Scientific Convenors

•    Prof. Dr. Nicole Immig, Southeastern European History, University Justus-Liebig, Giessen
•    Dr. Sahin Yaldiz, Research Assistant, University Justus-Liebig, Giessen
 

About

The early 20th century witnessed a period of profound instability in Southeastern Europe, characterized by the dissolution of empires and the surge of potent nationalist ideologies. 

Within this era of significant geopolitical transformation, the 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey, a direct outcome of the Treaty of Lausanne, remains a watershed event that continues to exert a palpable influence on the relationship between the two nations. Not only did the forced displacement of approximately 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks and 500,000 Turkish Muslims from Greek lands, mandated by the Treaty of Lausanne 1923 (Hirschon, 2003), irrevocably change the demographics and economics of both countries. It also played strongly into the formation of collective consciousness and postmigration identities. The role of memory in shaping long-term cultural identities of forced migration (Hirschon, 2016) is crucial, influencing how individuals and communities remember or choose to forget the traumatic experiences. 

While the historical aspects of this compulsory population transfer have received considerable scholarly attention, the intricate dimensions of memory, identity formation, and collective trauma experienced by those displaced and their descendants have often been relegated to the periphery of academic inquiry. This conference aims to investigate the multi-layered ways in which the exchange is remembered, forgotten, and transmitted across generations, focusing on the representation of refugee identity, the complex dy-namics of memory, the diverse forms of commemoration, and the transgenerational transmission of trauma and stigma in post-migration societies as Greece and Turkey.