Sada’s research is a unique attempt to trace the practices of Greek Orthodox Christian celebrations in Asia Minor in the late Ottoman Empire (1860s–1920s). It enquires into transgressions at the Greek Orthodox carnivals that marked the beginning of Lent. During these festivities monitored by the state, participants blurred the lines between public and private spheres by wearing costumes, masks and makeup. The crowded processions brought together people from different ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. Within the scope of this project, Sada will show what transgression meant and how it pushed the limits of legal, moral, social and political boundaries defined by Ottoman state authorities, the Greek Orthodox clergy and laypeople, and the larger multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman society including travellers and other temporary residents. 

The research adopts a multidimensional method, which means tracing out networks of transgression both within the region’s Greek Orthodox populations and beyond them, through the relationships that transgression creates across the many religious, ethnic, class and political categories of the Ottoman Empire. In its essence, the project aims to bring much-needed new perspectives to the reading of understudied or overlooked Greek Orthodox populations in late Ottoman history. It does so by questioning the borders of identity and belonging at the intersections of religion and entertainment during an era in which the Ottoman Empire was going through administrative transformations. By shedding light on wrinkles in communal identity, the project also intends to reconsider the conception of ‘the black sheep of the family’ under the Ottoman umbrella and tries to bring new perspectives to the reading of non-Muslim populations in the Ottoman Empire.