Research groups

Research groups Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH

Group members of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH

Dr. Apostolos Delis (Principal Investigator)

apostolosdelis@ims.forth.gr

Apostolos Delis (Volos, 1971) studied Ancient History in the Universities of Siena and Bologna and Maritime Archaeology and History in the University of Bristol.

He completed his PhD thesis in 2010 in the Ionian University with subject: “Hermoupolis (Syros): the shipbuilding centre of the sailing merchant marine, 1830-80”. During the academic year 2010-11 worked as a post doc researcher in the Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine (CMMC) of University of Nice in the program ANR/NAVIGOCORPUS: Corpus des itinéraires des navires de commerce, XVIIe-XIXe siècles. Since 2012 worked as a researcher in the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/ FORTH in two research projects: 1) “ELISTOKAINO”: the History of Innovation in Greece, 19th-20th centuries with subject: Innovation in the Greek and Mediterranean Shipbuilding Technology, 19th-20th centuries and 2) “Thalis”: The Black Sea and its port-cities, 1774-1914. Development, convergence and linkages with the global economy, (http://blacksea.gr/) with subject: The port of Marseille and the Black Sea trade in the nineteenth century. His research interests lie in the maritime economic and social history, the history of technology of the sailing ship, the shipbuilding industry, port history and the institutions of shipping business. He is author of a monograph entitled Mediterranean Wooden Shipbuilding. Economy, Technology and Institutions in Syros in the Nineteenth Century, Leiden, BRILL, (2015), whereas he has published in Greek and international journals and collective volumes such as European Review of Economic History, Urban History, International Journal of Maritime History, History of Technology. He is the Principal Investigator in the project, responsible for the coordination of the research groups and the supervision of the work and its outcome. His specific research agenda in the SeaLiT is the study of the transition from sail to steam and tis effects in the island of Andros, Cyclades, Greece.

Dr. Anna Sydorenko (Post Doctoral Researcher)

sydann12@gmail.com

Anna Sydorenko studied Political Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She completed her Ph.D thesis at the Ionian University entitled: “The economic development of the Crimean port-cities, second half of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. Evpatoria, Sevastopol, Theodosia”.

She has received a three-year scholarship 2013-2015 in the research project: THALIS, "The Black Sea and its port-cities, 1774-1914. A development, convergence and linkages with the global economy", (http://blacksea.gr/), financed by the Greek National Strategic Reference Framework, the E.U. and the Greek Ministry of Education. From 2008 till 2010, she participated in the research project “Economic and Social Development of the Azov Port-Cities and the Greeks in the Long 19th century” under the supervision of Professor Gelina Harlaftis and Research Director of the Institute for Historical Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation Evridiki Sifneos. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the project “Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s" with the acronym SeaLiT, (European Research Council Starting Grant 2016, with project coordinator Apostolos Delis), in the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (FORTH). Her research interests lie in the maritime economic and social history, port history and the Greek diaspora. In the SeaLiT project she is studying "Maritime Odessa" during the transitional period from sail to steam. The study examines how this process affected the port infrastructure, economic growth and the seafaring population of the city along with the maritime policy of the Russian Empire. She is also working on development of passenger shipping in the Black Sea by the Russian Steam Navigation and Trade Company.

Dr. Katerina Galani (Post Doctoral Researcher)

galanikat@gmail.com

Katerina Galani studied history and archaeology at the University of Athens. She continued her postgraduate studies in Economic and Social History (M.Sc) at the University of Oxford, Wolfson College. In Oxford, she also completed her doctoral thesis on British Shipping during the Napoleonic Wars which was awarded the Frank Broeze Prize by the International Maritime Economic History Association in 2012.

