His language is clear, his style direct, his memory profound; his questions challenge conventional thinking, and his answers discipline the mind. Ortaylı, who plays a significant role in the popularization of historical consciousness in Türkiye, is a unique point of reference who reads the past not as nostalgia, but as a key to understanding the present.

Another important and honorable detail for me is that Professor İlber Ortaylı has been my friend for almost 35 years.

Professor İlber Ortaylı is not merely a historian, but one of the rare intellectuals who reads time, culture, and civilizational memory as a unified whole.

With a broad perspective ranging from the Ottoman world to Europe, and from urban culture to diplomatic history, he brings academic depth into the realm of public thought.

His language is clear, his style direct, his memory profound; his questions challenge conventions, and his answers discipline the mind. A leading figure in the popularization of historical consciousness in Turkey,

Ortaylı approaches the past not as nostalgia, but as a vital key to understanding the present. On a personal note, it is also a meaningful and honorable distinction for me that Professor Ortaylı has been a close friend of mine for nearly 35 years.