Pontic Greeks
The Pontic Greeks, also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group indigenous to the region of Pontus, in northeastern Anatolia. They share a common Pontic Greek culture that is distinguished by its music, dances, cuisine, and clothing. Folk dances, such as the Serra, and traditional musical instruments, like the Pontic lyra, remain important to Pontian diaspora communities. Pontians traditionally speak Pontic Greek, a modern Greek variety, that has developed remotely in the region of Pontus. Commonly known as Pontiaka, it is traditionally called Romeika by its native speakers.
The earliest Greek colonies in the region of Pontus begin in 700 BC, including Sinope, Trapezus, and Amisos. Greek colonies continued to expand on the coast of the Black Sea between the Archaic and Classical periods. The Hellenistic Kingdom of Pontus was annexed by Rome in 63 BC becoming Roman and later Byzantine territory. During the 11th century AD, Pontus was largely isolated from the rest of the Greek–speaking world, following the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia. After the 1203 siege of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the Empire of Trebizond was established on the Black Sea coast by a branch of the Komnenos dynasty, later known as 'Grand Komnenos'. Anatolia, including Trebizond, was eventually conquered by the Ottomans entirely by the 15th century AD. Greek presence in Pontus remained vibrant during the early modern period up until the 20th century, when, following the Pontic Greek genocide and the 1923 population exchange with Turkey, Pontic Greeks migrated primarily to Greece and around the Caucasus, including in the country of Georgia. Although the vast majority of Pontic Greeks are Orthodox Christians, those who remained in Northeastern Turkey's Black Sea region following the population exchange are Muslim; their ancestors having converted to Islam during the Ottoman period, like thousands of other Greek Muslims.
Today, most Pontic Greeks live in Northern Greece, especially in and around Thessaloniki in Macedonia. Those from southern Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea are often referred to as "Northern Pontic ", in contrast to those from "South Pontus", which strictly speaking is Pontus proper. Those from Georgia, northeastern Anatolia, and the former Russian Caucasus are in contemporary Greek academic circles often referred to as "Eastern Pontic " or Caucasian Greeks. The Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox Urums are included in this latter groups as well. Aside from their predominantly Greek origin, they also likely owe a degree of their ancestry to several sources.
Origins and genetics
Pontic Greeks are an ethnic Greek subgroup, indigenous to the region of Pontus, in northeastern Anatolia. Greeks have lived in Pontus since "the time of the Argonauts, Herodotus and Xenophon and the Ten Thousand". Pontic Greeks claim descent from ancient Greeks who in the 8th century BC had moved from the Ionian cities located in the islands and shores of the Aegean Sea, to the area of the Black Sea called Pontus. However, as many different ethnic groups have lived in the region since ancient times and have intermarried, present day Pontic Greeks also likely owe their ancestry to ancient Anatolians, other Greeks, other migrants to Pontus, and Caucasian peoples.Pontic Greeks are genetically similar to other groups living in the Caucasus. A genetic study of male Georgians, including Pontic Greeks in Georgia, revealed that the latter had high incidence of haplogroup L, which is also prevalent among Laz people. Haplogroup G2 and haplogroup J2 were also prevalent among the Pontians studied. Pontians in Georgia and Lazes are genetically similar. Armenians in Georgia and Pontians in Georgia are also genetically similar. In addition, the Pontians studied were genetically diverse, indicating genetic mixture with other groups. The region of Pontus has been diverse since at least the Middle Ages; in 1204, the Matzouka region alone contained Greeks, Italians, Lazes and a few Armenians.
Self-identification
In the 21st century, most Pontians strongly identify as Greeks. However, this has not always been the case. Before the creation of the diaspora, many Pontians did not consider themselves Greek.An ethnicity is made up of people with ancestry or cultural background in common. Self-identification is an important part of belonging to an ethnic group. Pontians have a lot in common with other Greeks; for example, they speak Romeika, a Greek language variety. Pontians also traditionally follow the Greek Orthodox faith, although a minority in Turkey are Sunni Muslims. Pontian Greeks also share traits with other ethnic groups. Like Turks, they cook havítz, boortsog, and İmam bayıldı. They share other aspects of their culture with Lazes, Persians, and Armenians. They may owe some aspects of their culture to ancient Anatolian peoples.
The Pontic label is relatively new. Anton Popov writes, "Anthony Bryer states that 'at the beginning of the nineteenth century a Pontic Christian might describe himself in the old way as a Douberites, Phytanos or Tsitenos first, and then as a "Roman" Orthodox subject of the sultan; by the end of the century he was calling himself a Greek, and after he had finally left the Pontos in 1923, a Pontic Greek.'" Anton Popov studied Caucasus Greeks in former Soviet territories. Most of the Romeika speakers that Popov interviewed referred to themselves as "Romei." He also mentioned that many Caucasus Greeks only began referring to themselves as Pontians when they went to work in Greece.
During Ottoman times, most Pontian Greeks did not see themselves as "Greeks" per se. Neal Acherson, in his book Black Sea, writes, "Who did they think they were, in this pre-nationalist age? In the first place, they did not think of themselves as 'Greek' or as a people in some way rooted in the peninsula and islands we now call 'Greece.' Sophisticates in Trebizond might address one another in the fifteenth century as 'Hellenes,' but this was a cultural fancy rather than an ethnic description. Outsiders, whether Turks or northern Europeans, referred to them and to all the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire as 'Rom' or 'Rum' people, or as 'Romanians' — citizens of the Roman Empire, in other words, who were also distinguished by their Orthodox Christian faith. Struggling with these categories, a Pontic Turk whose village had once been Greek told Anthony Bryer: 'This is Roman country; they spoke Christian here...'" This identification mirrored the identification of other non-intellectual Greeks at the time.
