OTTOMANICA - 2

Considered Nicolae Iorga’s masterpiece, who was one of the most important intellectual figures of 20th-century Eastern Europe, Byzance après Byzance is now available to Turkish readers for the first time, almost a century after its initial publication! In this work, Iorga examines how the Byzantine Empire, with its culture, institutions, and prominent families, survived in different forms after 1453, particularly in relation to the Romanian Principalities and the Ottoman Empire. This work contributes to the discussions on the continuity/rupture between Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire, and also sheds light on the intellectual world of a prominent 20th century intellectual; hence, qualifies as a primary source itself.

The book includes introductory and concluding essays by valuable intellectuals. Oktay Özel examines Iorga and his work within the context of Ottoman historiography, while Andrei Pippidi analyzes Iorga from the perspective of Romanian historiography. Ümit Eser, who also translated the book, presents a concise portrait of Iorga as an intellectual and historian. Furthermore, the book includes the Turkish translation of the afterword written by the renowned Romanian historian Virgil Cândea for a 1992 edition of the book.

Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), was a Romanian historian, writer, and statesman. He is among the most important intellectuals of Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Fluent in all European languages and having written over a thousand books in various genres, a complete list of Iorga's works remains elusive. Iorga's views are key to the formation of post-Ottoman Romanian national identity and to Balkan historiography in general. Iorga, who also served as Prime Minister in 1931-32, was assassinated by pro-Nazi groups in 1940.

Ümit Eser received his PhD in 2016 from the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, specializing in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican periods. His revised doctoral dissertation, *Ethnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923: Ottoman Officials and the Local Christian Population*, was published in 2024 by Edinburgh University Press in the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire series. His articles focusing on ethnic-religious pluralism in late Ottoman cities and lost homelands in post-Asia Minor Catastrophe narratives have been published in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. He is currently a faculty member at Necmettin Erbakan University. His research areas include identities in the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey; nation-building and minorities; the history of Eastern Orthodox Churches in the late Ottoman and early Republican periods; and moments of loss and encounter in post-catastrophic narratives.