Papers by Virginia H. Aksan
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 2001
Review of Middle East Studies, 2020
The Ottoman Mobilization of Manpower in the First World War, 2012
Jeremy Black, ed. War in the early Modern World, 1450-1815, 1999
Renaissance Quarterly, 2014
The Ottomans 1700–1923, 2021
Originally conceived as a military history, this second edition completes the story of the Middle... more Originally conceived as a military history, this second edition completes the story of the Middle Eastern populations that underwent significant transformation in the nineteenth century, finally imploding in communal violence, paramilitary activity, and genocide after the Berlin Treaty of 1878. Now called The Ottomans 1700-1923: An Empire Besieged, the book charts the evolution of a military system in the era of shrinking borders, global consciousness, financial collapse and revolutionary fervor. The focus of the text is on those who fought, defended, and finally challenged the sultan and the system, leaving longlasting legacies in the contemporary Middle East. Richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by brief portraits of the friends and foes of the Ottoman house. Written by a foremost scholar of the Ottoman Empire and featuring illustrations that have not been seen in print before, this second edition will be essential reading for both students and scholars of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman society, military and political history, and Ottoman-European relations. Virginia Aksan's particular interests lie in the Ottomans in a comparative imperial context, focusing on borderlands, warrior societies, knowledge transfer, intermediaries, and perceptions of the Ottoman evolution in a revolutionary age. Her publications include An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700-1783 (1995); The Early Modern Ottomans, co-edited with Daniel Goffman (2007), and more than 40 edited chapters and journal articles. Modern Wars in Perspective This ambitious series offers wide-ranging studies of specific wars, and distinct phases of warfare, from the close of the Middle Ages to the present day. It aims to advance the current integration of military history into the academic mainstream. To that end, the books are not merely traditional campaign narratives, but examine the causes, courses and consequences of major conflicts, in their full international political, social and ideological contexts.
Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800, 2012
Ottoman-Russian warfare of the eighteenth century, while generally acknowledged as the causal fac... more Ottoman-Russian warfare of the eighteenth century, while generally acknowledged as the causal factor necessitating a complete transformation of Ottoman society after 1800, has only begun to get the attention it needs from Ottoman historians. As a way of filling in some of the gaps, this chapter sets out the geopolitical status of the Ottomans in the eighteenth century, discusses the general difficulties facing Ottoman administrators, and then concentrates on some particulars of the two wars of Catherine II from 1768-1792. The emphasis is on manpower, military leadership and supply, especially as driven by the increasingly desperate fiscal difficulties of the Ottoman sultanate. The Ottomans had managed to hold their own against the Austrians on the Danube in the campaigns of 1736-39, because of occasional good command, astute diplomacy and the loyalty of Bosnia to Ottoman defensive needs on the European frontier. Keywords:eighteenth century; fiscal policies; geopolitical status; Ottoman military power
Gastro Obscura in Atlas Obscura, 2019
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 2000
Some sixty people joined us for a two hour open-ended conversation about the study of the Ottoman... more Some sixty people joined us for a two hour open-ended conversation about the study of the Ottoman Empire in North America. What follows is a brief outline of our discussion. In my own introduction, I outlined the origin of the conversation, what I saw as the deliberate lack of a fixed agenda and the multi-year commitment to the dialogue. I was asked why the choice of 'Locating' and tried to convey my sense of a lack of focus and set of definitions of what constituted the Ottoman empire, growing out of my work on comparative empires and military history. The other three principal participants were each given five or ten minutes to place themselves in the conversation, before we opened it to the floor for more generalized discussion. My comments on the subject could be summed up as the problem of definitions (or lack thereof) of the Ottoman Empire as a unit of study. Resat Kasaba expressed concern about the continued resilience of stereotypic images of the empire in the public mind, using as an example a short piece in the New Yorker that chose to use Ottoman land tenure as a particularly boring and meaningless subject. He also bemoaned the inability or unwillingness of Ottomanists to confront (or write about) ethnic conflicts of past and present (especially of the nineteenth century). Dan Goffman chose the analogy of the mature empire and theories of decentralization and decline to discuss his concern about the diffusion of the field and its individuation (my word, not his). Robert Vitalis pointed to our "crisis' mentality, advising the group to concentrate on the real problem which he viewed as the rush to fame and fortune, part of a "sociology of the professions.' We should, he noted, stick to the passion of our pursuit and ignore the clamor for status and the jockeying for position. Of course, as one might expect, we paid little attention to his acute and spirited critique.
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2011
Study of the Ottoman empire has flourished in the past two decades. Reaching beyond the imperial ... more Study of the Ottoman empire has flourished in the past two decades. Reaching beyond the imperial centre, new work probes the problem of living in far-flung peripheries and what it meant to negotiate religious and ethnic differences in times of upheaval and change. With a remarkable array of languages and grasp of the complexity of early modern societies, young scholars are exploring not just the representation and practice of Ottoman sovereignty and the response of elites but also the experience of the frontier, and survival strategies of slaves, prisoners of wars, converts and captives.
Osmanlı Araştırmaları, 2014
This volume is dedicated to the memory of Oktay Aksan, 1934-2013, affectionately known as "the la... more This volume is dedicated to the memory of Oktay Aksan, 1934-2013, affectionately known as "the last Ottoman". Nur içinde yatsın.
The International History Review, 2003
Wayne E. Lee, ed. Empires and Indigenes: Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion and Warfare in the Early Modern World, 2011
International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis
Continuity and change We consider the European Union a community of values, not a Christian club-... more Continuity and change We consider the European Union a community of values, not a Christian club-Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey 1
Ego, Jan 14, 2011
Ottoman threat to Europe evolved into an Austro-Russian-Ottoman struggle for hegemony over the re... more Ottoman threat to Europe evolved into an Austro-Russian-Ottoman struggle for hegemony over the remaining frontiers of the Danube, the Crimea and the Caucasus. The era from 1700 to 1900 is generally described as one of profound transformation of the Ottoman military system by adopting European organizational and technological models. Based on a critique of current theoretical models, this article argues that the notion of the transfer of military technology is better expressed as a cultural conversation. We still have very few specific details about military reform within the empire, and those responsible for it. Much of the post-1700 European imagination about the Ottoman potential for reform was inspired by literary, sometime derisive narratives. Both observations will be discussed in relation to the nature and deployment of our sources.
International History Review, 1993
Gordon Martel, Encyclopedia of War Wiley-Blackwell 2012
Encyclopedia of War, 2012
from Gordon Martel, Encyclopedia of War @iley-Blackwell, 2012
Uploads
Papers by Virginia H. Aksan
This volume aims to explore Ottoman political thought and seeks answers to questions such as those: Did Ottoman political thinkers precede policy-makers in proposing reform, or did political writers feel surpassed by developments with which they did not agree? What was the relation of religion-oriented ideological currents with like-minded reforms in the fiscal and landholding systems? What was the relation between European (and/or Iranian) thought and Ottoman political developments? Was there innovative political thinking that led to the radical reforms of the Tanzimat era?
Moreover, the volume seeks to investigate the relation of political ideas to the political praxis of their time: i.e. to examine the nature of political power in the various stages of the Empire, the developments that led particular groups to advocate specific reforms, the power networks at the administrative and political levels, the reception of political reform in Istanbul and the provinces, the participation of various political actors in state policy-making and its legitimisation, and so forth.