The ethnographic use of photography in Crete in 19th and early 20th centuries

Abstract

Ιn the following paper, I examine evidence related to the development of photography in Crete from the late Ottoman period to the period of the island’s integration into the Greek State, and founded on the data that surfaced during a research project I conducted in collaboration with the University of Crete Research Center (U.C.R.C.).

Starting with the outline of the evolution of professional photography in Crete between the years 1860 and 1920, this paper on one hand explores the ways in which photography penetrated local communities, contributing to its social diffusion, and on the other hand traces the ideological framework in which photographic portrayal of Cretan armed figures shifted from a distinct, commemorative illustration characterized by an ethnographic and orientalist exoticism, to a de-personalized ethnic and racial representation. This transposition played a pivotal role in the visual and ideological representation of concepts such as heroism, bravery, irredentism and racial identity, and of intersecting Cretan and Greek identities during the period leading up to the integration of Crete into the Greek State.