“Pontus the Opera.” While Pontus is commonly portrayed as an isolated region with its own idiosyncratic culture, this was not always so. In this lecture, Dean Kalimniou will examine how Pontus captured the western imagination and served as the inspiration for the composition of opera and classical music. In this was the stereotype of Pontus as the other is both augmented and confounded leading to a discussion about externally and internally imposed Orientalism and how this affects identity formation.
Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day
May 19 marks the official Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day, commemorating the tragic events of the systematic persecution and mass killing of Greeks residing along the Black Sea coast during World War I and the subsequent Greco-Turkish War. Recognized by the Greek state in 1994, this genocide signifies the Ottoman Turks’ ruthless campaign to eradicate or forcibly remove the indigenous Christian communities of Anatolia, among them the Pontic Greeks.
About Dean Kalimniou
Dean Kalimniou is a lawyer, poet and short story writer within the Greek community. He has published seven poetry collections in Greek and translated the works of many local Greek authors into English. He has also published translations of Papadiamantis’ short stories in the critical anthology “The Boundless Garden. Selected Short Stories.” Recently he released his first bilingual children’s book. “Simela and the Magic Kemenche”, is this is to be followed by another one in 2024, ‘The Librarian from Cappadocia’.
