Brief Biography

Yasir Yılmaz is a Principal Researcher at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His research combines the history of Ottoman–Habsburg relations (1500–1918), early modern diplomacy, and chief ministers and grand viziers across early modern Eurasia. As a full-time member of QhoD, a digital humanities project dedicated to the edition of Habsburg–Ottoman diplomatic sources, his principal research focus is the history of Ottoman–Habsburg contacts, with particular emphasis on information networks and the transfer of knowledge between the two empires through diplomatic channels. From September 2023 to August 2026, Yılmaz served as Principal Investigator of the FWF-funded GraViz Project, which examined grand vizieral correspondence between Vienna and Constantinople from the 1560s to the 1760s. Yılmaz is currently working on two book projects. The first is a monograph on the diplomatic history of the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1683. The second is an edited volume on grand viziers and chief ministers across early modern Eurasia, based on an international conference held at the IHB in Vienna in May 2026.

Yılmaz is the initiator (2019) and co-organizer (together with Ercan Akyol) of the annual Intensive Summer School on Comparative Habsburg–Ottoman Paleography, hosted by the IHB in Vienna. The summer school has developed into a prominent international program for the study of Habsburg–Ottoman history and paleography. 

In addition to the regular publication of digital source editions on the QhoD platform, Yılmaz also publishes regularly in traditional academic formats: His most recent peer-reviewed publications have appeared in the Austrian History Yearbook (2026) and the Review of Middle East Studies (2024), alongside several book chapters published in English, Turkish, and German. Yılmaz is currently working on two book projects. The first is a monograph on the diplomatic history of the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1683. The second is an edited volume on grand viziers and chief ministers across early modern Eurasia, based on an international conference held at the IHB in Vienna in May 2026. His publications can be viewed and downloaded at the following link.

Yılmaz completed his MA under the supervision of Halil İnalcık at Bilkent University in Ankara, Türkiye (2008), and his PhD under the supervision of Charles W. Ingrao at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA (2015). Before joining the IHB, he was Assistant Professor at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czechia (2016–2020), and Visiting Professor at the University of Innsbruck (2019–2020).

Over the course of his career, Yılmaz has taught more than 30 undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in the United States, Türkiye, Czechia, and Austria. These have included survey courses and reading seminars on the histories of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy, history of diplomacy, the history of relations between Islam and the West from the rise of Islam to the present, and the history of the Middle East.