The Story Smuggler, or how to narrate the happened and the un-happened

On 8 March 2024, the European Studies Centre, together with South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX), hosted Bulgarian novelist, playwright, and author, Georgi Gospodinov, to discuss three of his works: The Physics of Sorrow (2011), Time Shelter (2020) and The Story Smuggler (2016). The discussion was chaired by Catherine Briddick, Andrew W Mellon Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Refugee Law and fellow of St Antony's College. Paul Betts, Professor of Modern European History and fellow at St Antony’s College, and Marilena Anastasopoulou, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provided commentary on Gospodinov’s works.

Gospodinov started by reading from his two books, The Physics of Sorrow and Time Shelter, and briefly discussed the writing process. The two books deal with markedly different themes. The Physics of Sorrow attempts to capture the nature of the Bulgarian sorrow. Gospodinov describes the Bulgarian sorrow as an experience which combines the sorrow of things that did not happen, or places that Bulgarians could not visit despite the hope or longing for them, and the culture of silence, which he describes as a combination of the culture of fear during Communism and patriarchal culture. According to the author, sorrow is both personal and political, connected with the developments in one’s country.

Building European defence through crises

The European Studies Centre, together with South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX), hosted Marilena Koppa, Professor at Panteion University in Athens, Greece. The seminar was held on 22 February 2024 and was chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies Centre and of SEESOX.

Koppa’s presentation was based on her book The Evolution of the Common Security and Defence Policy: Critical Junctures and the Quest for EU Strategic Autonomy published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022. The research for the book had taken place before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Koppa presented her analysis on the needs and challenges to build European defence by taking into account this latest crisis that the European Union has had to face.

Koppa noted that her time as a member of the European Parliament, when she also held the position of Coordinator of the Socialist and Democrat Group at the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, had prompted her to research European defence policy as an academic. In her presentation she discussed the origins of European defence, its evolution through crises, and its needs for the future.

Koppa argued that the EU’s Common and Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) sought to build European military capabilities that in the long-term would make the Union a global actor, but it did not seek to provide collective defence, which has been a NATO mission. The defence focus of the CSDP would be to prevent crises outside EU borders from reaching the Union.

The invisible minorities of the Balkans: Challenges and prospects

On 22 November 2023, SEESOX hosted a panel discussion on the often-overlooked Alevi and Bektashi communities in Greece and Albania. The event brought together Evangelos Areteos (MOHA Research Center; ELIAMEP; University of Nicosia), Ayse Karahuseyinoglu (Greek Thrace Alevi Committee), Sara Kuehn (University of Vienna) and Giorgos Mavrommatis (Democritus University of Thrace, Greece) to explore questions of recognition, identity, religious practice, and geopolitics affecting these “double minorities” in the Balkans.

 
Recognition and struggle in Greece

The discussion began with the case of the small Alevi-Bektashi community in Thrace, Greece, numbering approximately 3,000–3,500 people across ten villages. Drawing on fieldwork and community engagement, Evangelos Areteos, Ayse Karahuseyinoglu and Giorgos Mavrommatis outlined how the community has maintained its religious traditions despite demographic pressures and labour migration.

A central issue is legal recognition. While the Muslim minority in Thrace is recognised under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Alevis/Bektashis are not recognised as a distinct religious community. In 2018, following internal disputes and external interventions, a representative committee was officially recognised by the Greek state. However, full recognition as a separate religious entity remains an ongoing demand.

The panel highlighted the community’s delicate position between Greek and Turkish national frameworks. Both states have historically sought to shape minority identities, complicating efforts at independent recognition. At the same time, the Thrace community has experienced a religious revival over the past two decades. Regular ritual practice, strong institutional structures (including ocak systems), and traditions such as musahiplik (spiritual brotherhood) remain central to communal life.

Presentations also noted generational differences: for older members, Bektashism is primarily a lived religion; for younger members, it increasingly functions as a cultural identity marker to be preserved.

 
Albania: From persecution to institutional recognition

Sara Kuehn then turned to the Albanian case, which presents a markedly different trajectory. Bektashism was introduced to Albania during the Ottoman period and became deeply embedded in Albanian religious and national life. After the abolition of Sufi orders in Turkey in 1925, the Bektashi headquarters moved to Tirana in 1930, establishing Albania as the global centre of the order.

Under communist rule (1945–1990), religious life was severely suppressed. The Bektashi community, like other religious groups, faced persecution and institutional dismantling. Following the restoration of religious freedom in 1990, the community was rebuilt almost from scratch. Today, Bektashism is officially recognised in Albania as one of the country’s four main religious communities, alongside Sunni Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics.

The Albanian leadership operates within a complex geopolitical landscape. The panel noted visible Iranian and Turkish influences in funding, restoration projects, and symbolic presence. The Bektashi leadership has had to navigate carefully between these external actors while maintaining institutional autonomy.

 
A “double minority” in a transnational context

Giorgos Mavrommatis situated both cases within a broader historical and political framework, emphasising the transition from pre-modern religious orders to modern nation-state structures. Alevis and Bektashis often find themselves as a “double minority”: marginal within Sunni-majority Muslim contexts, yet also minorities within national frameworks shaped by secular or Christian-majority states.

Recent decades, however, have seen increasing transnational mobilisation. Large Alevi diasporas in Western Europe — particularly in Germany — have built strong federations and lobbying networks. These developments are reshaping local dynamics in the Balkans, as communities connect across borders and articulate claims for recognition in new ways.

