The Istanbul Encyclopedia is Now Available Online!

We are proud to announce that the archive of Reşad Ekrem Koçu’s Istanbul Encyclopedia, a treasured project of our university in collaboration with SALT, is now available online!

This unique collection, which bears witness to history, includes more than 40,000 documents offering a fascinating glimpse into Istanbul’s past. For the first time, the printed 11 volumes (A-G) of the Istanbul Encyclopedia, published by Reşad Ekrem Koçu between 1944 and 1973, are accessible online. Additionally, the previously unpublished entries covering G-Z, along with an extensive archive, are being presented on this platform for the first time, completing the encyclopedia from A to Z.

You can now access the Istanbul Encyclopedia at https://istanbulansiklopedisi.org/?locale=en.

To celebrate this significant cultural heritage, we are organizing an event titled Koçu’s Istanbul: The New Face of the Encyclopedia at our university on Friday, October 25, 2024. (The language of the event is Turkish) During the event, we will discuss the collaboration between our university and SALT that brought this project to life and explore the new face of the encyclopedia together.

Koçu’s Istanbul: The New Face of the Encyclopedia

Additionally, Dr. Gürbey HİZ’s article, The Lügat of Istanbul: Reşad Ekrem Koçu’s Re-Animation of an Urban Past, which sheds light on the period before the Encyclopedia, was published on October 11, 2024, in the journal New Perspectives on Turkey as open access. You can read the article at https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2024.13.

We invite you all to explore the new face of the Istanbul Encyclopedia and join us in sharing our excitement at the event!