 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Greek refugees" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one millionGreek Orthodox natives ofAsia Minor,Thrace and theBlack Sea areas who fled during theGreek genocide (1914-1923) and Greece's later defeat in theGreco-Turkish War (1919–1922), as well as remaining Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Turkey who were required to leave their homes for Greece shortly thereafter as part of thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the population transfer and barred the return of the refugees.[1] ThisConvention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was signed inLausanne, on January 30, 1923 as part of the peace treaty between Greece and Turkey and required all remainingOrthodox Christians in Turkey, regardless of what language they spoke, be relocated to Greece with the exception of those in Istanbul and two nearby islands. Although the term has been used in various times to refer to fleeing populations of Greek descent (primarily after theIonian Revolt, theFall of Constantinople or theGreek Civil War), the population strength and the influence of the Asia Minor Greeks in Greece itself, has attached the term to theAnatolian Greek population of the early 20th century. At least 300,000 Greek refugees were fromEastern Thrace, whereas at least 900,000 were fromAsia Minor.[2][3] At least 150,000 were fromIstanbul, who left the city in three years before 1928.[4]
The Orthodox Christian refugees from Asia Minor are usually called inGreek simplyΟι Πρόσφυγες (Oi Prosfyges,The Refugees). Alternative terms used areΟι Μικρασιάτες πρόσφυγες (Oi Mikrasiates prosfyges,The Asia Minor refugees) orΟι πρόσφυγες του '22 (Oi prosfyges tou '22,The refugees of 1922). Further distinctions are made to denote the refugees from various historic regions ofAnatolia:Πόντιοι πρόσφυγες (Pontioi prosfyges,Pontic refugees) from the Black Sea coast,Καππαδόκες πρόσφυγες (Kappadokes prosfyges,Cappadocian refugees) from central Turkey, Μικρασιάτες πρόσφυγες (Mikrasiates prosfyges,The refugees from Asia Minor), to refer to the Greeks from the geographic area of the peninsula; special reference is made for theRefugees from Smyrna (Oi prosfyges tis Smyrnis,Πρόσφυγες της Σμύρνης), sinceSmyrna was then the second largest Turkish city, and many of the affected Greeks lived there. The refugees fromEastern Thrace are also included.
The eastern coast of theAegean was inhabited by Greeks as early as the 9th century BC.Aeolian,Ionian andDorian colonies were established from theDardanelles toCaria, with the most important beingMiletus,Phocaea,Ephesus andSmyrna. The prominence of the Ionians gave to the region the nameIonia. The Greeks of Asia Minor contributed significantly in theancient Greek history, from theIonian Revolt, theIonian League and the conquests ofAlexander the Great, to theHellenistic kingdoms ofPergamos andPontus. The Ionians were the first Greek-speaking people that the Persians encountered, and thePersian name for Greece becameYounan orYunan (یونان), derived from the word "Ionia." The name spread throughout the Near East and Central Asia.
Following the spread of theHellenistic civilization in the 3rd century BC, Greek became thelingua franca of Asia Minor, and by the fifth century AD, when the last of theIndo-Europeannative languages of Anatolia ceased to be spoken, Greek became the sole spoken language of the natives of Asia Minor.[5]
After the founding ofConstantinople by the first Christian Roman EmperorConstantine the Great in 330, Asia Minor, the major part of theGreek East, became the most important region of theEastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. For the centuries to follow, the area was the main manpower and wheat source of the state. Numerous invasions andepidemics (especially thePlague of Justinian) devastated the area in various times. However, Asia Minor remaineddensely populated, compared to the rest of theMedieval world and held the bulk of the empire's Greek speaking orthodox Christian population. Thus, many renowned Greek-speaking figures who lived during this time were Asia Minor Greeks, includingSaint Nicholas (270-343),John Chrysostomos (349-407),Isidore of Miletus (6th century), andBasilios Bessarion (1403-1472). The Greek speaking Christian population began to decline with the invasions of the MuslimSeljuq Turks in the 11th century. The establishment of theSeljuk Empire deprived theByzantines of a large part of Asia Minor. TheFall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, and the subsequent fall in 1461 of the GreekEmpire of Trebizond, located along the eastern Black Sea coast, marked the end of Greek sovereignty in Asia Minor.
The first centuries of the Ottoman rule were namedThe Dark centuries by the Greeks. The custom of theJanissaries and the various restrictions on the religious, economic and social lives of the non-Muslim inhabitants of the Empire constituted an imminent danger for the continuation of the Greek inhabitation of Asia Minor. Conditions were improved over the following centuries, but the Greeks remained in the lower caste status ofDhimmi.Islamization and gradualTurkification continued. The ideas ofThe Enlightenment and the subsequentGreek War of Independence, raised the hopes of the Asia Minor Greeks for sovereignty. Many Greeks from Anatolia fought as revolutionaries and faced the retaliations of theSultan.
Thepersecutions,massacres,expulsions, anddeath marches of the Asia Minor Greeks were renewed during the early 20th century by theYoung Turk administration of theOttoman Empire and during the subsequent revolution ofMustafa Kemal Atatürk. TheOttoman Greek population was severely affected; its misfortunes became known as theGreek Genocide. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, theAllies granted Greece, with theTreaty of Sèvres, the administration ofEastern Thrace (apart fromConstantinople) and the city ofSmyrna and its environs. The Pontic Greeks attempted to establish their own republic, theRepublic of Pontus. The defeat of the Greek army during theGreco-Turkish War led to what became known in Greece as theAsia Minor Catastrophe. A series of events, with theGreat Fire of Smyrna been their peak, ended the 3,000-year-old Greek presence in Asia Minor. TheTreaty of Lausanne, which was signed in 1923, anticipated the compulsory exchange of populations. The remainingGreek Orthodox population of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace, as well as the Muslim population of Greece (the Greeks of Constantinople,Imbros andTenedos and the Muslims ofWestern Thrace were excluded) weredenaturalized from homelands of centuries or millennia.
1914 Ottoman census, which followed the 1909 census, showed a steep decrease of the Greek population by almost 1 million between these years due to loss of lands (with their population) to Greece after theBalkan Wars. The argument that Greeks constituted the majority of the population of Anatolia claimed by Greece duringGreco-Turkish War (1919–1922) has been contested by a number of historians. In their book about the British foreign policy of World War I and post war years, Cedric James Lowe and Michael L. Dockrill argued that:Greek claims were at best debatable, [they were] perhaps a bare majority, more likely a large minority in theSmyrna Vilayet, which lay in an overwhelmingly Turkish Anatolia.[7] The estimations of theEcumenical Patriarchate, the Greek state and various Western sources, place their number much higher. The number of Greeks excluded from the population exchange was about 300,000 (270,000 living inIstanbul[8]). There are not exact figures of the refugee population in Greece.
The first national Greek census after 1923, conducted in 1928, showed the number of the Greeks of Asia Minor origin to be 1,164,267.[citation needed] Some refugees had moved toRussia and the Middle East in previous years. Approximately 250,000Greek Americans of Asia Minor descent had emigrated to the United States between 1866 and 1917, hadAmerican citizenship, and thereby would not become refugees; they would, however, be deprived from their property rights in their ancestral homeland, as well as from their right to return. It is usually estimated that the refugees in Greece numbered approximately 1.5 million people. Descendants of the refugees took part in the great Greek migrations of theInterwar period, as well as thelarge immigrations to theUnited States,Australia andGermany in the 1960s and 1970s.
The core of the refugee population settled inAttica andMacedonia. The official refugee population perregion in 1928 was as follows (number of refugees and percent of the refugee population):[9]
Numerous suburbs, towns and villages were established to house the additional population of Greece, which rose by about 1/3 in just a few months. These areas are often named Nea (New) followed by the name of the Greek-speaking town or city in Asia Minor that its residents came from. In addition, to this day many towns in Greece have a quarter namedΠροσφυγικά,The Refugees' (quarter). These new settlements were usually named after the place of origin of their inhabitants:
This is a list of refugee settlements in Greece (the place of origin is in parentheses)
* denotes settlement that pre-existed, but acquired a large number or refugees
 |
The arrival of the Asia Minor Greeks resulted in the rise of theagricultural production of the state by 400%. Thearable land increased by 55%. TheNikolaos Plastiras Government decided on February 14, 1923 to further divide the arable land of Greece, in order for the refugees and their descendants to be the owners of their own land. The income tax revenues of the Greek state rose by about 400%, or five-fold, within four years, mainly thanks to the refugees (from 319 milliondrachmas in 1923, to 1.137 billion in 1927[11]).
