Transculturality Versus Nationalism: The Greek Diaspora Girls’ Schools in Central Europe, the Balkans and Mediterranean Ports (1800s–1900s)

Girls’ education and more precisely the schooling of daughters of Greek upper-bourgeoisie families living outside the borders of the Greek state supplied them with an international and a transcultural character as parents were engaged with global trading transactions. The origins of the Greek Orthodox merchant clan can be traced back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, their sound presence in the European trade was better visible during the period between1800s and 1900s. In the present chapter, cosmopolitanism defines itself as a ‘set of mental attitudes’ and as a distinctive type of behavioural tactics exhibited by the commercial elites denoting common identity. In the warm recollection of the ideals and the cultural achievement of their fatherland, the educational institutions that operated outside the Greek state promulgated Greek letters on the one hand, while on the other hand, they satisfied the desire of the merchant elite who wanted their children to receive a no-borders schooling. This chapter heavily relies on school archives that provide us with original data in relation to female schooling of the diaspora Greeks. Acculturation was embedded in the multilingual societies that were dispersed in Europe being an existing characteristic in the Greek traders’ clan. Acculturation, however, often entailed full assimilation, thus, causing the breaking up of national ties from home country. Greek scholars warned of the imminent danger of full assimilation of the diaspora Greeks into their new country resulting in the disintegration of Hellenic language and civilization. For the Greek mercantile clan living in the Habsburg Empire, assimilation and, consequently, acculturation was a ‘social choice’ as it entailed participation in the higher business classes of Vienna society. Moreover, gender issues are visible in the establishment of schools in the diaspora as girls were not the first priority for the establishment of schools, and they existed only in cases where local people could afford them as they operated on the citizens’ resources and not on public funds as it was the case of boys’ schools. However, in the big cities of the diaspora that were situated mainly within the Ottoman Empire, there were elite female schools that served as the beacons of light for the Greek letters and culture.