The Emigration of Muslims from the Greek State in the 19Th Century

BALCANICA POSNANIENSIA XXVII Poznań 2020 THE EMIGRATION OF MUSLIMS FROM THE GREEK STATE 1 IN THE 19TH CENTURy. AN OUTLINE kr z y s z t o f Po P e k Abstract. Modern Greek statehood began to take shape with the War of Independence that broke out in 1821 and continued with varying intensity for the next years. As a result of these events, the Greeks cast of the foreign rule, which for many not only meant separation from the Ottoman Empire, but also the expulsion of Muslims living in these lands. During the uprising, about 25 000 Muslims lost their lives, and a similar number emigrated from the territory of the future Greek state. The next great exodus of Muslims from Greek lands was related to the annexation of Thessaly by the Hellenic Kingdom, which was to a larger extent spread over time. Since the region was incorporated into Greece until the beginning of the 20th century, the 40 000-strong Islamic community had virtually disappeared. Author: Krzysztof Popek, Jagiellonian University, Faculty of History, World Contemporary History Department, Gołębia st. 13, 31-007 Cracow, Poland, [email protected], OrciD iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5864- 5264 Keywords: Greece, 19th century, Muslim minority, migrations, Thessaly, Greek War of Independence Balcanica Posnaniensia. Acta et studia, XXVII, Poznań 2020, Wydawnictwo Wydziału Historii UAM, pp. 97– 122, ISBN 978-83-66355-54-5, ISSN 0239-4278. English text with summaries in English and Polish. doi.org/10.14746/bp.2020.27.7 INTRODUCTION Although Greece itself does not want to be treated as one of the Balkan countries, the Greek experience of the period of building its own nation-statehood is character- istic of this region. The Kingdom of Greece was created as a result of the separation of lands from the Ottoman Empire, and then annexing other territories that were not only inhabited by the Hellenes, but also by other ethnic and religious groups. Muslims played a key role among them not only the former masters of these lands, closely related to the system of power of the Ottoman Empire, but also simple farmers or city dwellers. Muslims had settled there during the period of the domination of the Islamic 1 Research presented in this article was financed by the grant of the Polish National Science Center: The Balkan migration processes in the 19th century. Cases of Bulgaria and Serbia (2017/25/N/ HS3/00576). 98 KRZysztof POPEK empire; in other cases, their ancestors were local people who had accepted the faith of the rulers. The formation of the Greek state, whose relationship with the Greek nation and the Orthodox Church was unquestionable, was parallel to the disappearance of the Muslim community from the area. The phenomenon had a place in the whole of South-Eastern Europe: Between 1821 and 1922, about 5 million Muslims migrated from the Balkan Peninsula and the coast of the Black Sea; in 1878–1913, 1,7–2 million people left Turkey-in-Europe mostly because of the political changes which proc- essed in the region2. The article analyses the political factors which influenced the Muslim migration from Greek through the British diplomatic sources. While this subject is well de- scribed in the context of the last stage of this process, i.e. the population exchange of 19233, the earlier period, related to the War of Independence and the annexation of Thessaly in 1881, has not been fully researched in historiography4. British diplomatic materials are a valuable source to research the history of Greece in the 19th century. London was strongly interested in the situation of Greeks since the War of Independence: Great Britain was one of the three Great Powers, next to France and Russia, which led to the emergence of the modern Hellenic state and an- nounced themselves as the defenders of Greek independence, which could be inter- preted as a form of semi-protectorate (after all, the British invoked this right during the First World War). The keen interest was linked to the strategic geographic location of Greece, on routes leading to British colonies. British consulates functioning at that time throughout the Balkans collected detailed information not only on the geopoliti- cal situation in the region but also on the internal affairs of states and provinces. Before the outbreak of the War of Independence, the territory of the future Kingdom of Greece was inhabited by 63 615 Muslims, constituting about 7% of the population. Some researchers quote a larger number 90 830, i.e., about 10%. Most Muslims lived in the Kyparissi area of the Peloponnese (about 70%), Euboea (15%), and Attica (10%)5. As with the Muslims living in other areas of the Ottoman Empire, 2 K. Karpat, Studies on Ottoman social and political history, Leiden–Boston–Köln 2002, p. 321. 