This book provides a solid and critical historical examination of the endorsement, development and course of Greek nationalism among the lay/clerical leadership of the Greek Orthodox minority of Istanbul during the last phase of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the first years of the newly established Republic of Turkey. The focus is on the political role played by the ethnocentric communal elite, who actively championed the Greek nationalist plan of the Megali Idea (Great Idea). Based on a comparative investigation and synthesis of a wide array of Greek and British archival sources the book engages with the various stages of Constantinopolitan Greek elite nationalism in Turkey and partly in Greece, and examines its manifestations, its level of success and its consequences on the minority during the crucial period of 1918–1930. The main argument is that the internal dynamics, the policies and the responses of this powerful communal elite vis-à-vis other communal factions as well as Greek irredentism and Turkish nation-building conditioned to a significant degree the construction of specific representations and perceptions of the group’s collective identity and determined the status of the Greeks of Istanbul as a national minority in Turkey until nowadays. Providing a thorough analysis of elite politics during and in the aftermath of the Greek-Turkish War and assessing the application of the minority clauses of the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), the volume is a key resource for students and academics interested in nationalism and minorities, modern Greek history, Ottoman and Turkish history as well as for policy makers and specialists working in the diplomatic field, the Greek and Turkish public service, international institutions and non-governmental organizations.

In the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, nearly two million citizens in Turkey and Greece were expelled from homelands. The Lausanne treaty resulted in the deportation of Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece and of Muslims from Greece to Turkey. The transfer was hailed as a solution to the problem of minorities who could not coexist. Both governments saw the exchange as a chance to create societies of a single culture. The opinions and feelings of those uprooted from their native soil were never solicited. In an evocative book, Bruce Clark draws on new archival research in Turkey and Greece as well as interviews with surviving participants to examine this unprecedented exercise in ethnic engineering. He examines how the exchange was negotiated and how people on both sides came to terms with new lands and identities. Politically, the population exchange achieved its planners' goals, but the enormous human suffering left shattered legacies. It colored relations between Turkey and Greece, and has been invoked as a solution by advocates of ethnic separation from the Balkans to South Asia to the Middle East. This thoughtful book is a timely reminder of the effects of grand policy on ordinary people and of the difficulties for modern nations in contested regions where people still identify strongly with their ethnic or religious community.

By way of an introduction : the entangled legacies of a population exchange -- part I. Humanism and its discontents : biopolitics, politics of expertise, and the human family. Segregative biopolitics and the production of knowledge -- Liberal humanism, race, and the family of mankind -- part II. Of origins and "men" : family history, genealogy, and historicist humanism revisited. Heritage and family history -- Origins, biopolitics, and historicist humanism -- part III. Unity in diversity : culture, social cohesion, and liberal multiculturalism. Museumization of culture and alterity recognition -- Turkish-Islamic synthesis and coexistence after the 1980 military coup -- In lieu of a conclusion : cultural analysis in an age of securitarianism

Following the defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 by nationalist Turkish forces, the 1923 Lausanne Convention specified the first internationally ratified compulsory population exchange. It proved to be a watershed in the eastern Mediterranean, having far-reaching ramifications both for the new Turkish Republic, and for Greece which hadto absorb over a million refugees. Known as the Asia Minor Catastrophe by the Greeks, it marked the establishment of the independent nation state for the Turks. The consequences of this event have received surprisingly little attention despite the considerable relevance for the contemporary situation in the Balkans. This volume addresses the challenge of writing history from both sides of the Aegean and provides, for the first time, a forum for multidisciplinary dialogue across national boundaries.

This book provides a comparative study of government policies and ideologies of two states towards minority populations living within their borders.

In 1923 the Turkish government, under its new leader Kemal Ataturk, signed a renegotiated Balkan Wars treaty with the major powers of the day and Greece. This treaty provided for the forced exchange of 1.3 million Christians from Anatolia to Greece, in return for 30,000 Greek Muslims. The mass migration that ensued was a humanitarian catastrophe - of the 1.3 million Christians relocated it is estimated only 150,000 were successfully integrated into the Greek state. Furthermore, because the treaty was ethnicity-blind, tens of thousands of Muslim Greeks (ethnically and linguistically) were forced into Turkey against their will. Both the Greek and Turkish leadership saw this exchange as crucial to the state-strengthening projects both powers were engaged in after the First World War. Here, Emine Bedlek approaches this enormous shift in national thinking through literary texts - addressing the themes of loss, identity, memory and trauma which both populations experienced. The result is a new understanding of the tensions between religious and ethnic identity in modern Turkey.

What was life really like for the Greeks under Ottoman rule? Was it a period of exploitation and enslavement for the Greeks until they were finally able to rise up against Turkish rule, as is the traditional, Greek nationalistic view? Or did the Greeks derive some benefit from Turkish rule? How did the Greeks and Turks co-exist for so long? And, why are Greek attitudes towards Venice, who also controlled much of Greece for many of these years, so different? For almost four hundred years, between the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Greek War of Independence, the history of Greece is shrouded in mystery: distorted by Greek writers and largely neglected by others. In this wide-ranging yet concise history David Brewer explodes many of the myths about Turkish rule of Greece. He places the Greek story in its wider, international context and casts fresh light on the dynamics of power not only between Greeks and Ottomans but also between Muslims and Christians, both Orthodox and Catholic, throughout Europe. This absorbing and riveting account of a crucial period will ensure that the history of Greece under Turkish rule is no longer hidden. It will be of immense value to anyone with an interest in Greek and Turkish history and in how the past has shaped the Greece we know today.