ELIAM: Preserving the heritage of Greek presence in the Eastern Mediterranean

ELIAM (Greek Historical Archives of the Eastern Mediterranean) is a new digital archive, dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of Greek presence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the modern era. The project aims at showcasing the multicultural and multiethnic context in which Greeks lived in the Eastern Mediterranean, emphasizing the interconnectedness and interactions between Greeks and other communities in the region.

The archive focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean, encompassing countries that emerged from the Ottoman Empire including Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, focusing on the time period between the 19th and 20th centuries, a historical period of significant political and social change.

Students of the Abbate School on an excursion to Luxor, early 1950s © Mikis Kapaitzis private collection / ELIAM

Both along the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean and in its broader hinterland, populations who often identified ethnically as “Greeks” or “Romaioi” and predominantly religiously as “Greek Orthodox Christians” lived—and in some cases, still live. However, there were also Greek Catholics and Protestants, as well as Greek Jews and Muslims. The project acknowledges that their professional activities ranged from industrialists and large-scale merchants to office clerks, craftsmen, and unskilled laborers, with the majority of these Greeks belonging to middle and lower social classes. Countering the prevalent monolithic view of Greek populations in these regions, they occupied a broad socio-economic spectrum.

*Group of friends on Miami Beach in Alexandria, 1955 © Chrysocheri private collection / ELIAM*

Alexander Kitroeff, historian, author of The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 2019), and one of ELAM’s founders, talked to Greek News Agenda:

“Two colleagues of mine, historian Angelos Dalachanis, and visual anthropologist Irini Chrysocheri, invited me to join them in establishing the Greek Historical Archives of the Eastern Mediterranean (ELIAM). It is a non-profit organisation whose aim is the creation of a digital archive that will bring together printed (e.g. documents from private or other archival collections), visual (e.g. family and school photographs, maps, films) and audio (e.g. interviews, music, songs) material, following international standards for registration and documentation.

Other organizations are already collecting archives of Greek associations that existed in the Eastern Mediterranean. But we realized that privately held papers, documents and photographs of the Greeks who lived in Egypt, and other places in the region such as Jerusalem and Aleppo, also need to be safeguarded.

*Young women pose on motorcycles, early 1960s, Alexandria © Sotiriou private Collection / ELIAM*

Our purpose is to preserve these documents belonging to individuals and families. But we do not want to take these away from private individuals, because we recognize these have great sentimental value along with their historical value. These include printed books, periodicals, archival material, photographs, films- or personal documents such as correspondence, unpublished notes, autobiographies, school certificates and items of material culture and intangible items, such as oral interviews or musical recordings.

Therefore, instead, we scan the materials or ask persons to do it themselves and then we presented these materials on our web-page which was established thanks to a grant from the Onassis Foundation. Through our website, these materials are freely available the academic community and everyone else who has an interest in the history and cultural heritage of the Greek presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

*Suez Scouts on wheeled platform, 1940s, Suez © Chrysocheri* *private collection* / ELIAM

We are searching for these materials all over the world. The Greeks who lived in the Eastern Mediterranean and left the region went not only to Greece but in many other places, Europe, the Americas, Australia. We had a successful launch of the website https://eliam.gr in early February with many people in attendance and there was great support and interest. The next step for us is to find sources of funding so we continue our work.”

*Easter Monday in the El Qabrit region of Egypt, 1953 ©* *Chrysocheri private collection* / ELIAM

The website organizes its collections into various categories, including photos, old footage films, documents, artifacts, oral testimonies, and ephemera, encouraging individuals to “share their family documents and and pictures,” actively seeking contributions from the public to expand its archival holdings.

ELIAM helps preserve and promote awareness of a complex and often overlooked aspect of Eastern Mediterranean history and serves as a valuable resource for researchers, historians, genealogists, and anyone interested in the history of Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean.