281 Ab Imperio, 4/2008 James h. MEYER For the russIanIst In Istanbul and the ottomanIst In russIa: a GuIde to the arChIVes oF eurasIa The histories of the Ottoman Empire and Russia (not to mention Turkey and the USSR) are not only deeply entwined within one another, they also run parallel in many ways. During the Middle Ages, both Moscow and the Ottomans expanded to rule over ethnically and religiously diverse popula- tions, and their respective methods of expansion and rule provide numer- ous points of contrast and comparison between the two states. Efforts to modernize focused the attention of state oficials in both empires, and in the nineteenth century both Russia and the Ottoman Empire undertook reforms which would have a tremendous impact upon the two states, and which often provoked responses from their respective subjects which assumed a national or religious character. In the early twentieth century, meanwhile, constitutional revolutions in both empires preceded noisy periods of mass politics and, eventually, increasing authoritarianism. At the conclusion of the imperial era, the First World War would mark the eleventh time the Ot- toman and Russian armies went into combat against one another since the mid-seventeenth century. Despite numerous parallels and connections between Russian and Otto- man history, there has traditionally been relatively little cross-fertilization in the historiography of the two empires. For much of the twentieth century, scholars working in the ields of Russian and Ottoman history tended to pay relatively little attention to one another, preferring instead to either situ-