With this presentation, Professor Emeritus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Georgios Leontsinis attempts to highlight aspects of cultural identities, which gradually penetrated and infused into the inhabitants of the Ionian islands, as well as with distinct differences, and in the populations of the continental areas close to these islands, which were recognised as their continental appendages, namely Vouthrotos, Parga, Preveza and Vonitsa, but also Kythera and Antikythera, islands located beyond the edges of the Ionian Sea to the south.
The new cultural phenomenon was born at the turn of the 18th to the 190th century, in the specific unit of island space, with a novel designation («Eptanissos»), which was invented during this period and prevailed on the basis of the seven largest islands of the wider area of the Ionian Sea. Since then the area has been defined with a specific geographical identity, also bearing the historical name «Ionian Islands», which precedes the name «Eptanissos» and which, as will be explained below, were used to denote something different on occasion.
The presentation was made in the context of the 4th European Conference on Modern Greek Studies that took place in Granada from 9 to 12 September 2010 on the theme «Identities in the Greek world (from 1204 to the present)». Read it in the reprint attached below.
