The Harokopio University is organizing in collaboration with the University of Macedonia the International Conference “Port cities and maritime routes in Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea (18th – 21st century)”.
The conference will take place on 22-24 November 2018, at the premises of Harokopio University in Athens.
After the successful completion of the International Symposium “Culture and Space in the Balkans 17th – 20th century”, the concept of proceeding a similar scientific meeting concerning culture, ekistics and anthropogeography arised among a group of members of the Organizing Committee of the Symposium that was held in 2014 at the University of Macedonia (organized by the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies).
Within the specified historic timeline (18th – 21st century), three geographic thematic fields are defined: Europe, the Balkans and the “Greek area”, with an increasing importance for the third one.
During the 18th century the geopolitical environment of Eastern Mediterranean is being reconstructed, while Great Britain dominates in colonial maritime commerce with cities of significant importance, such as Alexandria, Antiochia and Constantinople.
In the Balkan Peninsula, due to the competition and the war conflicts among the Great Powers of that period, a series of international treaties is formed (Karlovic (1699), Pasarovic (1718) and Kujuk-Kainartzi (1774)). Those treaties have a positive, neutral, or even negative impact in port cities of Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, with results that are not widely known. At the same time, the large maritime routes (Black Sea, Aegean Sea and Adriatic Sea) become active through transportation of products, but also ideas, with effects on the routes’ endpoints.
The foundation process of the Greek State (1827-1832) and the establishment of Athens (1832) as the capital city, define, on a spatial level, a new model of a neoclassical settlement, with a major impact on the liberated south part of Greece. In what extent, though, did this model affect the insularity space in the port cities’ planning and generally in designing of the human facilities (e.g. residence)?
A number of socio-economic features during the research period, like maritime journeys, routes, ships (technical characteristics) are also areas of interest. Additionally, other Conference thematic fields could include smuggling, cartography, approaching possibilities of the island ports, “parallel” and “transversal” commerce in islands, the relationship with the inland network, ideological and semiotic approaches regarding port cities and maritime routes, ekistics and cultural heritage in those commercial centers, as well as development potentials and land uses of port cities and maritime routes of Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea (18th – 21st century).