Orhun Yalcin

Doctoral project

History of Artvin and Kars in the 19th century

In my Ph.D. project I examine the socioeconomic, cultural, and political conditions of the Armenians in Kars and Artvin in 19th c. during the Tanzimat (Ottoman modernization movement) era in the Ottoman Empire. In other words, I would like to understand how the Armenians in Artvin and Kars were responded to the Tanzimat era and how the Tanzimat reforms took place in those regions during the 19th c. In the light of the primary sources (letters of complaint and so on), this project aims to present a narrative that listens to the voices of the provincial and rural Armenians in order to contribute to the discussion Tanzimat historiography.
Key words: Armenian history, Ottoman history, Tanzimat, Ottoman modernization, Near Eastern history, Caucasian history, peasant history

Curriculum Vitae

Orhun Yalçın joined the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in January 2023. He studied the internal relations of Armenians and their relations with the state during the modernization period of the Ottoman Empire in the Department of History at Boğaziçi University between 2014-2019. He continued his master’s studies there and was graduated in 2022, where his thesis explores later Ottoman politics as reflected in articles of the Azadamard Armenian newspaper. Besides teaching history at Boğaziçi, Yalçın has also worked with the Hrant Dink Foundation as co-editor of a book about the socioeconomic conditions of the Armenians in Van during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Now, he continues his Ph.D. in Geschichte und Kultur des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). 

Awards

2019-2021 TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) - 2210- Domestic Graduate Scholarship Program 2019/2 

Professional and Academic Memberships

Art Historians’ Association (SATAD), Turkey

Publications

Articles (selected)

“Ermeni Devrimci Federasyonu’nun Kürtlere ve Toprağa Bakışı: Sosyalist Bir Osmanlıcılık Hayali” [The Perspective of the Armenian Revolutionary Party about the Kurds and the Land: A Dream of Socialist Ottomanism], Toplumsal Tarih 344 (August 2022), pp. 74-80.

“Düzeni aşağıdan kurma çabasına tiyatro desteği: Ayak Bacak Fabrikası oyunu II” [Theatrical support for the effort to establish order from below: "Factory of the Foot-Leg" Part II], Kroniko, 30 November 2020. 

“Düzeni aşağıdan kurma çabasına tiyatro desteği: Ayak Bacak Fabrikası oyunu I” [Theatrical support for the effort to establish order from below: "Factory of the Foot-Leg" Part I], Kroniko, 25 November 2020. 

Presentations (selected)

“Urban Monuments of Ankara within a Memory Framework”, presented in Barış Manço Cultural Center as a part of a series of cultural history discussions organized by the Art History Research Association, Art Historians’ Association (SATAD) and Kadıköy Municipality, Istanbul, October 2018.

“Arabesk’in dönüşümü: Batsın bu dünya, Bırakalım dinlesinler, Yeni düzen.” [Transformation of Arabesque: ‘Damn’ this World, Let them Listen, New Order], presented in Salt Galata, in the 3rd Archaeology and Art History Symposium, Istanbul, March 2018.