September 14th has been designated as a day of remembrance for all victims of the Greek Genocide. Many Pontic Greeks, however, choose to commemorate the plight of the Greeks in the Pontus region of Asia Minor on May 19th. Theofanis Malkidis writes that “the 19 May 1919 is the date of the landing of Mustafa Kemal in Samsun, it is the beginning of the second and more severe phase of the Pontian Genocide” (Η 19η Μαΐου 1919 ημερομηνία την αποβίβασης του Μουσταφά Κεμάλ στη Σαμψούντα, είναι η αρχή για τη δεύτερη και πιο σκληρή φάση της Ποντιακής Γενοκτονίας). However, such accounts fail to provide an accurate or detailed description of Mustafa Kemal’s conduct in Samsun or any explanation as to why May 19th should be of particular significance to Greeks of that region.
On Tuesday morning 19 May 1919 Mustafa Kemal arrived at Samsun on the British-built steamer Bandirma which had departed from Constantinople’s Galata Bridge on the evening of May 16th. Kemal, accompanied by military personnel and administrative staff, had recently been appointed Inspector General of the newly organized Ninth Army. Bülent Gökay writes that “Kemal’s appointment was in fact prompted by the Allies’ demand to the Ottoman government to stop the harassment of the Christian villages in the province of Samsun by local Muslim bands. … The inspector general was to be basically responsible for peacekeeping and demobilisation.” However, as all sources agree, Kemal disregarded these orders and began organizing a resistance movement that eventually would rid Turkey of foreign occupation; including, the Hellenic troops at Smyrna/Izmir; the French in Adana; the Italians in Antalya and Konya; the British in Urfa, Marash, Antep, Marsivan and Samsun.
One report speculated in advance that a renewal of atrocities against the Christian population in Samsun might accompany the initial stages of Kemal's movement:
“I consider that an outbreak directed probably in the main against native Christians is very probable, and I am to-day in receipt of very disquieting reports from Mr. Hurst, the officer in the Levant Consular Service, who is now at Samsoun. Mr. Hurst states that Mustapha Kemal, who was sent there, with the best intentions, by his Highness Ferid Pasha, is organising a movement which is only too likely to find an outlet for its energies in massacres.”
So far as atrocities, the accounts available describe a far less eventful landing in Samsun. For example, a telegram sent from Samsun on May 21st 1919 by the aforementioned Captain Hurst of the British navy to Vice-Admiral Sir A. Calthorpe reads:
“The general situation has been calmer for the last few days. There has been a lull as regards brigandage, except perhaps round Alacham.”
At that time British troops were stationed in Samsun and Kemal was being carefully observed by the British. In fact, Kemal's movements and operations were so heavily restricted in Samsoun that he moved promptly inland to Amasya, via Havza, where he could operate more freely.
On 25 May 1919 Kemal traveled to the town of Havza, a town 50 miles inland on the road from Samsun to Amasya. His residence at Havza was the Mesudiye Hotel. According to some sources, it was in Havza where he met a Bolshevik delegation. On 12 June 1919 Kemal went to Amasya, a further 50 miles inland. While in Amasya, Kemal met with other regional nationalist commanders – including Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Huseyin Rauf Orbay – and together they drafted the first declaration of resistance against the foreign powers. The declaration was forwarded to all civil and military authorities in Anatolia. The declaration claimed the country was in great danger and it also undermined the government in Constantinople claiming it was incapable of saving Turkey.
Although it is widely documented that Kemalist authorities continued the genocidal practices of the Young Turks (or CUP) towards the Greeks and other Christians in the Empire on a systematic scale, there is no evidence to suggest that this particular dimension of the Kemalist movement developed at the time of Kemal’s landing in Samsun or the days immediately following it. For this region and at this time, the literature and documentation available confirms that Mustafa Kemal was far more concerned with achieving an independent Turkey than with the annihilation of Ottoman Greeks. In any case, the British presence at Samsun prevented any attack on the Greek communities in that region. In light of this, we might ask whether 19 May 1919 really makes for a fitting day for remembrance; in that, does it accurately symbolize the sufferings of Pontic Greeks during the Genocide?
The opening line of Mustafa Kemal’s famous October 1927 speech giving his account of the Turkish Nationalist Movement was “I landed at Samsun on the 19th May, 1919” and, as such, the day is viewed by Turks as the beginning of a victorious ‘war of independence’. During his presidency of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal himself designated May 19th as a national holiday, a Youth and Sports Day. To this day, May 19th continues to be a national holiday in Turkey celebrated by Turkish school children and students across the country. It is now more commonly known as the Atatürk'ü Anma, Gençlik ve Spor Bayramı [Remembrance of Ataturk, Youth and Sports Day].
However, it was only in the early 1990s that certain Pontic Greek groups began calling for 19 May to be a day of remembrance for Greeks of the Pontus region and on 4 February 1994 following intense lobbying led by Pontian politician Michalis Charalambidis, a Greek parliamentary decree designated May 19th as a day of remembrance. In an interview Konstantinos Fotiadis revealed that it was politician Mihalis Charalambidis who decided on the date of May 19th (Αυτός είναι που προτείνει την καθιέρωση της 19ης Μαΐου ως μέρα μνήμης της Ποντιακής γενοκτονίας και την υιοθετεί το Ελληνικό Κοινοβούλιο). In other words, the decision was not based on any historical study but merely on a politician's whim. Fotiadis has also identified Charalambidis as the "ideological protagonist" (ιδεολογικό πρωταγωνιστή) of the so-called "Pontian Genocide" thesis.
