Greek Minority Research Articles

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.

L'Italia e il primo conflitto globale, 1914-1918

L'Italia e il primo conflitto globale, 1914-1918

The Albanian Family Characteristics (Socio-Geographic) during the Transition Period (in the Southest Region of Albania)

The evolution of the Albanian family, has had a direct impact not only on the reproductive potential of the population. For this reason its study is necessary. The situation of employment (possibilities or impossibilities for employment), income levels, economical structure and the development, education level, the level of urbanization, gender and age composition of the population the birth rate, family planning, mortality general and specific, emigration, the force of tradition, etc., are the main factors that have determined the socio-geographical characteristic features of Albanian society, during the transition political, economic and demographic period in Albania. -The substitution of the centrally planned socialist economy with the free market. -Economic crisis at the beginning of 1990. -The increase of the unemployment. -The reduction of income. -The family planning policy. -The flow of rural population to the cities. -The abandonment of the villages. -The emigration, -The aging demographic -The change of gender ratio (because of male emigration). -The traditional psychology, -The economic insecurity. These are the main factors that brought evident change in the Albanian family performance and characteristics, marriage, divorce rate and civil structure of the population too, in the south of Albania. This region is distinguished too for a clear profile emigration, because of the positioning of the neighboring country, Greece, and the presence of the Greek minority. The reduction of the total number of the families, marriages too, after 1990 in this area, has been analyzed under the influence of economical changes, which have been an important impact on the creation of new families; meanwhile, the index of divorce rate per 1000 inhabitants is increased, compared to 1989. At the end the Albanian families’ trend will depend on the performance of economic, social and demographic development in Albania. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n3s1p487

Continuity vs. radical break: national homogenization campaigns in the Greek-Bulgarian borderlands before and after the Balkan Wars

ABSTRACTScholarly interpretations of the Balkan Wars and World War I frequently present these two conflicts as a radical break that unleashed new policies of national homogenization on an unprecedented scale. Instead, this article seeks to establish important lines of continuity between the nineteenth century and the interwar period by examining how Bulgarian and Greek national activists and officials treated nationally ambiguous individuals in their (aspired) territories. First, the article explores the dynamics of the religious controversy between the (Greek) Patriarchate and the (Bulgarian) Exarchate in the long nineteenth century to show that Bulgarian and Greek activists constantly struggled to determine who their supporters were in the Ottoman borderlands of Macedonia and Thrace. From the 1830s to the establishment of the Exarchate in 1870 to the Macedonian conflict in the early 1900s, the ambiguity of people’s religious and national identities made it impossible to clearly distinguish who was a ‘Greek’ and who was a ‘Bulgarian’. Next, the article studies Greek and Bulgarian minority policies in the 1920s and 1930s, tracing lines of continuity with the prewar period. The two administrations used various criteria of national classification—language, religion or ethnicity—to sort out their Muslim minorities (Turks and Pomaks) in ways that would benefit the dominant national community of Bulgarians or Greeks. But the frustration of officials who wanted to divide up their populations into discreet nationalities was most evident in their policies vis-à-vis the Slavic speakers of Macedonia in the 1930s, who were subjected to elaborate classification schemes that tried to fit their idiosyncratic identities in the ‘correct’ national group. Altogether, the continued presence of people with flexible identities who defied the straightforward efforts of the national administrations to homogenize their territories remained the hallmarks of the entire period from 1870 to 1945.

Becoming the Other – stereotyping of Greeks by the German press

Based on interviews with members of the Greek communities in Germany, this article examines how the stereotyping of the Greek people by the German press, between October 2009 and October 2012, gave rise to resentment towards the members of the minority. During those three years of press defamation, Greeks in Germany experienced frequent incidents of social hostility, the severity of which ranged from minor incidents, demonstrating mistrust, to more severe incidents of harassment and bullying, or even property vandalism. The regularity and persistence of such incidents during the above period was such that it resulted in the temporary social disintegration of the Greek minority in Germany.

Nutritional Surveillance of Christian Orthodox Minority Adolescents in Istanbul.

