[MGSA-L] Today: Documentary on the destruction of Smyrna

[Syrimis, George]

Friday, December 6, 5:30 PM

Screening of the documentary

“Smyrna: The Destruction of a Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922”

Followed by a discussion with Maria Iliou, director, and Alexander Kitroeff, historical consultant.

What was cosmopolitan Smyrna on the coasts of Western Anatolia, like at the beginning of the 20th century?  How did the Greeks, the largest Christian community, live side by side with the Muslims, the Levantines, the Armenians and the Jews ? What was so unique about this Mediterranean port in the Ottoman Empire, which even today, 90 years after the Destruction is still linked to a joie de vivre during the good times and dirges for the Destruction that came so suddenly in September 1922? After four years of collaboration and research, Maria Iliou and Alexander Kitroeff bring back to audiences images forgotten in “closed” archives as well as a new perspective that includes all the communities of Smyrna as well as the dramatic events of 1922. 90 years after the destruction, the team seeks to honor not only those who were lost in 1922 but also the discipline of history.  Historians from the US and Europe present the big picture while first, second and third generation Smyrniots recount their personal stories.  Indeed three of them unfold little family stories relative to the events from the Greek, the Armenian and the Turkish side, from the years of cosmopolitanism to the years of the destruction.

The documentary is corroborated by rare photographic material and film footage compiled from archives in the US and Europe.  Unknown images of Smyrna from private collections such as that of Pierre de Gigord and the archives of the Library of Congress, Princeton and Harvard universities, the Near East Relief, the Imperial War Museum, Pathe, the Albert Kahn Foundation and other institutions in the US and Europe are brought to light for the first time.



For more information about the film please visit:
http://smyrnadocumentary.org/?lang=en&cat=1

Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven

Free and open to the public

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For more information about the Program's activities visit our website at http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/hsp . Please also visit our “Community Events” section for local activities. You can also find us on Facebook. Search for “Hellenic Studies Program, Yale University”

The activities of the Hellenic Studies Program are generously funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Hellenic Studies at Yale University.



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