Halil İnalcık (1916–2016): a preliminary anatomy of a legacy

Abstract

Halil Inalcik (1916–2016) was the pre-eminent historian of the Ottoman Empire in the world from his establishment as a published scholar in the 1950s until the time of death. This article is an initial examination of his legacy to the study of Ottoman history broadly. His goal was to create an empirically-based narrative of Ottoman history from beginning to end, based on exploitation of the vast resources of the Ottoman archives as well as the extensive library of Ottoman narrative chronicles, together with non-Ottoman sources. In addition, he invested extensive energies in training several generations of Ottoman historians. Overall, his impact on scholarly and public perceptions of the Ottoman Empire has been unmatched to the present day.

Keywords:

• Halil Inalcik
• Ottoman history
• Ottoman historiography

Notes

1. Bey (Turkish) is an honorific title, carrying the respect of sir or monsieur; hoca is also an honorific but also specifically means teacher or master.

2. Since İnalcık’s death, there have been dozens of brief news stories, obituaries and interviews, but as yet no comprehensive critical analysis of his achievements.

3. Inalcik, “The Shaykh’s Story Told by Himself”; Gallagher, “Halil Inalcik”, in Approaches to the History of the Middle East: Interviews with Leading Middle East Historians, 151–70; and Inalcik, Tarihçilerin Kutbu.

4. See, for example, the history interview shows (in Turkish) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtIu3ReSBgY (accessed 27.08.2017) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWAFhbQkqZQ (accessed 27.08.2017).

5. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 141.

6. On petitions (arzuhal), see, for example: Inalcik, “Şikâyet Hakkı: ʿArż-i Ḥâl ve ʿArż-i Mahżar’lar”; Akın, “Reconsidering State, Party and Society in Early Republican Turkey”; Ben-Bassat, “In Search of Justice”.

7. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 110. On education in the late Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic, see: Fortna, Imperial Classroom; Winter, “The Modernization of Education in Kemalist Turkey”.

8. On the Turkish history thesis, see: Copeaux, Espaces et temps de la nation turque

Behar, İktidar ve Tarih; on the sun language thesis and reforms to the Turkish language, see Çolak, “Language Policy and Official Ideology in Early Republican Turkey”; Aydıngün and Aydınün, “The Role of Language in the Formation of Turkish National Identity and Turkishness”; and Szurek, “The Linguist and the Politician”, 68–96.

9. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 114; Inalcik, Tanzimat ve Bulgar Meselesi; and Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire.

10. On the German intellectuals who contributed to founding the Turkish universities, see, for example: Shaw, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic and Konuk, East West Mimesis.

11. See, for example: Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and Wittek, “De la défaite d’Ankara à la prise de Constantinople”. On Wittek, see: Heywood, “Wittek and the Austrian Tradition” and Heywood, “A Subterranean History: Paul Wittek (1894–1974) and the Early Ottoman State”, Die Welt des Islams, New Series 38, no. 3 (1998): 386–405.

12. Inalcik, Tarihçilerin Kutbu, 62.

13. For example: Halil İnalcık, Osmanli Tarihinde Efasaneler ve Gerçekler (Istanbul: Kronik Kitabı, 2017).

14. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 114–16 (quote on 116).

15. A representative list up until the early 1970s would include: Inalcik, Hicri 835 Tarihli Süret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arnavid; Inalcik, Fatih Devri üzerinde Tetkikler ve Vesikalar; Inalcik, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest”; Anhegger and Inalcik, Kânûnnâme-i Sultânî Ber Mûceb-i “Örf-i “Osmânî; Inalcik, “Osmanlılar’da Raiyyet Rüsûmu”; Inalcik, “Mehmed the Conqueror (1432–1481) and His Time”; Inalcik, “Adâletnâmeler”; and Inalcik, “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire”

16. The essay is by Halil Berktay, “The Historians’ Historian”, unpublished and incomplete workshop paper (Istanbul, Bosphorus University, 2002), 5–6. For the earlier works, see: Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453 and Vucinich, The Ottoman Empire, its Record and Legacy.

17. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 138.

18. Zarinebaf et al., “In Memoriam: With Halil Hoca at the Quads of the University of Chicago”.

19. Email communication to author, June 22, 2017.

20. Jane Hathaway, email to author, June 22, 2017.

21. The most extensive bibliography of Inalcik's work is to be found in Inalcik, Tarihçilerin Kutbu, 513–60. A less comprehensive listing, still extensive and somewhat more up-to-date, can be found at http://www.inalcik.com/indexTr/default.asp. (Accessed August 27, 2017).

22. As examples of these, see: Inalcik, Hicri 835 Tarihli Süret-i Defter; Inalcik, Fatih Devri; Anhegger and Inalcik, Kânûnnâme-i Sultânî Ber Mûceb-i “Örf-i “Osmânî; Inalcik, “Adâletnâmeler”; Inalcik, “The Rūznāmče Registers of the Kadiasker of Rumeli as Preserved in the Istanbul Müftülük Archives”; Inalcik and Oğuz, Gazavât-i Sultân Murâd b. Mehemmed Hân; Inalcik, Sources and Studies on the Ottoman Black Sea: I; Inalcik, The Survey of Istanbul 1455; and Inalcik, Radushev, and Altuğ, 1445 Tarihli Paşa Livâsı İcmâl Defteri.

23. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 118.

24. Inalcik, “Shaykh’s Story”, 133. The 14th meeting of IAOSEH was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in July 2017.

25. Zarinebaf et al., “In Memoriam” (4). İnalcık himself describes the discovery and rescue of the Bursa kadı sicilleri volumes, as well as the genesis of the Istanbul sicil project in Inalcik, Tarihçilerin Kutbu.

26. Gallagher, Approaches to the History of the Middle East, 161.