Istanbul massacre

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Contemporary representation of the pogroms

The Istanbul massacre was perpetrated by the Turks in 1821 in response to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence of the Greek population of Istanbul ( Phanariots ). As soon as the first news of the Greek uprising reached the Ottoman capital, mass executions, pogroms, the destruction of churches and the looting of the property of Greek residents of the city broke out. The events culminated in the hanging of the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V and the beheading of the Dragoman of the Sublime Porte Konstantin Mourousis.

background

At the beginning of March 1821, the Greek general Alexander Ypsilanti crossed the Prut and invaded the Principality of Moldova , which at that time was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The aim was to wrest this area from the Ottoman Sultan. It was the beginning of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. The rumor quickly spread that Turks had been massacred by Greeks in the Danube principalities, especially in Iași and Galați . The Grand Vizier ordered the arrest of seven Greek bishops in Istanbul. In addition, on the evening of April 2, the first news of a Greek uprising in southern Greece reached Istanbul. Indeed, the rebellion had quickly spread to Morea , Attica , the Aegean Islands, Thessaly, and Macedonia . There were first attacks on the Turkish population of the regions, who retaliated with attacks on Greeks.

Sultan Mahmud II accused leading figures of the Greek community, in particular the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V and the Dragoman of the Sublime Porte, Konstantin Mourousis, of having knowledge of plans for an uprising, but both protested their innocence. Nevertheless, the Sultan demanded a fatwa from Sheikh al-Islam Haci Halil Efendi , which should allow a massacre against all Greeks living in the empire. The Grand Mufti was obliged to comply with the Sultan's request, but the Patriarch was able to convince the Mufti that only a few Greeks were involved in the uprising and so Haci Halil Efendi withdrew the fatwa. For this, Haci Halil Efendi was later banished by the Sultan.

The Ecumenical Patriarch was forced by the Ottoman authorities to excommunicate the revolutionaries, which he did on Palm Sunday 1821. Although he was not involved in the uprising, the Sublime Porte still found him guilty of treason for failing to prevent the uprising as a representative of the Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire.

Execution of the Patricharch of Constantinople and the Dragoman of the Sublime Porte

Peter von Hess , representation of the litter of the corpse of Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople in the Bosporus.

Although the patriarch had complied with demands for the revolutionaries to be excommunicated, he was unable to appease the Ottoman rulers. On the day of the excommunication, the Sultan ordered the execution of the great Dragoman Konstantin Mourousis. He was arrested and beheaded at the official residence of Reis ül-Küttab , and his body was on public display. In addition, his brother and leading members of the Phanariots were also executed, although in fact few Greeks were associated with the revolutionaries.

Despite the efforts of the Orthodox Patriarch to profess his loyalty to the Sultan, he could not convince him. One week after the excommunication, he was arrested by Ottoman soldiers on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1821, after a liturgical celebration, and hanged at the central gate of the Patriarchate. His body remained hanging on the gate for three days, then was handed over to the population, who dragged him through the streets and then threw him into the Golden Horn. The body was finally recovered by the Greek crew from a Russian ship, taken to Odessa and, fifty years later, transferred to Greece, where Gregory V was canonized by the Greek Orthodox Church on the 100th anniversary of his death. Gregory's execution caused outrage across Greece and the rest of Europe, and led to a surge in sympathy and support for the rebels. The gate on which he was hung remains closed to this day.

Expansion of the pogroms (April to 1821)

On the day of Gregory V's hanging, three bishops and dozens of other Greeks, including senior officials of the Ottoman administration, were executed in different parts of the Ottoman capital. Among them were the Metropolitans Dionysius of Ephesus , Athanasios of Nicomedia , Gregory of Derkoi and Eugenios of Anchialos .

In addition, the patriarch's execution signaled a reign of terror against the Greeks living in Istanbul and fanatical Muslims were encouraged to attack Greek communities throughout the Ottoman Empire. Groups of fanatical Muslims, including Janissaries , roamed the streets of the city and the surrounding villages. They looted Greek churches and private property and initiated a large-scale pogrom. Around 14 Christian churches were badly damaged, some of them completely destroyed. The patriarch's building complex was also a target. The newly elected Patriarch Eugenius II saved himself at the last moment by escaping to the roof of his official residence. The Ottoman authorities looked for prominent Greeks from all over Istanbul: in government service, in the Orthodox Church or with prominent families and killed them by hanging or beheading. In addition, several hundred Greek merchants were killed in the city.

By May 1821, restrictions on local Greeks increased while churches continued to be attacked. On May 24, Patriarch Eugenius presented a memorandum to the Ottoman authorities asking them to show mercy to the Greek people and the Church. He claimed that few Greeks rose and not the entire nation. Eugenius also repeated Gregory's excommunication against the revolutionaries. Even so, public executions of Greeks in Istanbul remained a daily occurrence. On June 15, 1821, five archbishops and three bishops were executed. At the beginning of July another seventy shared the same fate. In addition, 450 shopkeepers and traders were rounded up and sent to work in the mines.

Anti-Greek massacres in other parts of the Ottoman Empire (May to July 1821)

The pogroms also spread to other large cities of the Ottoman Empire with significant Greek populations. In Adrianople on May 3, the former Patriarch Kyrill VI. of Constantinople, nine priests and twenty merchants hanged in front of the local cathedral. Other Greeks of lower social status were executed, exiled or imprisoned.

