This volume represents the first scholarly work in English devoted to the experience of Italian architects and builders in Turkey, as well as in many of the lands once belonging to the Ottoman Empire. Covering a complex cultural and political geography spanning from the Danubian principalities (today's Romania) to Anatolia and the Aegean region, the book is the result of individual research experiences that were brought together and debated in an international conference in Istanbul in March 2013, organized in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture and Bo��azi�i University.Grounded on a flexible notion of identitarian boundaries, the book explores a rich transcultural field of encounters and interactions, analyzed and evaluated by scholars from six different countries on the basis of hitherto uncovered archival materials. Forms, ideas, individual mobility of actors and materials, networks of patronage, material and political constraints, and religious and cultural difference all play a significant role in shaping the landscapes, buildings and architectural projects presented and discussed here. From late 18th and early 19th century experiences of interaction between neo-classical backgrounds and westernizing Ottoman forms to the Italian proposals for a Turkish republican iconic landmark like the Ataturk mausoleum in Ankara; from the design of the first Ottoman university building to Ottoman varieties of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and to the infrastructures and urban developments of the 1950s in Turkey, the book is both a richly illustrated and documented overview of relevant cases, and a critical introduction to one of the most enticing areas of encounter in the global history of 19th and 20th century architecture and design.

This book examines the role of imperial narratives of multinationalism as alternative ideologies to nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East from the revolutions of 1848 up to the defeat and subsequent downfall of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires in 1918. During this period, both empires struggled against a rising tide of nationalism to legitimise their own diversity of ethnicities, languages and religions. Contributors scrutinise the various narratives of identity that they developed, supported, encouraged or unwittingly created and left behind for posterity as they tried to keep up with the changing political realities of modernity. Beyond simplified notions of enforced harmony or dynamic dissonance, this book aims at a more polyphonic analysis of the various voices of Habsburg and Ottoman multinationalism: from the imperial centres and in the closest proximity to sovereigns, to provinces and minorities, among intellectuals and state servants, through novels and newspapers. Combining insights from history, literary studies and political sciences, it further explores the lasting legacy of the empires in post-imperial narratives of loss, nostalgia, hope and redemption. It shows why the two dynasties keep haunting the twenty-first century with fears and promises of conflict, coexistence, and reborn greatness.

An Ottoman Era Town in the Balkans: The Case Study of Kavala presents the town of Kavala in Northern Greece as an example of Ottoman urban and residential development, covering the long period of Kavala’s expansion over five centuries under Ottoman rule. Kavala was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1387 to 1912. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Ibrahim Pasha, grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, contributed to the town's prosperity and growth by the construction of an aqueduct. The Ottomans also rebuilt and extended the existing Byzantine fortress. The book uncovers new findings about Kavala, and addresses the key question: is there an authentic "Ottoman" built environment that the town and its architecture share? Through the examination of travellers’ accounts, historical maps, and archival documents, the Ottoman influences on the urban settlement of Kavala are assessed. From its original founding by the Ottomans in the late fourteenth century to the nineteenth century when the expansion of tobacco production in the area transformed its prosperity, the development of Kavala as an Ottoman era town is explored. The book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Ottoman history and urban history.

A new approach to late Ottoman visual culture and its relationship with the West.

What is the role of cultural heritage in multi-ethnic societies, where cultural memory is often polarized by antagonistic identity traditions? Is it possible for monuments that are generally considered as a symbol of national unity to become emblems of the conflictual histories still undermining divided societies? Taking as a starting point the cosmopolitanism that blossomed across the Mediterranean in the age of empires, this book addresses the issue of heritage exploring the concepts of memory, culture, monuments and their uses, in different case studies ranging from 19th-century Salonica, Port Said, the Palestinian region under Ottoman rule, Trieste and Rijeka under the Hapsburgs, up to the recent post-war reconstructions of Beirut and Sarajevo.

Not so long ago, in certain cities on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and flourished side by side. What can the histories of these cities tell us? Levant is a book of cities. It describes three former centers of great wealth, pleasure, and freedom—Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut—cities of the Levant region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In these key ports at the crossroads of East and West, against all expectations, cosmopolitanism and nationalism flourished simultaneously. People freely switched identities and languages, released from the prisons of religion and nationality. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and worshipped as neighbors.Distinguished historian Philip Mansel is the first to recount the colorful, contradictory histories of Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut in the modern age. He begins in the early days of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and continues through the cities' mid-twentieth-century fates: Smyrna burned; Alexandria Egyptianized; Beirut lacerated by civil war.Mansel looks back to discern what these remarkable Levantine cities were like, how they differed from other cities, why they shone forth as cultural beacons. He also embarks on a quest: to discover whether, as often claimed, these cities were truly cosmopolitan, possessing the elixir of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews for which the world yearns. Or, below the glittering surface, were they volcanoes waiting to erupt, as the catastrophes of the twentieth century suggest? In the pages of the past, Mansel finds important messages for the fractured world of today.