Ottoman literature celebrated at Istanbul Research Institute

The Istanbul Research Institute is celebrating the 53rd Library Week with various events between March 27 and April 1 at 8:00 p.m. In addition, programs including conferences and exhibition tours focused on the literary culture of the Byzantine, Ottoman and Republic eras await visitors.

The first event of the series is "Osmanlı Kitap Kültürü: Çerçeve, Tarihçe ve Yöntem" ("Ottoman Book Culture: Framework, History and Method"), hosting assistant Professor Berat Açıl on March 27 at 6:00 p.m. The conference will focus on the history of the works carried out in the literary culture of the Ottomans.


A conference will draw upon the conceptual framework of Ottoman literary culture and provide a brief history.

Literary culture has just recently been included in academia's field of interest. As a result, a minimal amount of literature and academic works focusing on Ottoman literary culture, a sub-branch of book culture, exist. However, there is still some information about books and book arts, especially with the latest studies aiming to turn this information into academic resources. The conference will draw upon the conceptual framework of Ottoman literary culture and provide a brief history thereof. At the end of the conference, suggestions on which methods should be used when discussing and researching Ottoman literary culture will be provided, while participants will be invited to participate in the rise of an academic discipline.



The second event is the tour of the "Dört Ayaklı Belediye: İstanbul'un Sokak Köpekleri" ("The Four-Legged Municipality: Istanbul's Street Dogs") exhibition under the guidance of the exhibition's curator Ekrem Işın on March 29 at 6:30 p.m. The consultant of the exhibition, Catherine Pinguet, will present the history of Istanbul's four-legged residents living in cohabitation with the populace, sharing the same neighborhood and their daily lives via photographs, itineraries, postcards, magazines and engravings from the 19th and 20th centuries.

On April 1 at 2:00 p.m., the last event of the series will focus on the antique report prepared by Hacıbeyzade Ahmed Muhtar concerning Istanbul's libraries. The report's classification system is crucial and very different from others from the beginning of the 20th century in terms of its focus on the architectural qualities of the libraries, a very innovative notion for the time. Offering a glimpse into the surviving wreckage of Istanbul's libraries, suggestions such as keeping the Hacı Selim Ağa library in Üsküdar for 16 hours and to reserve the Şehid Ali Pasha library for women show the diverse and innovative character of Ahmet Muhtar.