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1 Chapter 1 : Macedonia for the Macedonians Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Rural Settlem and millions of other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more Enter your mobile number or address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Population exchange between Greece and Turkey Save document showing the official figures from the population census of the Ottoman Empire. The total population sum of all the millets was given at 20,,, and the Greek population was given at 1,, The population exchange between Greece and Turkey Greek: It involved at least 1. The population exchange was envisioned by Turkey as a way to formalize, and make permanent, the exodus of Greeks from Turkey, while initiating a new exodus of a smaller number of Muslims from Greece to supply settlers for occupying the newly depopulated regions of Turkey, while Greece saw it as a way to supply its masses of new propertyless Greek refugees from Turkey with lands to settle from the exchanged Muslims of Greece. Arrivals in Greece from the exchange numbered 1,, Additionally 50, Greeks came from the Caucasus, 50, from Bulgaria and 12, from Crimea, almost 1. The Ottoman census of counted The Ottoman estimate of Christian population of 3 million within the present borders of Turkey was actually 4. By the Christian population of Turkey proper had been reduced from 4. Two weeks after the treaty, the Allied Powers turned over Istanbul to the Nationalists, marking the final departure of occupation armies from Anatolia. The end of the War of Independence brought new administration to the region, but also brought new problems considering the demographic reconstruction of cities and towns, many of which had been abandoned. The Greco-Turkish War left many of the settlements plundered and in ruins. Distribution of Anatolian Greeks in Demotic Greek speakers in yellow, Pontic Greek in orange and Cappadocian Greek in green with individual villages indicated. Most of the ethnic populations in these annexed territories were Muslim, but were not necessarily Turkish in ethnicity. During the deliberations held at Lausanne, the question of exactly who was Greek, Turkish or Albanian was routinely brought up. Greek and Albanian representatives determined that the Albanians in Greece, who mostly lived in the northwestern part of the state, were not all mixed, and were distinguishable from the Turks. Between and, the infusion of these refugees into Turkey would dramatically alter Anatolian society. By, Turkish officials had settled 32, individuals from Greece in the province of Bursa alone. For example, in, nearly 20 percent of the population of present-day Turkey was non-muslim, but by, only 2. As the first official high commissioner for refugees, Nansen proposed and supervised the exchange, taking into account the interests of Greece, Turkey, and West European powers. As an experienced diplomat with experience resettling Russian and other refugees after the First World War, Nansen had also created a new travel document for displaced persons of the World War in the process. He was chosen to be in charge of the peaceful resolution of the Greek-Turkish war of â Although a compulsory exchange on this scale had never been attempted in modern history, Balkan precedents, such as the Greco-Bulgarian population exchange of, were available. Because of the unanimous decision by the Greek and Turkish governments that minority protection would not suffice to ameliorate ethnic tensions after the First World War, population exchange was promoted as the only viable option. The population exchange was seen as the best form of minority protection as well as "the most radical and humane remedy" of all. The departure from Greece of its Moslem citizens would create the possibility of rendering self-supporting a great proportion of the refugees now concentrated in the towns and in different parts of Greece". Nansen recognized that the difficulties were truly "immense", acknowledging that the population-exchange would require "the displacement of populations of many more than 1,, people". It was required that possessions not carried across the Aegean sea be recorded in lists; these lists were to be submitted to both governments for reimbursement. After a commission was established to deal with the particular issue of belongings mobile and immobile of the populations, this commission would decide the total sum to pay persons for their immovable belongings houses, cars, land, etc. It was also promised that in their new settlement, the refugees would be provided with new possessions totaling the ones they had left behind. All possessions left in Greece belonged to the Greek state and all the possessions left in Turkey belonged to the Turkish state. Because of the difference in nature and numbers of the populations, the Page 1

2 possessions left behind by the Greek elite of the economic classes in Anatolia was greater than the possessions of the Muslim farmers in Greece. Naimark claimed that this treaty was the last part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to create an ethnically pure homeland for the Turks. Having arrived in Greece for the purpose of settling the refugees on land, the Commission had no statistical data either about the number of the refugees or the number of available acres. When the Commission arrived in Greece, the Greek government had already settled provisionally 72, farming families, almost entirely in Macedonia, where the houses abandoned by the exchanged Moslems, and the fertility of the land made their establishment practicable and auspicious. In Turkey, the property abandoned by the Greeks was often looted by arriving immigrants before the influx of immigrants of the population exchange. As a result, it was quite difficult to settle refugees in Anatolia since many of these homes had been occupied by people displaced by war before the government could seize them. In Turkey, the departure of the independent and strong economic elites, e. In fact, Caglar Keyder noted that "what this drastic measure [Greek-Turkish population exchange] indicates is that during the war years Turkey lost The emerging business groups that supported the Free Republican Party in could not prolong the rule of a single-party without an opposition. Transition to multiparty politics depended on the creation of stronger economic groups in the mids, which was stifled due to the exodus of the Greek middle and upper economic classes. Hence, if the groups