CV of H. Millas (2019.6)

     Hercules (Iraklis/Herkül) Millas was born (1940) and brought up in Turkey and presently lives in Greece. He has a Ph.D. degree in political science (Ankara University, 1998) and a B.Sc. in civil engineering (Robert College, Istanbul, 1965). He speaks Greek, Turkish and English and has a working knowledge in French. In his youth he was a champion in 100/200 meters dash and a member of the Turkish varsity team. In 2016 he was champion in 100 meters and in 2019 high jump in Greece in the Veterans’ competition. He is married, he has two sons and four grandchildren.

     In the years 1968-1985 he worked as a civil engineer in Turkey, Greece, Bahrain, Qatar, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where he held various managerial positions and established his own consulting and soil investigation company. Since 1985 he has focused on cultural activities. He published various books and articles, mostly on interethnic perceptions, and completed his education in political science.

     During the period of 1990-1995 he contributed in establishing the Greek literature department at Ankara University teaching Greek language, literature and history. Later he taught Turkish language and literature at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, at the Aegean University in Rhodes Greece (in 1999-2003) and Turkish literature and Turkish political thought at the University of Athens (2003-2008). In 2009-2010 he taught Greek-Turkish relations with respect to literary criticism and conflict resolution at the Işık and Bilgi Universities in Istanbul.

     He operated as moderator in the Turkish-Greek Civic Dialogue Project supported by the European Commission (2002-2004). He participated as organizer in teaching of Turkish to the Greek teachers of Turkish speaking minority children in Western Thrace (Greece) in a EU sponsored program for the period of 2006-2012. The number of teachers varied from between 350 and 650. Together with Nefin Dinç he prepared a documentary, The Other Town, on how Greeks and Turks perceive each other (2011).  

     He participated in various international conferences and meetings related to the above topics in Greece, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, England, USA, Croatia, France, Sweden, Hungary, Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Spain and Cyprus. He published various articles on Greek-Turkish relations in various Greek and Turkish journals and newspapers (such as To Vima, Avgi, Ta Nea, Toplumsal Tarih, Athens Review of Books, etc). He published his weekly articles in Zaman (Istanbul) and monthly in Today’s Zaman, Agos (Istanbul) and Azınlıkça (Western Thrace) during the period of 2002-2016.

     He received the ‘Abdi Ipekçi Peace Award’ twice, first in 1992, and again jointly with the Greek-Turkish Forum in 2001, the ‘Dido Sotiriou’ award of the Hellenic Authors’ Society in 2004 and the award Free Thinking and Expression of Publishers’ Association of Turkey in 2005. The documentary The Other Town won the following awards: The spectators award in the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2011; special award of the Turkish Film Festival in Boston in 2012; the Best Historical Documentary in Greek Film Fest in Chicago in 2012.

Publications: He has various publications covering various fields such as literature, language, historiography, textbooks, political science and interethnic perceptions, mostly related to Turkey and Greek-Turkish relations.

A) He translated more than twenty books, mostly Greek and Turkish poetry and published more than thirty articles on literature. Among his translations are the complete works of G. Seferis and K. Kavafis and two books on Turkish poetry: Yunus Emre and Can Yücel. He participated in the preparation of a voluminous Greek-Turkish dictionary (1994), he directed the publication of a Turkish textbook for Western Thrace, Türkçe Kitabımız, (2008) and a Catalogue of Common Greek-Turkish words, expressions and proverbs (2008/2012).

B) He published various books on the historic dimension of Greek-Turkish relations in Turkish, Greek and English. His Master’s degree is on 19th century Greek history and the related Turkish historiography and his Ph.D. thesis is on national images, national identities and the ‘other’ as presented in Turkish and Greek literature, both published in Turkish. Some of his books are:

The Images of Greeks and Turks; Textbooks, Historiography, Literature and National Stereotypes (in Greek), 2001;

Do’s and Don’ts for Better Greek-Turkish Relations (in English, Greek and Turkish) 2002;

Geçmişten Bugüne Yunanlılar (The Greeks From the Past to Present), 2003.

The Imagined ‘Other’ as National Identity – Greeks & Turks, 2004;

Modern Greek Literature (in Turkish), 2005;

The ‘Other’ and Identity in Turkish and Greek Novels (in Turkish), 2005;

Catalog of Common Greek and Turkish words, expressions and proverbs (in Greek, 2008; in Turkish, 2012).

Türkçe Kitabımız (Textbook for the Minority of Western Thrace, edit.) – 2008;

Zamandan Bir Ses (a collection of articles in Turkish) 2009.

Sözde Masum Milliyetçilik (The So Called Innocent Nationalism), edit., 2010.

