Pontic Greeks
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The Pontic Greeks (also Pontus Greeks ) or Pontier ( Greek Πόντιοι Póntioi , Turkish Pontus Rumları ) are the descendants of those Greeks who settled the historical landscape of Pontos in ancient times. Their language area extended over today's eastern Turkish Black Sea coast to neighboring parts of Georgia and spread as a result of migratory movements across the Caucasus region to Russia . The Christian Pontic Greeks lived on the Turkish Black Sea coast, but were eventually persecuted in the Ottoman Empire and forcibly deported in 1923 as a result of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey . The Pontic Greeks, under national or cultural pressure Muslim were to live to this day there are Turkish citizens and Turkish names have accepted. The Pontic Greek , which many of them still speak today, is characteristic of the Pontic Greeks . Its name can be derived from the ancient name of the Black Sea: Pontos Euxeinos .
language
The Pontic Greeks mostly still speak the Greek dialect , which emerged from ancient Greek and was spoken in the respective mother city of the Pontic colonies (depending on whether it is Ionic / Attic, Doric, Phoca, Macedonian or Arcadian colonies), but themselves in a different way than standard Greek ( Dimotiki , Δημοτική , see also Greek language ) and therefore differs noticeably from it.
The number of speakers of the Pontic is declining in Greece by generations, as it is not taught in public schools and, at best, is only passed on orally. The language is most likely to be preserved in some parts of northern Greece, which is due to the fact that most of the pontiers were settled in cities such as Thessaloniki or Kilkis , but also in the northern Greek province. It is also spoken by Muslim Greeks who remained in Turkey , most of whom live in the villages around Çaykara in the Trabzon province . However, the number of speakers is also falling there.
history
Antiquity
Pre-Christian time
The Greek presence on the Black Sea dates back to ancient times . Research shows the first activities of free traders and adventurers around 1000 BC. They were there mainly in search of gold and ores .
The traditional Argonaut legend about the journey of Jason and the 50 heroes to Colchis , the journey of Heracles on the Black Sea, the adventures of Odysseus in the land of the Cimmerians described in the Odyssey , the punishment of Prometheus by Zeus in the Caucasus and other related Greek myths to this region prove the existence of ancient trade routes.
In the 8th century BC Chr. To Greek trading post on the Pontic coast began to permanent settlements to develop. The city of Miletus founded Sinope, the first Greek colony on the Black Sea. Due to its port and good access to the hinterland, Sinope quickly developed into an important trading center. As a result, numerous cities were founded along the southern Pontic coast following a similar pattern, which over the centuries developed into densely populated centers for maritime trade and culture. So the Pontus brought forth personalities like Herakleides Ponticos or Diogenes of Sinope .
Archaeological finds and numerous written sources from antiquity and post-antiquity document the economic activity of the Pontic cities, their relationship to the mother cities ( metropolises ) and their relationships with one another as well as with the indigenous peoples.
The political and cultural dominance of the Greek cities on the Pontos is particularly evident when looking at the further development of the indigenous peoples of the region, who over the centuries largely adopted Greek culture and thought. In his anabasis , Xenophon describes his experiences in the “Train of the Ten Thousand” - the grueling and loss-making retreat of Greek mercenaries after the battle of Kunaxa - through the entire Persian Empire until reaching the Greek cities of the Black Sea, such as Herakleia Pontike , “ Ἡράκλειαν πόλιν Ἑλληνίδα Μεγαρέων ἄποικον “, a Greek city of colonists from Megara . Xenophon provides detailed reports on the country and people, customs and traditions.
