Turkish academic Dr Gönül Bozoğlu, a lecturer at Newcastle University is documenting the stories of minority communities in Turkey – in particular the Greek community. Most recently, her documentary, Life After Life: Greeks of Istanbul, that she made with Cem Hakverdi will be screened by the Imvrian Society of Melbourne on 9 July.

While the documentary looks at the ageing and dwindling Greek community of Constantinople, her Newcastle University website Mapping Memory states that the site: “explores the place memories of the historic Greek-Istanbuli populations in two cities: Istanbul and Athens.”

The website includes stories, sites sounds images and objects that offer – the Constantinopolitan community’s perspective of the city.

“I try to describe the sensory aspect of memory. Memories are a bit messy because they are made up of different senses. I try to understand the memory worlds of this community. It is not all super-ordered the way history is normally presented. I try to go beyond conventional official heritage,” Dr Bozoğlu told Neos Kosmos. “You cannot ignore the Greeks, Armenians and Jews in the city.”

The official Turkish history of Istanbul is encapsulated in the Panorama 1453 History Museum which focuses on the Ottoman conquest of the city but for Bozoğlu there were many more layers to the stories of the great city.

“I wanted to see beyond that to look to the Rum (Greek) community’s links to this history.

“The main view of the city is always the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi and Hagia Sophia but there is not just a Byzantine heritage to consider but also the centuries after the conquest of the city when historic Greek buildings were still being built,” Bozoğlu told Neos Kosmos from Samos where she was preparing for another project that draws on the links of the Greek communities in Turkey and in Greece.

“What struck me about those (Greek) buildings (schools and churches) that they have big walls around them. I wanted to see why. One day I went with a friend to St George’s Church (the cathedral and principle Greek Orthodox Church and centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate). People were very welcoming and the bell ringer Dimitris from Imvros took us on a tour of the church.

“This good memory had an impact on me and prompted me to engage more.”

Dr Bozoğlu had always been interested in the Greek communities in Turkey. She grew up in Izmir (Smyrna) and has long been conscious and curious about the Greek communities who left a century ago. Some buildings remain unoccupied but there is no other trace of the Greek community in the city.

“What happened 100 years ago was a disaster for everyone. It was a loss for us, we lost the richness of Anatolia. I know how Anatolia suffered from losing these communities and it worries me that Greek community is dwindling in Istanbul. This is why I want to do this work and I wish I had more time to see and record all the communities in the city.”

Her interest in the Greek history grew in the early 2000s she went to study art history and archaeology at the Mimar Sinan University where she obtained an MPhil on Ottoman art. She worked in museums in the UK and on archaeological excavations in the Middle East.

She then returned to study for a doctorate at Humboldt University in Berlin on Turkish historical museums and memory cultures. This became her first book: Museums, Emotion and Memory Culture: the politics of the past in Turkey. She is now working on her second book: Worlds of Memory and Sensory Heritage: Living with the Past in the Greek Communities of Istanbul.

She is working on another film project with Greek colleague Dr Evripidis Karidis, a lecturer in film at Newcastle University.

A scene from the documentary Life After Life: Greeks of Istanbul. Dr Gönül Bozoğlu is on the left. Photo: Supplied/Dr Gönül Bozoğlu

“The project involves the communities of Makri (now Fethiye) a coastal town on the coast opposite Rhodes and Nea Marki which was established in Attica near Marathon. She had just come from Nea Makri and was planning to continue the project in August in Makri. The film will be in Greek with Turkish sub-titles.

“I visit Greece more than Turkey for my work and it does not feel that I am in a foreign country. I feel very comfortable here. There are things we have in common and there are differences too, but you also see differences within Greece itself,” Dr Bozoğlu said.

“There are similarities particularly in the rural areas and I see it in the types of bureaucracy. My Greek friends say they do not see me as a foreigner. Greek people are always interested that I am from Turkey. There is a curiosity about Asia Minor. In northern Greece, people speak Turkish words to me remembered from their grandparents.

She said there are growing links between Greek and Turkish academics adding that she personally knew of two Greek students who were learning Turkish in order to understand the Ottoman era of Greek history and to go to Turkey for research purposes.

For academics there is also the untapped Ottoman archives relating to Greece that would shed much light on current research.

What: Imvrians Society of Melbourne Inc will screen Life After Life: Greeks of Istanbul, a documentary on the Greek community of Istanbul by Cem Hakverdi and Dr Gönül Bozoğlu. The film, which is in Turkish with English sub-titles, will be followed by a Zoom Q&A session with Dr Bozoglu who is based at Newcastle University in Britain.

Where: Shirley Burke Theatre, 62-64 Parkers Road, Parkdale

When: 7pm, Saturday 9 July

Cost: $25. Tickets are available via the Kingston Arts website: www.kingstonarts.com.au

Check out Dr Gönül Bozoğlu’s Memory Map website.

Watch the film trailer for Life After Life: Greeks of Istanbul below: