A Brief History of the Byzantine Empire That Outlived Rome by a Thousand Years
One of the most famous of the surviving Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia. The…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 08/10/2026
One of the most famous of the surviving Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia. The…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 08/10/2026
Few instruments seem to carry melancholy as naturally as the yaylı tanbur, the bowed tanbur.…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 07/10/2026
Osman I, founder of the Ottoman dynasty. Ottoman miniature, c. 1580, created more than two…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 07/10/2026
Yeni Camii and The Port of İstanbul by French artist Jean-Baptiste Hilair (1753-1822) A reader…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 06/10/2026
Some years ago, I was in Rome, sitting on the upper deck of one of…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 04/10/2026
“When the sword is drawn, there is no place left for the pen.”— Timur, in…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 03/10/2026
Byzantion coins from 3rd BC More than two thousand years ago, some six centuries before…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 03/10/2026
I Woke Up in Purple. From the Night I Was Buried.’ Some artists depict Istanbul.…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 03/10/2026
The Famine Memorial In 1847, while Ireland was experiencing one of the darkest periods in…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 03/10/2026
Dedicated to all the Istanbulites who are but a memory Nişantaşı in the 1930s, Selahattin…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 27/09/2026
I had, of course, heard of the Turkish March. Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca has been…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 26/09/2026
Imagine Istanbul on a warm summer evening at the turn of the twentieth century. The…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 25/09/2026
At the beginning of the twentieth century, fashionable Pera had an attraction that might seem…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 25/09/2026
There was a time when the streets of Istanbul echoed not only with the call…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 25/09/2026
History sometimes turns not on great battles or treaties, but on a few desperate minutes…
by Mahan Dogrusoz 25/09/2026