During the time of Alexander the Great and his successors, the economic power of the Greek cities was at its height. The impact of Hellenistic culture on the indigenous peoples was enormous and had fundamentally influenced their social and cultural development. In the 1st century BC The Pontic king Mithridates Eupator elevated the Greek language to the official language of his empire and thus to the official general lingua franca of the numerous - and thus multilingual - indigenous peoples of Asia Minor , which has now resulted in their Hellenization. ( See also: Pontos (Kingdom) )
Christianization
The apostles Andrew and Peter brought Christianity to the Pontus region very early on . The status of Greek as the general lingua franca of the region was a welcome aid in Christianization, especially for the Hellenized indigenous communities - both initially for the apostles and later for the church fathers . On the other hand, the Christianization of the Hellenized indigenous population resulted in the definitive acceptance of Greek identity and culture. In this way they merged with the Greeks into a unified culture based on the common basis of Christianity .
middle Ages
The conquest of Constantinople by the Franks, as the Roman Catholic Western Europeans were called in memory of the Frankish Empire in the east, in the Fourth Crusade led to the establishment of the Latin Empire , which was feudally divided into small Franconian states. In the areas of the Byzantine Empire that the conquerors could not occupy, however, smaller Greek states also emerged, whose rulers soon claimed the imperial title for themselves. So it came about that Alexios Komnenos from the Komnenen dynasty founded the Trebizond Empire together with his brother David (both had fled before conquering the capital) . As a result, the previously insignificant Trebizond (today's Trabzon) became the capital of a state that was able to maintain its independence until the end of the Middle Ages through skillful diplomacy and by relying on regional powers such as Georgia or the Mongolian Empire and its successor states got rich.
The conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 and the fall of Trebizond eight years later (1461) marked a turning point in their history for the Pontic Greeks. Many - especially wealthy residents of the wealthy coastal towns and villages - fled to the surrounding mountainous regions of the Pontus in an attempt to live in newly established and free Greek villages and towns, far from the attention of the new rulers. A large part emigrated to the Russian Empire or its southern coastal areas to Georgia , Armenia and, as a result of ethnic deportations under Stalin, also to Kazakhstan (see also: Greeks in Kazakhstan ), where they founded new Greek communities. This was how cultural centers arose, which in the following decades also took in Greeks who had fled the now Ottoman Pontus.
The humanist and Cardinal Bessarion was one of the important Pontic Greeks of the Middle Ages .
Modern times
In the Ottoman Empire
From the 18th century, large parts of the population migrated, in particular to Russia and the Caucasus region . Conversely, Muslim Tatars and Circassians, whose homeland had come under Russian rule, settled in the Ottoman Empire. In his work Fragments from the Orient , published in 1845, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer mentions Christian Pontic Greeks whom he had met on his travels in the Ottoman Empire. They are Greek-speaking and serve the patron saint of their valley, the Panagia Sumela . Fallmerayer describes them as "Byzantine Greeks" and their Greek as "Matschuka Greek" (after the place Maçka , Greek Ματσούκα). After the revolt of the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire in 1821, but especially after the independence from Greece was recognized after the London Conference of 1832, the mood towards the Greek population in the Ottoman Empire had largely deteriorated. Nationalist ideas found more and more supporters also among the Turkish population in the multi-ethnic state of the Ottomans. Coexistence became more and more difficult over time and the collapse of the empire.
Genocide allegation
As a result of the rise of the Young Turks in the 20th century, many of the originally more than 600,000 Pontians - as well as Armenians and Arameans - became victims of deportations. Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing debate as to whether this was also genocide . The proponents of the thesis put the number of victims at 353,000 Pontic Greeks. In 2004, the historian Konstantinos Fotiadis published a comprehensive study commissioned by the Greek parliament . The British historian Christopher Walker spoke in 1980 of a cruel persecution of the Pontic Greeks in the Trabzon province in the years 1922–1924, which almost destroyed their community. The German sociologist Tessa Hofmann spoke openly of genocide in 2006 and used the terms Sphagi (massacre) and Xerisomos (uprooting) that were common in Greek-speaking countries for the events of that time . According to Hofmann, these terms describe five of six of the genocide crimes listed in the later UN Genocide Convention , such as the forcible transfer of children of the group to another group, as well as the deliberate imposition of living conditions that are entirely or partially physical Aim for group destruction. In 2006, the historian Boris Barth denied the genocide thesis with the argument that the Pontic Greeks - unlike the Armenians - had the option of fleeing to the Greek state. However, the Treaty of Lausanne , signed in mid-1923, legalized the expulsion of Greeks and Turks, which had already been carried out, only retrospectively. The population exchange between Greece and Turkey regulated in the treaty meant for the Pontic Greeks de jure the expulsion from their homeland. Around 300,000 Christian Pontiers were resettled to Greece; only a few thousand Muslim Pontic Greeks were allowed to remain. In total, almost two million people on both sides - sanctioned under international law - had to leave their homeland, including around 1.25 million Greeks and 356,000 Turks .
Settlement in Greece after 1923
The settlement of the Pontic refugees in Greece was associated with enormous problems. The country, which until then had a population of only around 5.5 million, was now faced with a flow of refugees totaling around 1.5 million people. That meant an abrupt increase of over 25% of the previous population. After their arrival, the refugees were initially housed in camps, mostly in the outskirts of cities, especially the two large cities of Athens and Thessaloniki , whose populations of less than 200,000 at that time have now doubled in a very short time. The unsanitary conditions in the refugee camps and the first onset of winter ensured that epidemics such as smallpox and typhoid spread very quickly. The situation of the refugees took on such tragic dimensions that the League of Nations Dr. Fridtjof Nansen asked to find suitable means for their support. This proposed a corresponding control commission under the leadership of the League of Nations, which should monitor the population exchange. The US rejected the proposal because it did not accept the leadership role of the League of Nations in this venture. Finally, a group of US feminists set up a quarantine station on Makronissos , an island off the Attic coast, where Pontic refugees could now be treated. The League of Nations supported the company financially with a loan. The makeshift tent camps on the outskirts of the big cities turned into settlements within a few years, the names of which still remind us today that they were founded by refugees from the east.
In the country, the Pontic Greeks were mainly settled on formerly Turkish property in the now Greek province of Macedonia . However, since the number of Turks expelled from Greece barely exceeded 500,000, the farmland that had become free was absolutely inadequate for the stream of millions of Greek refugees, which made it very difficult for the new settlers to establish a new livelihood.
Their already difficult situation was additionally strained by a wave of racism on the part of the local population. This sometimes hit the Pontic refugees the hardest. The reason for this is the Pontic variant of Greek with its own phonology , which was largely unknown in the Balkans , as well as the strange-looking Pontic customs as a whole, which had grown in over two millennia on the distant Black Sea and partly also from the Turkish-Ottoman culture have been influenced. The Pontic refugees were perceived, especially by the largely uneducated rural population, as unwelcome Turks, to whom the state actually allocated arable land to which they were entitled.
Many of the refugees brought their professional qualifications with them, for example in textile and tobacco processing . For the Greek economy they became a quasi inexhaustible source of cheap labor and as such they were used extensively. Like the other refugees from the east, the pontiers also contributed to the industrialization of the country.
In the Soviet Union
In the 18th and 19th centuries, a significant Pontic migration from the Ottoman Empire began, particularly to Russia and the Caucasus region . As a result, a second Pontic culture was formed there, which existed and developed independently alongside that on the Turkish Black Sea coast. The Greek dialects of these areas are now considered to be the most vital form of Pontic. In 1989 there were 40,000 speakers in Russia, including 15,000 each in the Krasnodar region and near Stavropol . Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, however, there have been great migratory movements by the Pontic Greeks living on the territory of the former Soviet Union . They increasingly left these areas and mostly emigrated to Greece or Germany. For example, there were around 100,000 Pontic Greeks living in Georgia in 1989 . In 2002 their number had fallen to around 15,000.
Culture
Until today the Pontic Greeks have preserved their own traditional folk culture with songs and dances. The music is related to that of the Turks and Lases who still live on the Black Sea today . The most popular musical instrument of the Pontic Greeks is the Pontic lyre (also called kemençe ) - a painted box-neck lute that differs from the pear-shaped Cretan lyre by its long, straight body . The bagpipe Tulum is also played as a soloist, occasionally accompanied by the cylinder drum Davul . In addition, there is the wooden longitudinal flute Kaval, which is widespread in the Balkans and Turkey . Typically, the melody on the kemençe is played in parallel fourths by fingering two strings at the same time. In dance music, fast asymmetrical rhythms are common (3 + 2 or 3 + 4 measure units).
