Activities - Both Shores of the Aegean.

September 29, 2006 - Dr. Meropi Anastassiadou
Greek Orthodox Households in Istanbul (19th and 20th centuries): Social and Demographic Trends
In her lecture, Anastassiadou assesses the lifestyle of the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul, in the light of 19th and 20th century population registers and lists of parish members.
Focusing on Beyoglu, a district where most of the wealthy Greek immigrant population settled, Anastassiadou discusses the changes that occurred in the regional and rural household patterns of Greek family structures as they adapted to their new urban habitat. "From the 1850's onwards, thousands of immigrants settled in Beyoglu," she explains. "Inevitably, the process of integration into the city affected their local traditions, customs and family perceptions. Population registers from the beginning of the 20th century allow us to outline the main characteristics of the Istanbul Greek Orthodox household and, therefore, to evaluate the endurance of local models as well as the introduction of new types of family ties."

After having studied law in Thessalonica and history in Paris, Meropi Anastassiadou obtained her Ph.D. from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris) with a thesis on urban and social change in 19th century Ottoman Salonica. Aside from her book Salonique 1830-1912. Une ville Ottomane à l'âge des réformes; [Tanzimat çaginda bir Osmanli Şehri : Selanik (1830-1912)], she has published a number of articles and edited collective volumes on various topics concerning Eastern Mediterranean urban societies during the 19th and 20th centuries. She spent four years in Istanbul before integrating the group," Etudes Turques et Ottomanes" in Paris, in 2003. Anastassiadou's current interests focus on the relation between cultural heritage and collective identities in Greece and in Turkey. A full research member of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) since 1997, she currently teaches at the EHESS (Paris) and at the University of Strasbourg.

October 20, 2006 - Dr. Ipek Yosmaoglu
Some Practical Aspects of the Gendarmerie Reform in Ottoman Macedonia
In her lecture, Yosmaoglu will discuss Macedonia in Ottoman times and assess the Mürzsteg reform program. "As far as the Ottoman state was concerned, Macedonia did not exist," says Yosmaoglu. "However, by 1903, the diplomatic problem known as the 'Macedonian Question,' had become so acute, and the activities of the 'Macedonian revolutionaries' so hard to suppress that the Ottoman state grudgingly consented to a reform program aimed at restoring peace and order in the region. The Mürzsteg Program, as it came to be called, was principally a joint Russian and Austro-Hungarian initiative, whose main objective was to restore peace and stability in the region, which had been devastated following a general uprising in the summer of 1903. The experiment is worth a closer look, because it not only displays in stark detail the banal and everyday obstacles to military reform, but also reveals a different thread of evidence that may shed light on both inter-communal and state-

Ipek Kocaömer Yosmaoglu received her doctoral degree in Near Eastern Studies in 2005, at Princeton University with a dissertation entitled "The Priest's Robe and the Rebel's Rifle: Communal Conflict and the Construction of National Identity in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878-1908." In the winter of 2006, she returned to her native Istanbul to carry out research for a post-doctoral project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Research Institute in Turkey. Yosmaoglu, who will be joining the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 2007, divides her time between the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul and the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies at the University of Cambridge.

November 17, 2006 - Assoc. Prof. Paraskevas Konortas
Collective Identities in the Kaza of Gumuldjina (1870-1913): Demography and Nationalisms
In his presentation, Konortas discusses Thrace and, in particular, Gumuldjina during the late Ottoman period. Based on Ottoman, Greek and Bulgarian demographical sources as well as on other documents relating to them, Konortas will attempt to show in his lecture, that at least until the Balkan Wars and the Lausanne Treaty, the vast majority of the population in this area (Muslims, Orthodox, Exarchists and a few Armenians, Jews and foreigners) had no clear national identity. "At the time, the kaza of Gumuldjina was inhabited mostly by Muslims," says Konortas, "but the antagonistical nationalisms (Greek and Bulgarian) seemed to ignore them, focusing instead on the Orthodox population and trying to transform them from patriarchist and exarchist to Greek and Bulgarian respectively."

December 15, 2006 - Assoc. Prof. Engin Berber
Life under Greek Occupation in Rural Anatolia: The Foça Example
During the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Berber will examine the people and way of life in Foça, a district capital belonging to the sanjak of Izmir, which remained under Greek occupation for about three and a half years. "First of all, we need to define the terms 'occupation,' 'Anatolia,' and 'rural,'" says Berber. "We will thus be able to explain why we have chosen Foça as a representative area. Next, we will consider Foça's place as a provincial subdivision in the administrative system of the time, and provide information about the demographic structure of its population, the work and leisure activities of Foça residents, their cultural and gastronomical customs, and the relations between the different religious communities. Finally, we will attempt to determine to what extent the Greek occupation changed the people and way of life in Foça."

After graduating from the Department of History at Ege University in 1983, Engin Berber obtained his MA from the Institute of Social Sciences in 1985 and began a doctorate program. In 1989, he became the recipient of one of the Ph.D. research grants offered by Greece to Asian, African and Latin American students, and traveled to Athens. In 1993, he obtained his Ph.D. from the Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History at Dokuz Eylül University with a dissertation entitled, "Mütareke ve Yunan Isgali Döneminde Izmir Sancagi" [The Sanjak of Izmir during the Armistice and the Greek Occupation]. This thesis published in 1998 under the name, Sancili Yillar: Izmir 1918-1922 Mütareke ve Yunan Isgali Döneminde Izmir Sancagi [The Hard Years: Izmir 1918-1922 - the Sanjak of Izmir during the Armistice and the Greek Occupation] (Ayraç Yayinevi, Ankara, 1997), won him the Afet Inan History Research Award. In 2001, he became associate professor in modern Turkish history and is currently chair of the Department of International Relations (Political History) at Ege University.

February 16, 2007 - Panel Discussion
Panel moderator, Asssist. Prof. Vangelis Kechriotis and participants, Prof. Edhem Eldem and Prof. Christos Hadziiossif will evaluate the seminars and, in the light of new findings, discuss conclusions reached in the topics examined over the past two years.

The panel will attempt to provide answers to the following questions: since these seminars tackled such diverse topics as economics, ideology, identity, urbanism, education and trade, were the participating Greek and Turkish scholars able to establish a consistent interdisciplinary discourse? Have the seminars managed to contribute to the dialogue between scholars of modern Greek and Ottoman studies, and as a result to the growth of respective academic networks?  More importantly, can we claim that this common academic endeavor has advanced the development of what might be labeled Greek-Ottoman studies?

This panel discussion brings to a close the seminar series "Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean." Transcripts of the seminars will be published as a book in 2007.