On Byzantium and the recently inaugurated Byzantine studies centers

ANAMED 2015-16 Fellow Buket Kitapçı Bayrı interviews Prof. Engin Akyürek, the director of Koç University Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and with Prof. Nevra Necipoğlu, the director of the Byzantine Studies Research Center at Boğaziçi University. Here is Kitapçı Bayrı’s introduction to her interview…


Byzantium lasted 1100 years, and its capital Constantinople (modern İstanbul) and the majority of its core territory are within the frontiers of modern Turkey. Although the Byzantine studies centers in countries like Australia, which has geographically and historically no direct connection with Byzantium, have long been active and dynamic, it was only last month that two Byzantine studies centers were inaugurated in Turkey: Koç University Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center.

I personally have close connections with both of these universities that have contributed to my formation as a Byzantine historian. It was at Boğaziçi University that I was initiated to Byzantine studies by Prof. Nevra Necipoğlu, who would also be my PhD co-advisor. Koç University, on the other hand, through its Research Center for Anatolian Studies, supported my dissertation research on Byzantine history in the academic year 2007-2008, and at present, I am a senior fellow of the same institution, preparing a monograph on late Byzantine identity.

Below is the link to the interview that I conducted with Prof. Engin Akyürek, the director of Koç University Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and with Prof. Nevra Necipoğlu, the director of the Byzantine Studies Research Center at Boğaziçi University, at MedyascopeTV, a newly founded web media platform, on 18 December 2015. This interview on Byzantium and on the recently inaugurated Byzantine studies centers is my personal contribution to the initiatives and efforts for creating a well-informed public awareness of Byzantine civilization in Turkey.

During this discussion, we have elaborated on topics such as the importance of studying and understanding Byzantine civilization for the people living in modern Turkey, the development of Byzantine studies in the Turkish Republic, problems related with the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage and Byzantine monuments in Turkey, as well as the present and future activities of these newly founded Byzantine research centers.