Guest Contributor for Central Asian Studies
Derya Idikurt focuses on the relations of Russian Muslims with the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Her research interests include Russian Muslim pilgrimage to the Hejaz, as well as Muslim-published newspapers and primary sources from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region, particularly Kazan.
She received a research grant from the Institute of Knowledge Integration to examine Russian Muslim pilgrimage during cholera pandemics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She was also awarded a research fellowship at the Imam Bukhari International Scientific Research Center in Samarkand for a project examining the life of Sheikh Suleiman Effendi, the head of the Uzbek Dervish Lodge. At the Center, she attended the training course ‘Central Asian Manuscript Codicology: Key Elements’ for three years. This was taught by Francis Richard (BULAC) and Marie Efthymiou (Collège de France).
In 2026, she presented her HajjLib-Russia project at the Max Weber Foundation Georgian Branch Spring School, titled ‘Digital History Lab’. The project aims to develop a digital library dedicated to Russian Muslim pilgrimage, bringing together pilgrimage narratives (hajjnamas), official reports, archival documents, and other primary sources. She particularly seeks to build a rich and multilingual collection incorporating documents from the Ottoman archives, as well as primary sources in Chagatai, Tatar, and Russian. In connection with this project, she aims to develop her skills in the field of digital humanities, particularly digital archiving and the digital mapping of historical pilgrimage routes.
She completed her PhD in History in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she continues to conduct her research and is also interested in perceptions of Russia, religion, and authority in Kyrgyz history and literature during the Russian imperial period.