Fire of Izmir

Photo of the major fire in Izmir, 13-14. September 1922

The fire of Izmir , called the Smyrna catastrophe by the Greeks (in Greek Καταστροφή της Σμύρνης , Turkish 1922 İzmir Yangını ), was a fire that destroyed the Armenian and Greek quarters of the port city of Izmir at the end of the Greco-Turkish War in September 1922 . As a result of this event, the millennia-old city lost its multicultural and cosmopolitan image that it had gained under Ottoman rule.

background

During the Ottoman period, Izmir experienced a great economic boom as a trading port, which attracted newcomers from all over the Mediterranean. Initially, Jews expelled from Spain settled in large numbers , later even more Greeks and merchants from Catholic Western Europe, whose descendants who had become native were called Levantines . In the 19th century there was a larger settlement of Armenians in the city. Because these non-Muslim groups made up a considerable proportion, if not the majority, of the city's population and shaped the cityscape, the city was occasionally called Gavur İzmir (unbelieving Izmir) by Muslims .

The relationship between the Christian and Muslim population is controversial because, according to different sources, either the Greeks or the Turks made up the majority in the city. According to Katherine Elizabeth Fleming, the ratio of population groups with a Greek population of about 150,000 people was one to one.

After the First World War , a Greek zone of occupation was established in Izmir and the surrounding area . In the Greco-Turkish war, which was waged with increasing bitterness and cruelty on both sides, Izmir formed the basis for the military operations of the Greek troops in Anatolia. On August 30, 1922, the resistance of the Greek troops collapsed at the Battle of Dumlupınar (near the city of Afyonkarahisar ) and the Greek troops, fleeing wildly and pursuing a scorched earth policy, withdrew to Greece via Izmir .

Greek refugees mourn the victims

procedure

On September 9, 1922, the Turkish troops reached the city, which had already been evacuated by the Greek military and parts of the Christian civil population. Despite martial law, Armenian and Greek businesses were looted by the Turkish population of Smyrna. The looting was accompanied by massacres of Christian Armenians and Greeks by Turkish soldiers and civilians. The massacre of the Christian civilian population was justified as an act of revenge for previous atrocities by the Greek invading army and the Christian population. A fire was started on September 12, 1922, starting from the city's Armenian quarter. The course of events is controversial. However, historian Heinz A. Richter states that petrol barrels were brought to the Armenian district. At that time, there were an estimated 700,000 people in the city.

The fire that broke out in the Christian quarters in the first days of the Turkish reconquest of the city, together with the population swap agreed in the Treaty of Lausanne , ended the existence of Christian population groups in western Asia Minor. The major fire that was triggered destroyed the Christian and Levantine quarters. The Muslim and Jewish quarters were spared.

With the destruction of the Christian quarters, between 50,000 and 400,000 other Christians from Asia Minor were also expelled, who fled to the coast and then had to endure there under very harsh conditions until ships of the Hellenic fleet picked up the survivors on September 24 and brought them to safe Greece .

Numerous public buildings fell victim to the Great Fire, including the Evangelical School of Smyrna, founded in 1733, and the historic Armenian St. Stepanos Church . Almost a century after the great fire, responsibility for it remains controversial among historians.

literature

George Horton, The Blight of Asia, An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna . Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926 ( online ); reprint 2003, Sterndale Classics and Taderon Press, London, ISBN 978-1-903656-15-0
Giles Milton: Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance . Paperback edition. Scepter; Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-340-96234-3 ( here in the Google book search [accessed July 28, 2010]).
Heath Lowry, Turkish History: On Whose Sources Will it Be Based? A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir , The Journal of Ottoman Studies , IX, 1988.
Christos Papoutsky, Ships of Mercy: The True Story of the Rescue of the Greeks, Smyrna, September 1922 , Peter E. Randall (2008) ISBN 978-1-931807-66-1
Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendor and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean , London, John Murray, November 11, 2010, hardback, 480 pp., ISBN 978-0-7195-6707-0 , New Haven, Yale University Press, May 24, 2011 , hardback, 470 pages, ISBN 978-0-300-17264-5

Web links

Commons : Fire of Izmir - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Ring Trudy, Salkin Robert M., La Boda Sharon. International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe in Google Book Search. Taylor & Francis, 1995. ISBN 978-1-884964-02-2 , p. 351
↑ Katherine Elizabeth Fleming. Greece — a Jewish history in google book search. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-691-10272-6 , p. 81.
↑ ^a ^b The Greeks never forgive the Turks for this massacre . The world . 11th September 2017
^ NM Naimark: Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Harvard University Press 2002, ISBN 978-0-674-00994-3 , p. 45/46 here in the Google book search, German: Norman M. Naimark: Flammender Hass. Ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-17890-2
↑ Where Greeks and Turks became archenemies . Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 10, 2016
↑ From the ashes of ancient Smyrna . Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 10, 2011
^ Matthew Stewart: It Was All a Pleasant Business: The Historical Context of "On the Quai at Smyrna" . In: The Hemingway Review . 23, No. 1, January 1, 2003, pp. 58-71. doi : 10.1353 / hem.2004.0014 .
^ Edward Hale Bierstadt, Helen Davidson Creighton: The great betrayal: a survey of the near East problem , RM McBride & company, 1924, p. 218.
^ US Red Cross Feeding, 400,000 Refugees, Japan Times and Mail , November 10, 1922.

[1] Ring Trudy, Salkin Robert M., La Boda Sharon. International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe in Google Book Search. Taylor & Francis, 1995. ISBN 978-1-884964-02-2 , p. 351

[2] Katherine Elizabeth Fleming. Greece — a Jewish history in google book search. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-691-10272-6 , p. 81.

[welt-richter-3] The Greeks never forgive the Turks for this massacre . The world . 11th September 2017

[4] NM Naimark: Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Harvard University Press 2002, ISBN 978-0-674-00994-3 , p. 45/46 here in the Google book search, German: Norman M. Naimark: Flammender Hass. Ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-17890-2

[5] Where Greeks and Turks became archenemies . Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 10, 2016

[6] From the ashes of ancient Smyrna . Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 10, 2011

[Hemming-7] Matthew Stewart: It Was All a Pleasant Business: The Historical Context of "On the Quai at Smyrna" . In: The Hemingway Review . 23, No. 1, January 1, 2003, pp. 58-71. doi : 10.1353 / hem.2004.0014 .

[Bierstadt-8] Edward Hale Bierstadt, Helen Davidson Creighton: The great betrayal: a survey of the near East problem , RM McBride & company, 1924, p. 218.

[RC-9] US Red Cross Feeding, 400,000 Refugees, Japan Times and Mail , November 10, 1922.