3 See O. Yıldırım, Diplomacy and displacement reconsidering the Turco-Greek exchange of populations, 1922–1934, New york–London 2006; Crossing the Aegean: The Consequences of the 1923 Greek- Turkish population exchange (studies in forced migration), Providence 2003; D. Pentzopoulos, The Balkan exchange of minorities and its impact on Greece, London 2002; R. Hirschon, Crossing the Aegean: an apraisal of the 1923 compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey, New york–Oxford 2003; G. Kritikos, State policy and urban employment of refugees: the Greek case (1923–30), „European Review of History: Revue Européenne d’Histoire”, 2000, vol. 7, no. 2, p. 189–206. 4 N. Immig, Ottoman past, national discourses on Muslim populations and their architectural lega- cy in Arta and Thessaly, in: Balkan Nationalism(s) and the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1: National Movements and Representations, ed. D. Stamatopoulos, Istanbul 2015, p. 144–145. The only synthetic book on that topic is prepared by Paraskevas Konortas, Les musulmanes de Grèce entre 1821 et 1912, Paris 1980. 5 М. Паларе, Балканските икономики 1800–1914 г. Еволюция без развитие, прев. M. Кондакова, София 2005, p. 30; Н. Тодоров, Балканският град XV–XIX век. Социално-икономическо и демографско развитие, София 1972, p. 331–332; S. Katsikas, Millet legacies in a national environment: political elites The Emigration of Muslims from the Greek state... 99 the main paradigm of Muslim identity in Greece was religion intertwined with a sense of submission to the Sultan. Self-identification had been shaped in a similar way in the Byzantine Empire, the „Romeis” had not necessarily spoken Greek, and this community had been formed by the Emperor’s Orthodox subjects. Among the Muslims who lived next to Greeks in the Ottoman period, there was a Turkish-speaking population (both immigrants and assimilated), Greek-speaking (e.g. in Peloponnese, Central Greece, and Thessaly; in Crete and in Western Macedonia, it was called Valaades), Slavic-speaking (the Pomaks, although this group lived mainly in Macedonia and Western Thrace), Albanian-speaking (living in various parts of the Greek lands, in compact groups in Epirus and southwestern Macedonia), Ladino-speaking Islamized Jews (called „Domnes”, in Thessaloniki or Smyrna), Greek-speaking nomads – the Karakachan (Thessaly, Western Thrace, and Macedonia), and the Roma, often exclud- ed from umma (called Athinganoi or Tsigganoi). They were mainly Sunnis, although Shiites and heterodox Sufis also lived in these areas (the Bektashi community func- tioned in the Kingdom of Greece until 1923). The Greek state basically ignored these differences, treating them equally as Muslims, and often referred to them simply as „Turks” or „Ottomans”6. The Greek War of Independence and its aftermath Modern Greek statehood began to take shape with the War of Independence that broke out in 1821 and continued with varying intensity for the next years. As a result of these events, Greeks became independent from the reign of the Sultan, which for many not only meant separation from the Ottoman Empire, but also the expulsion of Muslims. The opinions in the literature that this movement in Greece was unconditionally aimed at the entire Islamic population living in these areas are not entirely true7, the insurgents initially cooperated with the Albanians of Ali Pasha from Ioannina, who sent his troops to the Peloponnese under the command of Elmaz Medzos. This alli- ance, however, did not provide protection for the Muslims in Greece. The revolution itself was a decentralized movement, without a central leadership that could impose specific rules on everyone and provide protection to Muslim civilians as Albanians and Muslim communities in Greece (1830s–1923), in: State-nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims, 1830–1945, eds. B. Fortna, S. Katsikas, D. Kamouzis, P. Konortas, Abingdon–New york 2013, p. 48. 6 Е. Иванова, Ислямизирани Балкани. Динамика на разказите, София 2014, p. 66; D. Christopoulos, Islam and state religion in Greece: from the formation of the ‘Greek-Orthodox Genos’ to the era of migration, in: Strengthening religious tolerance for a secure civil society in Albania and the southern Balkans, eds. J. Pettifer, M. Nazarko, Amsterdam–Berlin–Oxford–Tokyo–Washington 2007, p. 67. 7 Cf. Дж. Маккарти, Смърт и изгнание: Етническото прочистване на османските мюсюлмани (1821–1922), прев. К. Панайотова, София 2010, p. 23–24. 100 KRZysztof POPEK had naturally expected. Such assurances could only be obtained from their immedi- ate comrades-in-arms. As a result, there were situations in which the armed men of Medzos, who had fought alongside the insurgents, died at the hands of the Greek population when they separated from their unit8. Even among their Christian comrades, they heard offensive words against Muslims (We will cut off all these pig snouts!), which caused tensions between Greeks and Albanians. In October 1821, Ali Pasha sent his envoy, Thair Abashi, to Missolonghi and Vrachori (Agrinio) to check on the cooperation with the „Romeis”: When he got there, he found Turkish women bap- tized, local Turks killed, mosques ruined and profaned.

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