Abstract

The Greek village of Molyvos in Lesvos, Greece (ancient Methymna, Ottoman Molova) stands across from the Turkish shores, offering vistas of the Aegean to the West and its Asia Minor hinterland to the North and Northeast. Molyvos inherited the ancient and medieval town’s geopolitical and ecclesiastical importance to become under the Ottomans the centre for the homonymous administrative district (kaza). This week's presentation explores the connected history of this Aegean locus by way of a family archive assembled in the first half of the 20th century and spanning over 100 years of history (1830s1940s), on the one hand, and a young man's memoir from the late 19th c., on the other. The presentation traces in this material the links of two Greek families in a multiconfessional world crisscrossed by merchants, German archaeologists and travelwriters, Ottoman administrators and army cadres in order to take a peek into the life of a changing society in the time of nationalism.