Andrekos Varnava facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Professor Andrekos Varnava
Professor Andrekos Varnava, 2022 courtesy of Theo Panagopoulos
Born	Andrekos Varnava 1979
Nationality	Australian/Cypriot
Education	Monash University, Melbourne University
Occupation	Writer and professor in British colonial history
Employer	Flinders University
Spouse(s)	Helen Komodromou

Professor Andrekos Varnava is a writer and historian from both Cyprus and Australia. He is known for studying important and sometimes difficult parts of modern history and how they affect us today. He holds citizenship in both countries.

Life and Work as a Historian

Professor Andrekos Varnava was born in 1979 in Melbourne, Australia. His parents were from Greek Cypriot families, with his father from Frenaros and his mother from Agios Ilias in Cyprus.

Early Life and Education

Andrekos Varnava went to school in South Oakleigh. There, he became very interested in the history of World War I and World War II. This interest helped him connect more with his Cypriot background. He started to think about what it meant to be Cypriot, different from being only Greek or Turkish.

He studied History, modern Greek, and English Literature at Monash University. He finished his first degree in 2001. Then, he went to the University of Melbourne and earned his PhD in history in 2006.

Working in Cyprus and Australia

After his studies, Professor Varnava visited Cyprus many times. In 2006, he became an Assistant Professor of History at the European University Cyprus. He worked there for two years. During this time, he got married and also became a Cypriot citizen, having dual nationality.

In 2009, Professor Varnava moved back to Australia. He started working as a history lecturer at Flinders University, where he still teaches today. He writes books and gives lectures about British, European, and imperial history. He especially focuses on the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire. He studies how these two empires influenced the Middle East.

He is very interested in how these empires shaped the modern history of Cyprus. He looks at how nationalism in the late 1800s, World War I, and later conflicts changed Cyprus.

Professor Varnava's Writings and Career

Professor Varnava has published a lot of work. He has written over 70 articles and book chapters. He has also written 4 main books and edited 16 collections of writings by different authors. His main focus is the history of the British Empire, especially its impact on Cyprus. He explores how things like extreme nationalism affected society and politics.

His academic career at Flinders University grew steadily. He became a senior lecturer in 2012. He was a visiting professor at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul in 2012. In 2014, he became a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016. In 2018, he became an Honorary Professor at De Montfort University. Finally, in 2022, he became a full Professor.

Since 2025, Professor Varnava has been the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Understanding Difficult History

Professor Varnava often talks about sensitive historical topics. He tries to help people understand different viewpoints.

Working for Peace and Understanding

In 2003, when he was a PhD student, Professor Varnava asked Greek and Turkish Cypriots to put aside their differences. He encouraged them to reunite their country. He suggested they accept that people on both sides had been involved in past violence.

While in Cyprus, he noticed that minority groups sometimes felt left out. This inspired him to organize a conference in 2007. The conference focused on how minorities could keep their identity in a country with strong national feelings.

In 2009, Professor Varnava said that British rule in Cyprus had problems. He believed it did not fully achieve its goals. Instead, it led to stronger national feelings among Greek Cypriots. He also researched how British efforts to help people were sometimes limited by their imperial goals.

In 2014 and 2018, Professor Varnava helped organize two conferences about World War I in Singapore. He challenged common ideas about Greek nationalism. He highlighted how Greek and Turkish Cypriots worked together during the First World War. In 2024, he gave a speech in Nicosia at the unveiling of a plaque. This plaque honored Cypriots who served in the Cypriot Mule Corps during World War I.

Discussing Historical Events

In 2016, Professor Varnava spoke about the killing of Christian Ottoman Greek people in Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War. He described it as a program of ethnic cleansing. He also speaks openly about the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and 1916.

His book, published in 2021, describes the killing of a Cypriot politician, Antonios Triantafyllides, in 1934. He connects this murder to extreme nationalist groups that later formed EOKA.

In 2018, Professor Varnava received a grant to study border controls between Britain and Australia. He looked at how "suspect migrant communities" were treated in the 20th century. He examined how past policies compare to today's practices. He noted the political and sometimes racial influences from Britain and Australia.

Books and Monographs

• British Imperialism and Cyprus 1878-1915: The Inconsequential Possession (2009)
• Serving the empire in the Great War – The Cypriot Mule Corps, imperial loyalty and silenced memory (2017)
• British Cyprus and the Long Great War, 1914–1925 (2020)
• Assassination in Colonial Cyprus in 1934 and the Origins of EOKA (2021)

Selected Edited or Co-edited Volumes

• Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond (2009)
• The Minorities of Cyprus: Development Patterns and the Identity of the Internal-Exclusion (2009)
• The Archbishops of Cyprus in the Modern Age: The Changing Role of the Archbishop-Ethnarch, their Identities and Politics (2013)
• Imperial Expectations and Realities: El Dorados, Utopias and Dystopias (2015)
• Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology (2016)
• The Great War and the British Empire: Culture and Society (2017)
• Australia, Migration and Empire – Immigrants in a Globalised World (2019)
• Comic empires- Imperialism in cartoons, caricature, and satirical art (2019)
• After the Armistice – Empire, Endgame and Aftermath (2021)
• Exiting war – The British Empire and the 1918–20 moment (2022)
• New Perspectives on the Greek War of Independence: Myths, Realities, Legacies and Reflections (2022)
• Popular Culture and its Relationship to Conflict in the UK and Australia since the Great War (2023)