University of The Aegean - History

History

The foundations of the University of the Aegean date back to October 1918 when Greece had expanded its geographic borders to the wider Smyrna area after the World War I. At the time, Athens was the only major educational centre in the wider area and had limited capacity to sufficiently satisfy the growing educational need of the eastern part of the Aegean Sea and the Balkans. Professor Constantin Carathéodory who was a Professor at the University of Berlin at the time proposed the establishment of a new University - the difficulties regarding the establishment of a Greek university in Constantinople led him to consider three other cities: Thessaloniki, Chios and Smyrna. Despite the political turbulence of the era over the city of Smyrna, the famous mathematician constructed a "plan for the creation of a new University in Greece", named “Ionian University” on 20 October 1919. The city of Smyrna was the ancient center of the Ionian civilization along with the islands of Samos and Chios and had the distinct cultural heritage from great Greek philosophers and mathematicians such as Herodotus and Pythagoras, who was born in Samos.

Consequently, the Greek Government decided to materialize Carathéodory's vision and establish the Ionian University, based in Smyrna (today's city of İzmir, Turkey) on 1 December 1920. Constantin Carathéodory was the first dean of the university. His intellectual brilliance as well as his ability to unite many of the great academics of that time, resulted in the creation of a University which was comparable with some of Europe's oldest Universities. However, the Ionian University stopped its operations due to the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. The new Greek University in the broader area of the Southeast Mediterranean region, as originally envisioned by Carathéodory, finally materialised with the establishment of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1925.