Greek Minority Research Articles

New Challenges on the Maritime Boundaries Delimitation Dispute Between Greece and Albania in the Corfu Channel

The Albanian-Greek maritime border in the Straits of Corfu region and the Ionian Sea reflects a complicated geographical, historical, and political reality, which constitutes a special characteristic of the Balkan Peninsula coastal region as a whole. For many centuries, the navigational routes of the Strait of Otranto and the Corfu Channel were characterized as important strategic, military, and commercial seaways for the ancient peoples of the region. In this respect, even though the Albanian-Greek southern border region has been at the center of conflicts and disagreements between these countries for many years, the problem is not thought to be completely related to the specific delimitation of the maritime borderline. The interstate maritime boundary is official and internationally recognized and is shown on all official political maps as an international borderline. The Albanian-Greek borderline is a product that came as a result of the Balkan Wars and the First World War, in which there was a great involvement and influence of the Great Powers’ diplomacy. Nowadays, the possibility of Albania-Greece interstate conflicts over the southern border area and maritime borders exists. In this context, ethnographic complexity is considered problematic due to the existence of the Greek minority in Albania, as well as Albanian immigrants living in Greece. On the other hand, the natural resources that possess the maritime regions of the Corfu Channel and the Ionian Sea are another reason for the dispute over the maritime border. However, according to US security institutions, these cross-border disputes between these states may only remain at the political level and not degrade further.

Greek Minority Language Instruction in Albania: Education Policy Issues and Prospects

<p style="text-align: justify;">The purpose of the present study was to identify current issues related to Greek Minority Education in Albania and its potential as considered from the part of the teachers’ and principals’ perspective. The current situation of Greek language education was recorded, problems encountered by the educational institutions and the teachers were highlighted and the prospects for teaching the Greek language in Albania were considered. 45 Teachers of Greek language and eight school principals participated in the study. For the purpose of the present study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approach was employed. The data from the target groups were collected through two basic research instruments: (a) teacher questionnaires and (b) principal interviews. The findings raised a number of issues related to the Greek language education: the student language level, the need for providing systematic training to teachers who work in bilingual environments, as well as the deficiency of strong incentives for the teacher secondment from Greece to Albania. The data indicated the teachers’ concern about the effectiveness of the existing curricula and language textbooks in accomplishing the goals of teaching the Greek language in bilingual contexts.</p>

The Causes of Failure Greek Minority Army in the Battle of Sakarya

Ankara Operation launched by the Greek Army with the support of the Entente Stateshad ended with a great defeat in the Sakarya regions without achieving its goal for signing of the Sevres Treaty by the Ankara Government and break the violent resistance against the invasions. With the defeat, the course of the Greek Asia Minor Army's Anatolian adventure had changed, Greek commanders, who had been thinking about the attack until that day, started defensive operations after the Battle of Sakarya. The reasons for the failure had explained in detail by the military experts of the period in their post-war memoirs. At the end of the war, with a rebellion that started in Greece, many people including politicians and soldiers who failed in the Sakarya War were tried and six Greek Ministers and Commanders, including the prime minister of the period Gunaris, were executed. In this sense, the Battle of Sakarya has been a turning point for the rulers of both countries. The Greek governments, who sacrificed the future of their countries for the sake of the interests of the imperialist states, paid a heavy price for the mistakes they had made. On the other hand, for the Turkish Nation, it has been the most important gain in the construction of a modern nation as a result of saving its independence and future with its own determination, decision, and struggle. The aim of the work is to analyze the causes of the defeat in the Greek Army`s Sakarya Battle. In the subject of the work is one of the most important battles of the National Struggle period the Battle of Sakarya is emphasized the importance of the loss of the Battle of Sakarya Greek History. In the study, Turkish and Greek Military History was analyzed using first-hand sources, in the context of the case-event relationship. The study covers the period of Sakarya battle.

Antioch's Last Heirs: The Hatay Greek Orthodox Community between Greece, Syria and Turkey

This study explores the identity dynamics of the Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox community of the Hatay province of Turkey. Citizens of Turkey, members of the Greek Orthodox church and Arabic speakers, members of this small but historic community stood at the crossroads of three nationalisms: Greek, Syrian and Turkish. Following the urbanization waves that swept through the Turkish countryside since the 1950s, thousands of Hatay Greek Orthodox moved to Istanbul and were given the chance to integrate with the Greek minority there. The case of the Hatay Greek Orthodox community points to the resilience of millet-based identities, more than a century after the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

Excavating Memory: Bilge Karasu's Istanbul and Walter Benjamin's Berlin

Excavating Memory: Bilge Karasu's Istanbul and Walter Benjamin's Berlin

On the need to recognize the Greeks in Poland as a national minority

Abstract Members of the Greek community living in Poland are making efforts to obtain the status of a national minority. Their ancestors have been present on Polish lands since the Middle Ages. Over the centuries, Greeks played an important role in the development of economic and scientific life of Polish cities. They were co-creators of Polish culture, art, and animators of the development of Orthodox religious life. Nowadays, the Greek minority is a permanent element of the Polish society, cultivating its own national and religious traditions. Its representatives are political and local government activists. Through the created organizational structures, they emphasize and cultivate their own national identity. The Greeks in Poland meet all the legal requirements for recognition as a national minority.

Border and Memory in the village of Koshovice

This article focuses on the village of Koshovice, Albania, where its residents are part of the officially recognized Greek minority. The local perceptions of the community are discussed as linked to the Albanian-Greek border and its presence in the collective memory. After the borderline creation in 1913, local residents were divided between the two neighboring countries. The ethnographic data collected underline the experiences and the everyday practices of the villagers of Koshovice, especially during the period of the Albanian socialist state between 1945 and 1991, when the border became almost impenetrable. The article then discusses the changes after the fall of socialism and the opening of the border in the early 1990s, especially showing how the local borderland communities are still connected nowadays to each other despite the inter-state division.

Performing Peace: Vernacular Reconciliation and the Diplomacy of Return in Cyprus

Abstract The Cyprus conflict is usually described as one between a majority Greek Cypriot and minority Turkish Cypriot population, with their opposing visions of the island’s future. In that conflict, more than 200,000 Cypriots from both these communities were displaced between 1958 and 1974. Lost in this standard narrative, however, are the conflict’s other ‘Others’: the smaller Maronite, Armenian, Latin, and Roma populations, who also experienced displacement in the course of the conflict. This paper concerns the Maronite community’s struggle to remain in or return to their historic lands in the island’s northwest. We examine the acts of everyday diplomacy that, over the past decade, have resulted in a revival of the largest Maronite village, a removal of restrictions on their rights, and most recently the partial withdrawal of the Turkish military from another Maronite village so that it may be reopened to settlement. We use these as instances of what we term ‘vernacular reconciliation’, ways of rebuilding coexistence that suspend questions of sovereignty that remain at the heart of the Cyprus impasse. We argue that this pragmatic approach calls on cultural knowledge of past patterns of coexistence through performances that in turn produce deeply felt senses of responsibility and patterns of reciprocity. Such patterns of reciprocity, we show, are reappropriated in the context of ongoing conflict.

Between citizenship and the millet: the Greek minority in republican Turkey

ABSTRACT As one of Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities, Turkey’s Greeks have faced substantial pressures since the founding of republican Turkey. As its members could not claim their constitutional rights as citizens of Turkey, emigration soared and the minority reached a point of near extinction. Significant improvements were noted when the EU-supported reform transformed the Turkish state and society from 1999 to 2010, which were not reversed as Turkey relapsed to democratic backsliding in the following years. This article explores the social dynamics and ideological frameworks that have contributed to novel perceptions of the Greek minority since after 2002, the year the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP) came to power and have deterred a significant deterioration since Turkey’s democratic backsliding began. It also examines the state of Turkey’s Greeks by focusing on the state of the pious foundations, the Papa Eftim affair and the situation in the islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos).

Using innovation as a tool for inverting emigration trends in Dropull. How digital manufacturing could leap the technological gap and strengthen the connection between the community and its territory.