Currently, she is an Adjunct Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the Ionian University and the Hellenic Open University. Her research interests involve trade, shipping and banking in the Mediterranean and Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. She has participated in research projects on maritime, financial and economic history and she has several publications in peer-reviewed journals and collective volumes. Her first monograph, British Shipping in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars; The untold Story of a Successful Adaptation was published by Brill in 2017. In SeaLiT Katerina Galani focuses on Greek maritime communities, based on notarial achives, account books, logbooks, ships registers etc. She aims to trace the impact of technological innovation on local networks, business patterns and social hierarchies. Currently she probes the archives of an antiparadigm, the historical maritime community of Galaxidi which thrived in the sailing era but failed to make the transition to steam.

Dr. Matteo Barbano (Post Doctoral Researcher)

mattebarb@gmail.com

Matteo Barbano (Genoa, 1986) studied Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Genoa. Since 2012 he has been a member of Laboratorio di Storia Marittima e Navale (NavLab), coordinated by Prof. Luca Lo Basso. In 2016 he completed his PhD thesis at the Department of History, Philosophy and Antiquities (DAFIST), Genoa University, with the title: “Within the Straits: the English, Tangier and Barbary (1661-1684)”.

Currently he is a post-doc researcher engaged in the project “Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s" (SeaLit) coordinated by Dr. Apostolos Delis. In this context, his studies are focused on maritime labour in the Adriatic sea, and in particular on the activity of the Austrian Lloyd from its foundation till the end of the Long Nineteeth Century.

Selected publications

“A lucrative, dangerous business: le consulat anglais à Alger, Tunis et Tripoli dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIe siècle”, in A. Bartolomei, G. Calafat, J. Ülbert and M. Grenet (ed.), De l’utilité commerciale des consuls. L’institution consulaire et les marchands dans le monde méditerranéen (xviixx siècle), Madrid Rome, 2017, pp. 253263

“Most thought the City in no security but under Lock and Key: Tangeri, gli inglesi e la frontiera (16621684)”, in A. Gallia, L. Pinzarrone, G. Scaglione (ed.), Isole e frontiere nel Mediterraneo moderno e contemporaneo, Palermo, 2017, pp. 3547

“La presa della Margareta (1665): la colonia inglese di Tangeri tra corsa, politica e diplomazia”, in M. Barbano, A. Castagnino ed E. Locci (ed.), Attraverso la Storia Percorsi mediterranei, Noventa Padovana, 2016, pp. 5071

Dr. Erica Mezzoli (Post Doctoral Researcher)

erica.mezzoli@gmail.com

Ph.D. in History of Eastern Europe at Università degli Studi di Trieste (2011). Currently she is a post-doc researcher in the framework of the project ERC STG 2016 SeaLit with a research on maritime education in the Eastern Adriatic from the second half of Nineteenth Century to World War I. Her research interests focus on economic and social history. Particularly her work is focused on the economic characteristics of groups and networks, labor history and financial strategies in Eastern Europe from Early modern to Modern Times.

Publications (selected)

- “La guerra degli altri. La (stra)ordinaria vicenda di un gruppo di mercanti ottomani tra politica, diplomazia e commercio al tempo dell’Armada spagnola in Adriatico (1617-1621)”, in Nuova Rivista Storica, XCVIII-1 (2014), pp. 57-73.

“Information Networks between the Republic of Ragusa and the Pashadom of Bosnia during the War of Candia (1645 – 1669)”, in Études balkaniques (Sofia), L-3 (2014), pp. 59-81.

“Grecia e Bulgaria: due percorsi dell’irredentismo armato (1908-1920)”, in F. Todero (ed) “L’irredentismo armato: gli irredentismi europei davanti alla guerra”, vol. II (Trieste: Istituto regionale per la storia del movimento di Liberazione nel Friuli Venezia Giulia), 2015, pp. 351-378.

“In debito verso una città. Finanza straordinaria nella Trieste del 1914”, in M. Ermacora (ed.) “Neutralità e guerra. Friuli e Litorale austriaco nella crisi del 1914-1915” (Ronchi dei Legionari: Consorzio Culturale del Monfalconese), 2015, pp. 87-98.

