Christian Refugees Research Articles

The Crimean War, 1853-56

The Crimean War, 1853-56 Mara Kozelsky (bio) Ian Almond , Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslims Marched with Christians across Europe's Battlegrounds. 246 pp., illus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN-13 978-0674033979. $29.95. Candan Badem , The Ottoman Crimean War (1853-1856). 432 pp., illus. Leiden: Brill, 2010. ISBN-13 978-9004182055. $229.00. Ol´ga Vasil´evna Didukh , Donskie kazaki v Krymskoi voine 1853-1856 gg. (Don Cossacks in the Crimean War, 1853-1856). 173 pp., illus. Moscow: VINITI, 2007. ISBN-13 978-5785604940. Orlando Figes , The Crimean War: A History. 540 pp., illus. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011. ISBN-13 978-0805074604. $35.00. Iuliia Aleksandrovna Naumova , Ranenie, bolezn´ i smert´: Russkaia meditsinskaia sluzhba v Krymskuiu voinu, 1853-1856 gg. (Injury, Disease, and Death: Russian Medical Service in the Crimean War, 1853-56). 314 pp., illus. Moscow: Regnum, 2010. ISBN-13 978-5918870020. A. D. Panesh , Zapadnaia Cherkesiia v sisteme vzaimodeistviia Rossii s Turtsiei, Angliei, i imamatom Shamilia v XIX v. (do 1864) (Western Circassia in the System of Russian Interaction with Turkey, England, and Imam Shamil in the 20th Century [until 1864]). 240 pp. Maikop: Adygeiskii respublikanskii institut gumanitarnykh issledovanii im. T. M. Kerasheva, 2007. ISBN-13 978-5889410355. Until recently, the Crimean War (1853-56) has been much neglected in Russian history. Few English-language monographs devoted themselves to [End Page 903] the Russian Crimean War.1 The Soviet historian Evgenii Viktorovich Tarle wrote the last major Russian monograph on the topic during World War II.2 As opposed to World War I and World War II, in which the tragedy of the eastern front is fairly well documented in the literature, the British experience dominates the general narrative of the Crimean War.3 The 150th anniversary of the Crimean War has inspired new interest, however, among Russian area scholars. Although much of this work is popular or commemorative in nature, the books under review here offer a variety of innovative approaches to the war and make substantial contributions to the field.4 The Crimean War was a Russo-Turkish War first and a European war second—or to borrow from David Goldfrank, the Crimean War consisted of "two wars and a diplomatic struggle," the latter referring to Austria's and Prussia's involvement from the sidelines.5 Russia and the Ottoman Empire initially went to war in October 1853 over Russia's rights to intervene in the affairs of Orthodox Christians living in Ottoman territory. France and Britain entered in March 1854, after the Russian-Ottoman conflict had clearly turned in Russia's favor. The war had multiple fronts in the Danubian Principalities, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Pacific and ended with an Ottoman defeat in Kars in November 1856.6 With Kars, [End Page 904] Winfried Baumgart notes, Russia "controlled more square miles of enemy territory than did the sea powers." In Baumgart's reading of the treaty and preceding events, therefore, Russia came to the Peace of Paris not as the vanquished but as an equal participant.7 The war heralded Russia's transition into the modern era by exposing class tensions and introducing technological and scientific advancements. As the most violent episode of the Eastern Question in the 19th century, it profoundly influenced the history of the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, and the Balkan Peninsula. After the Crimean War, Russia and the Ottoman empires swapped hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christian refugees, in what Brian Williams has called the "Great Retreat" of Muslims from Europe.8 Whether due to battles, population exchanges, or nationalist movements caused by the war, the present-day states of Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and regions such as Crimea and the Caucasus all changed in small or large ways due to this conflict. Today, historians of these regions are investigating the Crimean War as a transformative event.9 The six works under review offer new insights into the war and hence expand our understanding of the Nikolaevan era, Russian-Ottoman borderlands, the role of religion in the war, and the vast number of people(s) whose lives were forever changed by the...

Aspekty ekonomiczne i społeczne wojen bałkańskich 1912-1913

At the dawn of the XXth century the Balkan countries were intent on waging war against Turkey. In the preparation period, however, they had severely exceeded their economic and demographic capabilities. The arms production consumed vast amounts of money, leading to an extraordinary debt of the Balkan states. The 1912-1913 wars have proved to be a veritable ordeal for the economies of the involved countries as well as their social endurance. This great sacrifice was supposed to further the national goal of defeating Turkey and finally establishing the inter-state borders, even in the face of an impending economic collapse. The Balkan conflicts turned into a war of attrition, a harbinger of what was to come during the World War I. The pre-war efforts and the cost of the actual warfare brought Bulgaria, Greece,Serbia, Montenegro as well as Turkey to the brink of economical breakdown and major social turbulence. The calling of 1.3 million men to arms resulted in halting the industrial production and an agricultural crisis in the countries of the Balkan Alliance. The civilian transport sector was non-existent (since all the means and assets had been requisitioned by the military) which proved fatal to the commerce. This in turn greatly diminished the states’ tax income, further worsening the financial repercussions of the war. The number of soldiers fallen, wounded or killed by cholera were reaching hundreds of thousands. Due to the harsh war conditions and the lack of suitable attention many of the wounded have become disabled, which banned them from the work market and doomed them to social benefits. Amongst the consequences of the war were also migrations of the civilians, forced by the war itself and the following border changes. The Christian refugees alone numbered hundreds of thousands, while any real means of administering to the basic needs of the displaced masses were actually non-existent. On the Muslim side the losses amounted to 620,000 Turkish soldiers and civilians. A further 440,000 have been displaced and moved to Anatolia. Moreover the pillage, the atrocity, as well as the destruction of private property have engraved the feelings of mutual hatred and longing for a vendetta in the minds of the Balkan people.

