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Population exchange between Greece and Turkey

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1914 document showing the official figures from the 1914 population census of the Ottoman Empire. The total population (sum of all the millets) was given at 20,975,345, and the Greek population was given at 1,792,206.

The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey is the first large-scale population exchange, or agreed mutual expulsion in the 20th century. It involved some two million people, most of them forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands. The "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" was signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on the 30th January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. The exchange took place between Turkish citizens of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek citizens of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory though most Greeks living in the Turkish Republic had already been expelled by the time the agreement was signed and only about 400 thousand left afterward.

Displacements

The "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" was signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on the 30th January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey at the insistence of Kemal Ataturk who had previously ethnically cleansed over a million Greeks from Asia Minor. In fact only about 400,000 Greeks were exchanged since most had already been expelled by the advancing turkish forces. The exchange took place between Turkish citizens of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek citizens of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory.

In Greece, it was called the Asia Minor Catastrophe (Template:Lang-el). Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Greco-Turkish war (1919-1922). These included exchanges and expulsion of about 500,000 Turks from Greece and about 1.500.000 Greeks from Asia Minor, Anatolia and Eastern Thrace to Greece.

The convention affected the populations as follows: almost all Greek Orthodox Christians (Greek- or Turkish-speaking) of Asia Minor including a Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox population from middle Anatolia (Karamanlides), the Ionia region (e.g. Smyrna, Aivali), the Pontus region (e.g. Trapezunda, Sampsunta), Prusa (Bursa), the Bithynia region (e.g., Nicomedia (İzmit), Chalcedon (Kadıköy), East Thrace, and other regions were either expelled or formally denaturalized from Turkish territory. These numbered about half a million and were added to the over one million Greeks allready cleansed by the turkish army before the treaty was signed. About 500,000 people were expelled from Greece, predominantly Turks, and others including Greek Muslims, Muslim Roma, Pomaks, Cham Albanians, and Megleno-Romanians.

Aftermath

Declaration of Property during the Greek-Turkish population exchange from Yena (Kaynarca) to Thessaloniki (16/12/1927).

The Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from this transfer as well as the Greeks of Istanbul and the Aegean Islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada). Due to punitive measures carried out by the Republic of Turkey, such as the 1932 parliamentary law which barred Greek citizens in Turkey from a series of 30 trades and professions from tailor and carpenter to medicine, law, and real estate, the Greek population of Istanbul began to decline, as evidenced by demographic statistics. The Varlık Vergisi capital gains tax imposed in 1942 on wealthy non-Muslims in Turkey also served to reduce the economic potential of ethnic Greek businesspeople in Turkey. Furthermore, violent incidents as the Istanbul Pogrom (1955) directed against the ethnic Greek community greatly accelerated emigration of Greeks, reducing the 200,000-strong Greek minority in 1924 to just over 5,000 in 2005. By contrast the Muslim community of Greece has increased in size to over 100,000 since the signing of the Lausane Treaty, while Greece is also host to tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants.

The population profile of Crete was significantly altered as well. Greek and Turkish speaking Muslim inhabitants of Crete (Cretan Turks) moved, principally to the Anatolian coast, but also to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Some of these people identify themselves as ethnically Greek to this day. Conversely, Greeks from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived to Crete bringing in their distinctive dialects, customs and cuisine.

The expelled populations suffered greatly. According to Bruce Clark, leaders of both Greece and Turkey, as well as some circles in the international community, saw the resulting ethnic homogenization of their respective states as positive and stabilizing since it helped strengthen the nation-state natures of these two states.

At the same time, forced deportation has obvious challenges: social, such as forcibly being removed from one's place of living, and more practical such as abandoning a well-developed family business. Countries also face other practical challenges: for example, even decades after, one could notice certain hastily developed parts of Athens, residential areas that had been quickly erected on a budget while receiving the fleeing Asia Minor population.

See also

References

  1. Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw"'History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey" Cambridge University Press, page 239-241.
  2. Gilbar, Gad G. (1997). Population dilemmas in the Middle East: essays in political demography and economy. London: F. Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4706-3.
  3. Kantowicz, Edward R. (1999). The rage of nations. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. pp. 190–192. ISBN 0-8028-4455-3.
  4. ^ Bruce (2006). Twice A Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey. Granta. p. 18. ISBN 1862077525. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |first Clark= (help) Cite error: The named reference "Twice" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. Crossing the Aegean: The Consequences of the 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange (Studies in Forced Migration). Providence: Berghahn Books. 2003. p. 29. ISBN 1-57181-562-7.
  6. Sofos, Spyros A.; Özkırımlı, Umut (2008). Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd. pp. 116–117. ISBN 1-85065-899-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. Hershlag, Zvi Yehuda (1997). Introduction to the Modern Economic History of the Middle East. Brill Academic Pub. p. 177. ISBN 90-04-06061-8.
  8. Vryonis, Speros (2005). The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul. New York: Greekworks.com, Inc. ISBN 0-97476-603-8. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  9. According to figures presented by Prof. Vyron Kotzamanis to a conference of unions and federations representing the ethnic Greeks of Istanbul. "Ethnic Greeks of Istanbul convene", Athens News Agency, 2 July 2006.
  10. "THE TURKS OF WESTERN THRACE". www.hrw.org. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
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