Given that May 19th had been celebrated and commemorated for several decades in Turkey, unsurprisingly Turks viewed this as an act of provocation. Ironically, it is not unknown for Pontic Greeks to criticize the Turks for celebrating May 19th on 'their' day of commemoration, suggesting a reordering of the marking of this day by Greeks and Turks. Moreover, a number of prominent Pontic Greeks have commented that the designation of separate dates for remembrance of the Greek Genocide causes considerable confusion and serves only to divide diasporic Ottoman Greek communities. In some cases, it has even led people to believe that the genocide began in 1919.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
the Pontian Genocide
The Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York and the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA and Canada cordially invite you to the 89th anniversary of the Pontian Genocide that will take place at Bowling Green in Manhattan on May 19th, 2008 at noon.
Every year the ancestors of Pontian Greeks along with all Hellenes and philhellenes across the United States and Canada commemorate and honor the victims of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Ottomans, New Turks and Kemalists in 1914-1924.
As you know, the Greek Parliament in February of 1994 dedicated the 19th of May as A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE of the victims of the ferocious Genocide.
All Hellenic organizations and primarily the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA & CANADA are actively involved in an all out effort to pursue the Recognition of the Pontian Greek Genocide from the International Community. We have Recognitions, thus far from several Governors, State Senates, State Assemblies and Mayors. In addition this last December, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognized this genocide stating:
"BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution."
Monday May 19, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Bowling Green Park
New York, NY 10004
Subway:
Bowling Green Station (4 & 5 trains)
Whitehall Street - South Ferry Station (R & W trains)
For additional information please contact Dimitri Molohides (917) 302-4086.
www.panpontian.org
2)
http://globalpolitician.com/24697-turkey
GLOBAL POLITICIAN
May 11, 2008
Turkish Denial and The Forgotten Genocides
Ioannis Fidanakis
Throughout time man has associated certain images with events, images that shock the human mind so much they are permanently engrained in our memories. The Holocaust, the mere mention of the word fills people with images of horrible persecution. Mountains of shoes and gas chambers are all quickly associated with the horrible events which took place in the Second World War. In the United States, whippings and lynchings are seen as trade marks of African-American Slavery in the South. Today’s society identifies these images with crimes against Humanity. We are taught to no longer tolerate such acts of hatred, and instead commemorate and study these important lessons of the past to honour the many innocent who lost their lives. Yet the most disturbing imagery, that of mountains upon mountains of human skulls and long marches of women, children and elderly in the desert, are lost on society. Our ‘civilized’ society turns a blind eye to such images and the events in which they are identified with, the forgotten Hellenic, Armenian, and Assyrian Genocides initiated during the First World War. How can the international community allow the suffering and persecution endured by the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey to just be left to fade away into history? Why are these millions of innocent men, women and children that perished not given the same respect of commemoration, study, and remembrance?
The lack of recognition, dealing with the Hellenic Genocide, which is known by scholars as the Greek and Pontic Greek Genocide, is in and of itself a crime against Humanity. To simply surpass the importance of such a terrible part of History is a disservice to all those who lost their lives during those years of fear and terror. How can Western Civilization, who owe the Hellenic people so much for its very birth and continued survival. Not feel as if their own ancestors perished under years of oppression and atrocities.
There are many excuses behind the lack of international recognition, mainly based around the historical events that took place shortly after the Genocide. The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed in 1923, and brought an end to the Hellenic population living in Anatolia, makes no mention of the persecutions and troubles suffered by the Christian subjects at the time, and hence sealing the issues fate. The Greco-Turkish Treaty of Friendship signed in 1930, is also used by many as a reason behind the Genocide’s omission from history books, because of the concessions that were made for peace in the region. Lastly, and what appears to be the most logical, is that fact that Hellas suffered political and social turmoil, with the Nazi Occupation and Civil War, which took place shortly afterwards. The mere survival of the Hellenic people took precedence over the recognition for these events.
The tragedy that befell those Hellenes living in Anatoliki Thraki (Eastern Thrace) and all of Anatolia can be divided into two separate phases. The first falling between 1914 and the closing days of the First World War, at the hands of the Ottoman Government , and the second from 1919 till the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 by Mustapha Kemal and his Kemalist followers, who were the old guard of the Young Turk movement, that had previously ruled the Ottoman Empire. It is during these years that the rivers of Anatoliki Thraki and Anatolia ran red with Hellenic blood.
“The first step in the persecutions of the Greeks was the attack on the ecclesiastical, legal, and educational rights which had always been possessed within the Turkish Empire by the Greek ecclesiastical authorities and which had gone far toward mitigating the distress of the Turkish regime. The Turkish language was introduced into Greek schools; geography and history had to be taught in Turkish. Greek priests were arrested and imprisoned without warning or reason and without notification of the ecclesiastical authorities. Forcible conversions to Mohammedanism, long forbidden by law, began to appear again, particularly in the case of Greek girls carried off to Turkish harems without the usual right of intervention which the Greek Patriarch and Metropolitans had always possessed. “(1)
The persecutions of old rightfully echoed loudly in the hearts and minds of the population with the return of those once forgotten practices and a new form of the janissary system, disguised in the form of charitable Orphan Asylums. The ingenious method of masking these charitable institutions for devious purposes was second nature for the Turkish Government. The Orphan asylums sprung up under the disguise of relief, and yet were used as tools of the Government’s planned extermination of the Hellenic population still living within the Empire.
“These orphan institutions have in appearance a charitable object, but if one considers that their inmates are Greek boys who became orphans because their parents were murdered, or who were snatched away from their mothers, or left in the streets for want of nourishment, (of which, they were deprived by the Turks.), and that these Greek children receive there a purely Turkish education, it will be at once seen that the cloak of charity there lurks the ‘child collecting’ system instituted in the past by the Turkish conquerors and a new effort to revive the janissary system. The Greek boys were treated in this manner. What happens to the Greek girls? If we review the Consular reports about the persecutions from the year 1916 to 1917 we shall find hardly one of them which does not speak of forcible abductions and conversions to Mohammedanism. And it could not have been otherwise, since it is well known that this action, as has been stated above, was decided upon in June 1915, in order to effect the Turkification of the Hellenic element. This plan was carried out methodically and in a diabolical manner, through the ‘mixed settlements’ of Greeks and Turks, always with a predominance of Mohammedan males and of Greek females in order to compel mixed marriages.”(2)
Other methods used by the Turkish government during both phases were Work battalions, Concentration camps, death marches, and straight-out massacres to put an end to the Hellenic Question. The famous work battalions, known as ‘Ameles tabour’, were created “on the plea that the Christians could not be trusted to bear arms against their coreligionists they were drafted into labor battalions and set into the interior of Asia Minor to do work for the Turks.”(3)
The conditions, in which, they were forced to live in were terrible. “A piece of unsuitable bread made from tare (animal food) and a watery soup daily, under the rain and snow, with insults, humiliations, and beatings, sicknesses of dysentery, diarrhea, typhus, did not leave much margin for survival. The number of those who survived these notorious ameles tabour, ‘the death battalions’ as called by Christians, was minimal.” (4)
Anatoliki Thraki and the Genocide
One of the most overlooked regions, in which the Genocide accrued, is Anatoliki Thraki. A place, which suffered systematic plans of genocide, under both the Bulgarians and Turks, seeing double the carnage of other Hellenic lands during those years. During the years of persecution in Vorio Thraki (Northern Thrace) by the Bulgarians, the Turkish policy towards the Hellenes was one of friendship, because of the Slavic threat against the Ottoman Empire. Thus, generally speaking, the position of the Greeks of Thrace was a good one in this period. With the revolution of the Young Turks, the Greeks of Thrace, as all the Greeks of the Empire, hoped for the amelioration of their position believing in the declarations of equality and brotherhood. They were soon disillusioned, however, since the measures of the Young Turks against the Greek communities affected many of their privileges. (5)
An eerie sense of doom must have been felt creeping in, with the Turkish reoccupation of Thraki, which would bring an era of brutality not soon forgotten with the return of atrocities, looting and massacres against the Hellenes. Whole villages being destroyed by the Turkish military in the most sadistic ways, at the time, a wireless dispatch to the Daily Chronicle from Constanza says: ‘Turkey has been running an ‘atrocious campaign’ most unscrupulously to cover her own misdeeds and distract attention from the appalling facts of the Thracian massacres by the Turkish army of reoccupation. (6) The death and destruction seen in Thraki during the Balkan Wars would be surpassed only with the coming First World War.
“When the European war broke out, the Turks, with German connivance, began a policy of extermination of the Greek population which parallels in almost every detail the terrible outrages against the Armenians.” The Turkish Government used the outbreak of the War to its full advantage to begin the removal of the Hellenic Population from their ancestral homeland, under the pretext of the 'military security' of the Turkish cities, a large part of the population of eastern Thrace was deported towards the hinterland of Asia Minor hinterland (as was the case with the population of western Asia Minor and Pontos). Many were forced to convert to Islam, and they were distanced from the Patriarchate and had no access to Greek schools. A large part of the male population was exterminated in amele taburu or labour battalions. (7)
The Terror and destruction decimated the countryside, turning the once beautiful crossroads between Europe and Asia, into Hell on earth, with Turkish hordes descending upon the local peasantry leaving nothing in their wake. Life in the countryside changed from one of children playing and parents working, to silence, as Hellenes dared not to tend to their fields, while Turkish bands roamed freely in the open countryside.
Reports from the Ecumenical Patriarchate tell us of the anarchy and terror, which reigned over Anatoliki Thraki, where these Turkish bands were free to, committed the oldest crimes in the newest ways. Turkish civilians aided the Ottoman Government in their plans of extermination, in whatever manner they could. Turkish peasants would execute orders given to them by local officials mainly during the cover of darkness, to hide their identity from their neighbors. Individual incidents like that from the Diocese of Heracles, show the pure horror that Hellenes living in Thraki had to deal with on a daily bases, “At the end of May, 1919, three Albanian-Turks, guarding the Tsikili Farm, on the Tsads-Tyroloe road, killed two young Christian men from Tsads, whose clothes and ears they sent to this town, to frighten the peasantry and whose corpses they gave to the dogs of the farm for food”. (8)
In the Diocese of Ganos and Chora, “The Turkish peasants’ fanaticism, provocations and threatening attitude toward the Greeks had grown so violent, that they openly declared, even in presence of Government officials, that they would quite soon annihilate them. This state of things paralyzed the will of the Greeks and prevented them from attending to their business” (9). A perfect example of their fanaticism comes from one report in December of 1919. “Periclis Prodromou from Avdini, was slaughtered like a lamb, near Atelthini”(10), as if the Hellenic people were livestock, this just goes to show the mentality held by the Turkish people at the time.
