Greek refugees
Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, as well as remaining Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Turkey who were required to leave their homes for Greece shortly thereafter as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the population transfer and barred the return of the refugees. This Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was signed in Lausanne, on January 30, 1923 as part of the peace treaty between Greece and Turkey and required all remaining Orthodox 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, the population strength and the influence of the Asia Minor Greeks in Greece itself, has attached the term to the Anatolian Greek population of the early 20th century. At least 300,000 Greek refugees were from Eastern Thrace, whereas at least 900,000 were from Asia Minor. At least 150,000 were from Istanbul, who left the city in three years before 1928.
Usage of the term
The Orthodox Christian refugees from Asia Minor are usually called in Greek simply Οι Πρόσφυγες. Alternative terms used are Οι Μικρασιάτες πρόσφυγες or Οι πρόσφυγες του '22. Further distinctions are made to denote the refugees from various historic regions of Anatolia: Πόντιοι πρόσφυγες from the Black Sea coast, Καππαδόκες πρόσφυγες from central Turkey, Μικρασιάτες πρόσφυγες, to refer to the Greeks from the geographic area of the peninsula; special reference is made for the Refugees from Smyrna, since Smyrna was then the second largest Turkish city, and many of the affected Greeks lived there. The refugees from Eastern Thrace are also included.Historical background
Antiquity
The eastern coast of the Aegean was inhabited by Greeks as early as the 9th century BC. Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies were established from the Dardanelles to Caria, with the most important being Miletus, Phocaea, Ephesus and Smyrna. The prominence of the Ionians gave to the region the name Ionia. The Greeks of Asia Minor contributed significantly in the ancient Greek history, from the Ionian Revolt, the Ionian League and the conquests of Alexander the Great, to the Hellenistic kingdoms of Pergamos and Pontus. The Ionians were the first Greek-speaking people that the Persians encountered, and the Persian name for Greece became Younan or Yunan, derived from the word "Ionia." The name spread throughout the Near East and Central Asia.Following the spread of the Hellenistic civilization in the 3rd century BC, Greek became the lingua franca of Asia Minor, and by the fifth century AD, when the last of the Indo-European native languages of Anatolia ceased to be spoken, Greek became the sole spoken language of the natives of Asia Minor.
Byzantine Empire
After the founding of Constantinople by the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 330, Asia Minor, the major part of the Greek East, became the most important region of the Eastern Roman Empire. For the centuries to follow, the area was the main manpower and wheat source of the state. Numerous invasions and epidemics devastated the area in various times. However, Asia Minor remained densely populated, compared to the rest of the Medieval 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, including Saint Nicholas, John Chrysostomos, Isidore of Miletus, and Basilios Bessarion. The Greek speaking Christian population began to decline with the invasions of the Muslim Seljuq Turks in the 11th century. The establishment of the Seljuk Empire deprived the Byzantines of a large part of Asia Minor. The Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, and the subsequent fall in 1461 of the Greek Empire of Trebizond, located along the eastern Black Sea coast, marked the end of Greek sovereignty in Asia Minor.Ottoman Empire
The first centuries of the Ottoman rule were named The Dark centuries by the Greeks. The custom of the Janissaries 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 of Dhimmi. Islamization and gradual Turkification continued. The ideas of The Enlightenment and the subsequent Greek 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 the Sultan.20th century
The persecutions, massacres, expulsions, and death marches of the Asia Minor Greeks were renewed during the early 20th century by the Young Turk administration of the Ottoman Empire and during the subsequent revolution of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Ottoman Greek population was severely affected; its misfortunes became known as the Greek Genocide. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, the Allies granted Greece, with the Treaty of Sèvres, the administration of Eastern Thrace and the city of Smyrna and its environs. The Pontic Greeks attempted to establish their own republic, the Republic of Pontus. The defeat of the Greek army during the Greco-Turkish War led to what became known in Greece as the Asia Minor Catastrophe. A series of events, with the Great Fire of Smyrna been their peak, ended the 3,000-year-old Greek presence in Asia Minor. The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed in 1923, anticipated the compulsory exchange of populations. The remaining Greek Orthodox population of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace, as well as the Muslim population of Greece were denaturalized from homelands of centuries or millennia.Population strength
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 to Greece after the Balkan Wars. The argument that Greeks constituted the majority of the population of Anatolia claimed by Greece during Greco-Turkish War 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, perhaps a bare majority, more likely a large minority in the Smyrna Vilayet, which lay in an overwhelmingly Turkish Anatolia. The estimations of the Ecumenical 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. 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. Some refugees had moved to Russia and the Middle East in previous years. Approximately 250,000 Greek Americans of Asia Minor descent had emigrated to the United States between 1866 and 1917, had American 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 the Interwar period, as well as the large immigrations to the United States, Australia and Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
Areas of settlement
The core of the refugee population settled in Attica and Macedonia. The official refugee population per region in 1928 was as follows :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 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 named Προσφυγικά, The Refugees' . These new settlements were usually named after the place of origin of their inhabitants:
List of settlements
This is a list of refugee settlements in Greece''* denotes settlement that pre-existed, but acquired a large number or refugees''
Positive effects
The arrival of the Asia Minor Greeks resulted in the rise of the agricultural production of the state by 400%. The arable land increased by 55%. The Nikolaos 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.Greece managed to increase the homogeneity of the population, especially in Northern Greece. The urban population increased greatly, resulting in the creation of the modern Greek metropolises of Athens and Thessaloniki. New liberal ideas arrived along with the refugees, especially those coming from the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna. The influence of the refugees was particularly important in the cultural field.
The Greek trade and the exchange rates pushed the Greek economy into a new era of industrialization and development, partly due to the arrival of thousands of cheap hands, manpower of low cost. New industries were established in short time by the skilled refugee population. In addition, many of them became later successful ship-owners.
The Asia Minor Greeks became an inspiration for the native Greek population during the Interwar period, and fought along with their compatriots in World War II, as well, as they had an active role in the Greek Resistance.