Essays illuminate the lives of ordinary people who lived in
the Ottoman era.
Drawing from centuries-old court records, “The Other
Faces of Empire” traces the lives of “outstage” people in
vast empire lands. Each essay in the collection tells the story
of an ordinary person navigating the Ottoman Empire. On
this journey, we meet colorful and quite extraordinary
figures: Deli Şaban, “naughty and haramzade” with his
unsuccessful suicide attempts; Divane Hamza, who harassed
the people in the village of Evciler in Bursa; Mâryem of
Konya, who killed her husbands and buried them in the floor
of a room of her house; Alaeddin from Skopje, who was
captured by pirates; Nicolò Algarotti, a Venetian broker; and
many others.
The volume’s micro-historical perspective strengthens its
place in historiography, and moreover, it updates the
historical record by sharing the overlooked stories of
“ordinary” people and recording their names in the Ottoman
historical literature one by one.