Author Archives
Alexander Billinis
Byzantium: Hidden In Plain Sight
Today, when I am writing this, is May 29. For many Greeks and other successors of Byzantium, the date’s significance is self-evident. The seismic event, the final fall of Constantinople to the Turks, on this day…
Bulkes: The “Greek Republic” That “Never Existed”
5/23/2016 — Today, it’s raining here in Chicago, and cold in mid-May. Back in January of 2013, it was just such a cold, rainy day… but elsewhere. At the time, my family still lived in…
The Athenian: Elizabeth Boleman-herring, An American-greek
We met the way most people do these days, digitally, due to common interest in all things Greek. After reading her work, our friendship deepened via online correspondence and her patient mentoring of my midlife…
For A Generation Of Greeks, Is Cyberspace The New “Thalassa”?
My readers will know that I have not been particularly bullish about Greece in the past few years. Who has, really, and in contrast to some, I have not pointed the finger outwards at others,…
Homeland: The Greeks Of Utah
After visiting Greek communities in so many parts of the world, it only makes sense for me to “come home” to my own community. The Greek Community of Utah is both typical of Greek communities…
Coffee talk in Belogiannis
Alexander Billinis seeks out the history behind the Greek settlement of Beloiannisz in Hungary Five minutes off a spanking new autobahn, funded, like those in Greece, by the European Union, I arrive in Beloiannisz, a…
An Encounter with the Greeks of Chile
I spent the summer of 1996 studying and working in Chile, as part of a law school exchange program. As always in my world travels, I sought out the Greek community. I had heard stories…
The Greeks Of Trieste
At the top of the Adriatic Sea, literally hemmed in by the crags of the Alps, which rise, at a clutch-burning grade from its port, lies the city of Trieste, in, but somehow not of,…
To Southern Italy, In Search Of Greeks…
Venice clearly displays its influences from, and on Byzantium, and, as we discussed a couple of months ago, Venice’s processing of generations of Byzantine immigrants set the pattern for the post-Byzantine Diaspora. This pattern repeated…
Book Review: “The Great Fire”, By Lou Ureneck
Smyrna’s (Izmir’s) destruction by fire and sword during the horrible month of September 1922, in the wake of the retreating Greek Army has been the subject of many a book. While many are the heroes…
Another Lesson From 1821
A reflective look at Greece’s 1821 Revolution, its flawed heroes, foreign intervention, and the difficult question of whether independence also brought political evolution.
Greece: Where the Sidewalk Ends …and the IDs Look Fake
No sidewalks and flimsy identification cards may seem like a strange thing to comment on, but I believe they are, rather, symptomatic of a society in need of an overhaul. Nobody in the kaleidoscopic spectrum…
