Performance in the Ottoman world: an introduction. Performance in the Ottoman world: thoughts on folklore and history / Arzu Öztürkmen -- Research on Ottoman festivities and performances / Suraiya Faroqhi -- Celebration and entertainment. Evaluating three imperial festivals: 1524, 1530 and 1539 / Zeynep Yelce -- From the Modena archives: a report on the 1582 circumcision festivities at the Ottoman Court / Nevin and Raniero Özkan-Speelman -- Entertaining the Sultan: Meclis, festive gatherings in the Ottoman Palace / Zeynep Tarim Ertuğ -- What about a bit of fun? Wine, crime and entertainment int he Sixteenth-Century Anatolia / Fikret Yilmaz -- Asserting military power in a world turned upside down: the Istanbul Festivals of 1582 and 1638 / Fariba Zarinebaf -- Festivals and their documentation: surnames covering the festivities of 1675 and 1724 / Efdal Sevincli -- When the Sultan planned a great feast, was everyone in a festive mood? Or, who worked on the preparations of Sultanic festivals and who paid for them? / Suraiya Faroqhi -- Amusements in the Ottoman Palace of the early Nineteenth Century: revelations from a newly analysed Ruzname / Mehmet Ali Beyhan -- Marking urban identity, dividing up urban time: festivities among the Greeks of Istanbul in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries / Méropi Anastassiadou -- A modern performance in late Ottoman times: birthday celebrations as imperial image-making / Fatmagül Demirel -- Ottoman theatre and theatricality. Language and sexuality in Ottoman shadow-puppet performances / Daryo Mizrahi -- Folktales adapted to Karagöz shadow plays -- Men acting as women: the Zenne in Nineteenth-century popular theatre / Ciğem Kilic -- The Ottoman stage: politicization and commercialization of theatres, 1876-1922 / Nalan Turna -- Musicals in Nineteenth-century Ottoman theatre: the story of Leblebici Horhor Ağa / Nur Gürani Arslan -- Musicological debates between Greeks and Turks in the Late Ottoman Empire: dialogue and the creation of the 'other' / Merih Erol -- Multiple ramifications: Azniv Hrachia's autobiography as a source for the history of the theatre and the world beyond / Hasmik Khalapyan -- Afife Jale on the stage: questioning female identity in theatre; late Ottoman and early Republican modernization processes / Fahriye Dincer -- European encounters. Summa Turcica: the image of the Turk in Eighteenth-century Viennese opera / Lale Babaoğlu Balkis -- Performance as politics of westernization in the late Ottoman world / Melis Sülos -- A German institution in the late Ottoman empire: music, theatre and festivities at the Teutonia Club / Seren Akyoldas -- The Ottoman Theatre in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago / Cafer Sarikaya.

Gathers twenty-four original essays exploring a broad range of historical performances in the Ottoman Empire. Offering a reappraisal of research on Ottoman festivities, celebrations, and entertainment, this volume also examines the European-style theater that flourished in Istanbul during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire.