Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean

The series of monthly seminars, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, organized by the Ottoman Bank Museum in collaboration with Alpha Bank and the History Department of Boğazici University, hosts Paraskevas Konortas on Friday, November 17, with a presentation in English entitled, "Collective Identities in the Kaza of Gumuldjina (1870–1913): Demography and Nationalisms," in which he 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."

The monthly seminar series, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, presented free of charge for two years now, will come to an end with our final guest speaker, Assoc. Prof. Engin Berber, from the Department of International Relations at Ege University, and his presentation entitled, "Life under Greek Occupation in Rural Anatolia: The Foça Example" scheduled for Friday, December 15.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean
Collective Identities in the Kaza of Gumuldjina (1870–1913):
Demography and Nationalism Assoc. Prof. Paraskevas Konortas

Paraskevas Konortas After having studied law in Athens and history in Paris, Paraskevas Konortas obtained his Ph.D in history from the Paris-I Sorbonne University in 1985, with a thesis entitled "The Juridical and Political Relationship between the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ottoman Administration (1453-1600)." Aside from his book "Ottoman Considerations on the Oecumenical Patriarchate (17th Century to the Beginning of the 20th Century)", he has published a number of articles on various topics concerning the status of the Orthodox Church and Orthodox people under the Ottoman administration, as well as on the status of the Moslem minorities in Greece (1821-1981) and the making of nations in Southeastern Europe (1850-1923). Paraskevas Konortas currently teaches Ottoman history in the Department of History and Archaeology at Athens University.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean Collective Identities in the Kaza of Gumuldjina (1870–1913): Demography and Nationalism Assoc. Prof. Paraskevas Konortas Friday, November 17, 2006 5:00 p.m. Free admission The Ottoman Bank Museum Bankalar (Voyvoda) Caddesi 35/37 (0212) 334 22 70