In the Diocese of Didymotechon, which lies on the border of Anatoliki Thraki and Western Thraki, we see, “On May 21st, a double murder of two Greeks took place in the village Tchanakli. These two farmers coming to Ouzoum Kioprou, were on the way attacked by four soldiers. The head of one victim, Athanassius, was cut off, while the other victim, though seriously wounded, was able to creep as far as Eski-keuyto. The wounded reported the crime to the authorities and after a few hours succumbed to his wounds.”(11)
In the end Hellenism in Anatoliki Thraki would face the same fate as that of Anatolian and Pontian Hellenism. With the evacuation of the Hellenic Army in 1922, the surviving 300,000 Hellenes living in Anatoliki Thraki, excluding those living in Constantinople were forced to leave the homeland of their ancestors, which had been theirs for thousands of years.
A Call for Justice and Recognition
In the same spirit that brought recognition and restitution for the victims of the Holocaust, so should Turkey be held accountable for the crimes of its past. How else can it truly be seen as a partner for peace, ready for entrance inside the European community? Those seeking justice are not looking for War or dismantlement of the Turkish state, but rather for the wrongs of the past to be recognized and set straight. The Turkish people should not fear international recognition, but should welcome it, as a means to finally write an end to this ugly chapter of history so all people involved can look to the future instead of the past.
Far too much time has past since those terrible events during the early 20th century, without an international declaration memorializing these atrocities as Genocide. Hellas is politically and socially stable enough to final push for international recognition of the Genocide suffered by its people during those long years of oppression and persecution. It is time that the movement for justice and recognition finally take center stage inside the many important National Issues facing Hellas today. In 2007, an important step was realized, when the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognized the crimes suffered by the Assyrian, Hellenic, and Armenian populations between 1914 and 1923 as Genocide. “The resolution declares that ‘it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.’ It ‘calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.’(12)
It is my firm belief that the only honorable and logical way to handle recognition and restitution of the Genocide committed against the Hellenes of Anatoliki Thraki is with a solution deemed acceptable for both parties involved. This mutual understanding must benefit both Christian and Muslim Thracians still living inside Turkey, as well as those descendants living outside the region. The first step towards justice would be the Genocide’s recognition inside Turkey, as well as internationally. Something that has already slowly come about with the recent declarations from International Associations, as well as limited recognition by some in the International Community and locally in the United States.
The second step would be the creation of a Genocide Memorial in Constantinople to commemorate all those lost during those bloodily years of turmoil. This memorial could also run as a research center and academic hub for Hellenic and Turkish scholars studying these and other similar events.
Third and perhaps most radical part of the process of restitution is the question of monetary compensation and land claims. As stated before, those of us seeking justice do not wish to be seen as war enthusiasts bent on the destruction of the Turkish state.
Instead such radical parts of this process can be answered, while still protecting Turkish sovereignty. At this point and time it would be impossible to have monetary compensation given to the families of the survivors, just as it would be wrong to reward the Hellenic state with such compensation. Unlike the state of Israel, which was founded after the Holocaust, by survivors of the tragedy, the Hellenic state was already in existence and the victims were not Hellenic citizens, but rather Turkish. With this in mind it seems to me that a third option must be presented. This being the creation of an autonomist Anatoliki Thraki, which would receive monetary compensation directly from the Turkish state, keeping the funds within the borders of Turkey, to aid one region economically. This process could be seen as a reconstruction or renovation of the region for the betterment of its local population. This autonomist region would be governed by local Christians and Muslims, as well as returning individuals whose family roots are from Anatoliki Thraki. The returning descendants of refugees expelled from the area would be reintroduced via settlements, much like those created by the state of Israel. Finally its capital should be seated in Constantinople, and a special relationship with the European Union must be established. This seems to be the most reasonable and appropriate solution for justice for Thraki and the Thrakiotes.
Every year the ancestors of Pontian Greeks along with all Hellenes and philhellenes across the United States and Canada commemorate and honor the victims of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Ottomans, New Turks and Kemalists in 1914-1924.
As you know, the Greek Parliament in February of 1994 dedicated the 19th of May as A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE of the victims of the ferocious Genocide.
All Hellenic organizations and primarily the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA & CANADA are actively involved in an all out effort to pursue the Recognition of the Pontian Greek Genocide from the International Community. We have Recognitions, thus far from several Governors, State Senates, State Assemblies and Mayors. In addition this last December, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognized this genocide stating:
"BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution."
