GEORGE SFOUGARAS ARTWORKS

  Divergent Narratives: Greek and Turkish Literary Responses to the 1923 Population Exchange Author : George Sfougaras (An addition to my DYCP experience in 2024-25.) Author ’ s Note: This comparative analysis emerged from my reflections during an Arts Council Funded DYCP (develop Your Creative Practice) residency in Istanbul and the months spent developing a body of work concerned with migration, identity, and memory. I approached the research with the inherited perspective of a Greek family displaced from Asia Minor-an outlook shaped by personal and communal narratives of trauma and loss. However, through conversations, readings, and visual responses, I came to recognise that what I had assumed was a shared historical catastrophe between Greeks and Turks was, in fact, perceived very differently depending on national context. This realisation revealed how historical events are refracted through distinct interpretive frameworks, often challenging assumptions carried by tho...

My father, born in Istanbul 1911. Left in 1922.  Istanbul Greeks in the Novels of Orhan Pamuk: Memory, Erasure, and the Literary Reckoning of a Lost Cosmopolitanism Abstract Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul’s Nobel laureate, has become one of the most prominent literary voices chronicling the city’s transformation from a multicultural metropolis to a largely homogenized, nationalist urban space. Central to this transformation is the fate of Istanbul’s Greek (Rum) community, whose historical presence and subsequent erasure Pamuk explores in several of his major novels. This article synthesizes Pamuk’s literary treatment of Istanbul Greeks, situates it within the context of Turkish history and society, and draws on Turkish media, academic sources, and recent scholarship to provide a comprehensive analysis. Introduction The Greeks of Istanbul, once a vibrant and integral part of the city’s fabric, have all but vanished from its streets, a disappearance that has left a profound mark on ...