In addition, there were significant Greek communities established during theCold War period in theUSSR,Czechoslovakia, andPoland, following the 1946–1949Greek Civil War, when Greek Communist refugees and their families were forced to leaveNorthern Greece and resettle in different parts of theEastern Bloc.
The Greek diaspora population is estimated at 5 million, which when added to the population of Greece (approximately 10 million), it gives a total worldwideGreek population of approximately 15 million.
The Greekdiaspora is one of the oldest diasporas in the world, with an attested presence from Homeric times to the present.[3] Examples of its influence range from the role played by Greek expatriates in the emergence of theRenaissance, through liberation and nationalist movements involved in the fall of theOttoman Empire, to commercial developments such as the commissioning of the world's first supertankers by shipping magnatesAristotle Onassis andStavros Niarchos.[4]
Street inCargèse (Karyes),Corsica (founded byManiot refugees), with a Greek church in the background
Between the fall of theEmpire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the secondRusso-Turkish War in 1828–29, thousands ofPontic Greeks migrated (or fled) from thePontic Alps andeastern Anatolia toGeorgia and other southern regions of theRussian Empire, and (later) to the Russian province ofKars in theSouth Caucasus. Many Pontic Greeks fled their homelands in Pontus and northeastern Anatolia and settled in these areas to avoid Ottoman reprisals after being suspected of supporting the Russian invasions of eastern Anatolia in theRusso-Turkish Wars from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Others resettled in search of new opportunities in trade, mining, farming, the church, the military, and the bureaucracy of theRussian Empire.[11]
Greeks spread through many provinces of theOttoman Empire and took major roles in its economic life, particularly thePhanariots (wealthy Greek merchants who claimed noble Byzantine descent during the second half of the 16th century). The Phanariots helped administer the Ottoman Empire's Balkan domains in the 18th century; some settled in present-dayRomania, influencing its political and cultural life. Other Greeks settled outside the southern Balkans, moving north in service to the Orthodox Church or as a result of population transfers and massacres by Ottoman authorities after Greek rebellions against Ottoman rule or suspected Greek collaboration with Russia in the Russo-Turkish wars fought between 1774 and 1878.Greek Macedonia was most affected by the population upheavals, where the large Ottoman Muslim population, residing there since some generations (often including those ofGreek-convert descent), could form local militias to harass and exact revenge on the Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox population; this often forced the inhabitants of rural districts, particularly in the more vulnerable lowland areas, to abandon their homes.[citation needed]
A larger-scale movement of Greek-speaking peoples in the Ottoman period wasPontic Greeks from northeastern Anatolia to Georgia and parts of southern Russia, particularly to the province ofKars Oblast in thesouthern Caucasus after the short-lived Russian occupation ofErzerum and the surrounding region during the 1828–29Russo-Turkish War. An estimated one-fifth of Pontic Greeks left their homeland in the mountains of northeastern Anatolia in 1829 as refugees, following the Tsarist army as it withdrew back into Russian territory (since many had collaborated with – or fought in – the Russian army against the Muslim Ottomans to regain territory for Christian Orthodoxy). The Pontic Greek refugees who settled in Georgia and the southern Caucasus assimilated with preexistingCaucasus Greek communities. Those who settled in Ukraine and southern Russia became a sizable proportion of cities such asMariupol, but generally assimilated with Christian Orthodox Russians and continued to serve in the Tsarist army.
In 1788,Ali Pasha of Ioannina destroyedMoscopole. This predominantly ethnicAromanian settlement historically had an important Greek influence.[12] This is why some members of theAromanian diaspora that settled in places such asVienna inAustria have been considered as Greeks and part of a Greek diaspora as well.[13]
During and after theGreek War of Independence, Greeks of the diaspora established the fledgling state, raised funds and awareness abroad and served as senior officers in Russian armies which fought the Ottomans to help liberate Greeks under Ottoman subjugation inMacedonia,Epirus, andThrace. Greek merchant families had contacts in other countries; during the disturbances, many set up home bases around the Mediterranean (notablyMarseille in France,Livorno,Calabria andBari in Italy andAlexandria in Egypt), Russia (Odesa andSaint Petersburg), and Britain (London andLiverpool) from where they traded (typically textiles and grain). Businesses frequently included the extended family, and they brought schools teaching Greek and theGreek Orthodox Church.[14] As markets changed, some families becameshippers (financed through the local Greek community, with the aid of theRalli orVagliano Brothers). The diaspora expanded across theLevant,North Africa,India[15] and the United States.[16] Many leaders of the Greek struggle for liberation from Ottoman Macedonia and other parts of the southern Balkans with large Greek populations still under Ottoman rule had links to the Greek trading and business families who funded the Greek liberation struggle against the Ottomans and the creation of aGreater Greece.
