• Date: June 9th, Thursday, 2022, 15:00 – 16:30
• Location: Room 406, SNUAC (Bldg. 101)

Speaker: Younghee Lee (Lecturer, Department of History, Hankuk University of Foreign Language)

Central Asia has the tradition of ‘Comitatus’, which organizes armed royal guards. The tradition was implanted from Central Asia to different regions and transformed to fit the tradition of each region. The Comitatus tradition that was spread to Islam regions gave birth to institutions of slave soldiers such as Ghulam and Mamluk.  The Osman empire that was built at the end of the 13th century also organized kafkulu, a military organization of slave soldiers, which left the famous Yeni-Cheri. There are many outstanding administrative officers who had been slave soldiers. Zağanos Paşa, who was a key figure in the era of Mehmed II, would be a major example. Through the Komitatus tradition of Central Asia, we can examine the Central Asian characteristics of the Osman empire.