Greece managed to increase the homogeneity of the population, especially inNorthern Greece (Macedonia andThrace). The urban population increased greatly, resulting in the creation of the modern Greek metropolises ofAthens andThessaloniki. New liberal ideas arrived along with the refugees, especially those coming from the cosmopolitan city ofSmyrna. The influence of the refugees was particularly important in thecultural field.
The Greek trade and the exchange rates pushed the Greek economy into a new era ofindustrialization and development, partly due to the arrival of thousands ofcheap hands, manpower of low cost. New industries were established in short time by the skilled refugee population (e.g.carpet industries). In addition, many of them became later successfulship-owners (e.g.Aristotle Onassis).
The Asia Minor Greeks became an inspiration for the native Greek population during theInterwar period, and fought along with their compatriots inWorld War II, as well, as they had an active role in theGreek Resistance.
The Greek Orthodox population of Anatolia constituted one of the wealthiest groups of the former Ottoman Empire. They controlled a lot of the economic life and the trade of Anatolia. Their expulsion led to the abandonment of many factories and shops in the hands of the newly establishedRepublic of Turkey. According to theTreaty of Lausanne, both states had the obligation to makereparations of the properties of the exchanged populations, an obligation that was never fulfilled, at the expense mostly of the Greek Orthodox refugees (whose number was larger and wealthier than the agricultural Muslim population of Greece).
The demographic changes of the Anatolian Christian population were severe, as well as the changes in thedemography of Greece herself, where thousands of people died of diseases. The diseases had also an impact on the native population of the country. Apart frommalaria, which caused the death of tens of thousands, diseases that had not appeared in Greece for years (cholera,plague) increased the already high mortality rates.
The problem of the housing of the refugees was the most pressing. Within the first ten days of October 1922, 50,000 Greeks mainly fromKydonies/Ayvali arrived inLesbos, creating a huge humanitarian problem. During the years 1923–1928, the Greek state built 25,000 houses for the refugees. TheInstitute for the Relief of the Refugees (ΕΑΠ, EAP) built another 27,000 houses (11,000 only in Attica). The same institute spent an estimated 2,422,961 English pounds in order to house 165,000 refugees in Athens and Thessaloniki.
The Asia Minor Expedition and Catastrophe, as well as the uprooting of the ethnic Greek population from Anatolia after three thousand years of presence, had an enormous impact on the Greek psyche. TheSmyrna Catastrophe has been considered as the worst incident ofmodern Greek history, and as an incident of the same magnitude as theFall of Constantinople. The matters related to the refugees halted theGreco-Turkish relations for many decades. The issues concerning the missing Greeks were soon raised in theInternational Red Cross, without any success and cooperation from the Turkish side. To this day, the Greek citizens who were born in Asia Minor have to apply for a visa in order to enter Turkey (something that does not apply to Greek citizens born in Greece).
The descendants of the refugees have founded hundreds of organizations and institutes in Greece and in the diaspora to promote their civilization and to keep in touch with their roots. Various museums in Greece (such as theBenaki Museum) display artifacts from Asia Minor, Pontus, Cappadocia and Eastern Thrace to denote the Greek presence and emphasize the origins of about 40% of the population of modern Greece.
For its efforts concerning the relief of the refugees TheGreek Red Cross (Croix-Rouge Hellénique) was nominated a total of 19 times from 1923 to 1930 for theNobel Peace Prize; 16 times in 1923, 2 in 1924 and 1 in 1930.[12] The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded in 1923 and 1924.[13]
The total number of Christians who fled to Greece was probably in the region of I.2 million with the main wave occurring in 1922 before the signing of the convention. According to the official records of the Mixed Commission set up to monitor the movements, the "Greeks' who were transferred after 1923 numbered 189,916 and the number of Muslims expelled to Turkey was 355,635.
