ONLINE ONLY: The Asia Minor Refugees and the Remaking of the Greek Left

Date: Thursday 30 March 2023 @ 7pm Melbourne | 11am Athens | 4am New York
Location: Online Only - YouTube or Facebook
Presenter: Dr Kostis Karpozilos

Language of Presentation: English
Entry: FREE

Synopsis

This presentation aims to illustrate the impact and importance of mobility, political geography, and transnational networks in the early history of Greek communism.

More specifically, it addresses the transformative impact of refugees from the declining Ottoman and Russian Empires in the remaking of Greek communism in the 1920s. At the end of the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922, the Greek State had received over one million refugees. Their arrival signaled the end of the country’s expansionist dreams and the passage into a new era marked by political and social instability and upheaval.

This talk explores the interplay between this process and the evolution of the Communist Party of Greece and its integration into the Comintern ecosystem.

Emphasizing the special place of refugees, exiles and immigrants in revolutionary projects, I argue that we should reconsider the importance of mobility and refugeedom in the evolution of radical politics in the 20th century.

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Bio

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Kostis Karpozilos is the director of the Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI-Athens, Greece). His forthcoming book “Out of Bounds: A Transnational History of Greek Communism”

addresses the interplay of diasporic communities, transnational networks and experiences of displacement in the development of the Greek communist movement.

He is the author of Red America: Greek Communists in the United States, 1920-1950 [Crete University Press, 2017; Berghahn Books, 2023]. Kostis was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, Princeton University and Oxford University and currently teaches at Panteion University in Athens. He received his Ph.D at the University of Crete (2010) and his M.A at Sheffield University (2004).

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How to Participate

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This is an online-only event.
Join us this Thursday on YouTube or Facebook.

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Sponsors

We thank Vicki Kyritsis and & Jim Claven for the kind donation that makes seminars like this possible.

During the course of the year considerable expenses are incurred in staging the seminars. In order to mitigate these costs individuals or organisations are invited to donate against a lecture of their choice.

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We thank the following corporate sponsors:

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The Greek Community of Melbourne is registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Non-Profits Commission ABN 14004258360