Monday May 19, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Bowling Green Park
New York, NY 10004
Subway:
Bowling Green Station (4 & 5 trains)
Whitehall Street - South Ferry Station (R & W trains)
For additional information please contact Dimitri Molohides (917) 302-4086.
www.panpontian.org
2)
http://globalpolitician.com/24697-turkey
GLOBAL POLITICIAN
May 11, 2008
Turkish Denial and The Forgotten Genocides
Ioannis Fidanakis
Throughout time man has associated certain images with events, images that shock the human mind so much they are permanently engrained in our memories. The Holocaust, the mere mention of the word fills people with images of horrible persecution. Mountains of shoes and gas chambers are all quickly associated with the horrible events which took place in the Second World War. In the United States, whippings and lynchings are seen as trade marks of African-American Slavery in the South. Today’s society identifies these images with crimes against Humanity. We are taught to no longer tolerate such acts of hatred, and instead commemorate and study these important lessons of the past to honour the many innocent who lost their lives. Yet the most disturbing imagery, that of mountains upon mountains of human skulls and long marches of women, children and elderly in the desert, are lost on society. Our ‘civilized’ society turns a blind eye to such images and the events in which they are identified with, the forgotten Hellenic, Armenian, and Assyrian Genocides initiated during the First World War. How can the international community allow the suffering and persecution endured by the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey to just be left to fade away into history? Why are these millions of innocent men, women and children that perished not given the same respect of commemoration, study, and remembrance?
The lack of recognition, dealing with the Hellenic Genocide, which is known by scholars as the Greek and Pontic Greek Genocide, is in and of itself a crime against Humanity. To simply surpass the importance of such a terrible part of History is a disservice to all those who lost their lives during those years of fear and terror. How can Western Civilization, who owe the Hellenic people so much for its very birth and continued survival. Not feel as if their own ancestors perished under years of oppression and atrocities.
There are many excuses behind the lack of international recognition, mainly based around the historical events that took place shortly after the Genocide. The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed in 1923, and brought an end to the Hellenic population living in Anatolia, makes no mention of the persecutions and troubles suffered by the Christian subjects at the time, and hence sealing the issues fate. The Greco-Turkish Treaty of Friendship signed in 1930, is also used by many as a reason behind the Genocide’s omission from history books, because of the concessions that were made for peace in the region. Lastly, and what appears to be the most logical, is that fact that Hellas suffered political and social turmoil, with the Nazi Occupation and Civil War, which took place shortly afterwards. The mere survival of the Hellenic people took precedence over the recognition for these events.
The tragedy that befell those Hellenes living in Anatoliki Thraki (Eastern Thrace) and all of Anatolia can be divided into two separate phases. The first falling between 1914 and the closing days of the First World War, at the hands of the Ottoman Government , and the second from 1919 till the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 by Mustapha Kemal and his Kemalist followers, who were the old guard of the Young Turk movement, that had previously ruled the Ottoman Empire. It is during these years that the rivers of Anatoliki Thraki and Anatolia ran red with Hellenic blood.
“The first step in the persecutions of the Greeks was the attack on the ecclesiastical, legal, and educational rights which had always been possessed within the Turkish Empire by the Greek ecclesiastical authorities and which had gone far toward mitigating the distress of the Turkish regime. The Turkish language was introduced into Greek schools; geography and history had to be taught in Turkish. Greek priests were arrested and imprisoned without warning or reason and without notification of the ecclesiastical authorities. Forcible conversions to Mohammedanism, long forbidden by law, began to appear again, particularly in the case of Greek girls carried off to Turkish harems without the usual right of intervention which the Greek Patriarch and Metropolitans had always possessed. “(1)
The persecutions of old rightfully echoed loudly in the hearts and minds of the population with the return of those once forgotten practices and a new form of the janissary system, disguised in the form of charitable Orphan Asylums. The ingenious method of masking these charitable institutions for devious purposes was second nature for the Turkish Government. The Orphan asylums sprung up under the disguise of relief, and yet were used as tools of the Government’s planned extermination of the Hellenic population still living within the Empire.
“These orphan institutions have in appearance a charitable object, but if one considers that their inmates are Greek boys who became orphans because their parents were murdered, or who were snatched away from their mothers, or left in the streets for want of nourishment, (of which, they were deprived by the Turks.), and that these Greek children receive there a purely Turkish education, it will be at once seen that the cloak of charity there lurks the ‘child collecting’ system instituted in the past by the Turkish conquerors and a new effort to revive the janissary system. The Greek boys were treated in this manner. What happens to the Greek girls? If we review the Consular reports about the persecutions from the year 1916 to 1917 we shall find hardly one of them which does not speak of forcible abductions and conversions to Mohammedanism. And it could not have been otherwise, since it is well known that this action, as has been stated above, was decided upon in June 1915, in order to effect the Turkification of the Hellenic element. This plan was carried out methodically and in a diabolical manner, through the ‘mixed settlements’ of Greeks and Turks, always with a predominance of Mohammedan males and of Greek females in order to compel mixed marriages.”(2)
Other methods used by the Turkish government during both phases were Work battalions, Concentration camps, death marches, and straight-out massacres to put an end to the Hellenic Question. The famous work battalions, known as ‘Ameles tabour’, were created “on the plea that the Christians could not be trusted to bear arms against their coreligionists they were drafted into labor battalions and set into the interior of Asia Minor to do work for the Turks.”(3)
The conditions, in which, they were forced to live in were terrible. “A piece of unsuitable bread made from tare (animal food) and a watery soup daily, under the rain and snow, with insults, humiliations, and beatings, sicknesses of dysentery, diarrhea, typhus, did not leave much margin for survival. The number of those who survived these notorious ameles tabour, ‘the death battalions’ as called by Christians, was minimal.” (4)
Anatoliki Thraki and the Genocide
One of the most overlooked regions, in which the Genocide accrued, is Anatoliki Thraki. A place, which suffered systematic plans of genocide, under both the Bulgarians and Turks, seeing double the carnage of other Hellenic lands during those years. During the years of persecution in Vorio Thraki (Northern Thrace) by the Bulgarians, the Turkish policy towards the Hellenes was one of friendship, because of the Slavic threat against the Ottoman Empire. Thus, generally speaking, the position of the Greeks of Thrace was a good one in this period. With the revolution of the Young Turks, the Greeks of Thrace, as all the Greeks of the Empire, hoped for the amelioration of their position believing in the declarations of equality and brotherhood. They were soon disillusioned, however, since the measures of the Young Turks against the Greek communities affected many of their privileges. (5)
An eerie sense of doom must have been felt creeping in, with the Turkish reoccupation of Thraki, which would bring an era of brutality not soon forgotten with the return of atrocities, looting and massacres against the Hellenes. Whole villages being destroyed by the Turkish military in the most sadistic ways, at the time, a wireless dispatch to the Daily Chronicle from Constanza says: ‘Turkey has been running an ‘atrocious campaign’ most unscrupulously to cover her own misdeeds and distract attention from the appalling facts of the Thracian massacres by the Turkish army of reoccupation. (6) The death and destruction seen in Thraki during the Balkan Wars would be surpassed only with the coming First World War.
