In addition to publications, newly acquired manuscripts offer snapshots of the daily life of the Greeks, but also of the tragic events of the Asia Minor Campaign. The notebook of a teacher who studied in Kydonies with notes on mathematics, algebra, and geometry, exemplifies the ramifications of Greek education in the early 19th century. The scrapbook of a teenager in Smyrna in the 1910s showcases the mentalities, habits, dreams, and aspirations of the youth of Smyrna just before the Catastrophe.
The realities of war are documented in a Greek soldier’s diary from 1922, where beyond the daily reporting of the events at the front, he also speaks of his love for books.
The aftermath of the Catastrophe of Smyrna in art is reflected in a panorama of the city printed in Athens in 1922 and in a scrapbook by Elias Kazan (1958-1960), which is related to a film about Smyrna that was never made.
