32nd Annual Runciman Lecture: Prof Ioannis D. Stefanidis

Preceded by Orthodox Vespers at the King’s Chapel starting at 17:15.

After an introduction to the diplomatic and military background to this unlikely operation, which arguably paved the way to the dispatch of Greek troops to Smyrna, in May 1919, the aim of the lecture is to focus on the experience of the Greek army in the rather inhospitable and alien terrain of southern Ukraine in the late winter and early spring of 1919.

The speakers

Ioannis D. Stefanidis, Professor in Diplomatic History, Department of International Studies, School of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholar (1988-9), Fulbright scholar (1995), visiting Lecturer, Institute for European Studies, Hebrew University (2003-4), ‘Stanley J. Seeger’ visiting fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University (2004), visiting Associate Professor, University of Cyprus (2006-7); Senior Visiting Scholar, University Seminars Program, Onassis Foundation, USA (2015). His publications include: Isle of Discord: Nationalism, Imperialism and the Making of the Cyprus Question (London and New York, 1999); Stirring the Greek Nation: Political Culture, Irredentism and Anti-Americanism in Post-War Greece, 1945-67 (Aldershot, 2007); Substitute for Power: British Propaganda to the Balkans, 1939-1944 (Aldershot, 2012), ‘America’s Projection and Democracy Promotion: The ‘Voice of America’, Greece under the Colonels and Ceauşescu’s Romania’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 32/33 (2016/17), University of Minnesota, 167-237. His last monograph, on a non-communist resistance organisation, EKKA, and its doomed attempt to wage non-partisan armed resistance in Axis-occupied Greece, is due to appear in autumn 2022.

Professor Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith (former HM Ambassador to Greece) will introduce the speaker.

Professor Georgios Varouxakis (Professor of the History of Political Thought, Queen Mary University of London) will give the vote of thanks.