Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
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andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
@andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
3.1K followers 2K following 210 posts
Australian-Cypriot historian @flindersuniversity.bsky.social on Kaurna Yarta; expert on British empire, Cyprus, Armenia, migration; Editor-in-Chief @jich.bsky.social; poet; @YusufCatStevens fan
https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/andrekos.varnava
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andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος) @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social · Jul 11
Catch the talk that Mike Hajimichael and I gave at the AAEH in Auckland on 10 July titled 'Colonialism, EOKA and Ochlocracy in British Cyprus: The Mob Killing of Savvas Menikos in 1958'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlte...
Professors Varnava and Hajimichael talk on the mob killing of Savvas Menikos in 1958 by EOKA.
YouTube video by Andrekos Varnava
www.youtube.com
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Nice to be elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. humanities.org.au/power-of-the...
30 New Fellows elected to Humanities Academy – Australian Academy of the Humanities
The Australian Academy of the Humanities has today announced the election of 30 new Fellows. Election to the Academy is the highest honour in the humanities in Australia, recognising scholars whose wo...
humanities.org.au
November 19, 2025 at 5:26 AM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Cypriot Zaladina! Cyprus on my plate!
November 14, 2025 at 10:14 PM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Today 17 years ago I was being interviewed for the post of Lecturer in Modern History at Flinders Uni. It seems like yesterday.
November 10, 2025 at 10:18 PM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Well done to the entire Team!
jich.bsky.social The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History @jich.bsky.social · 19d
We are proud to share that JICH has received over 58k downloads in 2025's 3rd quarter - a 76% increase from this time last year! Well done to our editorial team and all our supporters - @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social @evansmithhist.bsky.social @jonasgjerso.bsky.social @yiannicart.bsky.social
November 2, 2025 at 10:17 AM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Yesterday my students and I completed our second week learning about the Cambodian Genocide. We realised that this year was 50 years since the Khmer Rouge came to power and that at least here in Australia this passed with little if no acknowledgment…
October 22, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
In our recent volume, 'Forced Migration: Exiles and Refugees in the UK and the British Empire', @anilliams.bsky.social contributed a chapter on the forced deportation of Liverpool's Chinese seamen at the end of WWII.

@andrekosvarnava.bsky.social @yiannicart.bsky.social

brill.com/display/book...
chapter 7 Liverpool’s Chinese Community: the Second World War, Exile, and Repatriation Andrew Williams The forced repatriation of Chinese seamen at the end of the Second World War from Liverpool, in Northwest England, was the subject of a long- form journalistic investigation in 2021, published in The Guardian newspaper.1 A few weeks later, Liverpool Labour mp Kim Johnson raised it in Parliament. She called on the Conservative government to launch an inquiry into the affair and to acknowledge that in the case of these men, and the families they left behind, ‘justice delayed’ was ‘justice denied.’2 In response, the Home Office – the department responsible for immigration – pledged to investigate the actions of its antecedents in conspiring to repatriate hundreds of Chinese men after Britain had defeated fascism in Europe and Asia. Liverpool’s Chinese community has always been centred in its Chinatown, which is claimed to be the oldest in Europe, although substantive historical investigations into this community are few and far between. Perhaps the best account has been written by Maria Lin Wong, whom in 1989 published a history based primarily on oral testimony.3 Gregory B. Lee, a Chinese studies scholar, has published other research, approaching the history of the community from a postcolonial studies perspective.4 Even fewer publications directly address the forced repatriation of Chinese seamen after the Second World War. Wong made only brief mention of it based on what she was told and would have been unable to explore it any further as the archival sources had not been released to the public at the time. John Belchem, in his valuable history of race relations in twentieth- century Liverpool, did provide an account of the repatriation, but..
October 20, 2025 at 8:35 AM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
My talk on 12 Oct 2025 “Cypriot Migration to Australia until 1952: ‘Undesirable’ Migrants and the ‘Corsica’ Cypriots” as part of the Odyssey Festival. The talk is based on my forthcoming book with Brill. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mloT...
Professor Andrekos Varnava's talk titled "Cypriot Migration to Australia until 1952".
YouTube video by Andrekos Varnava
www.youtube.com
October 19, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
yiannicart.bsky.social
Check out Tanja Bueltmann's review of our recent volume on Forced Migration with @degruyterbrill.bsky.social in @imm-min-journal.bsky.social - doi.org/10.1080/0261...