“When the European war broke out, the Turks, with German connivance, began a policy of extermination of the Greek population which parallels in almost every detail the terrible outrages against the Armenians.” The Turkish Government used the outbreak of the War to its full advantage to begin the removal of the Hellenic Population from their ancestral homeland, under the pretext of the 'military security' of the Turkish cities, a large part of the population of eastern Thrace was deported towards the hinterland of Asia Minor hinterland (as was the case with the population of western Asia Minor and Pontos). Many were forced to convert to Islam, and they were distanced from the Patriarchate and had no access to Greek schools. A large part of the male population was exterminated in amele taburu or labour battalions. (7)
The Terror and destruction decimated the countryside, turning the once beautiful crossroads between Europe and Asia, into Hell on earth, with Turkish hordes descending upon the local peasantry leaving nothing in their wake. Life in the countryside changed from one of children playing and parents working, to silence, as Hellenes dared not to tend to their fields, while Turkish bands roamed freely in the open countryside.
Reports from the Ecumenical Patriarchate tell us of the anarchy and terror, which reigned over Anatoliki Thraki, where these Turkish bands were free to, committed the oldest crimes in the newest ways. Turkish civilians aided the Ottoman Government in their plans of extermination, in whatever manner they could. Turkish peasants would execute orders given to them by local officials mainly during the cover of darkness, to hide their identity from their neighbors. Individual incidents like that from the Diocese of Heracles, show the pure horror that Hellenes living in Thraki had to deal with on a daily bases, “At the end of May, 1919, three Albanian-Turks, guarding the Tsikili Farm, on the Tsads-Tyroloe road, killed two young Christian men from Tsads, whose clothes and ears they sent to this town, to frighten the peasantry and whose corpses they gave to the dogs of the farm for food”. (8)
In the Diocese of Ganos and Chora, “The Turkish peasants’ fanaticism, provocations and threatening attitude toward the Greeks had grown so violent, that they openly declared, even in presence of Government officials, that they would quite soon annihilate them. This state of things paralyzed the will of the Greeks and prevented them from attending to their business” (9). A perfect example of their fanaticism comes from one report in December of 1919. “Periclis Prodromou from Avdini, was slaughtered like a lamb, near Atelthini”(10), as if the Hellenic people were livestock, this just goes to show the mentality held by the Turkish people at the time.
In the Diocese of Didymotechon, which lies on the border of Anatoliki Thraki and Western Thraki, we see, “On May 21st, a double murder of two Greeks took place in the village Tchanakli. These two farmers coming to Ouzoum Kioprou, were on the way attacked by four soldiers. The head of one victim, Athanassius, was cut off, while the other victim, though seriously wounded, was able to creep as far as Eski-keuyto. The wounded reported the crime to the authorities and after a few hours succumbed to his wounds.”(11)
In the end Hellenism in Anatoliki Thraki would face the same fate as that of Anatolian and Pontian Hellenism. With the evacuation of the Hellenic Army in 1922, the surviving 300,000 Hellenes living in Anatoliki Thraki, excluding those living in Constantinople were forced to leave the homeland of their ancestors, which had been theirs for thousands of years.
A Call for Justice and Recognition
In the same spirit that brought recognition and restitution for the victims of the Holocaust, so should Turkey be held accountable for the crimes of its past. How else can it truly be seen as a partner for peace, ready for entrance inside the European community? Those seeking justice are not looking for War or dismantlement of the Turkish state, but rather for the wrongs of the past to be recognized and set straight. The Turkish people should not fear international recognition, but should welcome it, as a means to finally write an end to this ugly chapter of history so all people involved can look to the future instead of the past.
