CV:

Nuray Ocakli is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University. She received her Ph.D. in Ottoman History from Bilkent University and specialized on 15th- and 16th-century Ottoman survey books and 19th century poll-tax and population registers. Her recent work spans Christian military groups in the Ottoman Balkans, and the socio-economic history of Western Macedonia, Thessaly, and Istanbul. She has published articles and presented papers on the late medieval history of Christian military groups, Orthodox Christian guild communities and craftswomen, the silk industry, Romaniote Jews, and Christian religious endowments. Also, the significant role of the piano in shaping Western musical culture in the Ottoman Empire is one of her research interests. She has published articles and book chapters on Sultan Abdulhamid II's M. F. Rachals automatic piano and performances of La Traviata at the royal opera house in Yıldız Palace. Her current studies and scholarly projects focus on the demographic movements, the silk industry, and the cultural heritage of non-Muslim communities during the transition from Byzantine to Ottoman rule, as well as the performances of European female musicians in the Ottoman palace.

Title of the Project:

Changing Face of a Local Early Medieval Saint: New Archival Sources Regarding the Cult of Aya Trabzon (St. Eugenios of Trebizond) in Istanbul in the Transition Period from Byzantine to Ottoman Rule

Project Description:

St. Eugenios is a local saint, who gained popularity in Trebizond in the early medieval period. The first epic story of his martyrdom was written in the 6th century. Following the establishment of the Empire of Trebizond, the cult of St. Eugenios flourished under imperial patronage and his iconography changed over time until the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond in 1461. A new source in the Ottoman Archives indicates an exceptional shift in the image of St. Eugenios during the second half of the 15th century. After the conquest, prominent members of the Byzantine nobility in Trebizond were settled in Istanbul, and the community's tax revenue was allocated to the sultan's endowment. They established a new quarter named Aya Trabzon, most probably in reference to a church of the same name in the quarter. The community transferred the cult of St. Eugenios to Istanbul, and the saint's name was recorded in the endowment survey book of Sultan Mehmed II's mosque.

This project examines Ottoman sources regarding the cult of St. Eugenios in Istanbul, portraying the saint's new face and demonstrating the profound influence of the Trebizond community on the politics of the Orthodox Patriarchate in the new era.