@andrekosvarnava.bsky.social @evansmithhist.bsky.social @dgb-history.bsky.social
Forced migration: exiles and refugees in the UK and the British Empire, 1815-1949
Published in Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora (Ahead of Print, 2025)
doi.org
October 5, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
alanlester.bsky.social
The @telegraphnews.bsky.social, @dailymail.co.uk and @thespectator1828.bsky.social have all promoted Nigel Biggar’s latest book as the definitive riposte to reparations claims. But what exactly are its arguments and how do they stand up to scrutiny?

alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-ant...
The Anti-Reparations Bible
Alan Lester Promoting the Anti-Reparations Bible Britain’s right-wing press has mobilised to promote Nigel Biggar’s latest book, Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt as the defin…
alanlester.co.uk
October 2, 2025 at 5:01 PM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
I've started developing this essay into an article on Zionism and Enotism... Already getting interesting. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
EOKA 70 Years On: Anti-Colonial or Colonialist? Liberation or Subjugation?
70 years after the start of the EOKA campaign to unite Cyprus to Greece (enosis), this essay revisits the nature and activities of EOKA, and its legacy. Most Greek Cypriots and Greeks believe in wh...
www.tandfonline.com
October 1, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Just reupping this new article that me and @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social published last week
evansmithhist.bsky.social Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · Sep 12
Very excited that my new article with @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social has been published open access in @historicaljnl.bsky.social

'Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s'

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s by Evan Smith & Andrekos Varnava Abstract: In the 1950s and 1960s, changes in the international situation, such as decolonization in Asia, led some Australians to question the usefulness of keeping the ‘White Australia Policy’, the basis for the country’s immigration system since Federation in 1901. Some argued that Australia’s international reputation, especially with newly independent countries in Asia and Africa, could be harmed by the maintenance of this policy. Events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa in 1960 caused further introspection into Australia’s racialized system. However, as pushes to reform the policy grew, others used international events to resist reforms. Using speeches by politicians and documents produced by policymakers, this article will show how events, such as the Notting Hill riots in Britain, the Little Rock controversy in the United States, and the Sharpeville massacre, were used as warnings about Australia potentially introducing similar ‘racial problems’ if it allowed more non-white migration. This article argues that these concerns tapped into a transnational whiteness that shared anxieties about decolonization, civil rights and non-white immigration in the post-war period, bringing a racialized solidarity forged at the turn of the twentieth century into the Cold War era.
September 17, 2025 at 6:16 AM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
my version of Lilywhite by Yusuf Cat Stevens www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjFF...
Cover of 'Lilywhite', by Yusuf/Cat Stevens, from Mona Bone Jakon (1970)
YouTube video by Andrekos Varnava
www.youtube.com
September 15, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Very excited that my new article with @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social has been published open access in @historicaljnl.bsky.social

'Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s'

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s by Evan Smith & Andrekos Varnava Abstract: In the 1950s and 1960s, changes in the international situation, such as decolonization in Asia, led some Australians to question the usefulness of keeping the ‘White Australia Policy’, the basis for the country’s immigration system since Federation in 1901. Some argued that Australia’s international reputation, especially with newly independent countries in Asia and Africa, could be harmed by the maintenance of this policy. Events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa in 1960 caused further introspection into Australia’s racialized system. However, as pushes to reform the policy grew, others used international events to resist reforms. Using speeches by politicians and documents produced by policymakers, this article will show how events, such as the Notting Hill riots in Britain, the Little Rock controversy in the United States, and the Sharpeville massacre, were used as warnings about Australia potentially introducing similar ‘racial problems’ if it allowed more non-white migration. This article argues that these concerns tapped into a transnational whiteness that shared anxieties about decolonization, civil rights and non-white immigration in the post-war period, bringing a racialized solidarity forged at the turn of the twentieth century into the Cold War era.
September 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
Read our new article!
evansmithhist.bsky.social Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · Sep 12
Very excited that my new article with @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social has been published open access in @historicaljnl.bsky.social

'Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s'

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s by Evan Smith & Andrekos Varnava Abstract: In the 1950s and 1960s, changes in the international situation, such as decolonization in Asia, led some Australians to question the usefulness of keeping the ‘White Australia Policy’, the basis for the country’s immigration system since Federation in 1901. Some argued that Australia’s international reputation, especially with newly independent countries in Asia and Africa, could be harmed by the maintenance of this policy. Events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa in 1960 caused further introspection into Australia’s racialized system. However, as pushes to reform the policy grew, others used international events to resist reforms. Using speeches by politicians and documents produced by policymakers, this article will show how events, such as the Notting Hill riots in Britain, the Little Rock controversy in the United States, and the Sharpeville massacre, were used as warnings about Australia potentially introducing similar ‘racial problems’ if it allowed more non-white migration. This article argues that these concerns tapped into a transnational whiteness that shared anxieties about decolonization, civil rights and non-white immigration in the post-war period, bringing a racialized solidarity forged at the turn of the twentieth century into the Cold War era.
September 12, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
jich.bsky.social
The first prizes will be awarded in Feb 2026 for articles published within the six issues of Vol 53, 2025.
September 11, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
jich.bsky.social
JICH will now award two annual prizes: The Stockwell-Burroughs Prize for Best Article; & the Murphy-Howe Prize for Best Postgrad Article.
Winners will be announced each Feb & receive £200 in book vouchers from @tandfresearch.bsky.social. Winning articles will become free access for 12 months.
September 11, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
jich.bsky.social
Check out the recent book review by Yianni Cartledge @yiannicart.bsky.social of 'Victorians and Modern Greece: Literary and Cultural Encounters' edited by Efterpi Mitsi & Anna Despotopoulou (Routledge, 2025): doi.org/10.1080/0308...
Victorians and Modern Greece: Literary and Cultural Encounters
Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2025)
doi.org
September 6, 2025 at 5:19 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
New book review by Darren Reid for @jich.bsky.social

"Colonial Extraction and Industrial Steam Power, 1790–1880: Decarbonising Imperial History", edited by Liz Conor

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Colonial Extraction and Industrial Steam Power, 1790–1880: Decarbonising Imperial History
Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2025)
www.tandfonline.com
August 22, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
waitmanwbeorn.com
Absolutely correct. It was always about killing the subjects, not the money.

Because Humanities programs pay for themselves, unlike STEM etc.

www.chronicle.com/article/they...
They’re Killing the Humanities On Purpose
The crisis is not one of resources but of values.
www.chronicle.com
August 20, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
ottoenglish.bsky.social
When politicians start policing history, you're firmly in the realms of autocracy.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/a...
August 14, 2025 at 6:57 AM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
New article hot off the press www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
The Origins of “Big Tobacco” Cigarette Manufacturing and the Prevalence of Smoking in Colonial Cyprus, 1920-1960 | Enterprise & Society | Cambridge Core
The Origins of “Big Tobacco” Cigarette Manufacturing and the Prevalence of Smoking in Colonial Cyprus, 1920-1960
www.cambridge.org
August 1, 2025 at 12:58 PM
andrekosvarnava.bsky.social
The new Google Scholar metrics have @jich.bsky.social ranked in the top 20 history journals! @yiannicart.bsky.social,
@evansmithhist.bsky.social, @jonasgjerso.bsky.social scholar.google.com/citations?vi...
scholar.google.com
July 31, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Historians will enjoy this one
July 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
evansmithhist.bsky.social
New book review published in @jich.bsky.social

@katieebarclay.bsky.social reviews 'Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism' by Catherine Hall

@universitypress.cambridge.org

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism
Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2025)
www.tandfonline.com
July 26, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Professor Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, FRSA (Ανδρίκκος)
jich.bsky.social
Hot off the press! See the article: 'Missing the Bolt from the Blue: British Intelligence and the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919' by Travis Kaiser Weinger: doi.org/10.1080/0308...
Missing the Bolt from the Blue: British Intelligence and the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919
This paper explores how the colonial intelligence system operated on British India’s north-west frontier during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Coming off of its successes during th...
doi.org
July 17, 2025 at 6:30 AM