İlber Ortaylı was born in Vienna, Austria in 1947 and graduated from Ankara University’s school of Political Science in 1969.He studied Oriental and Slavic languages at the University of Vienna and history at Ankara University. He received his M.A. in history from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D from the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University. His areas of research include, among other things, Ottoman Historiography, the cultural and political life of the late Ottoman Empire, Russian and Turkish history as well as the Ottoman transformation.