economic insight due to a lack of research. He was the first historian to study Ottoman judicial records in depth to deduce elements of the socioeconomic factors in the Ottoman society. When he first started his research in the 1940s, such documents were believed to be useless due in part to the recent change of alphabet and were being stored in unfavorable conditions or altogether destroyed.
İnalcık corrected a number of incorrect convictions about Ottoman and Turkish history. One such instance was his discovery that the proposition that the Ottoman dynasty belonged to the Kayı tribe was fabricated in the 15th century. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, İnalcık shaped the discipline of historical research with his unique methodology and led to many students in his school of thought approaching issues from a number of socioeconomic and cultural perspectives.
He was influenced by the works of Fuad Köprülü, Fernand Braudel
Fernand Paul Achille Braudel (; 24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian. His scholarship focused on three main projects: ''The Mediterranean'' (1923–49, then 1949–66), ''Civilization and Capitalism'' (1955–79), and the un ...
and Ömer Lütfi Barkan.
List of publications
His most important work was his first book, ''Hicrî 835 tarihli Sûret-i defter-i sancak-i Arvanid'' (Copied of register for A.H. 835 in Sanjak of Albania), which was published at Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
in 1954 and presented one of the earliest available land register in Ottoman Empire's archives.
* in English:
**''The Origin of the Ottoman-Russian Rivalry and the Don-Volga Canal (1569)'', Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi (1948)
** ''The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City'' (1968)
** ''Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire'', ''The Journal of Economic History
''The Journal of Economic History'' is an academic journal of economic history which has been published since 1941. Many of its articles are quantitative, often following the formal approaches that have been called '' cliometrics'' or the '' ne ...
'', Vol. 29, No. 1, The Tasks of Economic History, pp. 97–140 (1969)
** ''Ottoman Policy and Administration in Cyprus after the Conquest'' (1969)
** ''History of the Ottoman Empire Classical Age, 1300–1600'' (1973)
** ''The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy'' (1978)
** ''Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History'' (1985)
** ''The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society'' (1993)
** ''An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914'' (with Donald Quataert, 1994)
** ''From Empire to Republic: Essays on Ottoman and Turkish Social History'' (1995)
** ''Sources and Studies on the Ottoman Black Sea: The Customs Register of Caffa'' 1487–1490 (1996)
** ''Essays in Ottoman History'' (1998)
* in Turkish:[
** ''Makaleler 1: Doğu Batı, Doğu Batı Yayınları'', 2005
** ''Fatih devri üzerinde tetkikler ve vesikalar'' Ankara, 1954
** ''Osmanlı'da Devlet, Hukuk, Adalet, Eren Yayıncılık'', 2000
** ''Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Ekonomik ve Sosyal Tarihi Cilt 1 1300-1600, Eren Yayıncılık, Prof. Dr. Donald Quataert ile,'' 2001
** ''Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Ekonomik ve Sosyal Tarihi Cilt 2 1600–1914, Eren Yayıncılık,'' 2004
** ''Osmanlı İmparatorluğu – Toplum ve Ekonomi, Eren Yayıncılık''
** ''Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Klasik Çağ (1300–1600), Yapı Kredi Yayınları'', 2003
** ''Tanzimat ve Bulgar Meselesi,'' Eren Yayıncılık, 1992
** ''ABD Tarihi, Allan Nevins ve Henry Steele Commager (Çeviri), Doğu Batı Yayınları,'' 2005
** ''Şair ve Patron, Doğu Batı Yayınları,'' 2003
** ''Balkanlar (Prof. Dr. Erol Manisalı ile), Eren Yayıncılık, 1993''
** ''Atatürk ve Demokratik Türkiye, Kırmızı Yayınları,'' 2007
** ''Devlet-i Aliyye, Türkiye İş Bankası Yayınları, ''2009
** ''Kuruluş: Osmanlı Tarihini Yeniden Yazmak, Hayykitap'', 2010
** ''Osmanlılar: Fütühat ve Avrupa İle İlişkiler, Timaş Yayınları,'' 2010
** ''Osmanlılar,'' ''Timaş Yayınları,'' 2010
** ''Has-Bağçede 'Ayş u Tarab – Nedimler Şairler Mutripler, İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları,'' 2011
** ''Kuruluş ve İmparatorluk Sürecinde Osmanlı, Timaş Yayınları,'' 2011
** ''Tanzimat, Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu (Mehmet Seyitdanlıoğlu ile), İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları'', 2011
** ''Rönesans Avrupası: Türkiye'nin Batı Medeniyetiyle Özdeşleşme Süreci, İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları'', 2011
** ''Osmanlı ve Modern Türkiye, Timaş Yayınları'', 2013
** ''Devlet-i 'Aliyye: Tagayyür ve Fesad, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Araştırmalar II, İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları'', 2014
]
Honorary Degrees
* ''Emeritus Professorship'', University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
(1986)
* Boğaziçi University
Boğaziçi University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Boğaziçi Üniversitesi''), also known as Bosphorus University, is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey, historically tied to a former American educational insti ...
(1986)
* University of Athens
The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; , ''Ethnikó kai Kapodistriakó PanepistÃmio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Athens, Greece, with various campuses alo ...
(1987)
* Selçuk University (1992)
* Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
(1993)
* University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...
(1993)
* UludaÄŸ University (1995)
Awards
* Islamic History, Art, and Culture Research Center Award (1986)
* Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Distinguished Service Medal and Diploma (1991)
* Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a prestigious public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, ...
Parlar Foundation Science Award
The METU Parlar Foundation Science Award () is a Lists of science and technology awards, science award issued by the Middle East Technical University Prof. Dr. Mustafa N. Parlar Foundation established in 1981 in Ankara, Turkey, commemorates Profess ...
(1992)
* Sedat Simavi Foundation Award for Social Sciences: Best Work of the Year in Social Sciences (1993)
* Titulesco Medal of High Service, Embassy of Romania in Ankara (1995)
* Istanbul University
Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...
Institute of Turkic Studies Award (1998)
* Turkish Ministry of Culture Grand Award for Culture and Arts (2002)
* Soranos Friendship Award (2002)
* Hungarian Order of Merit (2003)
* Presidential Grand Award for Culture and Arts (2005)
* King Faisal Prize for Islamic Studies (2011)
*International Organization of Turkic Culture
The International Organization of Turkic Culture or TÜRKSOY is an international cultural organization of countries with Turkic populations, speaking languages belonging to the Turkic language family.
The General Secretary of Türksoy is Sult ...
Honor Medal (2012)[Turksoy]
HONOUR MEDAL OF TURKSOY AWARDED TO PROF. DR. HALIL INALCIK
, 16 February 2012
Footnotes
References
External links
* Official Web Page �
''Halil İnalcık Web Page''
* Bilkent University �
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inalcik, Halil
1916 births
2016 deaths
20th-century Turkish historians
21st-century Turkish historians
Turkish people of Crimean Tatar descent
Writers from Istanbul
Academics of the University of London
Ankara University alumni
Academic staff of Ankara University
Academic staff of Bilkent University
Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Foreign members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Scholars of Ottoman history
University of Chicago faculty
Historians of Turkey
METU Mustafa Parlar Foundation Science Award winners
Burials at Fatih Mosque Graveyard, Istanbul