The Hellenic Heritage Foundation Greek Canadian Archives (HHF GCA) at York University, has had an eventful year with significant acquisitions, extensive digitization projects, innovative research and expanded public outreach. Vasilis Molos – director and research lead of the archives – has been supported by a dedicated group of scholars assembled by Professor Sakis Gekas that is helping preserve and narrate the history of Greeks in Canada.
Thanks to a significant donation of newspapers from an individual named Michalis Mouratidis, the HHF GCA now holds one of the world’s largest collections of Greek diaspora newspapers. This wasn’t the only noteworthy acquisition this year to enable scholars to rewrite the history of Greeks in Canada but across the diaspora. The archive now also contains 115 film reels, recorded by Canadian Egyptologist and war-time humanitarian Amice Calverley, which document the Greek Civil War from the front, and life in Greece from the 1930s to the 1950s. The HHF GCA has also accepted 31 boxes of rare books that belonged to the late writer Christos Ziatas.
Additionally, former member of parliament John Cannis has loaned 157 photographs, correspondence, media releases, and other records documenting his early life and political career, which have been digitized and will be available in early 2025; the Hellenic Canadian Lawyers Association has donated its organizational records; and Stan Draenos, a friend of York and political analyst, contributed two detailed itineraries from former prime minister of Greece Andreas Papandreou’s 1983 state visit to Canada.
(February 2024).
As the archive has expanded its collections, HHF GCA archivist Maria Paraschos and York University Libraries colleagues Anna St. Onge, Julia Holland, Michael Moir and Taylor Tryburski have overseen the cataloguing of previous acquisitions, with the physical holdings page of the HHF GCA website being routinely updated to include links to finding aids, digitized materials and relevant collections in Omni, the library catalogue.
Over the last while, the HHF GCA has also emerged as a hub of interdisciplinary research activity. It currently co-ordinates and supports seven projects, four of which feature an oral history component. Affiliated researchers have completed over 100 hours of interviews, and 65 interviews are already available on the HHF GCA’s digital portal. The portal has been a critical tool for scholars and students from across the world.
Access to it has been not just a valuable research resource, however. Among those who have used it is York PhD candidate Effrosyni Rantou, who notes its value as “a platform where history is made by [the Greeks in Canada] and for them,” but also a “reflection of the Greek diaspora; somewhere to look so we can understand ‘ourselves.’” Rantou believes the portal should not be regarded as a static repository; rather, it is both “an object of research [and] an invitation for an intergenerational contribution.”
With the goal of of making others aware of HHF GCA’s resources, the archives have been prioritizing public outreach as well. Over the past two years, the HHF GCA team has introduced themselves and shared findings at events in Canada, the U.S. and Greece. HHF GCA hopes for further too as researchers, who have used its materials, plan to write new histories in the coming years focused on the first migrants, Cypriot and Pontian Canadians, community leaders, Greek studies programs, as well as the activities of regional and professional associations, women’s auxiliary societies and Greek Canadian literary figures.
Molos attributes the HHF GCA’s progress to the “Greek Canadian community’s enduring commitment to preserving its heritage.” He notes that “the project’s achievements are the result of sustained efforts by stakeholders, researchers and volunteers.”
To learn more, see the story about the archives in The York University Magazine.
With files from Professor Vasilis (Bill) Molos