To my father, some of the following stories were first told to me by him. To the Reader It never occurred to me to write the following stories.However, an inexplicable shock has always prompted me to look back on the past, that is, the days of disasters and disasters in the lives of me and the people I love most.This is a story about looking for relatives: at the age of sixteen, I pursued my father and his past; my father pursued his beloved mentor and his own past.In the process, we find ourselves all ultimately standing on a very dark path leading to history.It's also a story about survival: who died, who didn't, and why.As a historian, I have learned that not everyone who pursues history survives.And it's not just the pursuit of history that puts us in danger, sometimes the shadowy claws of history stretch out mercilessly towards us.

It's been 36 years.Since then, I have lived a relatively peaceful life.My time was devoted to research and my trip was safe and sound.I was either with my students, my friends, or I was writing books on history, mostly impersonal, or dealing with the university in which I lived.I have been lucky to have access to most of the personal data related to that history over the years.I interspersed them in appropriate places to ensure the flow of the story, and of course, sometimes I had to make some necessary additions based on my own memories.Although I am only here recounting the story my father originally told me, I have made extensive use of his letters, some of which are identical to his dictation.

In addition to citing these materials almost intact, I also recalled and searched as much as possible, including sometimes revisiting old places to bring back to life the faded parts of my memory.One of the great joys of this work is interviewing—sometimes by correspondence—with the living scholars mentioned in the stories.Their recollections have supplied me with invaluable material.In addition, my text has ultimately benefited from exchanges with a number of young scholars in several fields. I also turned to my imagination when necessary, as a last resort.I am extremely cautious in using my imagination.I use the imagination for my readers only when I am sure it is highly probable, and only when this solid conjecture fits my data with its background.For those things or motives that I cannot explain, I respect the truth behind them and do not speculate.I have studied the longer history of the story as carefully as I can in any scholarly treatise.For modern readers, the religious and territorial conflict between Islam in the East and Judeo-Christianity in the West should be both familiar and painful.

I have had so much help to make this work possible that I cannot thank them enough, but I would like to thank the following in particular.They are: Radu ? of the Archaeological Museum of the University of Bucharest?Dr. Georgescu, Ivanka of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences?Dr. Lazarova, Peta of the University of Michigan?Dr. Stoichev, the tireless staff of the British Library, the librarians of the Luther Ford Documentation Museum and the Philadelphia Museum, Father Vaso of the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos, and Turgut of Istanbul University Dr. Barra. My best hope in bringing this story to the public is to find at least one reader who understands what it really means: a cry from the heart.Astute reader, I pass on to you my history.

January 15, 2008, at Oxford University, UK