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On the occasion of the publication of Venizelos: The Making of a Greek Statesman 1864-1914 (Hurst & Co 2021), and the re-issue of Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919 - 1922 (Hurst & Co new edition 2022)

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This talk coincides with the publication of Michael Llewellyn-Smith's new book Venizelos: The Making of a Greek Statesman 1864-1914 (Hurst & Co 2021), and the reissue of The Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919 - 1922 (Hurst & Co new edition 2022).

Michael Llewellyn-Smith will speak first about Venizelos, referring to the book, and bringing out what there is in his politics and early career of relevance to the war and post-war period, including Asia Minor. He will also speak about the National Schism, how it developed, how it fed into the decisions about and later in Asia Minor.

Signed copies of Venizelos: The Making of a Greek Statesman 1864-1914 will be available for sale at the event for £20. Those attending online can buy the book at a discounted price by following this link: Discount flyer

Michael Llewellyn-Smith was educated at the University of Oxford, where he studied classical languages and literature and philosophy. He obtained a D Phil for his doctoral dissertation which was later published as Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922 (Hurst & Co 1998). From 1970 to 1999 he served in the British Diplomatic Service, in London, Moscow, Paris, Warsaw and Athens, his last two posts being Ambassador to Poland (1991-1996) and Ambassador to Greece (1996-99). He has written books about Crete (The Great Island: a Study of Crete), the 1896 Olympic Games (Olympics in Athens 1896: the Invention of the Modern Olympic Games), and Athens (Athens: a Cultural and Literary History), and is currently working on the life and times of the Greek statesman Eleftherios Venizelos. He has written and lectured widely on Greek historical and cultural topics from the 19th and 20th centuries. Michael Llewellyn-Smith is an Honorary Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, a Vice President of the British School at Athens, a member of the Council of the Anglo-Hellenic League, and a Non-Executive Director of Coca-Cola Hellenic AG, the Hellenic Bottling Company.

Othon Anastasakis is the Director of SEESOX; Senior Research Fellow at St Antony’s College; Associate at the Department of Politics and International Relations; Affiliate of the Centre for International Studies; Affiliate of the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA); former Director of the European Studies Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford (July 2012-October 2015). He teaches “South East European politics and European integration” for the OSGA and “EU politics” for the Department of Continuing Education, Oxford. He is currently the Principal Investigator of two research projects: “Greek Diaspora Project at SEESOX”; and the OX/BER funded “Migration Diplomacy and Turkey-EU relations”. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada; Region Head of Europe in Oxford Analytica. He received his BA in Economics from the University of Athens, his MA in Comparative Politics and International Relations from Columbia University, New York and his PhD in Comparative Government from the London School of Economics. He holds additional degrees in French literature and politics from Paris IV and in Spanish literature, history and history of art from the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo.

Marilena Anastasopoulou is a Research Associate at the Diaspora Project in the South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX), an Onassis Foundation Scholar, a Committee Member in the International Politics of Migration, Refugees, and Diasporas (IPMRD) Working Group at BISA, and a DPhil student in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research focuses on family memories of forced displacement, their intergenerational transmission, and the way people with these family memories think about subsequent migration. She holds a MSc degree in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Athens, from which she graduated as the valedictorian. She has worked as a researcher at the Centre of Asia Minor Studies, at the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), University of Oxford, at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), and at the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has teaching experience in Modern History in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. Her research and publications focus on issues of political discourse, right-wing extremism, migration policy implementation, forced displacement, and diaspora philanthropy.

Helen Katsiadakis worked at the Research Centre for the Study of Modern Greek History of the Academy of Athens from June 1975 until December 2016. She compiled a descriptive list of documents of the correspondence of the Foreign Office with the British Embassy in Constantinople and the British Consular authorities in the Ottoman Empire, which covers the period 1820-1833. The work was completed in 2005 with the publication of the Correspondence between the Foreign Office and the British Embassy and Consulates in the Ottoman Empire 1821-1832 - A Descriptive List. In October 1981 she was appointed researcher at the Research Centre, and from September 2006 she assumed its Direction. She retired in December 2016. Since 2000 she acts as academic adviser of the National Research Foundation Eleftherios K. Venizelos. In this capacity she has overseen several research projects (among others the Cretan Prosopography 1864-1963; and the Digitisation of the Eleftherios Venizelos Papers) and a number of publications. She is currently engaged in two projects: a 19th and 20th century prosopography of the Ionian Islands; and the abolition of slavery during the Greek War of Independence.