Dr. Marinos Sariyannis, Research Director at the Department of Ottoman History, and deputy Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies since 2017, was unanimously elected Director of the Institute on December 3, 2025 (Official Government Gazette: 129_ΥΟΔΔ_10.2.2025).

The election was carried out by a seven-member Evaluation Committee appointed by the Ministry of Development and chaired by Ms. Antonia Kiousopoulou, Emeritus Professor at the Department of History and Archaeology, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA).

Brief Curriculum Vitae

Marinos Sariyannis is a Research Director at the Department of Ottoman History of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of FORTH, where he has been working since 2007. He studied History and Archaeology at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, where he also completed his postgraduate studies (M.A.) and his Ph.D. dissertation (2005). He has taught Ottoman history, Turkish language and Ottoman paleography at the Department of Book and Archive Science of the Ionian University and at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete, whereas in April-May 2017 he was invited to teach a series of four seminars at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, in Paris.

He has authored or co-authored eight monographs, edited or co-edited four collective volumes and published more than one hundred articles, chapters and entries in academic journals, edited volumes and academic encyclopedias. His book “Perceptions ottomanes du surnaturel. Aspects de l’histoire intellectuelle d’une culture islamique à l’époque modern” [Les conférences de l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes 13], Paris: Les éditions du Cerf 2019, has received the Prix du Budget of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (France) in 2021. Among other projects, he directed the research project “GHOST: Geographies and Histories of the Ottoman Supernatural Tradition: Exploring Magic, the Marvellous, and the Strange in Ottoman Mentalities”, funded by the European Research Council – ERC Consolidator Grant 2017. His main research interests cover Ottoman social, political and cultural history, with emphasis on political thought and perceptions on nature and the supernatural, as well as the history of the Greek lands and especially Crete under Ottoman rule.