Numerous Ottoman troops were gathered in Smyrna (now Izmir ), waiting for orders to march against the rebels in Greece. They invaded the city and, together with the Turkish residents, began a massacre of the city's Christian population. During another massacre in the predominantly Greek city of Ayvalık , the city was burned down for fear that the residents might join the revolution in Greece. In Ayvalik, too, hundreds of Greeks were killed and many of the survivors sold as slaves. As a result, life in the city came to a standstill and with it the most important port of the Ottoman Empire. Many Greeks fled to the Aegean islands and Greece.

Similar massacres of the Greek population also occurred on the Aegean islands of Kos and Rhodes during these months . Part of the Greek population in Cyprus was also killed. Archbishop Kyprianos and five other local bishops were among the victims.

aftermath

The British and Russian ambassadors protested violently against the patriarch's execution. In particular, the Russian ambassador, Baron Grigory Alexandrovich Stroganov , protested against the treatment of Orthodox Christians. In July 1821, Stroganov declared that if the massacres against the Greeks continued, it would be an act of war by the Porte against all Christian states. Public opinion in European countries was also directed against the Ottoman Empire, especially in Russia. The French daily Le Constitutionnel reported on May 21, 1821 that the Ottoman authorities had officially decided to "slaughter all Christian subjects of the empire." The same newspaper also stated that the intention of the Ottoman government was "to wipe Christianity off the face" .

In an ultimatum of July 18, 1821, the Russian Empire immediately demanded the Ottoman Empire's withdrawal from the Danube principalities, the rehabilitation of all destroyed churches, the protection of Orthodox Christians and a guarantee of trade rights. The Sublime Porte let the eight-day ultimatum expire, whereupon the Russian ambassador was withdrawn from Istanbul. As a result, relations between the countries deteriorated significantly and culminated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828/29 .

The events in Istanbul sparked massacres of Turkish communities in regions where the Greek uprising was in full swing. On the other hand, part of the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch secured in 1453 was abolished. The patriarchy had been recognized by the Ottoman Empire as the sole representative of the Orthodox communities of the empire. In addition to the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Millet , the Orthodox patriarch had sole legal, administrative and educational sovereignty in his community.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Felix Schröder, Mathias Bernath Mathias: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Oldenburg, Munich 1979, ISBN 978-3486489910 ; P. 72
  2. ^ Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters: Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire . Infobase Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1438110257 , p. 240
  3. ↑ Barbara Jelavich: History of the Balkans . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, p. 212, 1983
  4. ^ A b Charles A. Frazee: The Orthodox church and independent Greece: 1821-1852 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1969, p. 27
  5. ↑ Theophilus C. Prousis: Eastern Orthodoxy under Siege in the Ottoman Levant: A View from Constantinople in 1821 . In: History Faculty Publications . University of North Florida 2008, No. 13, ( Online ), p. 40
  6. ↑ Prousis (2008), p. 41
  7. ^ A b c d William St. Clair: That Greece might still be free, The Philhellenes in the War of Independence . Open Book Publishing, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-1906924003 , p. 3 ( digitized version )
  8. ↑ Michael Weithmann: Greece: from the early Middle Ages to the present . Pustet, Regensburg 1994, ISBN 978-3791714257 , p. 167
  9. ↑ John Binns: An introduction to the Christian Orthodox churches . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, ISBN 978-0521667388S. 12
  10. ↑ a b Frazee (1969), p. 29
  11. ^ A b Steven Runciman: The Great Church in captivity: a study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the eve of the Turkish conquest to the Greek War of Independence . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 978-0521313100 , pp. 405-406
  12. ↑ Frazee (1969), p. 28
  13. ↑ John Binns: An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 9780521667388 , pp. 12f.
  14. ^ A b c Michael Angold: Eastern Christianity . (= Volume 5 of The Cambridge history of Christianity ), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 978-0521811132 , p. 230
  15. ↑ Michael W. Weithmann: Greece: from the early Middle Ages to the present . Pustet, Regensburg 1994, ISBN 978-3791714257 , p. 167
  16. ^ A b c Richard Clogg: A Concise History of Greece . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 978-0-521-00479-4 , p. 36 ( digitized version )
  17. ↑ Alexander Mikaberidze: Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World a Historical Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, ISBN 9781598843378 , p. 349
  18. ↑ Helmuth von Moltke Arndt: Under the Crescent: Experiences in Old Turkey 1835-1839 . Thienemann, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 978-3522603102 , p. 17
  19. ↑ a b c Frazee (1969), p. 33
  20. ↑ a b c d Clair (2008), p. 4
  21. ^ Manfred Kossok: In tyrannos. Revolutions in world history: from the Hussites to the Commune . Edition Leipzig, Leipzig, 1989, ISBN 978-3361002067 , p. 7240
  22. ↑ a b c Davide Rodogn: Against Massacre: Humanitarian Intervention in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914 . Princeton University Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0691151335 , p. 67
  23. ↑ a b Clair (2008), p. 5
  24. ↑ Prousis, (2008), p. 41
  25. ↑ Frazee (1969), p. 32
  26. ↑ Frazee (1969), p. 36
  27. ↑ Dieter Cycon: The happy years: Germany and Russia . Busse Seewald, Herford 1991, ISBN 978-3512030376 , p. 373
  28. ^ Andrew Wheatcroft: Infidels. A history of the conflict between Christendom and Islam . Random House, New York 2004, ISBN 978-1588363909
  29. ↑ Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer: French images from the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830): art and politics under the Restoration . Yale University Press, New Haven 1989, ISBN 978-0300045321 , p. 17
  30. ↑ Prousis (2208), p. 44
  31. ↑ John Breuilly: Nationalism and the state . Manchester University Press, Manchester 1993, ISBN 978-0719038006 , pp. 141f.