Greek nationalism only began to spread to the Pontos in the 1800s after the Greek nation gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. This nationalism came during a time of commercial prosperity in the Pontos. Again, Acherson writes, "The teachers and the school curricula came from Athens, bringing with them a new concept of Greekness which linked the Greek-Orthodox communities of the Black Sea and the 'nation' of Greece." He goes on to explain how the Greek government encouraged nationalist thinking: "A speaker in the Greek parliament in 1844 expounded this newly designed identity: 'The Kingdom of Greece is not Greece. It constitutes only one part, the smallest and the poorest. A Greek is not only a man who lives within the Kingdom, but also one who lives in Yoannina, Serrai, Adrianople, Constantinople, Smyrna, Trebizond, Crete and in any land associated with Greek history and the Greek race." The newly established Kingdom of Greece set up consulates in the Ottoman Empire to spread the Megali Idea. While the Anatolians recognized a shared cultural heritage, most weren't involved in an irredentist movement.
Few Pontic Greeks supported the Megali Idea except for some Greek nationalists such as Nikos Kapetanidis. Very few wanted an independent Pontic state, and few had ambition to join with Greece, even in the early 1900s. The reason for this is unclear. Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi give three theories on why most Pontic Greeks distanced themselves from nationalism and separatism: poorly developed political consciousness, tradition of submissiveness to Islamic hegemony, or fears of massacres and economic harm. More generally, Greek nationalism in Asia Minor mostly appealed to "the most enlightened and liberal", to the medical, legal and literary professionals and to the rising middle class. It was opposed, however, by the "ancient nobility, the superior clergy, the lay dignitaries of the church and the wealthy merchants". Currently, there are some Turkish-speaking Pontic-identifying communities, living in the Greek region of Western Macedonia, specifically in Metamorfosi, Kozani. These Pontians follow the Greek Orthodox Church and profess a strong Greek identity. After the Greek–Turkish population exchange in 1923, even though the state never considered them a "national threat", some of these Pontians saw their language as a "cultural flaw" and desired to get rid of it. Historian and psychologist Stavros Iason Gavriilidis argues that this was a result of the trauma they faced from the Greek genocide.
Mythology
In Greek mythology the Black Sea region is the region where Jason and the Argonauts sailed to find the Golden Fleece. The Amazons, female warriors in Greek Mythology lived in Pontus, and a minority lived in Taurica, also known as Crimea, which is also the minor unique settlement of Pontic Greeks. The warlike characteristics of Pontic Greeks were once said to have been derived from the Amazons of Pontus.History
Antiquity
The first recorded Greek colony, established on the northern shores of ancient Anatolia, was Sinope on the Black Sea, circa 800 BC. The settlers of Sinope were merchants from the Ionian Greek city state of Miletus. After the colonization of the shores of the Black Sea, known until then to the Greek world as Pontos Axeinos, the name changed to Pontos Euxeinos. In time, as the numbers of Greeks settling in the region grew significantly, more colonies were established along the whole Black Sea coastline of what is now Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania.File:Pontus Eagle Coin.jpg|thumb|alt=refer to caption|Ancient Greek coin from Sinope, coast depicting the head of a nymph and an eagle with raised wings, 4th century BC
The region of Trapezus was mentioned by Xenophon in his famous work Anabasis, describing how he and other 10,000 Greek mercenaries fought their way to the Euxine Sea after the failure of the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger whom they fought for, against his older brother Artaxerxes II of Persia. Xenophon mentions that when at the sight of sea they shouted "Thalatta! Thalatta!" – "The sea! The sea!", the local people understood them. They were Greeks too and, according to Xenophon, they had been there for over 300 years. A whole range of trade flourished among the various Greek colonies, but also with the indigenous tribes who inhabited the Pontus inland. Soon Trebizond established a leading stature among the other colonies and the region nearby become the heart of the Pontian Greek culture and civilization. A notable inhabitant of the region was Philetaerus who was born to a Greek father in the small town of Tieion which was situated on the Black Sea coast of the Pontus Euxinus, he founded the Attalid dynasty and the Anatolian city of Pergamon in the second century BC.
This region was organized circa 281 BC as a kingdom by Mithridates I of Pontus, whose ancestry line dated back to Ariobarzanes I, a Persian ruler of the Greek town of Cius. The most prominent descendant of Mithridates I was Mithridates VI Eupator, who between 90 and 65 BC fought the Mithridatic Wars, three bitter wars against the Roman Republic, before eventually being defeated. Mithridates VI the Great, as he was left in memory, claiming to be the protector of the Greek world against the barbarian Romans, expanded his kingdom to Bithynia, Crimea and Propontis before his downfall after the Third Mithridatic War.
Nevertheless, the kingdom survived as a Roman vassal state, now named Bosporan Kingdom and based in Crimea, until the 4th century AD, when it succumbed to the Huns. The rest of the Pontus became part of the Roman Empire, while the mountainous interior was fully incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire during the 6th century.