
Vasileios (Vasili) Gounaris
Visiting Fellow, Spring 2024
- AffiliationAristotle University of ThessalonikiResearch Project:Ardent Patriots and Cosmopolitan Gentlemen: Royals Fit for any Nation in Greece and the Balkans (19th & 20th Centuries)
Vasilis Gounaris (Basil C. Gounaris) is Professor of Modern History at the Dept. of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). He holds a BA in History and an MA in Modern and Medieval I History from AUTH and a DPhil from Oxford University (St Antony’s College) in Modern History. From 1990 to 2001 he was the Director of the Centre for Macedonian History & Documentation in Thessaloniki. He taught Social and Economic History at the Department for Balkan Studies, University of Western Macedonia (2000-5), he was Visiting Professor at King’s College, London (2009-10) and Senior Visiting Scholar at the Onassis Foundation USA (2013). He also served as the Dean of Humanities and member of the Governing Board at the International Hellenic University (Thessaloniki), as full member and as Deputy Chair of the Sectorial Scientific Council (Arts and Humanities) of the National Council for Research and Innovation and as member of the Advisory Committee of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation. He has been member of the editorial board of the Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and Südost-Forschungen, national representative and elected board vice-chair of the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe (Council of Europe). Two of his monographs have been awarded by the Academy of Athens. In 2019 he won an award of excellence for his contribution to the study of Humanities by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
About the Research Project
Ardent Patriots and Cosmopolitan Gentlemen: Royals Fit for any Nation in Greece and the Balkans (19th & 20th Centuries)
This book-track project delves into a comparative exploration of Greek and Balkan royals, focusing particularly on questioning the role of royals within the context of national identity building. In the backdrop of 19th and 20th-century ethnic nationalism, most monarchs, along with their queens and families, originating from non-Orthodox European royal houses, were perceived as outsiders by the Greek and other Balkan nations. Despite their strong, familial ties to the European royal “cousinade” and their own liberal convictions regarding religion, ethnicity, and constitutionalism, they were obligated by training and profession to assimilate with the local culture and integrate with the character and aspirations of their new nations. My research, based on published royal correspondence, memoirs, diaries, authorized biographies, and archival sources preserved at Firestone Library, has revealed how kings, queens, and primarily princesses articulated their identities and navigated their personal transformation processes while shaping their public image as symbols in an era characterized by both nationalism and cosmopolitanism. One could argue that due to their upbringing, maintaining a royal identity in a European style, which demanded calculated splendor and a certain distance from their subjects, on one hand, and full integration in terms of mentality on the other, presented a formidable challenge. In the Balkan milieu a royal nation was, perhaps, a contradiction in terms.