of Orthodox Christians had stayed in Turkey after the formation of the nation-state, then there would have been a faction of society ready to challenge the emergence of single-party rule in Turkey. In Greece, contrary to Turkey, the arrival of the refugees broke the dominance of the monarchy and old politicians relative to the Republicans. In the elections of the s most of the newcomers supported Eleftherios Venizelos. However, increasing grievances of the refugees caused some of the immigrants to shift their allegiance to the Communist Party and contributed to its increasing strength. Prime Minister Metaxas, with the support of the King, responded to the communists by establishing an authoritarian regime in In these ways, the population exchange indirectly facilitated changes in the political regimes of Greece and Turkey during the interwar period. The death rate during the immigration was four times higher than the birth rate. In the first years after arrival, the immigrants from Greece were inefficient in economic production, having only brought with them agricultural skills in tobacco production. This created considerable economic loss in Anatolia for the new Turkish republic. On the other hand, the Greek populations that left were skilled workers who engaged in transnational trade and business, as per previous capitulations policies of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the population exchange, embodied in the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations at the Lausanne Conference of January 30,, was based on ethnic identity. The population exchange made it legally possible for both Turkey and Greece to cleanse their ethnic minorities in the formation of the nation-state. Nonetheless, religion was utilized as a legitimizing factor or a "safe criterion" in marking ethnic groups as Turkish or as Greek in the population exchange. However, due to the heterogeneous nature of these former Ottoman lands, many other ethnic groups posed social and legal challenges to the terms of the agreement for years after its signing. This classification follows the lines drawn by the millet system of the Ottoman Empire. In the absence of rigid national definitions, there was no readily available criteria to yield to an official ordering of identities after centuries long coexistence in a non-national order. Invitations to participate in the conference were extended to both the Ankara-based government and the Istanbul-based Ottoman government, but the abolition of the Sultanate by the Ankara-based government on 1 November and the subsequent departure of Sultan Mehmet VI from Turkey left the Ankara-based government as the sole governing entity in Anatolia. Thus of the 1,, only c. Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Turkish War of Independence. The convention affected the populations as follows: Smyrna, Aivali, the Pontus region e. On the other hand the Muslim population in Greece not having been affected by the recent Greek-Turkish conflict was almost intact. Aftermath Greek population in Istanbul and percentages of the city population â Pogroms and policies in Turkey led virtually to the exodus of the remaining Greek community. In the event, those Greeks who had temporarily fled these regions, particularly Istanbul, before the entrance of the Turkish army were not permitted to return to their homes by Turkey afterwards. Greece, with a population of just over 5,, people, had to absorb 1,, new citizens from Turkey. Most property abandoned by Greeks who were subject to Page 2

3 the population exchange was confiscated by the Turkish government by declaring them "abandoned" and therefore state owned. Furthermore, violent incidents as the Istanbul Pogrom directed primarily against the ethnic Greek community, and against the Armenian and Jewish minorities, greatly accelerated emigration of Greeks, reducing the,strong Greek minority in to just over 2, in By contrast, the Turkish community of Greece has increased in size to over, Conversely, Greeks from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived in Crete bringing in their distinctive dialects, customs and cuisine. According to Bruce Clark, leaders of Greece and Turkey, and 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. Countries also face other practical challenges: Page 3

4 Chapter 2 : Population exchange between Greece and Turkey Revolvy The population exchange between Greece and Turkey (Greek: ἠἈî½ï αλλαγÎ, translit. I AntallagÃ, Ottoman Turkish: Ù Ø Ø Ø Ù Ù â Ž, translit. Mübà dele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. In her book, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia University of Chicago Press,, Karakasidou pursued an inquiry into the ethnological origin of certain rural inhabitants in Greek Macedonian and challenged the myth of the Greek national homogeneity of the region. Elisabeth Kontogiorgi centers her analysis a bit differently. She is concerned specifically with the issue of Greek refugee settlement in post-ottoman Macedonia, but unlike near-contemporary presentations she considers the political and the diplomatic intricacies of the time merely as one of many other significant factors at work. Some of these useful contemporary works include: Nevertheless, she does show how European diplomats considered the compulsory exchange of population as the only way to maintain a lasting peace between Greece and Turkey. Despite the grandiose rhetoric with regard to minority issues that prevailed in the s, the European Great Powers thus permitted a process that was tragic or at least traumatic for most of those affected. For Kontogiorgi, the work of the Refugee Settlement Commission and the national governments which were involved is but a part of the question. Her main contribution lays in her efforts to pursue a detailed inquiry of the multiple aspects of the settlement, with research supported by numerous statistics from various sources. This research is largely based on English and Greek sources; the bibliographies available in other regional languages are not represented. However, the material from the Greek archives and Greek historiography in general make this study valuable for the diverse community of Balkan historians who do not read Greek and who thus do not have access to sources not translated from that language. Elisabeth Kontogiorgi begins her book by introducing the reader to the geography of Macedonia, its economy and history, and the various people who lived there Part I. After explaining the political and diplomatic background of the issue, she moves with ease among varying aspects of the problem, pursuing an inquiry into the work of the Refugee Settlement Commission, the history of land ownership in Macedonia, Part II the social, political and ethnological impact of the migration Part III and its economic aspects Part IV. Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia would have probably benefited had the author dedicated more space to a general analysis of the minority problems in the period after World War I in regards to their regulation under different international treaties. Still, she makes an effort to explain the role of the League of Nations, which undertook the responsibility of planning and undertaking the resettlements, but left its financing to governments, banks and individual economic organizations, on an ad hoc basis. The main value of the book lies in the detailed analysis of the less obviously political aspects of the problem. A separate heading is dedicated to the refugees, who came to Greece in large numbers from different parts of Turkey, with a varying professional and cultural background and who even spoke varying dialects of the Greek language. Their misery upon arrival is well illustrated by the accounts of all sorts of witnesses, diplomats, journalists and politicians. It begins by providing insight into the Ottoman system of land tenure and continues with an analysis of the Greek postwar legislation on the land reform, the partitioning of the big estates and their redistribution to the refugees under the patronage of the Refugee Settlement Commission. In, the Greek population of Macedonia was recorded as being With the expulsion of Turks and Slavs, in it amounted to However, there seemed to be another reason for this rapid growth. Namely, as the legal regulation of the land reform stated that only married couples could obtain land, the rate of marriage in Macedonia rose extremely fast. Still, after the process of land distribution ended, the levels of marriages and fertility fell. The third, and probably most intriguing part of Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia is dedicated to the social, political and ethnological impact of the refugee resettlement process. The author pays special attention here to the issue of political and national considerations. She explains the place of land reform in Macedonia in the general agenda of the Greek state, and its efforts to solve problems related to agriculture through it. Here she explains how the Agricultural Party, as well as the Communists, failed to Page 4

5 attract sufficient supporters, and how the Venizelist and Anti-Venizelist camps skillfully exploited the conflicts between the old inhabitants and the newcomers. Interestingly, although the Convention for the exchange of the population was signed by Eleftherios Venizelos himself, he was not held responsible for its tragic results in the eyes of the refugees. Thus, they regularly supported him in the elections. Their press described the refugees as lazy and unproductive. The Greek government thus was presented with a unique opportunity to settle the Greek-speaking refugees on the lands vacated by these prior inhabitants. The new ethnological map of Macedonia which emerged encompassed Greeks from all four major regions of origin: Asia Minor, the Pontus, eastern Thrace and the Caucasus. It was simply a matter of time before all of these people acquired a clear Greek national identity. The fourth and final part of Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia is dedicated to infrastructure and logistics. It shows how the rural settlement was planned by the state and how the former Turkish chifliks were populated. The health services, animal husbandry and land use were organized. The names of the villages and rivers were exchanged for Greek ones p. Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia makes for a worthwhile read for those interested in Balkan history in general, as well as for specialists in migration studies and issues of nationalism. As the Conventions for the exchange of population have been largely considered from the point of view of political and diplomatic history, this book offers fresh insight from another perspective. It considers the consequences of a purely political inter-state agreement in the context of issues of land law, demography, nation-building and infrastructure development. Readers of Balkan history accustomed to simple political accounts may find it somewhat bewildering to read about topics like the impact of the refugee resettlement on agriculture and animal husbandry. However, this embodies the main quality of the work, as it shows lesser-known aspects of the forced migration and its impact on the land where the refugees were settled. Nevertheless, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia would have been more complete if the author had dedicated more space to those who were obliged by the Greek government to leave the region. Despite its title, the work merely mentions the Neuilly Treaty and the Convention which arranged for the exchange of population between Greece and Bulgaria. Other exoduses are left unmentioned. The demographic change which occurred in Greek Macedonia became possible due to the legally voluntary, but in practice obligatory removal of the Slavic population from that region. In short, this book draws a portrait of Macedonia, its sad history and the refugees who settled it. It is a book that studies an episode of unparalleled suffering, even measured by the standards of Balkan history. Page 5

