Elias Kolovos is Research Director with a specialization in Ottoman History at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, in Athens, Greece. He is the elected Secretary of the Board of the International Association for Ottoman Social and Economic History. In the past, he served as Professor in Ottoman History at the Department of History and Archaeology, Faculty of Letters, University of Crete, serving also as the Director of the M.A. in Ottoman History Programme of the same Department. He has written, edited, and coedited 20 books and over 80 papers in Greek and international publications and journals. His research interests include the Mediterranean economic history, the history of the insular worlds, the history of the frontiers, rural and environmental history, as well as the spatial history and legacies of the Ottoman Empire.
Phone: +30 2107273581
Address: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vas. Constantinou Avenue, 11635 Athens
Phone: +30 2107273581
Address: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vas. Constantinou Avenue, 11635 Athens
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Books by Elias Kolovos
and historians. Beyond the well-known
Weberian thesis concerning the role of Protestantism
in the development of capitalism, monastic
economies are studied to assess their
impact on the religious patterns of economic behavior.
Those issues are discussed in the frame
of key economic concepts such as rationality,
state intervention, networking, agency, and governance.
The book includes essays concerning
Byzantine, Ottoman and modern South-Eastern
Europe, and early modern and modern Western
Europe. Survival and continuity of the monastic
wealth is considered as an example of successful
handling of real estate transactions, flows of
funds, and contacts with financial institutions.
Moreover, the book focuses on the economic impact
of the privileged relations of monasticism
with the secular powers. Finally, the question is
raised how the monastic economy (still) matters
in the contemporary world.
For the study of the economy of the island of Andros, this book uses as analytical tools the concepts of ‘insularity’ and of ‘Mediterranean economy’. Modern historiography understands ‘insularity’ not only as ‘isolation’, but also, in juxtaposition, as an opportunity for ‘connectivity’.In this book, I explore exactly how the economy in the case of the Aegean island of Andros during the seventeenth century had to move beyond self-sufficiency and isolation and secure the commercialization of particular surpluses, in order to survive. This corroborates the view of Horden and Purcell, who describe the fundamental mechanisms of the economies in the Corrupting Sea as a new Mediterranean triad: ‘diversification’ of production, ‘storage’, and ‘redistribution’ (meaning also exchange or circulation), as responses to environmental risk.
Ottoman rural society and economy by earlier Ottomanist historiography. In his classic History of the Ottoman Empire, published in 1973, the doyen of Ottoman studies, Halil İnalcık, described the Ottoman Empire as a ‘peasant empire’. However,
for the Ottomanist historiography of the beginning of the twenty-first century, it looks as though the Ottoman Empire was rather an ‘empire of difference’. This volume follows an initiative aimed at putting the peasants back on the agenda
of Ottoman history. However, we do not seek (how could we?) to reinstate the historiographical status quo ante nor to attack the many achievements of contemporary historiography. Moreover, unlike the earlier approach of some ‘classic’ works on this subject, which focused on the state as a central actor in rural societies, our symposium sought to investigate economic and social relations in the countryside of the Ottoman
Empire not only from the viewpoint of the central administration, but also from that of rural societies. In the present volume, our aim is to highlight themes that are still
today unexplored or deserve revision, and throw light on the diverse trajectories of rural economies and societies in the long history and vast lands of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman sources which have been translated in Greek in this book by Elias Kolovos and Marinos Sariyannis include: tax and poll-tax registers of the province of Hagia Mavra, salary registers for the fortress guards of Hagia Mavra, imperial orders from the registers of the Important Affairs, and judicial and other documents from the sharia court and other authorities of Hagia Mavra, located at the Greek State Archives of Lefkada; finally, the Greek translations include the description of Hagia Mavra and Lefkada by the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi.
Papers by Elias Kolovos
and historians. Beyond the well-known
Weberian thesis concerning the role of Protestantism
in the development of capitalism, monastic
economies are studied to assess their
impact on the religious patterns of economic behavior.
Those issues are discussed in the frame
of key economic concepts such as rationality,
state intervention, networking, agency, and governance.
The book includes essays concerning
Byzantine, Ottoman and modern South-Eastern
Europe, and early modern and modern Western
Europe. Survival and continuity of the monastic
wealth is considered as an example of successful
handling of real estate transactions, flows of
funds, and contacts with financial institutions.
Moreover, the book focuses on the economic impact
of the privileged relations of monasticism
with the secular powers. Finally, the question is
raised how the monastic economy (still) matters
in the contemporary world.
For the study of the economy of the island of Andros, this book uses as analytical tools the concepts of ‘insularity’ and of ‘Mediterranean economy’. Modern historiography understands ‘insularity’ not only as ‘isolation’, but also, in juxtaposition, as an opportunity for ‘connectivity’.In this book, I explore exactly how the economy in the case of the Aegean island of Andros during the seventeenth century had to move beyond self-sufficiency and isolation and secure the commercialization of particular surpluses, in order to survive. This corroborates the view of Horden and Purcell, who describe the fundamental mechanisms of the economies in the Corrupting Sea as a new Mediterranean triad: ‘diversification’ of production, ‘storage’, and ‘redistribution’ (meaning also exchange or circulation), as responses to environmental risk.