Understanding a complex territory Dropull municipality is one of the “newest” municipalities created as a result of the territorial reform that reorganized Albania passing from 384 administrative units and municipalities to 61 new municipalities. Located in the south-eastern part of Albania, this municipality is part of Gjirokastra region. It is neighbored to the east by the national border with Greece. The historically good cross-border relationship with Greece has always been reinforced by the presence of Greek minority living in this municipality. In Albania 2-3% of the population is composed by minorities, and in the case of Dropull municipality this population represents a very significant part of the total population of 7,128. (Census: Instat 2011). Dropull is an important gateway in connection with Greece, the main infrastructure route connecting the capital with Greece goes through the municipality, connecting all 41 villages to each other and the economic areas in-between. However, the lack of complementary secondary and tertiary infrastructure and the structure and nature of the economic sectors has increased the abandonment and decay of some urban areas. More than 479 buildings in this municipality are abandoned and in a ruined state. Some of them represent entire neighborhoods, impacting urban space quality, infrastructure and environmental conditions as well.

The Greek Language Education in Albania: A Professional Development Framework for Greek Language Teachers

The main purpose of this study is the design, implementation and evaluation of a professional development program for Greek language teachers in minority education in Albania. The education of the Greek minority in Albania has been a separate part of the whole educational system of the country that has its own features and its own history (Barkas, 2011). Τhe starting point of the present study will be to outline the existing educational situation and to explore the needs of a) the specific teachers and b) the views of the head teachers and c) the professors at the University of Argyrokastro in order to form an overall picture of their training needs, their views and their suggestions for continuing education. The ultimate goal is to present an integrated professional development context for Greek language teachers in the minority education in Albania and we hope that the suggested professional development program for minority education teachers will be an effective one to upgrade their work and, in the long run, to make a decisive contribution to the qualitative upgrading of the Greek language instruction.

The 1964 Expulsion of Greek Citizens from Turkey: Economic and Demographic Turkification Under Ethnocultural Nationalism

ABSTRACT This article argues that the Turkish government facing the 1964 Cyprus crisis applied the principle of negative reciprocity toward Greece and expelled Greek citizens living in Turkey. By doing so, Turkey aimed at pressuring Greece to bring the Greek Cypriot side to the negotiation table. Although Turkish policy proved to be a failure, the expulsions continued. The deportation resulted in the demise of the Greek minority in Turkey for the following reasons: first, there were intermarriages between the Greek citizens and the Greek minority; and second, Turkey’s Greeks finally lost their hope of being treated as equal Turkish citizens.

When Perpetual Persecution Becomes Ottoman Genocide

Abstract A review of Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi's The Thirty-Years Genocide deals with the experience of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek minorities in late Ottoman and early Republican Turkey. The thesis of a long genocide challenges the international law concept of genocide while reopening a line of interpretation of long-standing persecution that is close to Christian memory, but far from contemporary historians' emphasis on political decision-making. The review specifically deals with the Assyrians who were less of a passive victim than Morris and Ze'evi maintain.

The League of Nations between Scientific Knowledge and Political Dependence

The League of Nations sets strict professional frameworks that are subordinate to scientific knowledge and international law and respect, without any differences between small and big powers. The first chairman, Eric Drummond, who headed up to 1934, established a huge international prestige of the organization and achieved a number of successes in peace building. The League’s policy in the Balkans is revealed mainly through its relations with Albania and Bulgaria, which both joined the League in December 1920. The two countries rely on the international organization for the peaceful resolution of their political, minority and social problems. Under the supervision of the League of Nations, a number of agreements for voluntary and mutual exchange of people between Greece and Bulgaria are being concluded, which aims to soothe the Macedonian problem in Aegean Macedonia. Under her patronage are the agreements between Greece and Albania regulating the protection of Greek minorities and schools, as well as settling the border dispute between the Serb-Croat-Slovene Kingdom and Albania in 1921. The rapid intervention of the United Nations suspended the Greek aggression on Bulgarian territory in the autumn of 1925 and prevented a possible new war. Dimitar Shalev's petitions from Skopje to the United Nations aim to achieve the Yugoslav state's humane treatment towards Bulgarian minorities within its borders, but political dependencies and overlapping contradictions are an obstacle to peaceful and sustainable political outcomes. In the second half of the 1930s, the League lost its initial prestige, and in the course of the emerging new global conflict it fell into political dependence, marking its collapse. Unresolved issues and contradictions, along with the harsh political post-war realities, quickly bury the League’s noble impetus.

