Janset Nil Genç is a PhD student at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universität Berlin, supervised by Prof. Dr. Elke Hartmann, and a Gerda Henkel fellow. She has received her Research MA from Leiden University and her BA from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research has previously been awarded fellowships from the Leiden University Fund and the Netherlands Institute in Turkey.

The Ottoman Empire in the North Caucasus: Power, Islam,and Trans-imperial Encounters

Janset's doctoral research traces the Ottoman Empire's efforts to establish and consolidate authority in the western North Caucasus, examining its shifting and non-linear presence in the region. She approaches this history as a trans-imperial one, tracing how Ottoman authority was defined, negotiated, and reconfigured amid the overlapping and shifting influences of the Crimean Khanate, the Russian Empire, and the region's indigenous population.

Drawing on archival research across Ottoman Turkish, Russian, and Crimean Tatar sources, she situates the Ottoman imperial project in the North Caucasus within a longue durée and global perspective. She thus aims to contribute to a growing body of trans-imperial scholarship on the Black Sea and Ottoman borderlands.

First Supervisor @BGSMCS: Prof. Dr. Elke S. Hartmann

Publications: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3070-5384