Abstract
Vasiliki Amorati
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Turkey
The story of a life: re-covering the silent voices of the Greek Orthodox population of Smyrna during the early twentieth century
This paper focuses on the everyday life of the last generation of Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Smyrna (1850-1922). Based on the narratives of the Archive of Oral Tradition of the Centre for Asia Minor studies in Athens, created in the 1930s by Melpo and Octave Merlier, we will focus on the 'living memory' of the former Greek inhabitants of Smyrna, taking into account the context of the Greek national idealistic vision. We will also explore how the memorization of the trauma of the Greek inhabitants of Smyrna shaped the historiography of the last decades of multicultural Smyrna. Approaching the topic through the perspective of memory studies is imperative not only in order to give voice to the multiple personal memories of eyewitnesses, but also to improve our understanding of the 'historical' present.
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