Nations and Identities – The Case of Greeks and Turks, Istanbul: Bilgi University, 2016.

Ο Οικογενειακός Τάφος [The Family Grave], Athens: Gavriilidis, 2018.

H ‘Νέα Τουρκία’ εκ των έσω [New Turkey from Inside] (edit.), Athens: Sideris, 2019.

O ‘Αθώος’ Εθνικισμός [The ‘Innocent’ Nationalism], Athens: Alexandria, 2019.

O Ευάγγελος Τσοτσόλης, (edit), Athens: Tsoukatou, 2019.

Ανήκομεν εις την Ανατολήν, 89% [We belong to the East, 89%], Athens: Sideris, 2019. (forthcoming)

C) He published approximately thirty articles in various academic books/journals in Greece, Turkey, England, France and Germany on schoolbooks, interethnic perceptions and national images in literary texts and on Greek-Turkish relations. Some of his articles in English (two in French) are the following:

“History Textbooks in Greece and Turkey”, London: in History Workshop, Spring 1991 (No. 31).

“The Image of Greeks in Turkish Literature: Fiction and Memoirs”, in Oil on Fire?, Studien zur Internationalen Schulbuchforschung, Schriftenreihe des Georg-Eckert-Instituts, Hanover: Verlag Hansche Buchhandlung, 1996

“Les Romans, Les Femmes et Les Relations Gréco-Turques”, in Nancy: Genese/Oluşum, August 1999 (No. 60-61).

“Non-Muslim Minorities in the Historiography of Republican Turkey: The Greek Case”, in The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography, Edit. by Fikret Adanır and Suraiya Faroqhi, Leiden: Brill, 2002.

“The Exchange of Populations in Turkish Literature: The Undertone of Texts”, in Crossing the Aegean, An Appraisal on the 1923 Compulsory Populations Exchange Between Greece and Turkey, Edit. Renee Hirschon, New York & Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2003.

“National Perception of the Other and the Persistence of Some Images” in Turkish-Greek Relations, The Security Dilemma in the Aegean, Edit. M. Aydin & K. Ifandis, London & New York, Routledge, 2004.

“The Mystery of Affectionate Chat Between Turks and Greeks” in Voices for the Future, Civil Dialogue Betw   oirs, f, k Relations, The Security Dilemma in the Aegeanulations een Turks and Greeks, Edit. T. U. Belge, Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2004.

“The Other and Nation-building – The Testimony of Greek and Turkish Novels”, in Representations of the Other/s in the Mediterranean World and their Impact on the Region, Edit. N. K. Burçoğlu / S. G. Miller, İstanbul, The Isis Pres, 2004.

“Tourkokratia: History and the Image of Turks in Greek Literature” in South European Society and Politics, Routledge, Volume 11, Number 1, March 2006.

“The Image of the Greek minority of Istanbul in Turkish literature: past and recent tendencies”, in Intercultural Aspects in and around Turkish Literature, Edit. Matthias Kappler, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2006.

“Reciprocity in National Paradigm” in Reciprocity; Greek and Turkish Minorities, Law, Religion and Politics, Edit. by Samim Akgönül, Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 2008.

“Ethnic Identity and Nation Building, On the Byzantine and Ottoman Historical Legacies”, in Europe and the Historical Legacies in the Balkans, Edit. R. Detrez & B. Segaert, Bruxelles: PIE Peter Lang, 2008.

-“Perceptions of a conflict: Greeks and Turks in each other’s mirrors” in In The Long Shadow of Europe, Greeks and Turks in the Era of Postnationalism, Edit. O. Anastasakis, K. Nicolaidis & K. Öktem, Leiden & Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009.

“History writing among Greeks and Turks: Imagining the Self and the Other”, in The Contested Nation, Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, Edit. by Stefan Berger & Chris Lorenz, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

“L’imaje du Grec d’Istanbul dans la littérature turque” in Le Lien/Desmos, Paris, 2012.

“Rethinking Greek-Turkish Relations: Conversations with the Greek and Turkish University Students” in When Greeks and Turks Meet, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Relationship Since 1923, Edit: Vally Lytra, Ashgate, 2014.

- ‘New-Ottomanism, a Book and Bilateral Perceptions’, in Rethinking Greek-Turkish Relations Since 1999, Edit. Gökçe Bayındır Goularas & Hakan Sezgin Erkan, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2017.

- “History for Nation-Building: The Case of Greece and Turkey”, in Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education, Edit. M. Carretero, St. Berger, M. Grever, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

- ‘Turkishness and the novel’ in Joep Leerssen (Edit.) Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, vol. 2, Amsterdam University Press, 2018.

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