Andreas Guidi is Associate Professor of History at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris. Before joining INALCO, he obtained his doctorate in 2018 at the Humboldt University Berlin and the EHESS Paris. He was then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz (2019-2022) and a visiting scholar at the German Historical Institute in Washington DC (2021-2022). His research focuses on the history of the modern Mediterranean and the history of the Balkans, in particular the history of imperialism, colonialism and fascism, as well as the history of youth and generations. He explored these fields through a study of Rhodes in his first book: Generations of Empire: Youth from Ottoman to Italian Rule in the Mediterranean (University of Toronto Press, 2022). He has also published articles on the history of Rhodes in various languages, notably in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, and Journal of Social History. Dr. Guidi is currently working on a second book project on the history of illicit trade in the twentieth-century Mediterranean.

“It was a sunny late-summer day in 2014. During my first proper research stay in Rhodes I decided to inquire into the material held at the Hafiz Ahmed Ağa Library. I was welcomed by Yusuf Bey and his dog at the gate and we started a conversation in a mix of Turkish, Greek, and German. I felt privileged to be allowed into the courtyard and the library. To my surprise, the reading room contained not only valuable manuscripts and rare books, but also miscellaneous collections and historical documents. Two things drew my attention: Firstly, several copies of the late Ottoman satirical magazine Karagöz: I would have loved to read them and use them for my book, but they were too off-topic. Secondly, covered under a pile of scattered documents, I found an original excerpt from the 1905-1907 Ottoman census, which proved to be a precious source for my study. When I think of that place, beyond pictures of its wonderful garden, I like to remind myself that libraries and archives hold hidden gems that are as rare as the determination and patience to dig beneath catalogues and inventories.”

Andreas Guidi