https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/10778 Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:42:36 GMT 2026-04-09T00:42:36Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/95345 Title: Maltese survivors of Smyrna Abstract: To the Greeks, Smyrna represents the 'Hellenic Genocide'; to the-Turks, the 'National War of Independence'. Independence, or 'liberation', this may certainly have been, an achievement now fully-ingrained in the mythology of secular Turkish nationalism, symbolized by the steely-eyed portrait of Kemal Ataturk in military uniform staring down at you from every public and not-so- public edifice throughout modern-day Turkey. But it was, nevertheless, a 'liberation' born of a tragedy so riveting that it is as difficult as it is disturbing to perceive or to portray. Some historical film footage and photography survive in the public domain of the Smyrna shore-line bellowing smoke like a colossal furnace, almost completely destroying what was for millennia a prime centre of Hellenistic, later Roman and Christian culture, before the advent of Islam, the crusades, the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Ottoman Empire, at its height in the sixteenth century. The ancient sites of Pergamon and Ephesus still partly stand, and are not too far. [excerpt] Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/95345 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/94702 Title: Medieval island societies : reassessing insulation in a central Mediterranean context Abstract: One of the effects of nuclear age environmentalism in the social sciences has been to help widen the focus from straightforwardly economic and political processes in human history such as global economic integration and socio-economic peripheralisation of the underdeveloped world. The establishment of the environment as an autonomous category in the political arena, as well as the filtering of ecological concerns from scientific research bodies through different social and age groups, has led to a new appreciation of the underlying relationships between human society and the environment with which it constantly interacts. The study of this interaction across time had already been firmly established within the new historical orthodoxy founded by Annales historians and Fernand Braudel's classic thesis on the Mediterranean. Even if most of the historical studies produced at an academic level today are still conceived in anthropocentric terms, Braudel's work led successive generations of historians to realize that man's changing relationship with the environment is also part of his history. [excerpt] Thu, 01 Jan 1998 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/94702 1998-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/78079 Title: The Siege of Rhodes, 1480 Abstract: I have written this brief account of the Siege of Rhodes by the Turks in 1480 for those who visit the Exhibition commemorating the Quincentenary of the Siege this summer at St John's Gate, the headquarters in London of the Order of St John. I intend to describe the Siege much more fully in a book on the Knights of St John at Rhodes. The main source of my knowledge is the Archives of the Order in the National Library of Malta. Two of the defenders, Guillaume Caoursin, Vice Chancellor of the Order, and Giovanni de Curti, an Austin Friar, published their own eye-witness accounts of the Siege soon afterwards. Caoursin illustrated his book with woodcuts, some of which are reproduced here. His unknown artist was clearly an eye-witness too. Known Turkish sources are scanty. That the Siege failed was naturally heralded in the West as a great Christian triumph; but we must remember that it was one of the few setbacks in the career of Sultan Mehmet II, the principal architect of an empire which brought mainly peace and prosperity to the conquered. The Curator of the Museum at St John's Gate, Pamela Willis, and her colleagues Kate Arnold-Forster, Mary Cash, Sarah Croser and Stella Dyer, have helped me to prepare this little book. I dedicate it, in his own centenary year, to the doyen of historians of the Order of St John, Sir Hannibal Scicluna. Tue, 01 Jan 1980 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/78079 1980-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/10903 Title: ’Clash of civilizations’, Crusades, Knights and Ottomans : an analysis of Christian-Muslim interaction in the Mediterranean Authors: Buttigieg, Emanuel Abstract: In a world that has become so powerfully gripped by a possible escalation of a ‘clash of civilizations’ that could spiral out of control, interest in the history of Christian-Muslim encounters and violence is on the rise. The aim of this chapter is to provide some historical depth to a debate that often tends to be shallow in its appreciation of a complex legacy of interaction between different people. It will commence with an overview of the recent debate that emerged in response to the ideas of Samuel P. Huntington. It will then consider the historical implications of the crusades in the way they have come to colour contemporary West-Muslim relations. Finally, the chapter will consider a number of naval battles between the Knights Hospitallers of St. John the Baptist and the Ottoman Empire as a case study in early modern Christian-Muslim interaction. This relationship will be looked at from the religious angle, but other factors that informed this conflict, such as status and masculinity, will also be considered. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/10903 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z