The international symposium “Bektas and Alevis in the Balkans and Anatolia: worldviews and practices in times and places” is being held from tomorrow, Friday, November 3 until Sunday, November 5, in Kavala.

The conference is organized by the MOHA research center recognized in Greece and will take place in Imaret

This symposium – the first international symposium with such a theme held in Greece – attempts to investigate the historical route of the Bektasi and Alevi communities stretching from Anatolia to the Balkans, from medieval times to the present day.

Focusing on the philosophical, religious, political and social context within which they existed, their interactions with the surrounding communities, but also the transformations they underwent within specific multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual environments, the symposium attempts to present:

– the most important points of the course of Bektazism and Alevism from their beginnings until today,

– the understandings of the world formed by the Bektashis and the Alevis but also how these intertwine with their practices and strategies,

– the ways in which Bektashi and Alevi beliefs and practices have thrived or been challenged in different political and national contexts, resulting in the stigmatization of the specific communities.

Presentations and discussions at the symposium will extend to issues such as spirituality and rituals, lineage and hierarchies, the role of the Bektashis in the Janissary corps, radical restructuring after 1826, and revival during the Tanzimat period. , the transition from pre-modernity to modernity and the re-positioning and action of Bektashis and Alevis within nation-states, community survival strategies, community behaviors and rituals as expressions of a “silent” community, the “neo-Alevism” in Europe, etc.