The last quarter of the 19th century, the final years of the Ottoman Empire that ruled for five hundred years... ABDULHAMID II, who has been on the throne for thirty-three years - and who, according to some historians, is the last emperor - was aware that in the rapidly changing and modernizing world, it was impossible to keep the Ottoman Empire alive with traditional ruling methods. Although the empire was growing increasingly smaller with each decade, it still contained many races, religions, and peoples with their myriad lifestyles in different climates and geographies from the Balkans to the far corners of the Middle East. Ruling over this vast land mass of diverse colors and languages became increasingly difficult. Where should Abdulhamid II start to adapt his government to be compatible with the new world? From himself? This change is palpable in the plays staged in the theatre house set up inside the palace, the receptions thrown for opera singers, his keen interest in photography and cinema that was only beginning to spread worldwide, his personal friendship with the Japanese emperor, whose country was going through a similar process, and in his hosting the German emperor in his palace, where electric lighting was recently installed. How did the changes that he made in himself and his life, the refined tastes that he acquired, fare with the culture and tradition that he was born with and the obligatory rituals that came with being a Sultan, and the hundreds of years old court etiquette? How did the conflict between the old patriarchal system and the upcoming new lifestyle manifest in the Sultan? How did this process reflect in his relationship with his harem, family, and children, as well as the administrators close to him? Then, how was he going to get the deteriorating Ottoman financial system on the same track as the world economic system? Abdulhamid was familiar with modern financial and economic advancements. Prior to his accession to the throne, he followed the London stock exchange, invested in mining, and set up farms to implement modern farming methods. The Sultan, who had close relations with the Sufis, presented a pious profile as well. Although he succeeded in merging the two worlds to a certain degree in himself, he must have seen that the reforms he was trying to carry out did not bring the desired results due to the cumbersome bureaucracy, the slow pace of officers in the local administration, the long distance between the center and the periphery, and the diverse communities that had myriad ways of living across the empire. In this context, we are going to deal with the 8-10 days during which the palace was under siege, followed by the journey to Thessaloniki and the first few days in the Alatini House. We will look at the persona of the Sultan, his inner world, the life in which he tried to merge tradition with modernity, and its reflections in his personal taste and preferences. By zooming into the inner world of the last emperor, this remarkably interesting and inimitable personality, we would like to tell the story of one of the most important figures of the last two hundred years as an individual, who in his own way tried to answer the most predominant question of our art and thought that has been preoccupied with who we are at the heart of east-west, modern-tradition binaries.