The Zamość Academy, Poland, in cooperation with the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic, and the Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Warsaw is organising an international conference Art of the Greek Diaspora :
Zamość, Poland, 9 – 11 May 2024.
In 2024, we will celebrate 535 years since the Greeks settled in Zamość. The planned meeting will be related to creative output of the Greek diaspora throughout Europe. The Fall of Constantinople in particular, triggered a resettlement of the Greeks in many countries and regions outside of Greece proper: Italy, the Balkans, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere. The comprehensive study of this type of artistic activity is rare in the history of art.
We chose the city of Zamość because the local Greek community became one of the most influential within the Greek diaspora throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The City of Zamość, as one of the modern ones, consistently implementing strategic concepts of economic development, was founded by the Chancellor and Grand Hetman of the Crown, Jan Zamoyski, in 1580. Zamość, built on the basis of architectural and urban concepts of the Renaissance architectural theories, was planned and realised by the Italian architect Bernardo Morando. From the very beginning of its functioning, the city became a multi-ethnic and multicultural organism. During that period, Armenians, Greeks, and Italians played the key roles in shaping the economic life of the city.
At the time, consisting mostly of merchant class, the Greeks were the second largest national group after the Armenians. They had received the settlement privilege already in 1589. They were guaranteed all city rights, including access to the city council and offices – more so than in other cities in the Commonwealth.
As Orthodox believers, they had also formed a separate religious community. They obtained a permission to build their own church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, next to the market square. In 1591, just two years after they were granted the privilege of settlement, 12 Greek families lived near the market square, while the total number of Greek merchants and craftsmen may have reached about 100 people. Most of them were located in the western part of the market, next to the Armenian quarter. The Greeks were also associated with the Zamość Academy. Books in Greek were printed in the academic printing house, making it a significant centre of Greek printing in the whole Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Conference language: English, French
Paper submissions should be sent by the end of December 2023 to the following address:
piotr.kondraciuk@akademiazamojska.edu.pl
The conference programme will be announced in the first week of February 2024. We will inform conference participants and visitors on the convenient travel options to Zamość.