Proti Antigoni ta Prinkiponisa, one of the most comprehensive books about Burgaz island by Akillas Millas, which I have been looking for for a long time, has finally bought the book from the auction organized by Librakons Auctions. As can be understood from its name in this masterpiece, besides Burgaz island (Αντιγόνη, Αntigoni), there are Kınalı island (Πρώτη, Proti), Kaşık Island (Πίτα, Pita), Sedef island (Αντιρόβυθος, Andirovithos), Yassı island (Πλάτι, Plati), Sivriada (Οξειά, Okseia) and Tavşan Island (Νέανδρος, Neandros) sections. The book was first published in Greek in 1992 in Greece and won an Academy award. After the books of Büyükada - Adai Kebir, Prinkipo (2014) and Heybeliada - Halki, Dimonisos (2019), which were published in Adalı Publications in the past years and were rewritten for Turkish printing, it was the good news that the book Burgaz island was also prepared for publication. I look forward to the release of the book.
The Princes Islands book and a shorter version of the same book, published in Greek, which are among the important works of Akillas Millas, are also in my library.
Akillas Millas
Millas was born on May 16, 1934 in Istanbul and grew up in Beyoğlu. He came to Büyükada (Prinkipo) for the first time in his mother's lap when he was 3 months old. Since then, he spent his childhood and youth years in Büyükada. After finishing secondary school and high school in Beyoğlu Zografyon High School, he studied at Istanbul Medical School. In his youth, he earned degrees across Turkey as climbers and athletes. As an orthopedist, he continued to serve sports, especially famous footballers and football clubs.
What Millas values most is memories of the past. Since his childhood, he was a collector. Thanks to this passion, he created a rich archive about Istanbul, Anatolia and especially the Islands he loves very much. He likes classical music and especially opera, maybe he could be a good painter. He drew the disappeared houses of the Islands, the sketches of the neighborhoods, and found and lost them based on old postcards, photographs, memories and rumors. He is interested in archeology and numismatic.
The story of Istanbul's Akillas Millas leaving Istanbul is as follows; “In the years I lived, Istanbul had 1.5 million inhabitants and 150 thousand of them were Greeks. Now there are almost 20 million people, but a total of 1500 Greeks left. I was tired of watching the departures and I left Istanbul after 1980 and settled in Athens. It was easier to count the arrivals. ” (Milliyet 14 March 2004)
Resource transfer
It was an interesting coincidence that this giant work came out of the late John Freely library through the auction. I feel very lucky to have taken over this source.
John Freely has two very important books on Prince Islands, published by Adalı Publishing. The first book, prepared as a travel guide in 2007, reveals the colorful history of the Prince Islands and tells the places to visit in detail. There is also a practical guide with accommodation, food and entertainment.
The second book is the Prince Islands catalog (2010), which is included in the Publishing Series of the Islands Museum. Compiled with John Freely's guide book texts and journalist-pilot Murat Öztürk's shots at altitudes varying between 1000-10000 feet for the Adalar Museum between June and August 2010.
John Freely (26 June 1926 - 20 April 2017)
He was a famous American physicist, historian, teacher and writer.
Freely received his PhD in physics at New York University, and later pursued his postdoctoral studies at Oxford University under Alistair Cameron Crombie, the pioneering researcher in the history of Medieval European science. The principal idea he inherited from Crombie was "the continuity of western European science from the Dark Ages through Copernicus, Galileo and Newton". Freely taught history and astronomy at the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, where he came to teach at Robert College in 1960, including the "The Emergence of Modern Science, East and West" course. He was author of more than 40 popular travel and history books on Istanbul, Athens, Venice, Turkey, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. He was the father of writer and Turko-English literary translator Maureen Freely.