Alevi Archive: Ethnohistory of Alevi Communities in Anatolia, 16th to 20th Centuries

Alevis constitute an officially not recognized socio-religious minority in Turkey (10–15 percent of the population) whose relationship to Islam is controversial. Historically, they are linked to the Kızılbaş (“Redheads”), who practiced a charismatic form of Islam and were allied with the Safavid dynasty in Iran since the end of the 15th century. Research to date assumes that, due to ongoing state repression, the Alevis retreated to remote areas of Anatolia during the 16th century and remained in isolation until the early 20th century. According to this view, the central characteristics of Alevism in terms of social structure, ritual, and endogamy developed largely in isolation from a hostile Sunni environment. To this day, this narrative has a major social and political impact and shapes the debate on the historical and religious classification of the Alevis. However, it has never been systematically examined on the basis of comprehensive empirical material. 

The Alevi Archive focuses on settlement dynamics and processes of community formation among Alevi groups in their complex relationships with the state as well as with Sunnis, Christians, and other religious and social groups. Using a combination of methods that is innovative for these research questions (ethnohistory) and based on previously not yet used and interlinked source material (including Ottoman archives, manuscripts from Alevi collections, oral traditions, and material culture), the project aims at reconstructing the historical living environments of the Alevis. It thus aspires to provide a fundamental contribution to Anatolian social and religious history. The integrated digital humanities approach enables the project to systematically collect, analyse, and network the data in a virtual research environment created for this purpose. Processed data will be made publicly available as far as possible. As basic research on Alevi social and religious history, the Alevi Archive also makes an important contribution to preserving the cultural heritage of the Alevis.