Ioannis Mpakirtzis

Ioannis Bakirtzis, who is currently an Assistant Professor in Late Ottoman History and Society, gained a BA in History and Archaeology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, after which he taught history and ancient Greek language and literature at secondary school level.  During this time, he studied for a Ph.D at the Panteion University of Athens, on history and ideology in the works of Georgios Viziynos, the distinguished Thracian poet and author of short stories and Ottoman eastern Thrace in the late 19th c., which he was awarded in 2000.  In 2001 he joined the Department of Language, Literature, Civilizations of the Black Sea of the Democritus University of Thrace, where until 2013 he taught courses on Ottoman culture and Thracian history, before moving across to the Department of History and Ethnology.  He has also taught Modern Greek at Trakya Üniversitesi at Edirne / Adrianople, in Turkey.  At present, he teaches courses in the Department of History and Ethnology focussed in the main on late Ottoman history and 19th and early 20th Thrace. 
He has published in particular on Thrace in the late 19th and early 20th c. under Ottoman domination.  His research interests include: society, economy, education during late Ottoman period in Balkans