Far too much time has past since those terrible events during the early 20th century, without an international declaration memorializing these atrocities as Genocide. Hellas is politically and socially stable enough to final push for international recognition of the Genocide suffered by its people during those long years of oppression and persecution. It is time that the movement for justice and recognition finally take center stage inside the many important National Issues facing Hellas today. In 2007, an important step was realized, when the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognized the crimes suffered by the Assyrian, Hellenic, and Armenian populations between 1914 and 1923 as Genocide. “The resolution declares that ‘it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.’ It ‘calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.’(12)
It is my firm belief that the only honorable and logical way to handle recognition and restitution of the Genocide committed against the Hellenes of Anatoliki Thraki is with a solution deemed acceptable for both parties involved. This mutual understanding must benefit both Christian and Muslim Thracians still living inside Turkey, as well as those descendants living outside the region. The first step towards justice would be the Genocide’s recognition inside Turkey, as well as internationally. Something that has already slowly come about with the recent declarations from International Associations, as well as limited recognition by some in the International Community and locally in the United States.
The second step would be the creation of a Genocide Memorial in Constantinople to commemorate all those lost during those bloodily years of turmoil. This memorial could also run as a research center and academic hub for Hellenic and Turkish scholars studying these and other similar events.
Third and perhaps most radical part of the process of restitution is the question of monetary compensation and land claims. As stated before, those of us seeking justice do not wish to be seen as war enthusiasts bent on the destruction of the Turkish state.
Instead such radical parts of this process can be answered, while still protecting Turkish sovereignty. At this point and time it would be impossible to have monetary compensation given to the families of the survivors, just as it would be wrong to reward the Hellenic state with such compensation. Unlike the state of Israel, which was founded after the Holocaust, by survivors of the tragedy, the Hellenic state was already in existence and the victims were not Hellenic citizens, but rather Turkish. With this in mind it seems to me that a third option must be presented. This being the creation of an autonomist Anatoliki Thraki, which would receive monetary compensation directly from the Turkish state, keeping the funds within the borders of Turkey, to aid one region economically. This process could be seen as a reconstruction or renovation of the region for the betterment of its local population. This autonomist region would be governed by local Christians and Muslims, as well as returning individuals whose family roots are from Anatoliki Thraki. The returning descendants of refugees expelled from the area would be reintroduced via settlements, much like those created by the state of Israel. Finally its capital should be seated in Constantinople, and a special relationship with the European Union must be established. This seems to be the most reasonable and appropriate solution for justice for Thraki and the Thrakiotes.
Pontus
“PONTUS” is a Hellenic word for “SEA”. It refers to the shores of the Euxinos Pontus (the Friendly Sea), or in English, the Black Sea. In particular, “Pontus” is a reference to its south-eastern shores, the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor.
Hellenic ties to this region go back to prehistoric times; to the days of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. {Mountain tribes in the Caucasus have, for centuries, used sheep skins, stretched across river-beds, to catch tiny particles of alluvial gold.}
In historic times, Sinope was the first city founded by colonists from Miletus (one of the Ionian cities) in 785 BC. Later, colonists from Sinope founded Trapezous (Trapezounta/Trebizond/ Trabzon) in 756 BC and many other cities including Amissos (Sampsounta), Kotyora (Ordu), Kerasus (Giresun) and Diskourias (Sukhumi, Georgia). Hellenic cities mushroomed all around the Black and Azov Seas. After settling the coastline, the hinterland, too, became completely Hellenised, a process completed with the conquest of Asia Minor by Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC.
Diogenes (famous for wandering the streets of Athens with his lamp, looking for an honest man) was from Sinope. Strabo, the great historian and geographer, was from Amaseia. It was at Trapezous that Xenophon and his 10 000 soldiers found safe haven in 400 BC, following their nearly eighteen-month retreat from Mesopotamia.
Following the death of Alexander the Great in June 323 BC, his generals began fighting amongst themselves over the empire he had created. Mithridates the Builder exploited this infighting to establish Pontus as an independent kingdom in 301 BC. Under the dynasty Mithridates founded, Pontus flourished as a great commercial and educational centre. Mithridates was the last Hellenic ruler to succumb to Roman rule in 1 BC.
It was in Roman times that the Apostle Andreas (Andrew) brought Christianity to Pontus in 35 AD. With the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, Pontus became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, later to become known as the Byzantine Empire. When Constantinople fell to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Alexius the Great Comnenus established the Trapezounta Empire, a bastion of Hellenism that lasted for 257 years. The deposed Byzantine Imperial Court moved to Nicaea and waited for the opportunity to return to Constantinople, which they did in 1204. The dynasty Alexius founded (amongst them Manuel A’ and Anna Komneni), were great patrons of the arts and of commerce for centuries. The centre of Pontian Christianity, the Monastery of Panayia Soumela (Our Lady of Mount Melas), in the mountains of Trapezounta district. Founded in 386 AD, it reached its peak under the Komnenus Dynasty in the 1200s. The still magnificent ruins of the Monastery remain a place of pilgrimage to this day for Christian and Moslem Pontians alike.
Cardinal Bessarion (Vissarion 1403-1472), who created a scandal by defecting from the Orthodox Church to the Roman Catholic Church, also hailed from Pontus, as did the Hypsilandis family (centuries later to become rulers of the Danubian Provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia). Bessarion saw the union of the Eastern and Western churches as the only hope of preventing the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks. In 1439, he was made a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, abandoning the post he had held since 1437, that of Metropolitan of Nicaea. He died in Ravenna, Italy.
