CV of H. Millas (2024)

  Hercules (Iraklis/Herkül) Millas was born (1940) and brought up in Turkey and presently lives in Greece. He has a Ph.D. degree in political science (Ankara University, 1998) and a B.Sc. in civil engineering (Robert College, Istanbul, 1965). He speaks Greek, Turkish and English and has a working knowledge in French. 

In the years 1968-1985 he worked as a civil engineer in Turkey, Greece, Bahrain, Qatar, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where he held various managerial positions and established his own consulting and soil investigation company. Since 1985 he has focused on cultural activities. He published various books and articles, mostly on interethnic perceptions, and completed his education in political science. 

During the period of 1990-1995 he contributed in establishing the Greek literature department at Ankara University teaching Greek language, literature and history. Later he taught Turkish language and literature at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, at the Aegean University in Rhodes Greece (in 1999-2003) and Turkish literature and Turkish political thought at the University of Athens (2003-2008). In 2009-2010 he taught Greek-Turkish relations with respect to literary criticism and conflict resolution at the Işık and Bilgi Universities in Istanbul.  

     He operated as moderator in the Turkish-Greek Civic Dialogue Project supported by the European Commission (2002-2004) and he participated as organizer in a project to assist minority youth in matters of education in Western Thrace, Greece (2005-2012). Together with Nefin Dinç he prepared a documentary, The Other Town, on how Greeks and Turks perceive each other.    

He participated in various international conferences and meetings related to the above topics in Greece, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, England, USA, Croatia, France, Sweden, Hungary, Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Spain and Cyprus. He is publishing his articles on Greek-Turkish relations in the Greek and Turkish media. He has many publications covering various fields such as literature, language, historiography, textbooks, political science and interethnic perceptions, mostly related to Turkey and Greek-Turkish relations.  

He translated more than twenty books, mostly Greek and Turkish poetry among which are the complete works of G. Seferis and K. Kavafis. He participated in the preparation of a voluminous Greek-Turkish dictionary (1994), he directed the publication of a Turkish textbook for Western Thrace, Türkçe Kitabımız, (2008) and a Catalogue of Common Greek-Turkish words, expressions and proverbs (2008/2012). 

He received the ‘Abdi Ipekçi Peace Award’ twice, first in 1992, and again jointly with the Greek-Turkish Forum in 2001, the ‘Dido Sotiriou’ award of the Hellenic Authors’ Society in 2004 and the award Free Thinking and Expression of Publishers’ Association of Turkey in 2005. The documentary The Other Town won the following awards: The spectators award in the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2011; special award of the Turkish Film Festival in Boston in 2012; the Best Historical Documentary in Greek Film Fest in Chicago in 2012. His novel The Family Grave was received the “Orhan Kemal best novel award” for the year 2021 in Turkey.  

In his youth he was a champion in 100/200 meters dash and a member of the Turkish varsity team. In 2016 he was champion in 100 meters and in 2019 high jump in Greece in the Veterans’ competition. He is married; he has two sons and four grandchildren.  

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