Imagining Communities: Story Listening and Popular Politics in Ottoman Urban Centers, ∼1780–1830
Journal: Journal of Social History
Year: 2025

Abstract Listening to stories was the most common leisure activity in early modern Ottoman coffeehouses. This article examines this practice as a form of guided, collective imagination and explores its political significance from the 1780s to the 1830s, a period of rising tensions and direct confrontations between the palace and the Janissary army. It argues that among the Janissaries, who gathered regularly in coffeehouses, story listening helped sustain a shared identity grounded in virility,