PODCAST – Episode 84: Grandfather Clauses

Among the regulars at the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul (BOA) the grandpas stand out. Advanced in years, these researchers are not retired professional historians. They are the descendants of Ottomans who were born or lived on the lost Empire’s edgelands and shatterzones, descendants who are hoping to find documents supporting their families’ claims to non-Turkish (Bulgarian, Romanian…) citizenship — and the free movement within the Schengen Zone that comes with it. In this conversation, recorded on 21 July 2026, Çiğdem shares her surprise at this latest manifestation of the “Ottoman paperscapes” of contested nationality with which she is familiar from her many years of research on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This research was the focus of a recent essay in Archiv Orientální.

Beginning with the inclusive model of nationality adopted under the Ottoman Empire’s 1869 Nationality Law, itself in growing tension with the privileges foreign citizens enjoyed under the Capitulations, an interlocking web of contested citizenship rights gave those on the margins of empire ample opportunities to opt in or out of citizenships as their families’ interests dictated. For the states and empires concerned, extending “protection” to communities on the margins of empire furthered their own economic, demographic and sometimes religious ends. The resulting “Ottoman paperscapes” boomed in the years after World War I, but then appeared to retreat.

Çiğdem explains how her social history approach endeavours to recover the lived experience of nationality, without losing hold of evolving legal readings of treaty articles and case law. A proposed book-length development of her recent article will, she explains, include oral history interviews with both the grandpas and the lawyers who advise on their claims. What, Çiğdem asks, might we as historians learn from them, as well as from the records they are sifting?

Podcasts are published by TLP for the purpose of encouraging informed debate on the legacies of the events surrounding the Lausanne Conference. The views expressed by participants do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of TLP, its partners, convenors or members.