DANFront

1) Wider research context / theoretical framework: This project seeks to examine the Ottoman military progress along the Lower and Middle Danube in the premodern period within the environmental context. It has two separate yet overlapping, components. The first component deals with the Ottoman military organization along the Danube River and its effects on the environment. The second centers around the environmental challenges posed by the Danube River and the various ways the Ottomans found to cope with them.
2) Hypotheses/research questions /objectives: The project, by adopting the conceptual approach of environmental history to the study of the Ottoman Danube, aims to show that through such research we gain a broader understanding of the river and of its role in shaping the Ottoman military’s complex relationship to its natural environment. It seeks to examine the role of the Danube River in the Ottoman military expansion westward during the 16th and 17th centuries and the effects of this expansion on the riverine environment. It aims to uncover how the Ottomans utilized the Danube River for their military and socio-economic necessities to expand their control westward and shape the natural environment while also getting shaped by it. In particular, the project seeks to answer the following core questions: How did the Ottomans expand their rule and establish and maintain their military frontier on the Danube River? What were the environmental consequences of the Ottoman military presence on the Danube? How did they cope with the challenges posed by the Danube? How were the complex interactions between the Danube and the Ottomans shaped through time?
3) Approach/methods: The project will deploy methodological and interpretative tools of environmental history to analyze the forces that shaped Ottoman military domination and rule along the Danube. Moreover, it will combine and enrich Ottoman military and environmental history with digital humanities methodologies and tools to revisit the past through a different lens.
4) Level of originality / innovation: The project will be a preliminary examination of the Danube region in the pre-modern era within the military and environmental context, and the expected outcomes may provide valuable data for historians and researchers from other disciplines who seek to understand how humans and rivers have interacted throughout history.
5) Primary researchers involved: The applicant, Onur Inal, is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Ottoman and Turkish environmental history, history of technology, and human-animal studies.
Deniz Armagan Akto, the project’s Ph.D. student is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of History of Bilkent University in Ankara. His research focuses on the military and socio-economic history of the early modern Ottoman Empire.