FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC: ROBERT COLLEGE AND ITS TURKISH STUDENTS IN A TIME OF TRANSITION
Études balkaniques (Sofia) 2025, N 2, pp. 323-351
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62761/645.EB.LXI2.01
Orlin SABEV 
Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology. , Bulgarian Academy of Science, Bulgaria
Abstract: The article deals with the presence and education of Turks/Muslims at the Protestant Robert College in Istanbul from its foundation in 1863 to the end of the Ottoman period and the early years of the Republic of Turkey. The author points out the influence of the dynamics of the political situation on the number of these students in the college, their problematic adaptation to a Christian and foreign language environment that was unusual for them. A prosopographical analysis of their social status, places of origin and subsequent professional realization is presented. Attention is also given to the emotional perception of the college as a “foreign” educational institution.
Keywords: Robert College, Turks, Muslims, Ottoman Empire, Republic of Turkey
AN 1866 CELESTIAL EVENT IN THE BALKANS AND ITS CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION
Etudes balkaniques (Sofia) 2022 N 1
Orlin SABEV
Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Bulgaria
Abstract: The paper elaborates on a report published in the Danube newspaper in August 1866. The report describes an unusual celestial event observed in Tulcea (today’s Romania). According to this description in August 1866 the Moon took the form of a “fireball” with “sparks of fire”. Then the Moon split into four parts, other glowing objects appeared in the sky, and in the morning a thunderstorm broke out. The newspaper published also a “speculation” on what was described. The “speculation” demystifies from a scientific point of view the unusualness of the observed event, explaining it with an optical illusion due to a nebula that covered the full moon and led to the formation of the recorded shapes. The said “speculation” represents the level of scientific thought in the second half of the nineteenth century, which is able to give a rational explanation of seemingly unusual celestial events, in contrast to earlier cases in which such phenomena were mystified as fateful signs and omens.
Keywords: the Moon, celestial phenomena, the Balkans, scientific speculation, astrophysics