 A Cappadocian in Athens,

an Athenian in Smyrna,

and a Parliamentarian in Istanbul

The Multiple Personae and Loyalties

of Pavlos Carolidis

Vangelis Kechriotis

In September 1908, during a dinner held in the honor of a delegation of jour-

nalists and scholars who traveled from Athens to Istanbul to congratulate rep-
resentatives of the new Ottoman regime, Mühiddin Bey, a minor figure among
the Young Turks of this early period, spoke of Greeks as the older brothers of
the Turks and as those who had struggled for freedom against absolutism. To
this comment, which clearly referred to the Greek Revolution of 1821, one of the
guests replied that “the Greek Revolution had been the passage to freedom not
only for the Greek nation, but for the whole East, even for the Turkish nation.”
This guest was none other than Pavlos Carolidis. More widely known as
a history professor, Carolidis was born in Endürlük, a village near Kayseri, in
Cappadocia, present-day Turkey, in 1849. He was raised in a well-off Turkish-
speaking peasant family. He was first sent to study in Smyrna (present-day Izmir,
Turkey), at the evangelical school, and then in Istanbul, at the Patriarchal Acad-
emy, known also as the Supreme School of the Nation. After he graduated in 1867
(see figure 21.1), he traveled to Athens to study histor y at the School of Philosophy
in the university there. He then continued his studies in Munich, Strasbourg,
and finally, Tübingen, Germany. After he obtained his doctoral diploma in 1872,
Carolidis taught in Istanbul and in Smyrna. In 1886, with the encouragement of
the Greek prime minister, Charilaos Trikoupis (1832–1896), he arrived in Athens,
where, until 1908, he taught at the University of Athens.
In 1908, upon the restoration of the Ottoman constitution, he was elected
to the Ottoman Parliament as deputy for the prefecture of Aydin, located on the
western coast of Anatolia, with Smyrna as its center, as an independent candi-
date. He was then reelected on the ticket of the Committee of Union and Progress