This week, Greece marks the centenary of the so-called “Smyrna catastrophe” (Izmir in Turkish), the massacre and mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Greeks in September 1922 after they were expelled from neighboring Turkey, in one of the most painful pages of the country’s recent history. .
“One hundred years ago, our national body lost a precious part of itself in Asia Minor in an unspeakable tragedy,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said over the weekend at events commemorating this event, engraved in collective memory. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and the end of the First World War, the Greek army attempted to regain the territories of Asia Minor (the western coast of Turkey), which it had lost more than 500 years ago and where a large Greek minority lived with other minorities. But in 1922 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s army inflicted a major defeat on Greece, and the Greek population of Anatolia suffered the consequences as they were abused, robbed and raped in the villages on the Turkish coast. On the other hand, in Turkey, the offensive of Atatürk’s troops, aimed at expelling the Greek soldiers, is celebrated as an important milestone that led to the proclamation of the Turkish Republic.
From September 13 to 17, 1922, the city of Smyrna was devastated by fire, which led to the expulsion of the Greek population from the area and they arrived in Greece in large numbers. September 14 was declared a national day of remembrance for the Greeks who went missing in Asia Minor. This week, exhibitions, conferences, performances and concerts are scheduled to coincide with the significant centenary of 1922 in the country.
The wound is still open.
“We grew up on the stories of our ancestors from Asia Minor, on memories of their lost paradise,” says Rula Shatsiegorgio, whose grandmother fled the massacre and destruction alone with eight children. Men were often sent to forced labor camps in Turkey. “One hundred years later, the wound is still open. The pain passed down by previous generations is still there,” she said, head of the Museum of Hellenism in Central Asia in Nea Philadelphia, a suburb of Athens where Greek refugees settled. Among them were many merchants who brought with them progressive ideas, oriental music, experience and Anatolian cuisine.
During the last census in 1928, 1.22 million refugees from Asia Minor were registered, at that time one fifth of the population of Greece. At first they lived in tents on the streets, in front of an ancient temple or government buildings in Athens, then they were moved to small modest houses. “My mother was eight years old when she arrived in Greece. Her father was killed in front of her house in Furla (Urla in Turkish) and her six-month-old younger sister died while traveling,” says Despina Mogoyanis, who is in his 70s, tells her story. “They were received sluggishly in Athens. We were considered refugees of “Turkish origin.”
“Greece is no longer the same”
After the fire in Smyrna, according to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, a border was drawn between Greece and Turkey and a decision was made on the exchange of population between the Greeks of Anatolia and the Turks of Thrace (northeast Greece). “After 1922, Greece is not the same anymore,” says Yannis Glavinas, historian and curator. “I remember 1922” at the Technopolis Museum of the Ateneum Municipality, a former gas works where many exiles worked. “The implications are political, economic, social and demographic,” he adds.
Relations between Athens and Ankara remain strained. “We have one word for Greece: don’t forget Izmir,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week, accusing Athens of violating Turkish airspace.
“His statements can only provoke sadness and foment hatred between the peoples who once lived together,” says Rina Zalma, whose family is from Anatolia. The Seventies, who visited the land of her ancestors, added: “Tensions are fueled by leaders. But peoples understand and respect each other.” But for Despina Mogoyanis, visiting Asia Minor is out of the question. “This story has left a mark on my whole life, as well as on my children,” she says. “Four generations have borne the brunt of this tragedy.”