Ottoman rural society and economy by earlier Ottomanist historiography. In his classic History of the Ottoman Empire, published in 1973, the doyen of Ottoman studies, Halil İnalcık, described the Ottoman Empire as a ‘peasant empire’. However,
for the Ottomanist historiography of the beginning of the twenty-first century, it looks as though the Ottoman Empire was rather an ‘empire of difference’. This volume follows an initiative aimed at putting the peasants back on the agenda
of Ottoman history. However, we do not seek (how could we?) to reinstate the historiographical status quo ante nor to attack the many achievements of contemporary historiography. Moreover, unlike the earlier approach of some ‘classic’ works on this subject, which focused on the state as a central actor in rural societies, our symposium sought to investigate economic and social relations in the countryside of the Ottoman
Empire not only from the viewpoint of the central administration, but also from that of rural societies. In the present volume, our aim is to highlight themes that are still
today unexplored or deserve revision, and throw light on the diverse trajectories of rural economies and societies in the long history and vast lands of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman sources which have been translated in Greek in this book by Elias Kolovos and Marinos Sariyannis include: tax and poll-tax registers of the province of Hagia Mavra, salary registers for the fortress guards of Hagia Mavra, imperial orders from the registers of the Important Affairs, and judicial and other documents from the sharia court and other authorities of Hagia Mavra, located at the Greek State Archives of Lefkada; finally, the Greek translations include the description of Hagia Mavra and Lefkada by the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi.
Με αφετηρία το 1669, ο ομιλητής μοιράστηκε με το ακροατήριο εικόνες και μαρτυρίες για τη ζωή και τα μνημεία του Χάνδακα σε βάθος χρόνου και μας παρουσίασε επιλεγμένα σημεία από τη σχετική ερευνητική δράση του Ινστιτούτου Μεσογειακών Σπουδών του Ιδρύματος Τεχνολογίας και Έρευνας.
Η ομιλία είχε πλαισιώσει μαζί με άλλες δράσεις της Εταιρίας Κρητικών Ιστορικών Μελετών τη φωτογραφική έκθεση A Balkan Tale / Μια Βαλκανική Ιστορία του Goethe-Institut που παρουσιάστηκε στο Ιστορικό Μουσείο Κρήτης εκείνη τη χρονιά.
Περισσότερα για τη φωτογραφική έκθεση "A Balkan Tale / Μια Βαλκανική Ιστορία": historical-museum.gr/gr/exhibitions/view/a-balkan-tale
Empire to the modern Greek state. The histories and/or ‘stories’ of this shifting urban space are studied in their intersensorial dimension, highlighting the dynamic interplay between materiality and its multifaceted conceptualizations.
The aims of the project is to concentrate on the development of a methodological model for studying the sensory history of Ottoman urban spaces in transition and to explore the contemporary politics of historical memory as articulated in the Greek and European public
sphere, through the opening up of a dialogue with the broader community of professionals and practitioners.
This project brings together methodological tools and analytical concepts from the fields of cultural history, archaeology, urban studies, ethnomusicology and anthropology, a multidisciplinary model that interacts with the current trends in the broader feld of digital
humanities both on a local and international level.
Ce livre n’a pas pour objectif de faire le bilan exhaustif de l’apport de la documentation athonite à l’historiographie de Byzance. Cependant, les contributions ici rassemblées démontrent l’importance capitale des actes conservés à l’Athos pour l’étude de domaines de recherche variés, allant de l’archivistique à la société et à la culture. D’autres articles et éditions d’archives modernes rendent hommage aux savants de diverses nationalités qui, depuis le XIXe siècle, ont contribué de façon remarquable à l’avancée de notre connaissance du corpus documentaire athonite. Une dernière partie du volume est dédiée aux corpus d’actes écrits dans d’autres langues que le grec, qui demeurent aujourd’hui insuffisamment connus et utilisés par la communauté internationale des byzantinistes.
Le colloque « Lire les Archives de l’Athos », organisé par Olivier Delouis, Raúl Estangüi Gómez, Christophe Giros, et Kostis Smyrlis, a bénéficié de l’appui de l’École française d’Athènes et du Musée byzantin et chrétien d’Athènes, qui ont généreusement mis leurs locaux à notre disposition. Le Laboratoire d’excellence « Religions et sociétés dans le monde méditerranéen» (RESMED, Sorbonne Université) a apporté un important concours financier. Par ailleurs, notre manifestation a été honorée de la présence de représentants du Patriarcat œcuménique de Constantinople et de la Sainte Communauté de l’Athos. Que tous soient ici remerciés.
Nous voudrions enfin exprimer notre gratitude à Paule Pagès pour sa contribution décisive à la préparation de ce volume, ainsi qu’à Marek Eby, qui a relu les articles en anglais.
Historical Materialism Book Series, Volume: 319
Volume Editors: Elias Kolovos and Dimitris Kousouris
A part of the insurrectionary wave of the 1820s, the Greek Revolution remains a neglected episode in the revolutionary history of the period. The contributions included in this volume present the most recent research concerning the social, political and cultural history of this major event. Bringing together specialists in social, intellectual and cultural history, the volume adopts a broader temporal and spatial perspective than most existing analyses. Juxtaposing the views from without and within the Ottoman Empire, the authors reconsider the dialectics of social transformation and revolution and overcome simplistic dichotomies between structural continuities and conjectural ruptures, international context and internal conflicts, social and political aspects, and central state and local power-holders, putting the Greek Revolution squarely back on the agenda of Marxist and revolutionary historiography.
Contributors are: Zacharias Antonakis, Dimitris Bacharas, Athanasios Barlagiannis, Simos Bozikis, Aliki Fakoura, Şükrü Ilicak, Elias Kolovos, Phokion Kotzageorgis, Dimitris Kousouris, Dimitris Papastamatiou, Nikos Rotzokos, Mohammet Shariat-Panahi, Panagiotis Stathis, Panagiotis Sotiris, Dionysis Tzakis, and Eleftheria Zei.