Turkey Book Talk Murat Yıldız on the Ottoman world of sports, modernisation and minorities
Feb 17, 2026
Murat Yıldız, associate professor of history at Skidmore College and author on Ottoman sports history. He traces Istanbul’s modern sports culture through multilingual archives and club records. He discusses how physical training tied to modernization and anxieties, how clubs mixed communities yet reinforced boundaries, and why football outshone traditional wrestling and emerged as a mass spectacle.
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Sports As A Lived Imperial Culture
- Istanbul's sports scene reveals an imperial 'lived history' that cuts across ethno-religious lines.
- Shared bodily ideals and practices created overlapping grammars of community and modernity.
Research Multilingually And Use Photos
- Use multilingual archives and build relationships with clubs and private holders to study late Ottoman Istanbul.
- Treat photographs as central sources because they reproduce and spread shared physical-culture ideals.
Bodies Reflect Global And Imperial Fears
- Bodily anxieties about strength and virility tied local clubs and schools to broader imperial and global pressures.
- Multiple scales—global, imperial, local—shaped physical-culture debates across communities.