Previous studies have shown that the diets of migrant populations are of poor quality; however, studies on populations remaining in one geographical region as a minority after an acute population movement are scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess dietary intake and growth of Greek minority adolescents in Turkey. Anthropometric measurements and dietary assessment were performed in 103 Greek Orthodox students (aged 10-19years old) of three minority schools in Istanbul. Prevalence of overweight and obesity according to the WHO growth charts was 39.8%. Accordingly, 40% of the sample exhibited excess body fat. Dietary intakes of protein, carbohydrate, fiber, vitamins E and D, folic acid and calcium were inadequate, while energy, totalfat and iron intakes were considered adequate. Our results indicate that Greek minority adolescents living in Turkey have similar weight status compared to their counterparts in Greece, but greater body fat than Turkish coevals, while being at risk of several nutrient inadequacies.

Minorities, Human Capital and Long-Run Development: Persistence of Armenian and Greek Influence in Turkey

We study the long-term economic legacy of highly-skilled minorities a century after their wholesale expulsion. Using mass expulsions of Armenian and Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century as a unique natural experiment of history, we show that districts with greater presence of Armenian and Greek minorities at the end of the 19th century are systematically more densely populated, more urbanized, and more developed today. Results are robust to accounting for an extensive set of geographical and historical factors of development and minority settlement patterns. Matching type estimators, instrumental variable regressions, and a sub-province level case study corroborate our findings. Importantly, we provide evidence on the channels of persistence. Armenian and Greek contribution to long-run development is largely mediated by their legacy on local human capital accumulation. In comparison, the mediating effect of minority asset transfer on development appears less important.

The Journalistic Categories and Their Structure in the Pages of “Llaiko Vima” Newspaper (1945-2012)

The aim and the objectives of the newspaper can be divided in four schematic groups: a) ideological, b) political, c) cultural, educational and scientific and d) objectives connected with the process of economic production. By the aim and objectives of the newspaper depended even the orientation for the strcture of journalistic material, their spreading in pages, the graphic details and even the very elemnts of paging. There is a lot of information about everyday life of the Ethnic Greek Minority, about their weddings, celebrations, religion, school activities, permanent rubrics, scientific and social life articles. A special rubric was dedicated to the writers and poets of this minority. The newspaper has discipline and ideological uniformity and this one of its main characteristics. The editors of the selection rubric in general want the autonomy of their newspaper that has such a great impact to the people of Greek Minority. The newspare is varied and polimorphic because it treats different spheres like romantic-philosophical chronicles, lyrical, erotic etc. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s1p238

Reciprocity Problem between Greece and Turkey: The Case of Muslim-Turkish and Greek Minorities

Reciprocity Problem between Greece and Turkey: The Case of Muslim-Turkish and Greek Minorities

The Ivanaj Reform and Its Impact on the Italian-Albanian Relations

In 1931-1935 there have been numerous events that played an important role in Albanian foreign political orientation, governed by AhmetZogu at that time. The King Zog, tried to make an independent foreign policy by approaching to its neighbour countries and by establishing new political relations as a result of an anti- italianism stream created in the country, as well as a result of the italian interventions and the fear from italian influence. The Government of Tirana undertook a series of measures that reconfirmed the independent line, which were against italian politics in Albania. One of these reforms was the educational reform of 1933 for the nationalization of the Albanian school and making it a national school, known in the history as “Ivanaj Reform”. This reform, with a nationalist character, that intended the national school unification led to the closure of all the private and foreign schools in Albania. There were immediate reactions from the foreign and local press toward this event, but the toughest attitudes were from neighbor countries. As e response Italy decided to cut all financial aids. Whereas Greece accused for violations toward greek minority rights and brought the issue to the International Court of Hague, which by its side recommended the Albanian government to reopen the Greek schools. Found in tough economical position and after none of other Balkan and European countries gave their help, the King Zog was obligated to return to italian “friendship” and together in 1936 signed a series of agreements. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n3p301

M.C. Escher and the Calabrian Cultural Landscape of Linguistic Greek Minorities

The Calabrian Region, in the past centuries, has been a refuge land for groups of different culture and religion from various Mediterranean areas. Today in this area it is still possible to identify three major ethnic language minorities related to historical events dating back to times past: the Greek of Calabria minority in the province of Reggio Calabria, the Waldensians one in the province of Cosenza and the Arbëreshë culture in the province of Cosenza, Crotone and Catanzaro. The existence in the same region of three "historical linguistic minorities", protected by the Law no. 482/1999, is unique in the Italian panorama: this territory is characterized by an ancient culture, an historic and architectonic heritage, and it is also inserted in an environment of great natural value, such as to create the conditions for the attempts to inclusion of this areas in the UNESCO heritage sites within the "Cultural Landscape" category. These territories are formed hierarchically by different ecosystems, deeply influenced by various factors such as the geological composition of the soil, the microclimate, the presence of the fiumare (characteristic Calabrian rivers), the geographical setting difficulties for agriculture and the use of terracing techniques to overcome the lack of large flat areas. The different combinations of these micro-ecosystems creates a complex landscape that can be observed at different scales and is determined by the human management of the various natural resources. No wonder that this landscape inspired Maurits Cornelis Escher to spend many months in this region, drawing and sketching.

The Programme, Purpose and the Objectives of “Llaiko Vima” Newspaper (1945-2012)

The publication of the newspaper at the southern region of Albania and in the supburbs of the political life, social and cultural, according to the basic declarations of the publishers, comes to fulfill a “gap” and it has to do with the spiritual waking and the cultivation of the Ethnic Greek Minority. According to initial opinions the newspaper was the work of its publishers, who always in difficult unsuitable positions, took the responsibility of the historical efforts for a local publication, but even the co-operators and the correspodents that were willing and motivated to express their thoughts giving in this way their intelectual civilised contribution. As a result the newspaper comes as a reaction and expression of an interior revolution for an intelectual and spiritual information of the communist southern province. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n8p374

The Education of the Greek Minority in Albania during Communism

During World War II and on, the greek-albanian relations were very tense, but as far as it concerns the situation of the greek minority in Albania the situation was quite different. This paper presents very shortly the situation faced by the Greek minority and the steps taken from the communist regime against the education of the greek minority in Albania, and it can be said that right after the war, Hoxha's government showed a special care and great attention to the education of the minority. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n7p232

Limits of the Imaginable in the Early Turkish Novel: Non-Muslim Prostitutes and Their Ottoman Muslim Clients

In the first Ottoman Turkish novels written during the late nineteenth century, the development of romance between a man and a woman was restricted by certain rules that migrated into fiction from the social sphere. Since unrelated Muslim women and men were hindered from cultivating a romance by various social rules, the problem of representing romance was solved by bringing together an Ottoman Muslim man and a nonMuslim Ottoman woman from the ethnic and religious minority groups in the Ottoman Empire, such as women from Greek, Armenian, or Jewish minorities or from European communities. Therefore, the space of the novel becomes a forum for the ethnic and religious anxieties of the time. Early Turkish novels, in this sense, imaginatively embody the unspoken boundaries between different ethnic and religious groups, allowing the reader to visualize, allegorically, the complicated relationship between the Ottoman Muslim and non-Muslim minorities in the nineteenth century. In these novels, while wives and cariyes (domestic female slaves) in Muslim households represent a sanctioned, domesticated form of sexual conduct, prostitutes and courtesans inhabit a danger zone that is associated with pollution, contamination, and disease. This bifurcated sexual code, when thought of within the complexity of late Ottoman history and culture, presents a cultural metaphor—the threat of sexual contact with prostitutes—through which to read the era’s ethnic vulnerabilities and sensibilities. A critique of Westernization is mixed with the critique of non-Muslim values and traditions, ultimately producing an exaltation of Ottoman Muslim identity and its value system. Drawing on the early Ottoman Turkish novels written by elite men, but especially focusing on Ahmed Mithat Efendi’s novel, Henuz On Yedi

Commensurable language and incommensurable claims among the Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy

More than ever, minorities reflexively engage with global frameworks in their endeavour to promote distinctiveness. Scaling local diversity through specific frameworks has resulted in familiar commensurable languages of international claim recognition. By presenting the case of the Grecanici – a Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy – this paper critically assesses the creative mingling of global structures and local particularities which effects commensurable languages of representation. These languages in their global dimension reveal a certain degree of commensurate social commentary between global agents and local actors. This commentary is veryoften structured around master tropes such as awareness, victimization and consumption. Despite their global applicability, languages of representation do not necessarily imply commensurability at the local level. Often it is only after careful mediation by skilled rhetors that commensurability on a local level becomes possible.

