Workshop 2 – Phanariot Ascendency, the Long Eighteenth century
Date: 26 May 2023
Time: 18:00-21:00 (Turkey local time, GMT+3)
As part of a planned three-year research event-series under the overarching project title “Phanariot Materialities,” scientifically led by Namık Günay Erkal, Firuzan Melike Sümertaş, and Haris Theodorelis-Rigas, we are organizing a workshop series entitled, “In Search of the Phanariot Abode: Aspects of Domestic Culture, Residential Architecture and Court Life.” Consisting of three workshops, each corresponding to a specific period of Phanariot activity, the workshop series will serve as preliminary, in-house gatherings in preparation of an international symposium (28–30 June 2024, Istanbul). We also aim to publish a volume resulting from the symposium and to organize an exhibition (Istanbul, 2025) on the same subject. The main aim of these workshops is to develop a new network of scholars within the field of “Phanariot studies” and pave the ground for new collaborative and interactive research.
This second workshop titled “Phanariot Ascendency, the Long Eighteenth century,” aims to focus on the Age of Phanar in the “long” eighteenth century, and the Phanariots’ ascendency from a Mediterranean mercantile elite, to the offices of kapukethüda, dragoman of the fleet, imperial dragoman, and finally hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia.
Hospodar families served as the tip of a trans-regional network of not only trade but also knowledge, influence, and power. Major sources of their power were their proximity to the Ottoman sultan, and their increasingly pivotal role in Ottoman governance, tax farming, as well as the internal working of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate. This period witnesses the parallel rise of two loci of power: the habitat of a Christian elite in Istanbul and the vassal Moldowallachian principalities with its distinct court institutions.
For the second workshop’s program click here.
Phanariot Materialities is institutionally initiated and led by Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), Istanbul. The present institutional partners of the project include the Istanbul Research Institute (IAE) , and Sismanoglio Megaro. Collaboration with the Gennadios Library, Benaki Museum, and Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Greece and Romanian institutions is also developing.