Stavros Anestidis

Shared Memory of Asia Minor’s Greek Orthodox Population

14 November 2017

DEPO

The Center for Asia Minor Studies in Athens holds the most comprehensible archive related to the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Associate director of the center, Stavros Anestidis, talks about the center’s history and the vast oral tradition archive that is formed by testimonies of displaced Greek Orthodox populations of Asia Minor. His talk is supported by visual and audio material from the archive, including recordings of folk songs, maps drawn from memory and photographs of the Greek populated towns before the exchange.

About KMS:

Founded in 1930 by musicologist Melpo Logotheti Merlie and Hellenist Oktavios Merlie the Centre for Asia Minor Studies is a scientific institute involved in the collection, research and documentation of information of oral and written historical tradition, as well as the publication of scientific studies and monographs related to Asia Minor Greeks. The center’s main endeavor is the public recognition of Greek refugees affected by the 1923 population exchange. As a result of KMS’s activities, 2.160 towns previously populated by Greek Orthodoxes in Asia Minor have been recorded and memories of their former inhabitants have been collected. KMS remains an important authority in memory studies, particularly related to Greece and Turkey.

About Stavros Anestidis:

Born in İstanbul in 1960, Stavros Anestidis graduated from the Saint-Michel French Lycee in Şişli. After completing his bachelor degree in Political Sciences at the Athens University, he continued his PhD at the same department. Anestidis started working at the Center for Asia Minor Studies as a researcher in 1994. Since 2002, he is the center’s associate director. His research is focused on the cultural lives of Istanbul and Asia Minor Greeks in the 19th century. He has presented several conferences and authored several articles on this topic. Anestidis has lectured extensively in Turkey in a number of universities including İstanbul University, Boğaziçi University, Koç University and Akdeniz University. His most recent field of research is the Turkish speaking Greek Orthodoxes (Karamanlıs) and Karamanlı literature.