Merchants, Jews, Greeks: Jewish identities from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state, 1876-1922

In person lecture at UCL  by Dr Paris Chronakis, Lecturer in Modern Greek History, Centre for Greek Diaspora Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London

How did the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigate the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century? In this talk, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst rising ethnic tensions and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek. Salonica’s merchants were present in their own—and their city’s—remaking.

Paris Papamichos Chronakis is Lecturer in Modern Greek History at Royal Holloway University of London. His research explores the entangled histories and divided memories of Jews and Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean from the late Ottoman Empire to the Holocaust. His first book, The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule, was published by Stanford University Press in October 2024 winning that year’s National Jewish Book Awards – JDC-Herbert Katzki Award (Writing Based on Archival Material).