The Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH) has secured significant new funding from the European Research Council (ERC), with postdoctoral researcher Zeynep Aydoğan selected for the highly competitive Starting Grant 2026 programme.
Her research project, entitled “Epics and Cultural Landscapes of Medieval and Early Modern Anatolia” (EPICSCAPES), has secured €1.5m in funding over five years, according to a press release.
The project aims to rethink how the history of Asia Minor from the 12th to the 17th century has been written, incorporating the experiences of different religious and linguistic communities into a more inclusive historical narrative.
This will be achieved through a fresh reading of epic and mythical narratives written in Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Greek and Turkish in border regions that were later incorporated into the Ottoman state.
These narratives were passed down orally, in some cases for centuries, before being recorded in writing. They are valuable sources on the worldviews and ideologies of the different populations of Asia Minor, who lived alongside one another in shared, often contested, geographical areas.
By bringing together epic traditions that have often been studied in isolation, within the confines of their respective languages and national historiographical frameworks, EPICSCAPES aims to reveal connections and interactions between the region’s different communities that have previously been overlooked.
“Epicscapes” and digital mapping
At the heart of the project is the concept of “epicscapes”: interconnected border regions where epic traditions emerged, spread and evolved across linguistic and religious boundaries, alongside the landscapes shaped by the narratives themselves.
Using landscape as a connecting thread, the project examines how epics relate to geography, ethnic and religious identities, and political power.
In collaboration with the Geophysical Laboratory – Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeoenvironment at IMS/FORTH, the project will develop an open-access cultural database and digital maps to systematically analyse geographical references, recurring narrative motifs and connections between different epic traditions.
In this way, EPICSCAPES reframes epic as a historically evolving form of collective memory and offers new perspectives on the history of Asia Minor beyond imperial and nationalist divisions.
Zeynep Aydoğan’s background
Zeynep Aydoğan earned a bachelor’s degree (B.A.) and a master’s degree (M.A.) in History from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, and a doctorate from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
She was a postdoctoral researcher at Koç University’s Research Centre for Eastern Civilisations (ANAMED) before joining IMS/FORTH in 2020, where she worked on the ERC-funded research project GHOST.
Her research interests include the cultural history of Asia Minor and the Balkans between the 11th and 15th centuries, the formation and early historiography of the Ottoman state, and Turkish religious-heroic literature.
She is the author of the monograph Forging Paths of Continuity: Borderline Miracles in the Early Menākıbnāme Literature, 13th–15th Centuries, published by IMS in 2024.