The Seljuk Turks attempted to invade Pontus, following their sweep through the Caucasus Mountains region, but were rebuffed in the early part of the 11th century. They proceeded into Kappadokia and, following their victory over the Byzantine Army in the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071, established the Sultanate of Iconium (modern-day Konya). This victory, plus their defeat of the Byzantine Army at Myriokephalo (outside Philadelpheia, Asia Minor) in 1176 gave the nomadic Turks control of most of the Anatolian plateau.
Pontus was the last fragment of the Byzantine Empire to fall to the Ottoman Turks. On August 15 1461, Sultan Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople, besieged Trapezounta. Forty days later, the city fell. This conquest did not de-Hellenise Pontus, despite regular waves of forced Islamization (using a range of measures including wholesale massacres and mass kidnappings of male children). Testimony to this fact are the numerous churches, cathedrals, monasteries and schools established between 1461 and 1914. ‘De-Hellenization’ of Pontus and Asia Minor was not accomplished until 1922-23 ...or so the ‘Young Turk’ regime thought.
More than thirty centuries of cultural and political development lay behind Pontian Hellenism in 1914. Genocide and Diaspora lay ahead. Pontian Hellenes are a distinct and unique branch of Hellenism. They today retain their own Hellenic dialect, folk-dances, folk music, literature and theatre.
Hellenic ties to this region go back to prehistoric times; to the days of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. {Mountain tribes in the Caucasus have, for centuries, used sheep skins, stretched across river-beds, to catch tiny particles of alluvial gold.}
In historic times, Sinope was the first city founded by colonists from Miletus (one of the Ionian cities) in 785 BC. Later, colonists from Sinope founded Trapezous (Trapezounta/Trebizond/ Trabzon) in 756 BC and many other cities including Amissos (Sampsounta), Kotyora (Ordu), Kerasus (Giresun) and Diskourias (Sukhumi, Georgia). Hellenic cities mushroomed all around the Black and Azov Seas. After settling the coastline, the hinterland, too, became completely Hellenised, a process completed with the conquest of Asia Minor by Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC.
Diogenes (famous for wandering the streets of Athens with his lamp, looking for an honest man) was from Sinope. Strabo, the great historian and geographer, was from Amaseia. It was at Trapezous that Xenophon and his 10 000 soldiers found safe haven in 400 BC, following their nearly eighteen-month retreat from Mesopotamia.
Following the death of Alexander the Great in June 323 BC, his generals began fighting amongst themselves over the empire he had created. Mithridates the Builder exploited this infighting to establish Pontus as an independent kingdom in 301 BC. Under the dynasty Mithridates founded, Pontus flourished as a great commercial and educational centre. Mithridates was the last Hellenic ruler to succumb to Roman rule in 1 BC.
It was in Roman times that the Apostle Andreas (Andrew) brought Christianity to Pontus in 35 AD. With the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, Pontus became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, later to become known as the Byzantine Empire. When Constantinople fell to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Alexius the Great Comnenus established the Trapezounta Empire, a bastion of Hellenism that lasted for 257 years. The deposed Byzantine Imperial Court moved to Nicaea and waited for the opportunity to return to Constantinople, which they did in 1204. The dynasty Alexius founded (amongst them Manuel A’ and Anna Komneni), were great patrons of the arts and of commerce for centuries. The centre of Pontian Christianity, the Monastery of Panayia Soumela (Our Lady of Mount Melas), in the mountains of Trapezounta district. Founded in 386 AD, it reached its peak under the Komnenus Dynasty in the 1200s. The still magnificent ruins of the Monastery remain a place of pilgrimage to this day for Christian and Moslem Pontians alike.
Cardinal Bessarion (Vissarion 1403-1472), who created a scandal by defecting from the Orthodox Church to the Roman Catholic Church, also hailed from Pontus, as did the Hypsilandis family (centuries later to become rulers of the Danubian Provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia). Bessarion saw the union of the Eastern and Western churches as the only hope of preventing the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks. In 1439, he was made a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, abandoning the post he had held since 1437, that of Metropolitan of Nicaea. He died in Ravenna, Italy.
The Seljuk Turks attempted to invade Pontus, following their sweep through the Caucasus Mountains region, but were rebuffed in the early part of the 11th century. They proceeded into Kappadokia and, following their victory over the Byzantine Army in the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071, established the Sultanate of Iconium (modern-day Konya). This victory, plus their defeat of the Byzantine Army at Myriokephalo (outside Philadelpheia, Asia Minor) in 1176 gave the nomadic Turks control of most of the Anatolian plateau.
Pontus was the last fragment of the Byzantine Empire to fall to the Ottoman Turks. On August 15 1461, Sultan Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople, besieged Trapezounta. Forty days later, the city fell. This conquest did not de-Hellenise Pontus, despite regular waves of forced Islamization (using a range of measures including wholesale massacres and mass kidnappings of male children). Testimony to this fact are the numerous churches, cathedrals, monasteries and schools established between 1461 and 1914. ‘De-Hellenization’ of Pontus and Asia Minor was not accomplished until 1922-23 ...or so the ‘Young Turk’ regime thought.
More than thirty centuries of cultural and political development lay behind Pontian Hellenism in 1914. Genocide and Diaspora lay ahead. Pontian Hellenes are a distinct and unique branch of Hellenism. They today retain their own Hellenic dialect, folk-dances, folk music, literature and theatre.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
