Prof. İlber Ortaylı

Prof. İlber Ortaylı (1947) is a leading Turkish historian, professor of history at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and at Bilkent University in Ankara. He was the head of the Topkapı Museum in Istanbul between the years 2005 and 2012.

Ortaylı attended elementary school and St. George's Austrian High School in İstanbul and then Ankara Atatürk High School. He graduated from Ankara University and completed his postgraduate studies at the Chicago University under Professor Halil İnalcık and at the University of Vienna. He obtained his doctorate at Ankara University in the Faculty of Political Sciences. His doctoral thesis was Local Administration in the Tanzimat Period (1978). After his doctorate, he attended to the faculty at the School of Political Sciences of Ankara University. In 1979, he was appointed as associate professor. In 1981, his book on the German influence on the late Ottoman Empire was published. In 1982, he resigned from his position. After teaching at several universities in Turkey, Europe and Russia, in 1989 he returned to the Ankara University and became professor of history and the head of the section of administrative history.

He has published articles on Ottoman and Russian history, particular emphasis on cities and the history of public administration, diplomatic, cultural and intellectual history. In 2001, he collected the Aydın Doğan Foundation Award . He is a member of the Foundation for International Studies , the European-Iran Examining Foundation and the Austrian-Turkish Academy of Sciences .

Prof. Ortaylı has been selected as the Honorary Member of of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) in 2011.