ABOUT
This project was developed as part of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Media School of Bournemouth University.
As all online interactive documentaries (i-docs), it is multi-layered, multi-clickable, and multi-navigational. There is no right or wrong way to navigate around and you can pick and choose what you see and when, depending on which nodes you follow.
Your main navigational tool is the Top Menu, from which you can access all five different narrative “universes”: What Happened; The Past; The Present; (Historical) Background; and Research. Click on the video below to get a quick sense of how that’s done and what each “universe” contains. There’s also a Multimedia Index on the Bottom Menu, where you can search available media (videos, galleries, sounds, etc.) according to type, narrator, and location.
Most videos are interactive: you will see thumbnails popping up at relevant times during playback, which can take you to linked videos, texts, galleries, and even other “universes”.
Don’t worry if you don’t get to click on them right away! They reappear again at the end of the video, along with other available options you might find interesting.
There are hidden gems in this i-doc, only accessible to those users who are persistent and vigilant enough to explore the full extent of the story and its context. See if you can be one of them!
A NOTE ON DATES & NAMES
Phocaea 1914 is a historical i-doc which centres on events that took place more than 100 years ago. In these past 100 years, much has changed in and around the Aegean Sea. These changes are often reflected in the names of towns and areas covered in this documentary.
What was once Constantinople is now Istanbul, Smyrna has become Izmir, and Old Phocaea is now Eski Foça. Similarly with other towns. These names have almost always coexisted, depending on which language one spoke. Please do not be put off if you encounter double names for the same place.
Most of all, please don’t be put off if you encounter double dates (and you will)!
Back in Ottoman times, not everyone kept the same calendar: the Ottoman Empire used the Rumi Islamic Calendar, the Greek state and its consulates the Julian calendar, and the rest of Europe and the West, the Gregorian calendar (13 days after the Julian).
So, 12 June 1914 (the beginning of the looting of Foça) was
30 May 1914 for the Greek consular authorities;
and 30 May 1330 for the Ottoman authorities.
Here’s what a daily calendar would have looked like in the 1910s in the Ottoman Empire:
