ABOUT US
Established within Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University on 27 June 2021, the Evliya Çelebi Studies Center operates with the aim of bringing together academic research on Evliya Çelebi and his unique work, the Seyahatname, under an institutional framework and opening up new avenues of research in this field.
Our Center seeks to examine Evliya Çelebi, one of the foremost representatives of our cultural heritage at both national and international levels, through an interdisciplinary approach. By fostering interaction among researchers working in fields such as language, literature, geography, history, sociology, architecture, and anthropology, the Center provides a foundation for the development of new studies centered on the Seyahatname.
The Center also supports academic research conducted within the field of travel literature on the regions visited and observed by Evliya Çelebi, carries out projects aimed at compiling works belonging to the travelogue genre, and encourages high-quality postgraduate research in this field. Through its digital archive and online database, the Center seeks to make this accumulated body of knowledge accessible to researchers and to preserve the historical and literary heritage of travel culture for future generations.
The International Symposium on Evliya Çelebi Series
In line with this vision, the International Symposium on Evliya Çelebi series was initiated by our Center as a biennial academic event focusing on different countries and cities featured in the Seyahatname. The first symposium was held in Istanbul on 5-7 October 2023 under the theme “The History and Culture of Travel.” The second symposium was organized in Sarajevo on 13-15 November 2025, in cooperation with and hosted by the Oriental Institute of the University of Sarajevo, under the main theme “Cultural and Historical Processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century.”
III International Symposium on Evliya Çelebi: Egypt (Umm al-Dunya)
At the third destination of our symposium series, the route turns toward Egypt, a land portrayed in one of the most magnificent and richly detailed volumes of the Seyahatname. The III International Symposium on Evliya Çelebi, to be held under the main theme “Egypt (Umm al-Dunya) in the Age of Evliya Çelebi: Administrative Structure, Social Life and Society,” will bring the multicultural social fabric, administrative organization, and vibrant patterns of everyday life in the period to the attention of the international scholarly community.
We cordially invite distinguished researchers and scholars to this prestigious academic gathering to reconsider Egypt, described by Evliya Çelebi as the “Mother of the World” (Umm al-Dunya), through his observations and the historical dynamics of his age.