Syrian humanitarian aid programmes and the Iraqi Christian refugees in Syria: The expectations held both by the recipients and the service providers

Syrian humanitarian aid programmes and the Iraqi Christian refugees in Syria: The expectations held both by the recipients and the service providers

When Greeks Think About Turks: The View from Anthropology (review)

Reviewed by: When Greeks Think About Turks: The View from Anthropology Eleni Bastéa Dimitrios Theodossopoulos, editor, When Greeks Think About Turks: The View from Anthropology. London: Routledge. 2007. Pp. vi + 216. $150.00. The destructive earthquakes of August and September 1999 in Istanbul and Athens brought an outpouring of help and sympathy from Greece and Turkey, respectively, and an increased number of cross-cultural exchanges between the two countries in academic, cultural, political, and popular spheres. It is in this context that When Greeks Think About Turks makes a significant contribution to the study of Greek-Turkish relations, as it directly addresses positions, beliefs, and prejudices that are not always predictable, well known, or widely accepted. Although the authors underscore their own support for cooperation and dialogue between and among Greeks, Turks, Greek-Cypriots, and Turkish-Cypriots, they are careful to describe not only the public’s support but also its skepticism and occasional hostility toward these recent efforts. Three of the authors concentrate on people who had first-hand experiences with Muslims at the end of the Ottoman Empire or with modern-day Turks: Iraklis Millas discusses the image of Turks in Greek literature and history, with an emphasis on the work of Asia Minor authors; Renée Hirschon describes the memories of the Asia Minor refugees whom she interviewed in the Kokkinia suburb of Athens in the 1970s; and Ilay Romain Örs examines the Rum Polites, the Christian Orthodox residents of Istanbul who were exempt from the Exchange. All three conclude that knowing Muslim Turks as neighbors and friends almost always resulted in friendly contact and good memories. Personal experiences conflicted, however, with nationalist rhetoric that cultivated a generalized and degrading image of the Turk as the Other. Christian Greeks who had first-hand experience of living with Turks often found it difficult to communicate with Greeks who lacked that experience, remaining in a liminal condition. Both Hirschon and Örs describe their informants as cosmopolitan by virtue of their subjects’ admission and experience. Certainly, the inhabitants of Smyrna/Izmir considered themselves not only cosmopolitan but also superior to many of the Greeks they encountered in Greece. If it was only because they lived in peace with their Turkish neighbors, then they should have also considered the Christian refugees from Cappadocia or Pontus equally cosmopolitan. Often, however, the “cosmopolitan” badge was reserved only for the Smyrna side—the Greek-speaking-Europeans. Some of the Rum Polites that Örs interviewed in Athens more recently were similarly proud of their own “cosmopolitanism” and considered Athens boringly monocultural. They were unable to recognize the rich and multicultural constitution of Athens today, home to many immigrants from the Middle East and elsewhere. Although I respect the circumscribed positions of the interviewees, I expected a more critical evaluation of their statements by the authors. Most of the other authors deal with contemporary positions among Greeks and Greek-Cypriots. In “How Greeks Think: About the Turks, for Example,” Vassos Argyrou attempts to place the question in a philosophical framework. This would have been more effective had the connections with Greece and Cyprus been delineated more carefully. In several instances in the volume, “Greeks” [End Page 515] stands in for both Greeks and Greek-Cypriots in an unexamined and problematic manner. Nor can Athens stand for Greece as in: “Everything that Athens (and Greece) has to show for itself is ‘third hand’, an importation from Europe, an imitation of the lowest order” (p. 36). Most successful are the essays that concentrate on a targeted area, providing nuanced analyses that help construct the foundations of a comparative Greek-Turkish field of studies, an implicit and explicit aim of many of the authors. Based on research conducted in Patras, for example, Theodossopoulos examines how ordinary people responded to the 1999 earthquakes in Istanbul and Athens. His respondents were empathetic with “the people of Turkey,” while they mistrusted the Turkish state. Human suffering, widely covered by the media, made the experience immediate and almost tangible. Blame for Greek-Turkish problems was placed on Greek, Turkish, and American politicians and their governments, sentiments consistent with the findings of Millas and Hirschon. In “Phantom Menace: What Junior Greek Army Officers...

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism. By Haim Genizi. Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983. 411 pp.

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism. By Haim Genizi. Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983. 411 pp.

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism

Venice and the Uskoks of Senj: 1537-1618

D URING THE YEARS 1615-18 the Uskok War was waged in northeastern Italy between the Republic of Venice, supported by mercenary troops from England, Holland, and the Protestant regions of the empire, and the Catholic forces mustered in support of Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, soon to become king of Bohemia and second German emperor of that name. The immediate occasion, providing the name for this conflict, was the activity of the piratical Uskoks, descendants of the military colonists settled in Croatia by the first emperor Ferdinand. It is to the history of these men and their relations with Venice that this article is devoted. The Uskoks, a name commonly used during the sixteenth century for the hardy and warlike Christian refugees fronm the Tuikish occupied areas of the Balkans, originally were settled in Croatia-Slavonia to provide the Hapsburg lands with a cheap but effective screen against Turkish incursions.' Freed by special charters from the usual manorial obligations, the Uskoks were liable to continuous military service as frontier guards and light troops. Starting with a