Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky is a Ph.D. candidate in Ottoman and Modern Middle Eastern History at Stanford University. He held the Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship at ACOR in August and September 2014. His work in Jordan was the first part of a 13-month research expedition that includes archival research in Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
Vladimir is studying the migration of Circassian and Chechen refugees from the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire between 1860 and 1914. While in Amman, he was able to examine hundreds of Arabic-language shari’a (court) records from the Salt and Amman areas. Ottoman court records provide insight into the social and economic life of refugees in Ottoman Transjordan. Vladimir is particularly interested in new immigrants’ interaction with the existing legal institutions and the adaptability of Ottoman law. Vladimir also analyzed land records, private letters of refugees, and engaged in oral fieldwork interviewing members of the North Caucasus diaspora in Amman, Sweileh, Zarqa, Naur, and Wadi al-Sir.
Vladimir holds Masters degrees in History from Stanford University and in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Edinburgh. He completed his undergraduate degree in Arabic and International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He previously studied or conducted research in Syria, Israel, and Egypt.
This post was last updated in 2015.