Posted on 05/17/2015 6:33:17 PM PDT by bad company
On 19 may, Hellenism commemorates the extermination of 353,000 Pontian Greeks killed during a genocide.
During the years 1914-1923, in the 1st World War, the Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey's predecessor, were removed from Western Anatolia. An estimated 350 thousands Greeks were killed between 1913-1922, ending thousands of years of Hellenic civilization in Asia Minor.
Pontian and Anatolian Greeks were victims of broader Turkish genocide project at all Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. More than 3.5 million Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians were killed under the regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal. The end of the genocide marked a profound rupture in the long Greek historical presence on the Asia.
The geographic extent and power of the Ottoman Empire began to decline over the 19th century as subjected peoples, began exerting their own nationalist aspirations. The Greeks successfully overthrew Ottoman rule during the War of Independence from 1821 to 1830, establishing the Modern Greek state as it is currently situated at the tip of the Balkan Peninsula.
The Young Turk movement emerged from this context, eventually aiming to turn the Ottoman Empire into a homogenous Turkish nation state.
This political revolution occurred in 1912-1913, which ultimately ended 5 centuries of Ottoman rule. Afterwards, there was a diplomatic effort between the Greeks and the CUP to arrange a population exchange. However, the outbreak of WW I stunted this effort. Greek villages were plundered and terrorized under the pretext of internal security. The Greeks were generally accused as a disloyal and traitorous 5th-column, and eventually most of the population was rounded up and deported to the interior.
The demographic consequences of the Greek genocide are not objectively certain. The prewar population of Greeks was at least 2.5 million. Over the course of 1914 to 1923, about one million had migrated, some voluntarily but most under coercion. As many as 1.5 million Greeks died, either from massacre or exposure, although this figure is not positive. Presently, a miniscule Greek population remains in Turkey. Greek communities annually commemorate the genocide on September 14 in recognition of the Smyrna catastrophe.
Whoa, the Ottomans - jihad once again?
This book. I saw it on a FReeper's homepage a few years ago and got it from my library. The author's mother, as a young girl, survived the massacre of Ottoman Empire Greeks, and ended up in the United States.
The Pontic Greek communities dated to 500 B.C. or earlier.
In the years from maybe 1000 BC or even earlier until maybe the time of the genocide, just about all of Western Turkey had been colonized by Greeks, mostly Ionians but some must have been from Dorians as Sardis is a name derived from “Sparta”.
A large portion of Xerxes and Darius fleet was composed of Greek city sates in that area of Anatolia, and parts of the Eastern Aegean.
Maybe they thought they were taking revenge fro Troy.
The Ionian Greeks were expelled after the Greek army landed in Anatolia after WWI trying to implement this idea.
If I had my druthers, I wish they had succeeded, but the Turks were not unprovoked in this matter.
Manages to leave out the rather relevant fact that Greece, with the encouragement of the Allies, invaded Anatolia to destroy resistance against partition by Kemal’s government.
Got almost all the way to Ankara, committing atrocities and massacres as they went. Then retreated back to the coast, pursued by Turks who committed atrocities as they went.
Thanks
There is an excellent book called “Paradise Lost” about the destruction of Smyrna now Izmir in Turkey. An international city, productive (agricultural products mostly) orderly and peaceful literY burned to the ground by the Turks Well worth a read
During the massacre at Smyrna in 1922, the MOhammedan Turks fell on Metropolitan Chrisostomos whom they tortured, set his beard on fire, gouged out his eyes and chopped him up into little pieces.
The Turks have been killing Greeks on a massive scale for the past 6 centuries not just the past 100 years or so.
Smyrna now Izmir was an international trading center it was literally burned to the ground by the Turks in 1923. Kemal always denied he gave the order to destroy it
Next year in Constantinople
Ethnic religion, ladies and gentlemen!
It ain't just the Armenians.
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