The Ethnic Greek Minority Newspapers in Albania during World War II (1939-1945)

The Ethnic Greek Minority Newspapers in Albania during World War II (1939-1945)

6/7 Eylül 1955 Olaylarının Neden ve Sonuç İlişkisi İçerisinde Değerlendirilmesi

September 6/7 events have an important place in the history of the republic. The discussions about who the agents of the events were have stil been continuing. In this article, September 6/7 events were evaluated in terms of cause and effect relation. Impact of the events was interpreted by evaluating within the Turkish-Greek relations. After Greece to take Cyprus Issue to take UN and the terrorist acts to increase on the island by invitiny Turkey and Greece England held the London Conference on September 6 1955 the events started after the ‘’İstanbul Ekspres Newspaper’’ had announced that Atatürk’s hause in Thessuloniki had sombed. The demonstration in Taksim square instiated by the Turkish Cyprus society had been out of control as people had been pouring into the streets. Soon afterwards the demonstration became a looting movement against the Greek minorities in İstiklal Caddesi. The events that had spread all over İstanbul had olso spread to other places, especially to İzmir and Ankara. During the events there were minorities Muslim neigbors who tried to hide and protect them at home. The events could only be brought under control by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes declaration of martial law. After the events the Turkish government expressed the regret and gave the promise of compensation of the harms of the minorities. Special courts were established and the agents were tried to find. Among those who were held responsible for the events of September 6th and 7th Menderes and various groups were held responsible. As a matter of fact one of the cases heard in the court in Yassıada after the 27 May 1960 military coup was the 6/7 September Events.

Patrimoines culturels et fait minoritaire en Turquie et dans les Balkans. (Anatoli. De l'Adriatique à la Caspienne: Territoires, politique, sociétés ed. by Méropi Anastassiadou

Reviewed by: Patrimoines culturels et fait minoritaire en Turquie et dans les Balkans. (Anatoli. De l'Adriatique à la Caspienne: Territoires, politique, sociétés ed. by Méropi Anastassiadou Maria Couroucli (bio) Méropi Anastassiadou, editor, Patrimoines culturels et fait minoritaire en Turquie et dans les Balkans. (Anatoli. De l'Adriatique à la Caspienne: Territoires, politique, sociétés 6). Paris: CNRS Editions. 2015. Pp. 329. Paper €32. This is a welcome volume in the growing field of cultural history and heritage studies, with new research on the politics of national states toward religious, linguistic, and ethnic minorities in Turkey and the Balkans. In this post-Ottoman world, state authorities have developed strategies to conceal and silence evidence of past history inconsistent with national ideologies—including the presence of autochthonous minorities, a reminder of a common past strongly anchored in the background of national territories. Contributors examine state policies against heritage claims and analyze the consequences of a major contradiction between the will to build modern, homogeneous nation-states and the cultural realities facing these very state-builders since the nineteenth century: the multiethinc, multilingual, and pluri-religious dimensions of the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans and Anatolia. They also examine the ways these negotiations have been influenced by the contemporary European legal and political environment and explore the importance of culture as one of the major challenges facing national authorities confronted with minority claims, especially those linked to memory and identity in Europe and Turkey. The chapters in Part 1 examine the policies of the nation-state toward autochthonous minorities from a sociohistorical perspective, with examples from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. Yannis Kristakis underlines the importance of the notion of personal status in relation to the legal representation of minorities' interests within a sovereign state. He discusses the relevance of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne to cultural policies, comparing the protection of monuments and material culture in Turkey and Greece. Thalia Dragona and Anna Frangoudaki's contribution concerns education policy and practices. They explore the limits of bilateral (Greek and Turkish) state agreements through their experience as heads of a European Commission [End Page 193] funded education program for the Muslim minority in Thrace. The project began in 1997, as Greece adopted a new policy toward the Muslim minority in Thrace, built on positive discrimination in education, a consequence of the government's acknowledgement of the European dimension of minority rights. Dragona and Frangoudaki analyze how the new policy disentangled minority education issues from the overall bilateral Greek-Turkish relations and opened the way for the implementation of new educational tools. This European project has successfully promoted equal opportunities for both children and adults through a long-term engagement of Greek public education civil servants with local authorities and community leaders. Renaud Dorhliac's chapter explores the fate of the dwindling Greek Orthodox minority in Albania, a tiny linguistic and religious community that has suffered demographic decline, comprising only 2% of the population today. The author explains how the community has successfully been assimilated into the Albanian national state, despite the Greek state's policy of support for Greek minority rights in the neighboring country. The chapters in Part 2 concern the different ways that monuments become landmarks within urban and rural space. The authors analyze specific relations between cultural traditions and religious holy sites, exploring the history of shared shrines, as well as property rights and the management of specific holy places. Bernard Lory's historical survey underlines the practical aspects of the conversions of religious monuments. He explains how F.W. Hasluck's work at the beginning of the twentieth century brought to light the fact that in the Balkans and Anatolia holy places have remained sacred through the ages, despite the religious denomination of their keepers. Moreover, he argues, holy shrines are often the only stone monuments in villages and towns of the Balkan region, whereas the most common vernacular construction materials were traditionally wood and cob. In this context, resistant materials like stone and marble were primarily destined for sacred architecture, so that converting a church into a mosque and vice versa was often no more than a pragmatic response to major social disruptions caused...

