The Conference “Turkey and the Balkans: History, Culture, Language”. Institute for Slavic Studies, RAS, Moscow, 30 September 2025

Abstract

The article provides a detailed overview of the international conference “Turkey and the Balkans: History, Culture, Language”, held on September 30, 2025 at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The event brought together scholars from Russia and Turkey. The conference focused on the multifaceted historical connections between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan region, the transformation of its ethnoconfessional landscape, the interaction of religious and linguistic communities, and the cultural heritage preserved in local traditions. Participants presented new archival materials and previously unpublished sources on the social and administrative history of the Ottoman Empire, documents from the Russo-Turkish wars, manuscripts, accounts of the Crimean War, and diplomatic travel reports from the nineteenth century. A substantial part of the discussion examined Ottoman heritage in the Balkans: the social and political status of the Pomaks, the evolution of Turkish loanwords in Bulgarian, and material culture as reflected in Ottoman registers and estate inventories. Another section explored the representation of historical processes in the literary traditions of Turkey and the Balkan states, from depictions of the Crimean War in Russian and Ottoman poetry to the trauma literature of Bulgarian Turks affected by the “Revival Process.” The conference continued a long-standing series of scholarly meetings organized by the Institute for Slavic Studies aimed at examining the cultural and historical ties between the Slavic world and its neighboring regions. The event demonstrated sustained academic interest in Ottoman heritage, Balkan–Turkish interactions, and the comparative study of regional historical memory. Following the conference, selected papers are planned for publication in the Institute’s periodicals, including Slavic World in the Third Millennium.

Received 16 November 2025

Revised 28 November 2025

Accepted 30 November 2025

For citation: Leontyeva, A. A., 2025. The Conference “Turkey and the Balkans: History, Culture, Language”. Institute for Slavic Studies, RAS, Moscow, 30 September 2025. Slavic World in the Third Millennium, 20 (3–4), pp. 353–359. https://doi.org/10.31168/2412-6446.2025.20.3-4.18