Popi Vasilaki (PhD Student)

kk.vasilaki@gmail.com

Popi Vasilaki is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Crete and a Ph.D Fellow of the ERC STG 2016, SeaLiT project in the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (IMS/FORTH), since July 2017.

Her research focuses on the study of the maritime communities in French Mediterranean, in particular in the ports of La Ciotat and Cassis, from 1850 to 1920.

She holds a Master’s degree in History (School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences/Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2012), and a Bachelor degree in History and Archeology (University of Crete, 2010).

Petros Kastrinakis (PhD Student)

petroskastrinakiss4@hotmail.com

Petros Kastrinakis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete in co-supervision with the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS/F.O.R.T.H.) in Rethymnon.

He is a Ph.D. Fellow since November 2018 in the ERC STG 2016 project SeaLiΤ hosted by the Institute for Mediterranean Studies.

He holds a Bachelor degree in History from the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete (2014) and a Master’s degree with distinction in Ottoman History from the Master Program in Turkish Studies of the Department of History and Archaeology in collaboration with the IMS/FORTH (2018).

His main field of research is the ottoman, urban and maritime history specializing in late Ottoman Crete and the subject of his Ph.D. is the study of “The port of Ottoman Chania (ott. Hanya) during the nineeenth century”.

Alkiviadis Kapokakis (PhD Student)

alkiz92@hotmail.gr

Alkiviadis Kapokakis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Crete in co-supervision with the Institute for the Mediterranean Studies (IMS/F.O.R.T.H.) in Rethymnon. He is a Ph.D. Fellow since June 2019 in the ERC STG 2016 project SeaLiΤ hosted by the Institute for Mediterranean Studies.

He holds a master's degree in Μodern and Contemporary History (Post Graduate Program of Contemporary European and Greek History of University of Department of History and Archaeology, School of Philosophy of University of Crete). The subject of his master thesis concerned the island of Hydra and their relations with the Ottoman state, and examines the impact of state policies on the fleet and the community of Hydra.

Within SeaLit project, he focuses on labor relations on the board and the state policies regarding maritime labor in Greece, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Also, his interests concern the operation of the Seafarer’ s Pension Fund (1861), the first insurance state institution for employees in Greece.

His main research interests focus on the study of societies that have developed maritime and commercial activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, in particular in labor relations and the role of the state.

Thomas Kalesios (Research Assistant)

kalesios@yahoo.gr

Thomas Kalesios is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History and Archaeology of University of Crete.

He holds a first class honors BA in History from the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete.

He also holds an MA with distinction in Modern and Contemporary History (Post Graduate Program of Contemporary European and Greek History of University of Department of History and Archaeology, School of Philosophy of University of Crete).

His MA dissertation entitled: “Elective affinities of politics and press in post-civil war Greece (1950-1955): The foundation and the role of the Union of Daily Press Owners of Athens and the case study of the newspaper Vima”, won the Menelaos Parlamas Prize for the best MA dissertation of the School of Philosophy of University of Crete.

The subject of his PhD research is the study of the “Dockworkers of Piraeus, 1880-1940. The making and the function of an occupational group. Its corporal and trade union organization, political action and daily life.”.

He had also been a member of archival classification teams in several archives of Greece and worked as research assistant in different projects. Now he works as assistant researcher in ERC STG 2016, SeaLiT project in the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (IMS/FORTH) since March 2018. He works on the process of data from logbooks of Greek-owned sailing ships and steamships of the late 19^th to early 20^th centuries.

Nikos Kastrinakis (Research Assistant)

iap1116@ia.uoc.gr

Nikos Kastrinakis holds a first class honors BA in History from the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete (2018).

From 2019, he is an MA student in Modern and Contemporary History (Post Graduate Program of Contemporary European and Greek History of the Department of History and Archaeology, School of Philosophy, University of Crete). He had been a member of archival classification teams of the same university and now works as research assistant in the ERC STG 2016, project SeaLiT in the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (IMS/FORTH). He works on data processing of sources of the nineteenth century from the port of La Ciotat, France.