While doing research for his first book, “Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State” (Stanford University Press, 2024), Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky visited more than 20 archives in 10 countries, a years-long endeavor during which he studied primary historical evidence in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Russian, Bulgarian and English.
Hamed-Troyansky, an associate professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Global Studies, started this research during his doctoral studies at Stanford University and completed it as a faculty member at UCSB. His book traces the migration of about a million Muslim refugees from Russia to the Middle East and the Balkans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hamed-Troyansky’s meticulous research has not gone unnoticed among fellow scholars and prestigious academic institutions. Since its publication in February 2024, his book has won eight book prizes and three honorable mentions.
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