I am a former diplomat, Middle East specialist and now company director whose family originates in part from Smyrna and Beirut. Researching my family background brought me to the Levantine Heritage interest group and the immense satisfaction of meeting like-minded amateur and academic researchers (as well as several cousins) who are committed to recording and sharing the rich heritage of the Levant region. I am delighted to support the Levantine Heritage Charitable Foundation and its mission to develop, preserve and communicate research into the Levant for the benefit of all peoples and future generations.

Having spent half my life in Istanbul and seeing the rapid waning of the wonderful multicultural nature of the city as a child left an indelible mark on me. Later, in the late 1990s with the urging of friends I started on a quest to record some of this unique richness with interviews with elders that grew into a body that spawned a web site in 2004, which then built a community of supporters in an organic way around it, culminating in Symposium in Izmir in 2010. I still believe all culture is precious, needs to be nurtured and studied to survive and is only meaningful when it is shared; this to me is the spirit of Levantine Heritage. I am grateful for all your support in this celebration.

Dr Philip Mansel FRHS is a historian of France and the Middle East, particularly interested in the Levant. His books include Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire (1995), Paris between Empires (2001) and Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (2010), the first history in English of Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut since 1600. One of its themes is how Muslims, Christians and Jews have lived together in cities. He has lived in Paris, Istanbul and Beirut. His most recent books are Aleppo: the Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City (rev.ed. 2017) and King of the World: the Life of Louis XIV (2019). Both have been translated into Italian. For further information see www.philipmansel.com - interview:

I live in Istanbul with my family and currently hold the position of Chairman of the Catoni Group and British Chamber of Commerce of Turkey. My family came to Turkey in 1846 to start a trading business, the business as established in what is today Iskenderun. Licorice, cotton and tobacco form the main commodities. Today 6 generation’s later I continue to expand the Catoni business in trading and transport logistics. As is dictated by our family rules I look forward to the day my eldest daughter Natalie takes over the business to become the 7th generation. I am proud to be referred to as a Levantine, I received my education in Arabic, Turkish, English and French and indulge in these cultures without hesitation. I look forward to returning to England one day but realize it shall not be permanent as the Levant and its beauty and intrigue is our natural home.

Born in Izmir, Turkey, to a Levantine (Italian/Greek/French/Armenian) family, Dr Corlu has a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from Bilkent University (1996), an M.A. in History from Bilkent University (1999), and a Ph.D. in History from Binghamton University-SUNY (2011).
Since 2002, he has taught history courses at SUNY-Binghamton, SUNY-Cortland, and University of Mary Washington on the U.S., the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Middle East, as well as thematic courses such as History of Warfare and History of Food. His current research into the history and sociology of food is shaping up into an article titled “Going to War over Baklava and Cheese?: Food as Identity in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1912-Present” and another article in military history is on its way, titled “An Elaborate Fiction: the Myth of the ‘Western Way of War’ in the Context of Byzantine and Ottoman Warfare”. His academic profile can be found at umw.academia.edu/AxelCorlu. Dr Corlu lived in upstate New York from 1999 to 2012, and now resides with his family in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

After obtaining a master’s degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Zeynep Cebeci Suvari attended Bosphorus University’s history department. Mrs Suvari has been working on her Phd thesis on the Italian Community of Istanbul in the late Ottoman period. She previously taught in Ca Foscari University of Venice and Bosphorus University in Istanbul. Mrs Süvari lived in Damascus in 1999-2000 and studied Arabic. Recently Zeynep has been one of the prominent members of the ‘Istanbul Volunteer Group’, that assisted in the logistics and organisation of the Levantine Conference that was held in that city in November 2014 and continues to do oral history interviews with elderly Levantines of the city - interview:

Born in Izmir in 1943, he graduated from Robert College and took his BA in Diplomacy and International Relations from School of Political Sciences, Ankara. He has worked as a journalist & broadcaster and media executive since 1969. He has held positions in Turkey and abroad, including TRT Foreign News Department, German News Agency DPA, Sweden STV, German WDR Radio, Aydınlık Newspaper, BBC Turkish Section, Milliyet Newspaper London Bureau Chief and then News Editor and TRT General Manager Chief Advisor.

Since 1991 he has been involved in launching or restructuring a number of private TV channels - Show TV, Cine 5, Olay TV, NTV, CNBC-e, CNN Turk, Fenerbahçe TV, Kanal D Romania, TEB KOBI TV, Grand Bazaar TV/Kapalıçarşı TV; HTV Health Channel. Right now he is in the process of launching a new channel in Burkina Faso, Africa.

He returned to Doğan Media Group in 2002 as CEO & President of CNN Turk. Here, he served as the General Manager of CNN Turk, ANS International Production Company, CEO of Turkish Daily News [now Hürriyet Daily News] and helped launch Kanal D Romania. He was the President of Doğan Media International and Advisor to the CEO of Doğan Media Group before he retired from the group at the end of 2015.

He is now working in his own company NMC New Media Company Television and Advertisement Corporation, developing internet content, e-learning projects and writing corporate histories. He is currently serving as Executive Board Members of Istanbul Arts & Culture Foundation and Contemporary Istanbul. He had served for ten years as the Chairman of TV Broadcasters Association of Turkey which he helped in its founding.

Born in Athens Greece to a family with roots on the island of Andros and Smyrna (modern day Izmir, Turkey). In 1994 he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and in 1995 he earned an MSc in Geographical and Geodetic Information Systems from the University College London (UCL). From 1997 to 1999 he was in charge of the cartographic digitization project of the Athens-based non-profit Cultural Society “Panorama”. Since 1999 he works as Planning and Network Systems Section Manager at COSMOTE Telecommunications SA in Greece.

As a geologist, he has been cooperating since 1994 with the Halassarna archaeological project, on Kos island, and was a member of the Corpus of Ancient Greek Quarries team, both of which have led to several publications and monographies.

He has been actively involved with the Levantine Heritage Forum since its early days, promoting its work and exchanging data with scholars and history enthusiasts. He presented the paper ‘The Image of the Levantines as Portrayed in the late 19th Century Travel Literature’ at the First Levantine Symposium in Izmir, November 2010. The last 25 years he has been travelling many times in Turkey as well as in countries of the Middle East. His research activities include various aspects of the history and topography of Smyrna/Izmir, mainly focusing on the second half of the 19th century and up to 1922, such as the compilation of thematic timelines, and a complete local authorities chart (valis, mayors, consuls, religious leaders etc.) of that period.

His latest project involves the Quay of Smyrna, an extensive research and illustration of the city’s legendary seafront which he has been studying along with the co-researcher George Poulimenos since 2012 and is expected to be published in Greek in autumn 2018. Currently, he also holds the position of the Chairman of the LHF Athens 2018 Conference Programme.