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Population exchange between Greece and Turkey
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The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey is the first large-scale population exchange, or agreed mutual expulsion in the 20th century. It involved some two million people, most of them forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands of centuries or millennia in the case of Greeks. The "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" was signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on the 30th January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey at the insistence of Kemal Ataturk who had previously ethnically cleansed over a million Greeks from Asia Minor.
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The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey is the first large-scale population exchange, or agreed mutual expulsion in the 20th century. It involved some two million people, most of them forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands of centuries or millennia in the case of Greeks. The "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" was signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on the 30th January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey at the insistence of Kemal Ataturk who had previously ethnically cleansed over a million Greeks from Asia Minor. In fact only about 400,000 Greeks were exchanged since most had already been expelled by the advancing turkish forces. The exchange took place between Turkish citizens of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek citizens of the Muslim religion established in Greek territory.
Displacements
The exchange forms part of the chain of events that Greeks call the Asia Minor Catastrophe . Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Greco-Turkish war (1919-1922). These included exchanges and expulsion of about 500,000 Turks from Greece and about 1.500.000 Greeks from Asia Minor, Anatolia and Eastern Thrace to Greece.
The convention affected the populations as follows: almost all Greek Orthodox Christians (Greek- or Turkish-speaking) of Asia Minor including a Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox population from middle Anatolia (Karamanlides), the Ionia region (e.g. Smyrna, Aivali), the Pontus region (e.g. Trapezunda, Sampsunta), Prusa (Bursa), the Bithynia region (e.g., Nicomedia (Izmit), Chalcedon (Kadiköy), East Thrace, and other regions were either expelled or formally denaturalized from Turkish territory. These numbered about half a million and were added to the over one million Greeks already cleansed by the Turkish army before the treaty was signed. About 500,000 people were expelled from Greece, predominantly Turks, but including other Muslims, Muslim Roma, Pomaks, Cham Albanians, and Megleno-Romanians.
The population profile of Crete was significantly altered as well. Greek and Turkish speaking Muslim inhabitants of Crete (Cretan Turks) moved, principally to the Anatolian coast, but also to Syria, Lebanon and as far as Egypt. Some of these people identify themselves as ethnically Greek to this day. Conversely, Greeks from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived to Crete bringing in their distinctive dialects, customs and cuisine.
Aftermath
The Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from this transfer as well as the Greeks of Istanbul and the Aegean Islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada). Due to punitive measures carried out by the Republic of Turkey, such as the 1932 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, the Greek population of Istanbul began to decline, as evidenced by demographic statistics. The Varlik Vergisi capital gains tax imposed in 1942 on wealthy non-Muslims in Turkey also served to reduce the economic potential of ethnic Greek businesspeople in Turkey. Furthermore, violent incidents as the Istanbul Pogrom (1955) directed against the ethnic Greek community greatly accelerated emigration of Greeks, reducing the 200,000-strong Greek minority in 1924 to just over 5,000 in 2005. By contrast the Muslim community of Greece has increased in size to over 100,000 since the signing of the Lausane Treaty, while Greece is also host to tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants.
The expelled populations suffered greatly. 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.
At the same time, forced deportation has obvious challenges: social, such as forcibly being removed from one's place of living, and more practical such as abandoning a well-developed family business. Countries also face other practical challenges: for example, even decades after, one could notice certain hastily developed parts of Athens, residential areas that had been quickly erected on a budget while receiving the fleeing Asia Minor population.
See also
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