Victor Ostapchuk
Areas of interest
- Ottoman Black Sea region and its relations with the northern countries (Crimean Khanate, Cossack Ukraine, Poland-Lithuania, Muscovy)
- Ottoman military
- Ottoman financial and timar systems
- Historico-archaeological study of Ottoman fortresses
Biography
I owe my becoming an Ottoman historian to a serendipitous encounter with two professors while still an undergraduate at the University of Chicago—Alexandre Bennigsen and Halil Inalcik, who simultaneously impressed me the astronomical mass and uncharted nature of Ottoman sources, in particular archives. I was especially fortunate to do my graduate work in Eurasian history and Turkology at Harvard under the tutelage of Omeljan Pritsak, yet continue to work with Halil Inalcik. While my main area of interest has been the early modern Black Sea region, my fascination with the workings of the Ottoman state as documented by its archival legacy has led me to develop a keen interest in basic Ottoman institutions such as the timar and tax farming along with the administration of warfare and Ottoman historical archaeology.
Select publications
- “Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s History of the Ukrainian Cossacks as a Source on the Ottoman Northern Black Sea and Danubian Regions.” Archivum Ottomanicum 39 (2022): 283–301 (joint author Caroline Finkel).
- “Cossacks as Captive-Takers in the Ottoman Black Sea Region and Unfreedom in the Northern Countries.” In Slavery in the Black Sea Region c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam. Ed. by Felicia Roşu. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022, pp. 250–335 (joint author Maryna Kravets).
- “Crimea and the Black Sea in the Making of Halil İnalcık.” Archivum Ottomanicum 38 (2021): 33–57.
- “The Trouble with Timars: An Excursion into a Seventeenth-Century Documentary Landscape.” In Ottoman War and Peace: Studies in Honor of Virginia H. Aksan. Ed. by Frank Castiglione, Ethan L. Menchinger, Veysel Şimşek. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019, pp. 36–62.
- “The Zaporozhian Cossack Dnipro River Refugium.” In Mediterranean Rivers in Global Perspective. Eds. Johannes Bernhardt, Markus Koller, Achim Lichtenberger. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2019, pp. 273–302.
- “Cossack Ukraine In and Out of Ottoman Orbit, 1648-1681.” In The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Eds. Gábor Kámrán, Lovro Kunčević. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013, pp. 123–52.
- “Crimean Tatar Long-Range Campaigns: The View from Remmal Khoja’s History of Sahib Gerey Khan” In Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1550-1800. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011, pp. 147–71.
- “Ottoman Northern Black Sea Frontier at Akkerman: The View from a Historical and Archaeological Project.” In The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. Ed. A. C. S. Peacock. Oxford and New York: British Institute at Ankara and Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 137–70 (joint author Svitlana Bilyayeva).
- “Outpost of Empire: An Appraisal of Ottoman Building Registers as Sources for the Archaeology and Construction History of the Black Sea Fortress of Özi.” Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World 22 (2005): 150–88 (joint author Caroline Finkel).
- “The Human Landscape of the Ottoman Black Sea in the Face of the Cossack Naval Raids.” Oriente Moderno 20 n.s. (2001): 23–95.