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This special issue of the electronic journal “ISTORIYA” is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian historian, Ottoman studies scholar Professor Mikhail Meyer (1936—2022). Professor Mikhail Meyer was a brilliant lecturer and mentor who during his long career trained a large number of experts in Ottoman and Turkish studies. Being also a thoughtful researcher, he penned well-known works on the history of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century which already became the classics of the Ottoman studies. Mikhail Meyer became widely appreciated in Russia and abroad as a public figure and successful organizer of science. In 1994—2012 he served as Director and then in 2013—2022 as President of the leading Russian center for training of experts on Asia and Africa — the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, for more than 28 years (from 1990 to 2018) he headed the Department of the Near and Middle East History at the Institute of Asian and African Studies.
Mikhail Meyer continued the best traditions of the Russian academic studies of Asia and Africa eminent for deep and comprehensive study of the Middle East. Among his mentors were Academician Vladimir Gordlevsky, founder of the Moscow school of Ottoman and Turkish studies, and Professor Anatoly Miller, one of the most brilliant and erudite Soviet turcologists. Professor Anatoly Miller, a proponent of an integrated approach to the study of Ottoman and Turkish history, played a decisive role in Meyer’s professional development.
The authors of this Special Issue “Historical Rhythms of the Middle East” belong to different generations of Russian scholars dealing with Ottoman, Turkish and Iranian studies, all of them are students, colleagues and close associates of Professor Mikhail Meyer and represent leading centers of Asian Studies in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The broad range of problems and geographical scope of the articles in the Special Issue reflect both Mikhail Meyer’s multidimensional scientific interests and the wide spectrum of fundamental issues that the Department of the Near and Middle East History has been productively developing for many years.
The articles explore the problems of direct contact between the Ottoman geopolitical milieu and European civilization, when the Middle Eastern countries became the object of colonial expansion. The authors scrutinize the dramatic interweaving of Middle Eastern societies’ diverse responses to the challenges of history ranging from the uncompromising resistance of autochthonous social structures and religious institutions to the experiences of multimodal modernization and Westernization. A number of articles analyze the modern history of the Middle East focusing on the socio-political transformation of the countries in the region, the issues of interaction between tradition and Western influences thus showing the continuity of problems that previously non-European societies of the modern era had to solve.