About the Lecture: This lecture traces the evolution of Byzantine studies in Turkey from the late Ottoman period to the present, with particular emphasis on the roles played by both state and non-state actors, as well as local and foreign contributors. It examines how shifting political ideologies—including Kemalism, nationalism, Westernism, and religious conservatism—have shaped and reshaped the study of Byzantium time. The talk explores the ways in which Byzantine heritage has been reinterpreted and often instrumentalized across different historical moments. Special attention is given to the domains of education, historiography, and archaeology. The Turkish experience is further contextualized through comparative perspectives, particularly with Eastern and Southeastern Europe, highlighting how modernizing and secularizing nation-states in the 20th century have engaged with the Byzantine past.
About the Speaker: Koray Durak is an Associate Professor of History and Vice-Director of the Byzantine Studies Research Center at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. His research focuses on Byzantine-Islamic economic relations, the commercial history of Constantinople, and Byzantine pharmacology. He has published widely, with contributions to Mediterranean Historical Review and The Cambridge Companion to Constantinople, and has co-edited several volumes, including Mobility and Materiality in Byzantine-Islamic Relations. Durak is also engaged in the historiography of Byzantine studies in Turkey. He curated the ANAMED (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, in Istanbul) exhibition, Odyssey of Byzantine Studies in Turkey, which was accompanied by a book of the same name that he authored. In 2024, he co-organized the workshop Rethinking Byzantine Studies in Turkey. Durak is currently working on the exchange of materia medica between Byzantium and the Islamic world.