On a Saturday afternoon in November 2018, I attended the play The Gods of Strangers by Elena Carapetis at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide. The trilingual performance, set in 1947 Port Pirie, South Australia, portrayed an ethnically diverse world, where Greek, Cypriot, Italian, and Anglo-Celtic Australian lives converged. Carapetis, of Ikarian, Anatolian Greek, and Cypriot descent, presented a world she had reconstructed from oral histories and no doubt her own family history. Of Ikarian and English descent myself, and my wife is of Greek and Cypriot descent, I could not help but identify with the world Carapetis portrayed, despite being a third-generation Australian born in the 1990s, never having experienced migration frst-hand.

The study of how migrants emigrated, settled, and built communities is both diverse and inexhaustible, as the world is ever more geared towards constant fows of people. In recent decades, the stories of post-World War II (WWII) migrants to the Anglosphere have guided the migration discussion, as it is one of the most profound and accessible migrations. The unmistakable efects of post-War migrations are observable in the large number of surviving migrants, existing community structures, recent family histories, and even many aspects of day-to-day life, such as schools, cuisines, and places of worship. Earlier migrations to the West do not ofer as many tangible signals of their presence, giving them a seemingly ‘silent’ image – the early Ikarians of South Australia fall into this ‘silent’ category.

Anthem of the Free State of Ikaria, titled The Hymn of Ikaria, attributed to Ionian Island poet Freiderikos Carrer, 1912. It was set to music by the Anatolian composer Konstantinos Psachos.

In 2022, Flinders University published an article titled ‘Family Ties’, looking at the story of my great-great grandfather,(John) Gronthos, who arrived in Port Pirie in 1911 from Ikaria, and was mentioned in this book.1 The story was picked up by Greek Australian diaspora newspapers Neos Kosmos and the Greek Herald. 2 The interest in this research and in my personal connection to it demonstrates a resonance in the story of early migrants and the way they contributed to the developing tapestry of the lands that they settled. It has also made me refect on the diferences in the migrant experience between the early twentieth century, and our present, interconnected, digital day, which can often feel worlds apart. These diferences make exploring the patterns of the past even more important, spurring us to understand migration and its integral place in global history.

It is evident that Ikarian emigration was spurred on by a variety of reasons, sometimes economic and aspirational, and sometimes coerced. In settling, they navigated often contradictory policies, and even settled in stages, although ‘chain migration’ and sponsorships from existing relatives and compatriots enabled most of their movements. They ultimately diverted to building communities as an act of establishing permanency in their new homes. It also served as their way of maintaining some level of their previous socio-cultural identities in this foreign space. To summarise the discussion this book has presented, this conclusion further breaks down these core concepts.

A Historical Sketch of Ikaria

Ikaria, often called ‘Nikaria’, as well as historically ‘Makris’, ‘Dolichi’, ‘Ichthyoessa’, and ‘Kariot’, is positioned in the north Aegean Sea (Maps 1.1 & 1.2). Although a large island geographically, its population, usually between 3,000 and 10,000, has consistently been relatively small in comparison to its larger neighbouring islands of Samos and Chios. Ikaria and its closest neighbour, the Fournoi Korseon archipelago, share a long history, with Fournian emigrants often forming part of Ikarian diaspora communities. Ikaria has been a signifcantly ‘localised’ island due to its historical isolation, lack of natural harbours, lack of transition to steamships, use of village common areas, the idea of villages as ‘kinship clusters’ and fellow islanders as extended families, and its centuries of self-governance. This isolation can be traced as far back as antiquity, where Homer noted Ikaria's turbulent seas and the diffculty of navigating them in the Iliad.

Ikaria was, however, historically touched by outside forces and Mediterranean powers, albeit not as profoundly as its neighbouring islands. These notable forces included the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian and Genoese republics, the Knights Hospitaller, and the Ottoman Empire, all of which left their marks between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like its neighbour Chios, the Genoese maonesi Giustiniani family ruled between the fourteenth and ffteenth centuries, although they did not leave a signifcant mark on Ikaria's ‘cultural lore’. Throughout these periods, however, Ikaria's lifestyle remained isolated, with most inhabitants living in the island's interior, where they tended the land while avoiding altercations with their occupiers and with pirates. Ikaria was ceded to the Ottoman Empire in the late sixteenth century, where they were increasingly exposed to a growing system of mobility and trade in the Eastern Mediterranean.

List of Ikarians in Australia between 1897 and 1921