Hercules Millas

Hercules (Iraklis) Millas was born (1940) and brought up in Turkey and presently lives in Greece. He has a Ph.D. degree in political science (1998) and a B.Sc. in civil engineering (1965). In the years 1968-1985 he worked as a civil engineer in various countries such as Turkey, Greece, Bahrain, Qatar, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where he established his own consulting company. Since 1985 he has focused on cultural activities and completed his education in political science. During the period 1990-1995 he contributed in establishing the Greek literature department at Ankara University teaching Greek language, literature and history. In 1999-2008 he taught Turkish literature and Turkish political thought in various Greek Universities. 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 an organizer in a project to assist minority youth in matters of education in Western Thrace, Greece (2005-2012). Together with Nefin Dinç they 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 more than ten countries and he published many articles on Greek-Turkish relations. He published his weekly articles the last twelve years in Zaman (Istanbul) newspaper. His publications (ten books and many articles) cover 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 and published more than thirty articles on literature. He received the ‘Abdi Ipekçi Peace Award’ in 1992, 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 spectators award in the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2011, the special award of the Turkish Film Festival in Boston in 2012 and 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.