27 februari 2008

From 1 April 2008, Erik-Jan Zürcher (54) will be the new director of the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam. Zürcher will continue to be affiliated to Leiden University as professor of Turkish languages and culture for one day a week.

Prof. Dr. E.J. Zürcher studied Turkish, Arabic, Farsi and modern history in Leiden. He worked at Nijmegen University as a university lecturer, senior lecturer and as the chairman of the Institute for Languages and Cultures of the Middle East. In 1990, Zürcher became a senior research fellow at the IISG and was charged with the responsibility of setting up the Turkish department. He built up an international collection of Turkish archives and periodicals and initiated a number of research projects. In the meantime, the department has been expanded with Iranian, Azerbaijani and Egyptian collections. Under Zürcher's guidance a group of politically active Turkish union leaders collected the material for the IISG. Zürcher became special professor at the University of Amsterdam in 1993, which was followed by his appointment as professor of Turkish languages and cultures at Leiden University.

Zürcher's Turkey. A Modern History (London, 1993) has been translated into seven languages and is used by students worldwide. Zürcher has also held various administrative positions. He regularly appears in the media and advises the government. In 2006, he was the co-founder of the Dutch Institute for Higher Education (NIHA) in Ankara and, in 2007, the Turkey Institute in The Hague.

The International Institute of Social History (IISH) is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The institute was founded in 1935. It is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions in the field of social history in general and the history of the labour movement in particular. Most of the collections are open to the public.