Janissaries were “slaves to the sultan”. They mainly came about either from 1/5 of all prisoners, percentage which according to the holy law belonged to the sultan, or were hostages from newly-conquered areas, or were bought in slave markets, or came from the notorious devşirme. The first records on devşirme date back to the end of the 14th century; it reaches its peak during the 15th and 16th centuries, while the last reports on it are recorded in the early 18th century.

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A student of the history of the Jewish community of Istanbul will usually obtain a picture of this community based on a contemporary perspective. By and large, it will be a history of a Sephardic community that has undergone a lengthy process of Ottoman Turkish and oriental acculturation. This paper will try to offer, albeit in a nutshell, a view of Istanbul Jewry in the Ottoman period from a Romaniot perspective, based on a variety of sources. The Romaniots were descendants of the Byzantine...

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Столетие византийской истории, в течение которого правили императоры из дома Юстиниана и их преемники, было одним из самых насыщенных событий в истории Византии, а сама личность Юстиниана вызывала самые противоречивые оценки. В правление Юстиниана был создан знаменитый Corpus Juris Civilis, построен самый знаменитый храм Константинополя — Св. София. В то же время Восточная империя в последний раз сделала попытку вернуть себе утраченные земли западной половины империи, попытка, потребовавшая...