The cataloguing of documents included in the Dardalis Archive of the Hellenic Diaspora, which will be accessible to the academic community, has begun.
The valuable archives, donations by the Greek-Australia Community, are in 5,500 boxes that were subjected to the National Center for Hellenic Studies and Research (EKEME) of La Trobe University, which closed down a few years ago.
More than seven million archival documents, in which the history of the Greek Diaspora in Oceania, Australasia and South America from the 1880’s and after is recorded, are in the archive.
Chris Mackie, Chairman of the Archives Committee at La Trobe University, Professor of Greek studies and Head of School of Humanities, stated that a final agreement between the university and the former owners of the archives, which will be now transferred to the university’s library, was made.
The university has assigned a three-member group, Leonidas Veikos, Michael Potopapa and Maria Ammazzalorso, to classify the archives and will give half a million dollars for that purpose.
Mackie pointed out that the university acknowledges the importance of Dardalis Archive for the Greek Diaspora of Victoria and Australia. He added that the archives will be catalogued and classified into “accessible and non-accessible” categories.
EKEME was founded in 1997 at La Trobe University, thanks to the generosity of many distinguished Greeks, especially Zissis Dardalis, the encouragement by governments and many institutions in Greece and Cyprus, but most of all, to the participation of Greek communities all over Australia.
The center has produced important research work during the relatively short duration of its function, with about 30 publications at very different domains as the history of Greeks in Australia and Latin America, linguistics, biography and the ancient epigraphy and portraits.
Concerning the domain of promoting the Greek education and Greek studies, EKEME’s action was not limited in Australia, but in China as well, where it played a determinative role to the establishment and development of the Hellenic Studies in big Chinese universities. The President of EKEME Friends Committee, Tassos Revis, asked the archives be digitally classified.
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