6 Chapter 3 : blog.quintoapp.com Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia Elisabeth Kontogiorgi Boek The third, and probably most intriguing part of Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia is dedicated to the social, political and ethnological impact of the refugee resettlement process. The author pays special attention here to the issue of political and national considerations. There they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as Phrygians. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi. Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that. Herodotus claims that a branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other Greek states such as Amphipolis, Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira and many others, and to the north another tribe dwelt, called the Paeonians. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea. During the Peloponnesian War, Macedonia became the theatre of many military actions by the Peloponnesian League and the Athenians, and saw incursions of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucidydes. Many Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans both the Spartans and the Macedonians were Dorian, while the Athenians were Ionian, but Athens maintained the colony of Amphipolis under her control for many years. After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon and carrying the title of Hegemon of League of Corinth started his long campaign towards the east. For a brief period a Macedonian republic called the "Koinon of the Macedonians" was established. It was divided into four administrative districts by the Romans in the hope that this would make revolts more difficult, but this manoeuvre failed. Then in BC, Macedonia was fully annexed by the Romans. Strabo, writing in the first century AD places the border of Macedonia on that part at Lychnidos, [14] Byzantine Achris and presently Ochrid. Therefore ancient Macedonia did not significantly extend beyond its current borders in Greece. The Acts of the Apostles Acts The passage reports that Paul and his companions responded immediately to the invitation. Subsequently the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly as well as other regions to the north were incorporated into a new Provincia Macedonia, but in AD under a Diocletianic reform many of these regions were removed and two new provinces were created: The Slavic, Avar, Bulgarian and Magyar invasions in the 6â 7th centuries devastated both provinces [16] with only parts of Macedonia Prima in the coastal areas and nearer Thrace remaining in Byzantine hands, while most of the hinterland was disputed between the Byzantium and Bulgaria. The Macedonian regions under Byzantine control passed under the tourma of Macedonia to the province of Thrace. The new system was based on administrative divisions called Themata. The region of Macedonia Prima the territory of modern Greek administrative district of Macedonia was divided between the Thema of Thessalonica and the Thema of Strymon, so that only the region of the area from Nestos eastwards continued to carry the name Macedonia, referred to as the Thema of Macedonia or the Thema of "Macedonia in Thrace". The Thema of Macedonia in Thrace had its capital in Adrianople. Page 6

7 Chapter 4 : Population exchange between Greece and Turkey - Wikipedia The arrival in Greece of over million refugees and their settlement proved to be a watershed with far-reaching consequences for the blog.quintoapp.com Kontogiorgi examines the exchange of populations and the agricultural settlement in Greek Macedonia of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Asia Minor and the Pontus, Eastern Thrace, the Caucasus. However, it did not have real popular support and remained based abroad with, closely linked to the Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation. Interwar period[ edit ] The Tarlis and Petrich incidents triggered heavy protests in Bulgaria and international outcry against Greece. The Common Greco-Bulgarian committee for emigration investigated the incident and presented its conclusions to League of Nations in Geneva. As a result, a bilateral Bulgarian-Greek agreement was signed in Geneva on September 29, known as Politis-Kalfov protocol after the demand of the League of Nations, recognizing Greek Slavophones as Bulgarians and guaranteeing their protection. Next month a Slavic language primer textbook in Latin known as Abecedar published by the Greek ministry for education, was introduced to Greek schools of Aegean Macedonia. On February 2,, the Greek parliament, under pressure from Serbia, rejected ratification of the Greek-Serbian Coalition Treaty. Agreement lasted 9 months until June 10, when League of Nations annulled it. During the s the Comintern developed a new policy for the Balkans, about collaboration between the communists and the Macedonian movement. The idea for a new unified organization was supported by the Soviet Union, which saw a chance for using this well developed revolutionary movement to spread revolution in the Balkans. In the so-called May Manifesto of 6 May, for first time the objectives of the unified Slav Macedonian liberation movement were presented: In the Comintern issued also a special resolution about the recognition of the Slav Macedonian ethnicity. The census recorded 81, Slavo-Macedonian speakers or 1. The situation for Slavic-speakers became unbearable when the Metaxas regime took power in Place names and surnames were officially Hellenized and the native Slavic dialects were banned even in personal use. The name changes took place according to the Greek language. Bulgarian occupation zone in is shown in green. Additional Bulgarian occupation zone in is shown in red surrounded by green band. Ohrana were armed detachments organized by the Bulgarian army, composed of pro-bulgarian oriented part of the Slavic population in occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II, led by Bulgarian officers. The Bulgarian policy was to win the loyalty of the Slav inhabitants and to instill them a Bulgarian national identity. Indeed, many of these people did greet the Bulgarians as liberators, particularly in eastern and central Macedonia, however, this campaign was less successful in German-occupied western Macedonia. Unlike Germany and Italy, Bulgaria officially annexed the occupied territories, which had long been a target of Bulgarian irridentism. This campaign was successful especially in Eastern and later in Central Macedonia, when Bulgarians entered the area in, after Italian withdrawal from Greece. All Slav-speakers there were regarded as Bulgarians and not so effective in German-occupied Western Macedonia. A ban was placed on the use of the Greek language, the names of towns and places changed to the forms traditional in Bulgarian. In addition, the Bulgarian government tried to alter the ethnic composition of the region, by expropriating land and houses from Greeks in favour of Bulgarian settlers. The Bulgarians organized supplying of food and provisions for the Slavic population in Central and Western Macedonia, aiming to gain the local population that was in the German and Italian occupied zones. The Bulgarian clubs soon started to gain support among parts of the population. Many Communist political prisoners were released with the intercession of Bulgarian Club in Thessaloniki, which had made representations to the German occupation authorities. They all declared Bulgarian ethnicity. For this purpose, the Bulgarian army, under the approval of the German forces in the Balkans sent a handful of officers from the Bulgarian army, to the zones occupied by the Italian and German troops to be attached to the German occupying forces as "liaison officers". All the Bulgarian officers brought into service were locally born Macedonians who had immigrated to Bulgaria with their families during the s and s as part of the Greek-Bulgarian Treaty of Neuilly which saw 90, Bulgarians migrating to Bulgaria from Greece. These officers were given the objective to form armed Bulgarian militias. Bulgaria was interested in Page 7