The Enosi Pontion Pierias was of particular importance .
Many Pontic Greeks also try to preserve their cultural identity in Greece or in other countries ( Germany , USA ). There are various cultural associations of Pontic Greeks or other associations, such as the football club Apollon Kalamarias , which was founded by the Pontic Greeks in 1926 to preserve their identity.
Surnames
Christians
The Christian Pontic Greeks can usually be recognized by their family names. These often have the ending -idis or -iadis (male form) or -idou or -iadou (female form), e.g. B. Dimitriadis or Dimitriadou , Stefanidis or Stefanidou or Michailidis or Michailidou (German about "descendant of Dimitris, Stefanos, Michail").
These are patronymic formations that can be traced back to antiquity. The endings -ides and -iades were added to the father's name, which was intended to express whose son you are. For example, Achilles , son of Peleus , was also called Pelides or the Pelide . By iotacism , only the pronunciation has the Eta ( Η , η ) in the male mold (of -ides to -idis changed). But even more recently, some name bearers chose the transcription according to the Erasmic pronunciation of ancient Greek , which occasionally causes confusion. While the name Μιχαηλίδης could also be translated into German as Michaelides until after the Second World War , the form Michailidis is common today. In Greek , the spelling ( -ίδης , -ιάδης ) has not changed since ancient times.
Muslims
The Muslim Pontic Greeks who remained in Turkey adopted Turkish family names in accordance with the Family Name Act of June 21, 1934. From the Greek side these are called τουρκόφωνοι ( turkofoni , "Turkish- speaking ").
Well-known Pontus Greeks
- Georges I. Gurdjieff , Greek-Armenian writer, choreographer and composer
- Ivan Savvidis , Greco-Russian entrepreneur
- Mike Zambidis , Greek K-1 fighter
- Vassilis Triandafyllidis , Greek comedian
- Ioannis Amanatidis , Greek football player
- Michalis Chrysochoidis , Greek politician
Movies
- Apo tin akri tis polis / From the Edge of the City (“On the edge of the city”), feature film. Directed by Constantinos Giannaris, 1998. Young Pontic Greeks who immigrated from Kazakhstan try to gain a foothold in the poor Athens district of Menidi with prostitution and petty crime.
- Waiting for the clouds . (2004) Film drama by the Turkish director Yeşim Ustaoğlu about the expulsion of the Pontic Greeks.
literature
- Tessa Hofmann (Ed.): Persecution, expulsion and extermination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912-1922. Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7823-6 .
- Mirko Heinemann: The last Byzantines. The expulsion of the Greeks from the Black Sea. A search for clues . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-96289-033-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Christopher Moseley: Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. 2007, p. 265.
- ↑ Xenophon, Κύρου Ανάβασις , 6.2.1
- ↑ Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer: Fragments from the Orient. Second volume. Stuttgart and Tübingen 1845, p. 155.
- ↑ Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer: Fragments from the Orient. Second volume, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1845, p. 102.
- ↑ Κωνσταντίνος Φωτιάδης: Η γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων του Πόντου. Ίδρυμα της Βουλής των Ελλήνων, Αθήνα 2004 (Konstantinos Fōtiadēs: Ē genoktonía tōn Ellḗnōn tou Póntou [dt. "The genocide of the Greeks of the Pontus"]. ḖÍsma tēn.
- ↑ Christopher J. Walker: Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. London 1980, p. 345.
- ^ Tessa Hofmann: Persecution, expulsion and extermination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912–1922. 2nd edition, Berlin 2006, p. 17 ( ISBN 978-3825878238 ).
- ^ Donald Bloxham: The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. New York 2005, p. 106.
- ^ Statistical Yearbook of Georgia 2007
- ^ Akrites Academy of Hellenic Martial Education: Pontian Eagle. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 19, 2016 ; accessed on March 29, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Pontos Şarkıları. 1930 Ses Kayıtları / Songs of Pontos. Recordings of 1930. Double CD, Kalan Müzik 2003.
- ↑ See the German-Greek author Johannes Gaitanides, who was born in Dresden .
