Onur Isci

Two historians wearing lanyards and holding plates and glasses

Two historians looking at programmes for the Skilliter Centre conference

Two historians talking in Newnham College garden, with others in the background

Skilliter Centre programme, notebook and folder laid out on a table

We held a conference on The Ottomans and Diplomacy @newnhamcollege.bsky.social 10-12 July 2025, including 26 papers from historians from France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the US. The full programme is on our website.

Photos by Dasha Tenditna

Unbelievable! Very sorry to hear it Lisel. I'm sure you'll land somewhere that deserves your devotion to teaching and writing.

www.tustav.org/2025/04/01/l...

Istanbul’s Orthodox community marks the birth and baptism of Jesus of Nazareth. 2025 epiphany ceremony held by the Fener Greek Patriarchate on the cold waters of the Golden Horn. 🎄 ⛪️ 🎉

2025 will be the 1700th anniversary of the First Nicene Council. Pretty little Anatolian town for history fans and tile lovers. #nicenecreed #iznik

Mare Clausum: War and Diplomacy on the Black Sea, 1939 –91 Mare Clausum: War and Diplomacy on the Black Sea, 1939 –91 was published in Handbook on the History and Culture of the Black Sea Region on page 165.

I contributed to an edited collection on the Black Sea based on an excellent conference we held in Wien back in 2020. @univie.ac.at To read my chapter (Mare Clausum: War and Diplomacy on the Black Sea, 1939 – 91) see the @degruyterbrill.bsky.social link below. www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

my students like Fouad Ajami's The Arab Predicament

Rough times will pass. Happy thanksgiving, so long, and thanks for all the turkey 🦃

www.yirmidort.tv/gundem/baede... This is still Ethem Sancak’s TV channel no? @heissenstat.bsky.social Used to make ferry rides in Istanbul a truly Orwellian experience 🧐

This statement, from the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirms that Turkey cooperated w/ the UAE in arresting & extraditing the 3 Uzbeks who killed Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE.

The attackers may have thought they’d be safe in Turkey. But their extradition reflects strengthened UAE-Turkey ties.

Laundering Carbon—The Gulf’s ‘New Scramble for Africa’ - MERIP Carbon offsets are changing the relationship between the Middle East and the African continent.

Adam Hanieh's "Laundering Carbon" exposed the hollow politics behind fossil-centered states' excitement on the carbon trading market, which are amounting to a string of land grabs in Africa with terrible results for indigenous communities.

Last day of the conference in Boston @aseees.bsky.social. If you’re still around, come join our roundtable at Simmons (3rd floor - 12:00pm-1:45pm). Michaela Papa, Anton Fedyashin, Pedram Partovi, Zhen Han and I will be discussing how BRICS fits in the new multi-polar international order.

My first time at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, MA. Gorgeous building, great library but I’m a bit underwhelmed by the museum itself tbh. You can spare about 90 minutes for the whole tour, including 2 short movies that last for about 30 minutes.

Looking forward to our panel with Serhii Plokhii, Mark Steinberg, Frank Sysyn and Susan Smith-Peter at the @aseees.bsky.social 56th Convention in Boston this weekend. We'll discuss how textbooks in English have presented Russian and Ukranian historical narratives and how those have at times clashed.

tru dat! please read our "Q1 SSCI research output"

‘Let the black sea unite Us’: the 1967 Soviet-Turkish industrial agreement and Ankara’s cold war rapprochement with Moscow This article explores a turning point in Soviet-Turkish relations during the Cold War: the 1967 interstate agreement that enabled construction of the backbone of Turkey’s post-war state-owned indus...

My latest article (with @samueljhirst.bsky.social) ‘Let the Black Sea Unite Us’: the 1967 Soviet-Turkish industrial agreement and Ankara’s cold war rapprochement with Moscow. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Annual pilgrimage to Martin’s for Richard Stites - the best advisor and a great human being

Looking forward to our panel with Serhii Plokhii, Mark Steinberg, Frank Sysyn and Susan Smith-Peter at the @aseees.bsky.social 56th Convention in Boston this weekend. We'll discuss how textbooks in English have presented Russian and Ukranian historical narratives and how those have at times clashed.

Cold War Historians...not at all thorough or complete so pleae make suggestions or ask to be added!

go.bsky.app/NAWTQUp

I hadn’t seen anyone else do it, so I’m working on a starter pack of Russia/USSR/Eurasia historians. Check it out!

go.bsky.app/CagBxPQ

thanks for this list. could I join please?

Great list, thank you. Could you add me please?

At the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava.

if you’re new here, those of us who’ve been on bluesky a while have a LOT of lore to catch you up on that is frankly not very interesting. we’re gonna try to tell you about something called “alf hog” and you’ll be like “wait, that’s it? huh. alright. well, sounds like you had fun.” i can't wait

Been on this platform for over a year now but kept my X acct to follow several pundits/outlets posting in Turkish. Like others, I have noticed the surge of ex-X users moving here since Nov 6th. But what’s interesting is that, my X feed has concurrently turned from revolting to wholly irrelevant.

Bluesky tip for newbies: Bluesky has no real algorithm. Likes here do nothing but show the poster that you enjoyed their content.

That kindness is always going to be appreciated by creators, but if you want to help to boost something here, you have to repost it so others see it. 🙂

The US edition of TO THE CITY spotted in the wild, at a branch if the New York Public Library. You can buy your copy in the US now.

Book cover of "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Hello Bluesky, I am a historian based in Ankara. A few months ago, Oxford University Press published my first book, which explores the way that Russian and Turkish revolutionaries arrived at a statist partnership as they responded to post-WWI liberal internationalism.