8 acquiring the zones under Italian and German occupation and hopped to sway the allegiance of the 80, Slavs who lived there at the time. There was a rapprochement between the Greek Communist Party and the Ohrana collaborationist units. A large proportion of Bulgarians and Slavic speakers emigrated there. In the declarations of Bulgarian nationality were estimated by the Greek authorities, on the basis of monthly returns, to have reached 16, in the districts of German-occupied Greek Macedonia, [39] but according to British sources, declarations of Bulgarian nationality throughout Western Macedonia reached 23, Then the ethnic composition of the Serres region consisted of 67 Greeks, 11 Bulgarians and others; in Sidirokastro region- 22 Greeks, 10 Bulgarians and others; Drama region- 11 Bulgarians, Greeks and others; Nea Zichni region - Bulgarians, 28 Greeks and others; Kavala region - 59 Greeks, Bulgarians and others; Thasos - 21 and 3 Bulgarians; Eleftheroupoli region- 36 Greeks, 10 Bulgarians and others. The Greek communists had already been influenced by the Comintern and it was the only political party in Greece to recognize Macedonian national identity. The KKE expressed its intent to "fight for the national self-determination of the repressed Macedonians". It was from this period that Slav-speakers in Greece who had previously referred to themselves as "Bulgarians" increasingly began to identify as "Macedonians". It has been estimated that after the end of the Second World War over 20, people fled from Greece to Bulgaria. To an extent the collaboration of the peasants with the Germans, Italians, Bulgarians or ELAS was determined by the geopolitical position of each village. Depending upon whether their village was vulnerable to attack by the Greek communist guerrillas or the occupation forces, the peasants would opt to support the side in relation to which they were most vulnerable. In both cases, the attempt was to promise "freedom" autonomy or independence to the formerly persecuted Slavic minority as a means of gaining its support. Page 8

9 Chapter 5 : Macedonia (Greece) - Wikipedia Examines the effects on Greece of the settlement of over million refugees during the inter-war period Charts the transformation of the character of Greek Macedonia Examines Greek state policy and the role of the Refugee Settlement Commission. Introduction Aegean Macedonia came under Greek occupation in following the Balkan Wars and partition of Macedonia. The Greek government immediately began a terrorist campaign against the Macedonian people, resulting in hundreds of thousands killed, tortured, or expelled. Many Greeks, however, refuse to admit that a sizeable ethnic Macedonian minority exists in Greece. The Greek government claims that It claims that there are no ethnic minorities within its borders. This has been well-documented by several human rights organizations including: The Greek government attempted to ethnically cleanse the Macedonian population and colonize Aegean Macedonia with Greeks. A series of population exchanges occurred after which saw tens of thousands of Macedonians forcibly expelled while over half a million Greeks were shipped in from Turkey and Bulgaria. The figures range from, or The number of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia began to decline both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population during the Balkan wars and particularly after the First World War. The Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria provided for the so-called volun-tary exchange of Greek and Bulgarian minorities. According to the best available estimates, 86, Macedonians were compelled to emigrate from Aegean Macedonia, mostly from its eastern and central regions, to Bulgaria in the years from to More importantly still as a result of the compulsory exchange of Greek and Turkish or rather Christian and Muslim minorities required by the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended the Greek-Turkish war,, Turks, including 49, Muslim Macedonians, were forced to leave Greece; and 1,, Greeks and other Christians were expelled from Asia Minor. In the years up to the Greek government settled, of these refugees as well as 53, colonists from other parts of Greece in Aegean Macedonia. Thus, as a result of the removal of, Macedonians and the conscious and planned settlement of, refugees, the Greek government transformed the ethnographic structure of Aegean Macedonia in the period between and These figures may well be an underestimate but this material does add weight to the idea that even greater numbers of Greeks came in. The extent of the population movement out of Aegean Macedonia is emphasized in a report on March 30,, in the Greek newspaper Rizospastis, which stated that, Slavic speakers were resettled to Bulgaria. This being the case, Greece might be considered to have questionable claim on the name Macedonia. Remember, too, that the name Macedonia was not applied to the province by Greece until Clearly they do not have the kind of historical claim to the land and to the name Macedonia as the Macedonian Slavs, Vlachs and Albanians whose ancestors have been there for 1, years or more. It is predominantly a Slav region not a Greek one. The language of the home, and usually also of the fields, the village street, and the market, is Macedonian, a Slav language. The numbers of ethnic Macedonians was reduced to, Today, the estimates range between, and one million the latter number by Macedonian human rights activists in Greece. Also, an anonymous Greek ethnologist gave an estimate of, for the community Another scholar, based on a detailed estimate of 30, speakers in the Florina and Aridea area makes a global estimate of,, Macedonian speakers throughout Greek Macedonia Van Boeschoten, Thus, the, estimate for the Macedonian community seems reasonable However, the statement is not accepted by reputable opinion outside