President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (AA)
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on July 25 commemorated renowned historian Halil İnalcık on the 10th anniversary of his death, describing him as a leading figure in historical scholarship.
Known internationally for his work on Ottoman history, İnalcık was born in Istanbul in 1916 to a family of Crimean immigrants.
He graduated from Ankara University’s Faculty of Language, History and Geography in 1935 and later earned his doctorate in 1942. İnalcık was appointed to the Turkish Historical Society in 1947 and later conducted research on Ottoman archives in the United Kingdom after being sent there by his university in 1949.
He went on to teach as a visiting professor at several U.S. universities, including Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.
After retiring from Ankara University in 1972, İnalcık founded the Ottoman History Department at the University of Chicago. He later established the History Department at Bilkent University in 1993, where he taught graduate seminars for more than two decades.
İnalcık was recognized internationally as one of the most influential scholars of Ottoman history.
He died on July 25, 2016, at a hospital in Ankara at the age of 99. He was buried at the Fatih Mosque cemetery in Istanbul, where the tomb of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II is located.
