“TÜRK OKÇULUĞU’NUN DUAYEN İSMİ TOZKOPARAN İSKENDER’E AİT YENİ TESPİT EDİLEN MENZİL TAŞI” MAKALESİNE REDDİYE
REFUTATION OF THE ARTICLE "NEWLY DISCOVERED RANGE STONE BELONGING TO TOZKOPARAN İSKENDER, A DOYEN OF TURKISH ARCHERY"

Summary/Abstract: The article published by Ahmet Şen and Sude Saki in the 88th issue of Karadeniz Araştırmaları(Şen & Saki, 2025, pp. 1659–1671), beyond ostensibly emphasizing the importance of multidisciplinary approaches in the social sciences, constitutes a striking example of how the misinformation generated by popular culture can undermine academic scholarship. Whereas academic studies are normally expected to counteract such misinformation and correct erroneous narratives, the article under review presents precisely the opposite situation. The aforementioned article focuses on a range stone claimed to have been newly identified and attributed to the renowned Ottoman archer Tozkoparan İskender. This critical review is motivated by two principal considerations. The first is our prior scholarly engagement with Ottoman archery, including several publications and the completion of a doctoral dissertation on the subject. The second—and in our view more significant—motivation is the intention to prevent the further proliferation of distortion and misrepresentation of historical knowledge, which is already subject to excessive manipulation in contemporary discourse, from being reinforced within academic venues.

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