of Greece. For instance, the edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica indicated that there were still, Macedonian speakers in this area, indicating a much greater percentage than 1. If Macedonian activists from these areas are correct,there may be as many as 1,, people from Macedonian-speaking backgrounds in Aegean Macedonia. Today, after nearly ninety years of assimilation efforts by the Greek governments it seems that measures have proved to be unsuccessful in Hellenizing the region. Currently, the ethnic Macedonians, estimated around 1,, by some sources, still constitute the majority of population in that part of the Greece, Aegean Macedonia. Disregarding the principle of respect for minority rights within existing states, the negotiations in Lausanne accepted the principle of an obligatory resettlement of Christians from Turkey Greeks, Turkophones, etc. Under the convention for obligatory emigration,, Moslems were expelled from the Aegean part of Macedonia. In place of the Page 9

10 Macedonians expelled to Bulgaria and Turkey a total of, the Greek state resettled, persons of Greek and non-greek origin in the Aegean part of Macedonia. This heterogeneous population, colonized in the Aegean part of Macedonia in the period between the two world wars, came from other parts of Greece, as well as from Asia Minor, the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, western Thrace, Bulgaria and other places. The large majority of the refugee Christian population was settled in villages throughout the Aegean part of Macedonia, thus creating what has become known as the village, or agricultural, colonization; and a smaller number were colonized in towns, creating the so-called urban colonization. This large colonization effected by Greece resulted in a major change in the historical status of the Macedonian language. Once the language used by most, it was now afforded only the status of the language of a minority, or the status of a family language, which was spoken by, Macedonians. The large ethnic changes were the cause of changes in the status of the Greek language as well. From being the language of a minority, it now became the most used language, being imposed even on the Armenians, the "Turkophones", the in-comers from among the various Caucasian peoples, etc. With the imposition of the Greek language and with the help of mixed marriages, a new Greek nation was being created in the Aegean part of Macedonia. The colonization by this population, whom the Macedonians called madziri in-comers, foreigners, resulted in the Aegean part of Macedonia losing its Macedonian ethnic character. The Macedonians, became a minority; they were present as a majority only in the western part of the Aegean part of Macedonia Kostur, Lerin and Voden regions. The large colonization brought about by the Greeks was followed by a law passed by the Greek government in on the change of the toponymy of the Aegean part of Macedonia. All villages, towns, rivers and mountains were renamed and given Greek names. The Greek state achieved this through a policy of state terror. As early as the period of the Balkan War of Greece had begun the ethnic genocide of the Macedonian people. The cruelty displayed by the Greek soldiers in their dealings towards the Macedonian people was merciless. Following the political partition of Macedonia in, Greece launched upon an active policy of the denial of the nationality and the assimilation of the Macedonians. The name Macedonian and the Macedonian language were prohibited and the Macedonians were referred to as Bulgarians, Slavophone Greeks or simply "endopes" natives. At the same time, all the Macedonians were forced to change their names and surnames, the latter having to end in -is, -os or -poulos. With the denial of the Macedonian nation went the non-recognition of the Macedonian language. It was prohibited, its standing was minimized and it was considered a barbarian language, unworthy of a cultured and civilized citizen. Its use in personal communication, between parents and children, among villagers, at weddings and funerals, was strictly forbidden. Defiance of this ban produced Draconian measures, ranging from moral and mental maltreatment to a "language tax" on each Macedonian word that was uttered. The written use of Macedonian was also strictly prohibited, and Macedonian literacy was being eliminated from the churches, monuments and tombstones. All the churches were given Greek names. The attacks on the Macedonian language culminated at the time of Ioannis Metaxas General Metaxas banned the use of Macedonian not only in everyday life in the villages, in the market-place, in ordinary and natural human communications and at funerals, but also within the family circle. Adult Macedonians, regardless of their age, were forced to attend what were known as evening schools and to learn "the melodious Greek language". The violation of the ban on the use of the Macedonian language in the villages, market-places or the closed circle of the family caused great numbers of Macedonians to be convicted and deported to desolate Greek islands. Back to top In its attempts to eradicate the Macedonian name, "Greece followed a policy of assimilating the Macedonian minority and Hellenizing the Macedonian region in northern Greece. The government changed place names and personal names from Macedonian to Greek, Decree No. In the Greek government issued a directive calling for the destruction of all Slavic inscriptions in churches and forbidding church services from being held in a Slavic language. They forbade the Macedonian language, forced Macedonians to learn in foreign languages and imposed their own interpretations of history. They forced them to go to their churches. In short, they turned them into second-rate citizens, subjected to systematic re-settling and permanent exile. They forced upon us the fate of disappearing through assimilation. The Macedonian language and name were forbidden, and the Macedonians were referred to as Bulgarians, Serbians or natives. By a law promulgated on November 21,, all place-names were Hellenized; that is the names of cities, villages, rivers and mountains Page 10

