The Southeast Passage

1. Bulgarian Muslims between Empire and Nation

     With Milena Methodieva hosted by Andreas Guidi and Jovo Miladinovic for a joint release with Ottoman History Podcast   The Aladja Mosque in Plovdiv, early 20th century (Wikimedia Commons) In 1878, following the Congress of Berlin, Bulgaria became a de facto independent principality. Not anymore under Ottoman rule, the Muslims of Bulgaria navigated…

2. A History of Knowledge about the Holocaust in Bulgaria

     With Nadège Ragaru Marco Behar: “Their Last Way” (from the Series “Past”, detail, 1958), Courtesy of the Bulgarian National Gallery, Sofia.   Since the immediate aftermath of the end of World War II, a narrative concerning the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from deportation and genocide has nurtured the self-representation of the governments in…

3. The Armenian Genocide and Property Usurpation in Aintab

   With Ümit Kurt Hosted by Zeynep Ertuğrul and Andreas Guidi   A prominent Armenian family deported and perished in 1915. Source: Mihran Minassian Private Collection.   The Armenian community of Aintab, nowadays Gaziantep, was among the most flourishing of Ottoman Anatolia. The Armenian Genocide not only brought an end to the community’s coexistence with the…

4. #038 – German Resettlers and Jewish Survivors from Bukovina after 1945

   With Gaëlle Fisher At the crossroad of Bukovinans Street and Radauti Street, Stuttgart. Courtesy of Gaelle Fisher.   Before World War II, Bukovina was a region marked by multiconfessional coexistence and ruled by the Habsburg Empire (1774-1918) and then by Romania (1918-1940). Two among Bukovina’s population groups, the “ethnic” Germans and the Askhenazi Jews, left…

5. #037 – Hunger and War during the Italian Occupation of Greece

   with Paolo Fonzi A 1941 cartoon from the newspaper “The Manchester Dispatch”, mocking Mussolini’s dependency on Hitler to defeat Greece   In the spring of 1941, after a brief war ending in an embarrassing retreat for Italy one year earlier, Mussolini’s troops supported by Nazi Germany occupied various regions of Greece. In Fascist Italy’s vision…