The discussion concluded by reflecting on how historical legacies, geopolitics, and generational shifts intersect in the ongoing negotiation of minority identity in Southeast Europe. The Greek and Albanian cases demonstrate both the fragility and resilience of heterodox Islamic communities navigating the challenges of recognition in contemporary Europe.

By Julie Adams (ESC Administrator)

Rethinking the Eastern Mediterranean in a volatile world

On 21 November, the European Studies Centre (ESC), in collaboration with the Southeast European Studies Centre at Oxford (SEESOX), held a seminar on the opportunities and challenges of cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

The region has gained increasing importance as the European Union (EU) seeks to meet its energy demands following the near-total ban on the import of Russian gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Simultaneously, the region's instability, coupled with a multitude of global crises—including climate change, trade wars, US-China competition, and inflation—makes the Eastern Mediterranean an integral part of the geopolitical landscape, influencing both regional and global power dynamics.

The seminar, held on 21 November, is part of a broader effort by ESC/SEESOX to address these issues through a special project, which is expected to launch in March 2024. The speakers included Alexander Clarkson (King’s College London), Costandinos Filis (American College of Greece), Manal Shahabi (St. Antony’s College, Oxford), and Galip Dalay (St. Antony’s College, Oxford). ESC Director Othon Anastasakis chaired the seminar.

From securitisation of migration to the dehumanisation of refugees: A threat to liberal democracy

On 31 October 2023, the European Studies Centre (ESC) hosted a seminar on the securitisation of migration and the dehumanisation of refugees, examining their implications for liberal democracy. The seminar was chaired by ESC Director Othon Anastasakis. The speakers were Franck Düvell – Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the Forced Migration and Refugee Research Consortium at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, Osnabrück University – and Başak Kale – Associate Professor at the Middle East Technical University, Türkiye. They were joined by Catherine Briddick – Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Refugee Law and Fellow of St Antony’s College – as discussant.

Franck Düvell addressed the dehumanisation of refugees. His interest in the topic emerged after visits to migration centres in 2013 and subsequent fieldwork in the Greek islands and along the Aegean coast of Türkiye. To understand hostile responses to migration after 2015, he compared the European Union’s reaction to the so-called migration crisis with European responses to the migration of Eastern European Jews in the 1920s.

Heirs of the Greek catastrophe: The social life of Asia Minor refugees in Piraeus

The European Studies Centre (ESC) in collaboration with South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) held a book discussion on the experiences of the Greek population of Asia Minor who settled in Greece after the population exchange agreement through the 1923 Lausanne Convention. Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus, written by Professor Renée Hirschon, was first published in 1989, whilst its third edition was published to commemorate the centenary of the Lausanne Convention.

The discussion was held on 25 October 2023, and it was chaired by Michael Llewellyn Smith, Fellow at St. Antony’s College. Renée Hirschon – Senior Research Fellow at St. Peter’s College, Oxford – presented the third edition of the book, while Robin Cohen – Emeritus Professor at Kellogg College, Oxford – and Başak Kale – Associate Professor at the Middle East Technical Institute – discussed the contributions of the book to the research on the topic and more broadly concerning questions of identity, belonging, nationalism, migration, and memory.

During the presentation of the book, Professor Hirschon provided some historical context to her research approach, discussed the key objective of the research, and presented some of the key themes. She first underlined some changes in the names of the locations where the field work had been conducted due to confidentiality concerns. The reader of the third edition should be aware that in the third edition “Nea Ephsus” is used instead of “Kokkinia” and/or “Nikaia”, while “Yerania” has replaced “Germanika”. The author then underscored that the research she was conducting in the 1970s was not part of what we may call today “refugee studies” or “migration studies”. The field did not exist at the time and in 1972, when Hirschon was conducting the research, the worldwide population of forcibly displaced persons was approximately 3.2 million. The purpose of the research conducted in the 1970s was to understand the interaction between the use of space and cultural values. But given the exponential growth of the worldwide number of forcibly displaced persons, she revisits her work and seeks to determine whether “we can learn something from the experience of people who were forcibly displaced in the early 1920s and whether that experience is relevant for us today”.

The unmixing of peoples

On 10 October, Lea Ypi visited SEESOX to discuss her forthcoming book, Indignity, and share a full chapter from it. The event provided a fascinating glimpse into Ypi’s latest work, which investigates historical injustice, the nature of dignity, and the interplay between truth and imagination.

Ypi began by recounting the inspiration for the book, sparked by the discovery of a 1941 photograph of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Italian Alps—an image posted by a stranger on social media. The photograph, which contradicted the family narrative that all records of her grandmother’s youth had been destroyed during the early days of communism in Albania, raised unsettling questions for Ypi.

In her talk, Ypi described how Indignity explores these questions through a reimagining of the past. The book takes readers into the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy in Salonica, the making of modern Greece and Albania, the horrors of World War II, and the rise of communism in the Balkans. She explained how her investigation drew on secret police archives, court depositions, and family anecdotes, blending fact and fiction to grapple with uncertainty and the fragility of truth.

Ypi also reflected on her grandmother’s enigmatic life. Why did Leman speak French if her family had lived in the Ottoman Empire? What drove her to Tirana, where she met a socialist sympathizer whose father led a collaborationist government? And, perhaps most intriguingly, why was she smiling in that 1941 photograph while the world was at war?