The terrible devastation of the island ofChios in the1822 massacre caused a great dispersion of the islanders, leading to the creation of a specificChian diaspora.[17]
After theTreaty of Constantinople, the political situation stabilised; some displaced families returned to the newly independent country to become key figures in cultural, educational and political life, especially in Athens. Financial assistance from overseas was channeled through these family ties, providing for institutions such as theNational Library and sending relief after natural disasters.
Main hall of the Greek community centre in Khartoum, Sudan (2015)
AfterWorld War I, most Pontian and Anatolian Greeks living in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) were victims of Muslim Turkish intolerance for Christians in the Ottoman Empire. More than 3.5 million Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians were killed in the regimes of the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal, from 1914 to 1923.[19] Greeks in Asia Minor fled to modern Greece, and theRussian Empire (later theSoviet Union) was also a major destination.
After theGreek Civil War, many communist Greeks and their families fled to neighboring Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and the Soviet-dominated states of Eastern Europe (especially Czechoslovakia). Hungary founded a village (Beloiannisz) for Greek refugees, and many Greeks were resettled in the formerSudetenland region of northeastern Czechoslovakia aroundKrnov. Sweden also admitted large numbers of Greeks, and over 17,000 Greek-Swedish descendants live in the country.
Although many immigrants later returned to Greece, these countries still have a number of first- and second-generation Greeks who maintain their traditions.[18]
With thefall of Communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Greeks of the diaspora immigrated to modern Greece's main urban centers of Athens, Thessaloniki, and Cyprus; many came from Georgia.[18]
Pontic Greeks are Greek-speaking communities originating in the Black Sea region, particularly from theTrebizond region, thePontic Alps, eastern Anatolia, Georgia, and the former Russian south-CaucasusKars Oblast. After 1919–1923, most of these Pontic Greek and Caucasus Greek communities resettled inGreek Macedonia or joined other Greek communities in southernRussia andUkraine.
Anyone who is ethnically Greek and born outside Greece may become a Greek citizen throughnaturalization if they can prove that a parent or grandparent was a Greek national. The Greek ancestor'sbirth andmarriage certificates and the applicant's birth certificate are required, along with birth certificates for all intervening generations between the applicant and the person with Greek citizenship.
Greek citizenship is acquired by birth by all persons born in Greece who do not acquire a foreign citizenship and all persons born to at least one parent who is a registered Greek citizen. People born out of wedlock to a father who is a Greek citizen and a mother who is a non-Greek automatically gain Greek citizenship if the father recognizes them as his child before they turn 18.[23][24][25]
TheSAE – World Council of Hellenes Abroad has compiled several studies on the Greek diaspora. The total number of Greeks living outside Greece and Cyprus is uncertain. Available census figures indicate about three million Greeks outside Greece and Cyprus, but the SAE estimates about seven million worldwide. The Greek diaspora defends Greek interests, particularly in the US.[29] Assimilation and loss of the Greek language influence the definition of the Greek diaspora. To learn more about how factors such as intermarriage and assimilation influence self-identification among young Greeks in the diaspora, and to help clarify the estimates of Greeks in the diaspora, the Next Generation Initiative began an academically supervised research study in 2008.[citation needed]
The United States has the largest ethnically-Greek population outside Greece. According to the US Department of State, the Greek-American community numbers about three million and the vast majority are third- or fourth-generation immigrants.[30] According to the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has a membership of 600,000 in the US and Canada who are still Greek Orthodox;[31] however, many Greeks in both countries have adopted other religions or become secular. The 2010 census recorded about 130,000 Greek Americans, although members of the community dispute its accuracy.[citation needed]
Most Greek Canadians live in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The 2016 census reported that 271,405 Canadians were Greek by ancestry and 16,715 people were born in Greece.[32]
Greek immigration to Chile began during the 16th century from the island ofCrete. Cretan Greeks settled in theAntofagasta Region in the mid-16th century and spread to other locations, such as the Greek colony inSantiago and the cities of San Diego, Valparaíso, Talcahuano, Puerto Montt, and Punta Arenas.[citation needed]
Australia has one of the world's largest Greek communities. Greek immigration to Australia began during the 19th century, increasing significantly in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the 2016 census, there were 397,431 Greeks and Greek Cypriots (by ancestry) living in Australia and 93,740 Greeks born in Greece or Cyprus. According toGreeks around the Globe, Greek Australians number about 700,000.[33] The majority of Greeks in Australia (over 90 percent) are Greek Orthodox and many attend church weekly. According to theSBS, Greeks in Australia have a higher level of church attendance than Greeks in Greece. There are minorities ofCatholics,Jehovah's Witnesses andPentecostals. Currently, there are 152 Greek Orthodox churches in Australia, most under jurisdiction of theGreek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. In addition, there are 8 monasteries as well as schools, theological colleges and aged care centres.
