Halil İnalcık

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. His academic career started at Ankara University, where he completed his PhD and worked between 1940 and 1972. Between 1972 and 1986, he taught Ottoman history at the University of Chicago. From 1994 onward, 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 on 7 September 1916 to a Crimean Tatar family that left Crimea for the city in 1905. He attended Balıkesir Teacher Training School, and then Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of History, from which he graduated in 1940. His work on Timur drew the attention of Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, 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, 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. He had been a member and president of many international organizations, he was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Historical Sciences, also a member of the Institute of Turkish Studies.

İnalcık died on 25 July 2016 of multiple organ failures and is buried in the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul.

Work and impact Halil İnalcık's grave, Fatih Mosque, Istanbul.İnalcık's work was centered upon a social and economic analysis of the Ottoman Empire. He criticized generalizing approaches to Ottoman history as such approaches, he argued, lacked social or economic insight due to a lack of research.

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.

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 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, 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 (1986) Boğaziçi University (1986) University of Athens (1987) Selçuk University (1992) Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1993) University of Bucharest (1993) Uludağ University (1995) Erciyes University (2011)

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 Parlar Foundation Science Award (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 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 Honor Medal (2012)

Footnotes