3rd Meeting: The Cretan Connection "When Villains Write their History: Political Banditry in the Balkans and Asia Minor through Ego-documents"
This research project proposes to study political banditry via ego-documents produced by gang leaders or bandits, in an Ottoman and post-Ottoman regional framework including the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Caucasus, and concerning political banditry from the 1890s to the early 1920s. The project challenges the view that these texts are of a lesser value due to their subjective character. On the contrary, it postulates that the very nature of the ego-document allows for a heuristic interrogation of political banditry. The project will bring together scholars from the region in an international team. These researchers will present ego-documents written in different languages, having previously studied them according to a common grid of questions.