An Ottoman expert and a master of the summits, too

Professor Yavuz Selim Karakışla is a history expert, someone who has researched subjects such as what the women you would come across some 100 years ago on the Galata Bridge would be wearing or what they would be talking about.

Actually, Karakışla's true area of expertise is the history of the military officers in Sultan Suleyman's (Kanuni) army as well as the cooks who prepared the food for these men. As it is, Karakışla believes that the course “history of the Ottoman Empire” ought to have its name changed to the “history of Ottoman society.”

Karakışla is a professor at Istanbul's Bosporus University, where he offers courses on such subjects as labor or women's history during the Ottoman era. Karakışla is actually one of Turkey's first professors on the subject and has done specialized research into the subject of women who worked during Ottoman times. He is also an unapologetic feminist. He searches for as much information as he can find about women amongst the dusty shelves holding history books. And sometimes, this work of his is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. But he came across many photographs from the period following the 1870s that have helped him. He has also found a few silent films. In this way, he has been able catch a glimpse of ordinary women in those days performing regular everyday activities, such as walking or shopping. But since there are really no written documents explaining what these women were thinking, under what conditions they were living or what they were eating at the time, these details remain unclear. So this professor tries to reach conclusions on questions like these by focusing on small details left in some written documentation from the times. “Whenever we do find a needle in a haystack, it is very valuable for us. Everyone is quick to jump on it because they fill the gaps in our existing historical knowledge,” Karakışla says.