About 50,000 Greeks immigrated to Brazil from Greece and Cyprus, with 20,000 in the city ofSão Paulo. Brazil has a sizable community of Antiochean Greeks (known as Melkites), Orthodox, Catholics, and Jews. According to the Catholic Church,[34] theEparchy of Nossa Senhora do Paraíso em São Paulo (Melkite Greek), the Eparchia Dominae Nostrae Paradisis S. Pauli Graecorum Melkitarum had a 2016 membership of 46,600. TheWorld Council of Churches estimates that theGreek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch has a membership of 90,000 in Latin America, the majority of whom live in Brazil.[35]
About 250 Non-Jewish Greeks immigrated toOttoman Palestine andMandatory Palestine for the service of the Greek-Orthodox church in the country between 1850 and 1920, mostly residing inJerusalem andNazareth City. There are about 1,500–2,500 ethnic Greeks today; few were able to obtain Greek citizenship, largely due to the refusal of recognition from Greece.[36]
Greeks started to immigrate to Mexico in the late 1800s from the mainland, and especially Greece's islands and Cyprus. While there was an individual immigration to Mexico, the Mexican government looked to start olive production in the Pacific Coast, so thousands were taken to the state ofSinaloa where the Greeks found fortunes in the tomato production instead. Today there are tens of thousands of Greek-Mexicans living primarily inCuliacán,Veracruz, and Mexico City as well as surrounding areas and other cities.
Sources vary. Between 200,000 and 300,000 ethnic Greeks in Albania.[57][58][59][60] In addition, a large number also reside in Greece, Australia and the United States.[61]
794 (2021, foreign citizens with Greek Nationality, thus not counting, for instance, 30 Luso-Greeks who have acquired thePortuguese nationality after 2008)[98][99]
^Anagnostou, Yiorgos (2009).Contours of white ethnicity popular ethnography and the making of usable pasts in Greek America. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. p. 174.ISBN978-0-8214-4361-3....providing an alternative to ascriptionomogenia (of the same race)—a term widely used by state representatives as well sectors of the ethnic media—to refer to Greek populations outside Greece.
^Tziovas, Dimitris (2009).Greek diaspora and migration since 1700 society, politics and culture. Farnham, England: Ashgate Pub. p. 125.ISBN978-0-7546-9374-1.
^Rozen, Mina (2008).Homelands and Diasporas: Greeks, Jews and Their Migrations (International Library of Migration Studies). London, England: I. B. Tauris.ISBN978-1-84511-642-2.
^"Menander became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole ofSaurashtra and the harbourBarukaccha. His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101
^John Pike."Failaka Island".Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved20 April 2016.
^Peregrine Horden, Nicholas Purcell,The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, 2000, Blackwell Publishing,ISBN0-631-21890-4
^See for example Anthony Bryer', 'The Empire of Trebizond and the Pontus' (Variorum, 1980) and his 'Migration and Settlement in the Caucasus and Anatolia' (Variorum, 1988), as well as works listed inCaucasus Greeks andGreeks in Georgia.
^"Histórico de Hospedaria" (in Portuguese). Memorial do Inmigrante, government of São Paulo. Archived fromthe original on 2008-05-02. Retrieved2009-02-25. (click on "Estatísticas Gerais: Imigrantes e Descendentes")
^(in Spanish) Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC): Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas 2001:País de nacimientoArchived 2014-06-03 at theWayback Machine. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
