The Interrogation of the High Commissioner of Smyrna

February 1923. A cell of the “Asia Minor Defence” organisation secretly seizes, in Paris, the former High Commissioner of Smyrna, Aristeidis Stergiadis. The self-exiled fugitive is taken to a Sèvres crystal warehouse and interrogated at length. What will his captors decide?

E. Mavroudis dedicates the work to Kostas Koutsomytis, since the idea grew out of their 2012 conversations about a television film on the subject. Despite its theatrical form and economy of staging (six characters played by four actors), The Interrogation of the High Commissioner of Smyrna is fully documented. In the detailed Notes of the Appendix — as is the author’s habit — its claims are borne out.

The Notes draw on material from the archives of the Greek and British Foreign Ministries, the Army History Directorate (Hellenic Army General Staff), the Archive of Chrysostomos of Smyrna, and the Stergiadis Archive at the National Historical Museum. They include written testimony from S. Gonatas, P. Gounarakis, A. Diomidis, A. Mazarakis-Ainian, I. Metaxas, A. Papoulas, L. Paraskevopoulos, N. Plastiras, N. Politis, M. Rodas, G. Horton, and Chrysostomos of Smyrna.

The bibliography includes works and historical studies by I. Venezis, K. Vlassis, G. Daphnis, M. Karellis, P. Kapsis, M. Llewellyn-Smith, K. Politis, Ch. Solomonidis, and V. Solomonidou.