Prevalence of dental erosion in Greek minority school children in Istanbul

To evaluate the prevalence and aetiology of dental erosion in Greek minority school children living in Istanbul (Turkey). The present study was initiated in four Greek minority elementary schools in Istanbul where a total of 83 children (46 girls, 37 boys) between ages 7-14 years old were examined. Children were categorised into 7-11 and 12-14 ages groups. Data were obtained by clinical examination, questionnaire and standard data records. All tooth surfaces were examined, dental erosion was recorded per tooth and classified according to the index of Lussi et al. [1996] In the 7-11 yrs old group, 47.4% (n:18) of the children exhibited dental erosion while in 12-14 yrs old group, 52.6% (n:20) of the children exhibited dental erosion. There were no statitistical differences between age, gender groups and findings of dental erosion (p>0.05). However prevalence of dental erosion in 12-14 yrs old was twice that of the 7-11 years old children. In general, an unusual drinking pattern of slow swallowing of beverages significantly affected the prevalence of dental erosion (p=0.03). Multiple regression analysis revealed no relationship between dental erosion and related erosive sources such as medical conditions, brushing habits, swimming, and the consumption of acidic fruit juices and beverages (p>0.05). However it should be noted that the sample size in the current study was small.

The institutional legacy of the Ottoman Empire: Islamic rule and financial development in South Eastern Europe

This paper uses a historical experiment – the occupation of South Eastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire – to shed light on the persistence of financial development. Interest-lending prohibition persisted under Islamic rule much longer than in the rest of Europe. The unique history and political fragmentation of the region allows investigating within-country effects, in six countries that were formerly only partly occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Former Islamic rule is consistently associated with lower contemporaneous formal financial development, both across and within countries. It is associated with a decrease in bank penetration by 10% across countries and 4% within countries. However, within country, the effect of the Ottoman Empire is confined to financial development. There is no association between former Ottoman rule, income, small and medium sized enterprise development or entrepreneurship. The effect is robust to controlling for a wide number of observable characteristics. Moreover, localities with Armenian, Jewish or Greek minorities, who were allowed to practice interest lending under Ottoman rule, have higher levels of bank penetration. By contrast, Islamic religion and trust in the financial system play no role in explaining such long-term persistence.

The Muslim Minority of Western Thrace in Greece: An Internal Positive or an Internal Negative “Other”?

The signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the main bilateral agreement for the protection of Greek and Muslim minorities, hallmarks the onset of a bilateral conflict between Greece and Turkey. Together with tackling the issues of the Aegean and Cyprus, the question of the Muslim minority in Greece impedes the normalization of Greek–Turkish diplomatic relations in recent decades. The state of affairs of the Muslim community in Western Thrace has been labeled as an extremely sensitive issue within the political scene. Drawing upon Pille Petersoo's typology this paper introduces the notion of “negative and positive Others” to explore its role in Greek nationalist discourse. The main minority political, cultural and religious claims are also discussed, emphasizing minority's most prominent political claim, the recognition of its ethnic Turkish identity. The paper argues that the historical and political conditions as well as the common ethnic background of a minority group with a kin-state, have nurtured the formation and expression of an internal negative “Other”. However, new dynamics have promoted the reconstruction of the role of otherness in Greek national identity.

Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1939

In this article Theodora Dragostinova examines the interplay between official policies and popular demands in the nationalization of the Greek minority in Bulgaria. She explores why national activists and ordinary people chose to “speak national” in the context of the conflicting national interests and territorial aspirations of Bulgaria and Greece. At the official level, the national discourse and practice showed the co-existence of essentialist and constructionist understandings of nationhood; while the rhetoric of the primordial nation was ubiquitous, politicians realized that certain policies could “improve” the national body. At the popular level, the profuse use of national rhetoric functioned as an “emergency identity,” or a discursive strategy that allowed individuals to claim social legitimacy in emergency situations. Thus, despite the fact that people were forced to adopt clear-cut national allegiances, national side-switching remained a frequent phenomenon.

Looking at religion and Greek identity from the outside: The identity cards conflict through the eyes of Greek minorities

Looking at religion and Greek identity from the outside: The identity cards conflict through the eyes of Greek minorities