The research team of the Centre for Maritime History explores the history of the seas and more specifically focuses on the maritime history of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea from the ancient times to the present day. The Centre for Maritime History provides the resources for the training of young scholars and the production of academic work in the following broader fields: a) economic and social maritime activities (seaborne trade, navigation, ports, shipping businesses, fishing, maritime communities, maritime labour, shipbuilding and maritime technology); b) geopolitics, war and violence at sea (maritime empires, naval forces, piracy); c) scientific activities related to the sea (oceanography, history of navigation); d) leisure and tourism related to the sea, e) maritime literature and arts. The means to promote these activities are through: 1) the location, preservation, classification, processing and divulgation of archival sources related to maritime history, 2) the publication of scholarly works in Greece and abroad, 3) the organization of seminars, conferences and postgraduate studies programs in collaboration with Greek and foreign universities and summer schools. Furthermore, the Centre for Maritime History materializes research projects funded from National and European funds and carries out research in Greek and foreign archives and libraries. The activities of the Centre for Maritime History are supported by the specialized maritime history library and archives of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH.
This project produces new products and services related to the scientific documentation and the promotion of the Greek shipbuilding tradition and the Greek naval history using modern methods of digital recording and visualization and interactive presentation of the exhibits.
The program explores the transition from sail to steam navigation and the effects of this technological innovation on seafaring populations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, between the 1850s and the 1920s, whose lives were drastically changed by the advent of the steam.
Digital Maps
Ship operation services (19th - 20th century)
The purpose of the research project is to create a digitized private Onassis Business Maritime Archive as well as publishing a two-part volume on Onassis Business History, based on the Onassis Archive material.
The Act aims to contribute to the interdisciplinary approach of the Mediterranean cultural landscapes and their change over time.
The history of ports is a rapidly developing field of research that has attracted the interest of many researchers in recent years. Τhe port of Thessaloniki is a fertile and at the same time quite demanding field of research. Port activity has affected essentially the social, economic and spatial process of Thessaloniki over the centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century the city had become one of the most important commercial ports of the Ottoman Empire and later of the Greek state. Our research aims to study the infrastructure modernization of port during the first decades of the 20th century. The remodeling of the port at the beginning of the 20th century transformed its image and structure, reorganized its own space, increased its efficiency, optimized its transport dynamics, gained a new division of labor, and transformed a large part of the natural city environment. Thus, in a sense, the study of the upgrading port infrastructure, based mainly, but not only, on the Historical Archive of Port of Thessaloniki, is an attempt to find out the interaction between technological development, economic growth and the natural environment. Finally, our aim is to make a contribution to the better understanding of the history of the city of Thessaloniki
The Center of Maritime History provides a three-year scholarship for a doctoral dissertation on maritime history, sponsored by the AEGEUS Foundation.
The Maritime History Scholarship 2019-2021 of the Centre of Maritime History of IMS-FORTH won Angelos Drougoutis.
Seafaring Lives Getting on Board
First Workshop of the ERC Starting Grant 2016 project
Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Transport during Globalization, 1850s-1920s, Rethymnon, 6-7 October 2017
The workshop organized by Institute for Mediterranean Studies/Foundation of Research and Technology – Hellas and is included in the international research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 714437). The workshop aimed at enabling the members of the project to introduce themselves, present and discuss a research agenda, questions and some first results of the archival research. The Keynote Lecture was given by Professor Gopalan Balachandran of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva with title: Sailors beyond ships and seas: modern seafarers in history and society”.
«What is Maritime History», Ιnternational Symposium in memoriam Skip Fischer, Rethymnon, 25-26 April 2018
The symposium inaugurated the new Centre of Maritime History of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies and was meant to bring together prominent members of the group of Maritime Historians that have marked the path of Maritime History in the last forty years. The aim was to discuss the main developments of Maritime History in the last twenty years. Professor Lewis R. (Skip) Fischer (1946-2018) was one of the “patriarchs” of Maritime History and paved the way of its organization worldwide since the 1980s. He had looked very much forward to this meeting but unfortunately he passed away on 11 February 2018. We have thus decided to dedicate this First Symposium to him, hoping to continue his work from this part of the world.
The Symposium was funded by “Maria Tsakos” Foundation.
International Conference of the Centre of Maritime History “Visions, Vows and Wonders: Religion and the Sea in the Eastern Mediterranean, 15th-19thcenturies”, 12-13 October 2018 in collaboration with the Southern Connecticut State University, US, where 16 professors from the United States, England, Cyprus, Italy, Turkey and France took part. The conference was financed by the Foundation “AEGEAS” and Grecotel.
The aim of the conference was to discuss the “lived religion” of the relation of man with the sea. In the last fifty years Greek historiography has produced a remarkable array of academic works employing different methodologies and has undertaken various interpretive propositions and methods. Nevertheless, religious history in Greece has remained under the purview of theologians and clerics rather than historians and social scientists. Admittedly, there is a substantial amount of anthropological studies of religion. Still, academic interchange between researchers is not systematic, and the interaction between historical research and theoretical propositions is still at an early stage. As a result, and despite the individual efforts of anthropologists and social historians, Greek academic production has not yet acquired the substantial share that befits it in both Greek and in international circles. One could argue that in Greece we still lack an autonomous field of religious history.
The above considerations have prompted us to undertake the organization of the first International Conference of Religious History in Rethymno, Crete. Our aim is to offer an opportunity for domestic and international researchers to come together and to engage in academic dialog and critical review from a variety of academic fields and/or theoretical approaches. Utilizing the already developed field of maritime history in Greece, we consider the sea a connecting element that allows us to promote research into ‘lived religion’ as it was experienced in and around the Eastern Mediterranean.
The maritime history collection includes:
Collection of digital and printed documents from national and international archives and libraries. The Archival Collection comprises indicatively:
British and French Consular Report Series about the Mediterranean and Black Sea ports, 19th and 20th centuries.
Documents of shipping companies like Stamatios G. Empiricos from Andros belonging to the Kairis Library.
Notarial Series from the town of Galaxidi, in the 19th century.
Specialized Maritime History Library with titles in Greek, English, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French and Russian languages in various topics including trade, shipping, transportation, ship and shipbuilding technology, commercial and shipping businesses, emigration and diaspora, port history, slave trade, environmental history, maritime labour history, naval history, history of the oceans and the seas etc.