11 were discarded and Greek names put in their place. The news of these acts and the new, official Greek names were published in the Greek government daily Efimeris tis Kiverniseos no. The requirement to use these Greek names is officially binding to this day. All evidence of the Macedonian language was compulsorily removed from churches, monuments, archaeological finds and cemetaries. Slavonic church or secular literature was seized and burned. The use of the Macedonian language was strictly forbidden also in personal communication between parents and children, among villagers, at weddings and work parties, and in burial rituals. According to this census the Aegean part of Macedonia numbered 1,, inhabitants. In the law known under the number was passed, article 6 of which established the formation and functioning of the town and village municipalities of the New Lands. On 10th October the Commission on Toponym in Greece issued a circular letter which contained instructions for the choice of place-names. The circular letter from the Commission was immediately followed by a booklet by N. At the same time, special sub-commissions were formed in the newly-established districts in the Aegean part of Macedonia, whose task it was to study the problem on the spot and to suggest new names for the villages and towns in the respective districts. In the spirit of this letter, in, the Commission on Toponyms of Greece issued a more detailed statement under the number This Commission had intensified its activities and was now giving concrete suggestions. However, owing to the Graeco-Turkish War, the still undefined peace agreement with Turkey and also the great migrations of the population between Aegean Macedonia and Turkey and the forced movement of an estimated 33, Macedonians to Bulgaria imposed by the Neuilly Convention, signed by Bulgaria and Greece, for "voluntary" resettlement the process of renaming was slightly slowed down. Thus in the period from to inclusive, 76 centres of population in Aegean Macedonia were renamed: But as soon as the processes of migration came to an end and the position of the state was strengthened, and, following the legislative orders of 17th September, published in the "Government Gazette" N2, 21st September, and the Decision of the Ministerial Council dated 10th November, and published in the Government Gazette S2, 13th November, the process of renaming the inhabited places was accelerated to an incredible degree. Consequently, in the course of, places in the Aegean part of Macedonia were renamed: By the end of most of the centres of population in the Aegean part of Macedonia had been given new names, but the Greek state continued the process by a gradual perfection of the system of renaming, effected through new laws and new instructions. On t3th March the special law known under its number, 4,, was passed and published in the "Government Gazette" S-- 99 of 13th March This law contained detailed instructions and directives as to the process of renaming places. By the force of this law and the earlier instructions, amended by Law Ng 6, of 18th June, Law S2 of 22 November, Law N2 of 4th December and many other instructions, legislative orders and other enactments, the process of renaming the inhabited areas has been carried on to this day, taking care of each and every geographical name of suspicious origin throughout Macedonia, including entirely insignificant places, all aimed at erasing any possible Slav trace from the Aegean part of Macedonia and from the whole of Greece. With these laws, instructions and other enactments, the district commissions in charge of the change of place names and the Principal Commission at the Ministerial Council of Greece established as early as enforced many more changes. In the period from to inclusive, another 39 places in the Aegean part of Macedonia were renamed, and after World War II up to inclusive yet another places in this part of Macedonia were renamed. An estimated total of 1, cities, towns and villages were renamed in the Aegean part of Macedonia in the period from to inclusive. This number does not include those inhabited places the renaming of which has not been announced in the "Government Gazette", which has been taken as the exclusive source for the figures and the dynamics of renaming given here by years and districts. Neither does it include the numerous Macedonian settlements named after saints, the names of which official Greece simply translated from the Macedonian into the Greek language. Renamed centres of population in the Aegean part of Macedonia by district: Ber - 49; 2. Negush - 16; 3. Page 11

12 Chapter 6 : Population exchange between Greece and Turkey - WikiVisually Following the defeat of the Greek Army in by nationalist Turkish forces, the Convention of Lausanne in specified the first compulsory exchange of populations ratified by an international organization. Two weeks after the treaty, the Allied Powers turned over Istanbul to the Nationalists, marking the final departure of occupation armies from Anatolia. The end of the War of Independence brought new administration to the region, but also brought new problems considering the demographic reconstruction of cities and towns, many of which had been abandoned. The Greco-Turkish War left many of the settlements plundered and in ruins. Distribution of Anatolian Greeks in Demotic Greek speakers in yellow, Pontic Greek in orange and Cappadocian Greek in green with individual villages indicated. Most of the ethnic populations in these annexed territories were Muslim, but were not necessarily Turkish in ethnicity. During the deliberations held at Lausanne, the question of exactly who was Greek, Turkish or Albanian was routinely brought up. Greek and Albanian representatives determined that the Albanians in Greece, who mostly lived in the northwestern part of the state, were not all mixed, and were distinguishable from the Turks. Between and, the infusion of these refugees into Turkey would dramatically alter Anatolian society. By, Turkish officials had settled 32, individuals from Greece in the province of Bursa alone. For example, in, nearly 20 percent of the population of present-day Turkey was non-muslim, but by, only 2. As the first official high commissioner for refugees, Nansen proposed and supervised the exchange, taking into account the interests of Greece, Turkey, and West European powers. As an experienced diplomat with experience resettling Russian and other refugees after the First World War, Nansen had also created a new travel document for displaced persons of the World War in the process. He was chosen to be in charge of the peaceful resolution of the Greek-Turkish war of â Although a compulsory exchange on this scale had never been attempted in modern history, Balkan precedents, such as the Greco-Bulgarian population exchange of, were available. Because of the