Literary Sections of the Newspaper “Η Φωνή της Ομόνοιας” (1991–2012)

Abstract In this article we will highlight some of the most important literary sections of the newspaper “Η φωνή της Ομόνοιας” (“The voice of Omonia”), published in Albania during 1991 - 2012, where are published works of artistic literature belonging mostly to the Ethnic Greek Minority writers in Albania but also works of the Albanian writers and those of the world literature. We will widely focus in the poems and stories published in the newspaper, bringing concrete titles that had their artistic and aesthetic values, and also in the weaknesses that derived from the ideological limitations of the time they were published and by the lack of professionalism from the majority of the writers. Despite the weaknesses, these works further enriched the tradition and culture of the Ethnic Greek Minority with their values, and as such deserve to take their place in the literary criticism studies.

The Adjective as Ideology Indicator in Postwar School Grammars of the Greek Ethnic Minority Schools in Albania

Abstract This presentation aims to a primary approach to the role the postwar textbooks of grammar of the Greek language had and were intended for the National Greek Minority in Albania. We are not referring to grammar acknowledgement, but to the part of the education process that has to do with the conformation of children and the character formation of character and consciences. It is obvious that every educational system is part of an administrative state apparatus controlled by socio-political forces. So the new political system that was installed in the country after the 1945, settled as a key priority the conformation of the new man with communist ideals. These objectives were primarily reflected in textbooks. In our presentation we analyze the role of language structures in the implementation of this objective. Within the language structures and language options of speakers, various social or ideological messages are included. We focus our analysis on the “adjective”, as we consider it to have largely registered the ideology of a society or a political system.

The Juridical Position of Greek Minorities in Albania

Greek minority played an important role in the life and formation of the Albanian State. This minority has been concentrated mainly in the south of the country, more specifically in the border areas between Albania and Greece. The role of this minority has been important not only in the cultural development but also in the affirmation of the Albanian State. The Greek minority has been known legally as a national minority in 1921 when Albania was accepted in the League of Nations as a sovereign state with full rights. The admission to this international organisation was conditional upon the signing of a document in which Albania committed to recognise and guarantee full rights to minorities living in its territory. This document entitled "declaration on the protection of minorities in Albania" would force the Albanian State to submit detailed reports to the League of Nations about the situation of the minorities in the country. All minorities within the country lost their status after the end of the Second World War, during the Communist regime of Enver Hoxha. After the collapse of communism and the advent of democracy, minority rights were affirmed not only in the Albanian jurisdiction but also by several international agreements, such as the Convention of the Council of Europe for Protection of National Minorities. The actual judicial system in Albania guarantees national minorities equal rights with the Albanian population and, simultaneously, allows the preservation of their national identity.