Original air date: 29 July 2015 | At the turn of the twentieth century, Turkish-speaking Greek intellectuals of Cappadocian origin found themselves between mutually opposed Turkish and Greek nationalist ideologies. Their unique cultural background and their belief in the promises of the Young Turk Revolution allowed them to develop an alternative brand of Greek identity, one that combined cultural Hellenism with political loyalty to the Ottoman State. But their hopes never came true, and as such, they have been written out of history and forgotten. In this episode, we talk to Vangelis Kechriotis about his latest research on Cappadocian Christians and other issues relating to late Ottoman Greek identity, exploring the fascinating careers and difficult political choices of those caught between competing nationalist discourses.

Vangelis Kechriotis is an Assistant Professor of History at Boğaziçi University. He specializes in history of non-Muslims in the late Ottoman Empire, particularly the Greek Orthodox. His PhD dissertation completed at the University of Leiden examined the history of the Greek community of Izmir. His latest work focuses on the history of complex cultural and political identities of Cappadocian Greeks.

http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2015/07/ottomanism-with-greek-face-vangelis.html


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Benlisoy, Foti and Stefo Benlisoy. “Reading the Identity of “Karamanli” Through the Pages of Anatoli.” In Cries and Whispers in Karamanlidika Books: proceedings of the first International Conference on Karamanlidika Studies (Nicosia, 11th-13th September 2008), edited by Evangelia Balta and Matthias Kappler, 93-108. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.

Braude, Benjamin and Bernard Lewis, eds. Christians and Jews in in the Ottoman Empire: the Functioning of a Plural Society. New York: Holmes and Meier: 1982.

Kechriotis, Vangelis. “Ottomanism with a Greek Face: Karamanlı Greek Orthodox Diaspora at the End of the Ottoman Empire.” In Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century, edited by Maurizio Isabella and Konstantina Zanou, 189-204. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Kechriotis, Vangelis. “Atina’da Kapadokyalı, İzmir’de Atinalı, İstanbul’da Mebus: Pavlos Karolidis’in Farklı Kişilik ve Aidiyetleri,” Toplumsal Tarih, no. 257 (May 2015), 28-35.

Kechriotis, Vangelis. “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun son döneminde Karamanlı Rum Ortodoks diasporası İzmir mebusu Emmanouil Emmanouilidis,” Toplumsal Tarih, no. 251 (November 2014), 38-43.

Kechriotis, Vangelis. “On the margins of national historiography: The Greek Ittihatçı Emmanouil Emmanouilidis – opportunist or Ottoman patriot?” In Untold Histories of the Middle East: Recovering Voices from the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Amy Singer, Christoph K. Neumann, and S. Aksin Somel, 124-142. London: Routledge, 2011.

Kechriotis, Vangelis. “Educating the Nation: Migration and Acculturation on the Two Shores of the Aegean at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” In Cities of the Mediterranean: From the Ottomans to the Present Day, edited by Meltem Toksöz and Biray Kulluoğlu. 139-156. London: I.B. Tauris (2010).