unanimous decision by the Greek and Turkish governments that minority protection would not suffice to ameliorate ethnic tensions after the First World War, population exchange was promoted as the only viable option. It was required that possessions not carried across the Aegean sea be recorded in lists; these lists were to be submitted to both governments for reimbursement. After a commission was established to deal with the particular issue of belongings mobile and immobile of the populations, this commission would decide the total sum to pay persons for their immovable belongings houses, cars, land, etc. It was also promised that in their new settlement, the refugees would be provided with new possessions totaling the ones they had left behind. All possessions left in Greece belonged to the Greek state and all the possessions left in Turkey belonged to the Turkish state. Because of the difference in nature and numbers of the populations, the possessions left behind by the Greek elite of the economic classes in Anatolia was greater than the possessions of the Muslim farmers in Greece. Having arrived in Greece for the purpose of settling the refugees on land, the Commission had no statistical data either about the number of the refugees or the number of available acres. When the Commission arrived in Greece, the Greek government had already settled provisionally 72, farming families, almost entirely in Macedonia, where the houses abandoned by the exchanged Moslems, and the fertility of the land made their establishment practicable and auspicious. In Turkey, the property abandoned by the Greeks was often looted by arriving immigrants before the influx of immigrants of the population exchange. As a result, it was quite difficult to settle refugees in Anatolia since many of these homes had been occupied by people displaced by war before the government could seize them. In Turkey, the departure of the independent and strong economic elites, e. In fact, Caglar Keyder noted that "what this drastic measure [Greek-Turkish population exchange] indicates is that during the war years Turkey lost The emerging business groups that supported the Free Republican Party in could not prolong the rule of a single-party without an opposition. Transition to multiparty politics depended on the creation of stronger economic groups in the mids, which was stifled due to the exodus of the Greek middle and upper economic classes. Hence, if the groups of Orthodox Christians had stayed in Turkey after the formation of the nation-state, then there would have been a faction of society ready to challenge the emergence of single-party rule in Turkey. In Greece, contrary to Turkey, the Page 12

13 arrival of the refugees broke the dominance of the monarchy and old politicians relative to the Republicans. In the elections of the s most of the newcomers supported Eleftherios Venizelos. However, increasing grievances of the refugees caused some of the immigrants to shift their allegiance to the Communist Party and contributed to its increasing strength. Prime Minister Metaxas, with the support of the King, responded to the communists by establishing an authoritarian regime in In these ways, the population exchange indirectly facilitated changes in the political regimes of Greece and Turkey during the interwar period. The death rate during the immigration was four times higher than the birth rate. In the first years after arrival, the immigrants from Greece were inefficient in economic production, having only brought with them agricultural skills in tobacco production. This created considerable economic loss in Anatolia for the new Turkish republic. On the other hand, the Greek populations that left were skilled workers who engaged in transnational trade and business, as per previous capitulations policies of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the population exchange, embodied in the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations at the Lausanne Conference of January 30,, was based on ethnic identity. The population exchange made it legally possible for both Turkey and Greece to cleanse their ethnic minorities in the formation of the nation-state. However, due to the heterogeneous nature of these former Ottoman lands, many other ethnic groups posed social and legal challenges to the terms of the agreement for years after its signing. This classification follows the lines drawn by the millet system of the Ottoman Empire. In the absence of rigid national definitions, there was no readily available criteria to yield to an official ordering of identities after centuries long coexistence in a non-national order. Invitations to participate in the conference were extended to both the Ankara-based government and the Istanbul-based Ottoman government, but the abolition of the Sultanate by the Ankara-based government on 1 November and the subsequent departure of Sultan Mehmet VI from Turkey left the Ankara-based government as the sole governing entity in Anatolia. The Exchange involved the remaining Greeks of central Anatolia both Greek- and Turkish-speaking, Pontus and Kars, a total of roughly, Of the 1,, Greeks involved in the exchange, only approximately, were resettled in an orderly fashion. Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Turkish War of Independence. The convention affected the populations as follows: Smyrna, Aivali, the Pontus region e. These numbered about half a million and were added to the Greeks already expelled before the treaty was signed. By the time the conference in Lausanne took place, the Greek population had already left Anatolia, with an exception of, Greeks, who stayed after the evacuation of the Greek army from the region. Pogroms and policies in Turkey led virtually to the exodus of the remaining Greek community. The punitive measures carried out by the Republic of Turkey, such as the 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, [27] correlated with a reduction in the Greek population of Istanbul, as well as that of Imbros and Tenedos. Furthermore, violent incidents as the Istanbul Pogrom directed primarily against the ethnic Greek community, as well as the Armenian and Jewish minority, greatly accelerated emigration of Greeks, reducing the,strong Greek minority in to just over 2, in By contrast the Turkish community of Greece has increased in size to over, Some of these people identify themselves as ethnically Greek to this day. 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. Countries also face other practical challenges: Page 13