Turkey today refuses to recognize the fact that entire nations that inhabited the Ottoman Empire were either destroyed or expelled from their territories at the beginning of the twentieth century - the genocide of Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians lasted more than ten years. Turkey breaks off diplomatic relations with countries that have decided to recognize these terrible events as real (for example, this has happened recently with Sweden). During the Holocaust, six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, and this was recognized as the largest genocide in history, but if you add up the numbers of all the peoples destroyed in Turkey under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, it is unlikely that there will be less deaths. Only Armenians were killed more than one and a half million, and the genocide of the Greeks claimed a little less. Bloody purges overtook representatives of not only national, but also religious minorities, which, by coincidence, fell under Turkish rule.
Turkey for the Turks
How other nations could hinder the greatness of the empire, Turkey still does not explain, denying its criminal deeds - the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Assyrians, the genocide of the Greeks in their historical homeland - in Pontus and Anatolia. The beginning was laid before the First World War, and with its unleashing, the Turks felt complete impunity. The genocide of the Greeks went through several crushing waves. The first of the strongest was in 1914, then, when the Greek-Turkish war began, in 1919, and until 1923 the massacre continued with virtually no respite.
There were "death marches", executions, torture, punishments unbearable in terms of cruelty, mass expulsions, forced deportation, resulting in the death of entire families. During the Greek genocide in Turkey, Orthodox monuments and shrines were destroyed. But the Greek population, as well as the Armenian one, is not going to forget these events. The memory of millions of dead compatriots is alive, and every year people mourn for the victims of the Greek genocide. This day is May 19th. Greece marks it with black sorrow. It would seem that the Turks need to obey the crimes committed by their country, ask for forgiveness and make amends in every way possible. But this is not happening. Turkish authorities do not recognize the genocide of the Greeks. And the Armenian genocide is not recognized either.
Day of sorrow
Only in February 1994, the Greek Parliament decided to indicate their attitude to these events and establish a memorial day. Turkey responded to this as well. Now there is a national holiday - just fun. The day of sports and youth, established precisely in memory of the Samsun landings of the unscrupulous Ataturk troops. As if then more than 1,200,000 unarmed Pontic Greeks, from small to large, were not killed. For Turkey, the day of the Greek Genocide is not a mourning event. On the contrary. It is incredibly hard to admit it. But do not recognize criminally. Mustafa Kemal, nicknamed the father of the Turks - Ataturk, joyfully watched the fire in Smyrna and welcomed the massacre on its streets, exclaiming loudly: "Turkey is cleansed of foreigners and traitors!"
Winston Churchill later grieved over the conversion of Smyrna into ashes and ashes, as well as the fact that England could not prevent the extermination of the entire Christian population in these territories. In 1918, the US ambassador to Turkey stated that the Ottoman Empire had slaughtered two million children, women and men - Assyrians and Greeks, and one and a half million Armenians. When the war ended, forced immigrants and rare survivors of the "death marches" decided to return home. They did not assume that they were destined to die there after some time. The whole world could not or did not want to prevent this terrifying brutality. And now, far from all countries recognized that this was the systematic destruction of entire nations. The genocide of the Greeks on May 19 is celebrated far from everywhere, and this is unfair.
Land of ancestors
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Pontic Greeks could celebrate the third millennium of their settlement on the lands of modern Turkey, where they made up the vast majority of the population of Asia Minor, especially in Ponte and Anatolia (its northern and western parts). Many Greeks also lived in Cappadocia. They were indigenous people, "oturetivaniyu" and Islamization did not succumb, remaining Orthodox Christians. This was a challenge to the Ottoman Empire. The Turks were most afraid of losing these territories, since Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece managed to separate themselves from the empire. On the day of the commemoration of the Greek genocide, historians always remind that Pontic Christians were always educated and wealthy, thus significantly influencing the Turkish economy and its political decisions. In addition, there were too many of them, and the "Greek question" even before the First World War arose for Turkey, as they say, an edge.
In 1908, the Young Turk revolution took place, which brought with it "Pan-Turkism" - not even a nationalist, but a racist doctrine, which very quickly created the entire ideological base in order to exterminate the Turkish Christians in a total way. And then the slogan sounded: "Turkey for the Turks." In 1911, the destruction of ethnic minorities (mainly Armenians and Greeks) was officially permitted. And the persecution began. The Greeks confiscated property, terror began and the expulsion of the Gentiles from the coast of the Aegean Sea. All this was arranged as a plan for the homogenization of Anatolia: if Islamization and Turkinization failed, then all this population would disappear from the face of the earth. Measures were taken not only political and economic, although the genocide of the Pontic Greeks began just like that. Memories written by both Turks and Greeks speak of extraordinary pressure from the Turkish media, the restriction of the programs of all Greek educational institutions, the call of Greek men without exception to labor battalions, and completely draconian financial measures.
Second wave
Ethnic cleansing did not stop after the First World War. In 1919, the Greek-Turkish war began, which completely untied the hands of Turkish nationalists. Young Turks led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) reacted to the cleansing of the territory of Pontus with an addiction and exceptional activity. In 1919, May 19 - on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks, Turkish nationalists landed with their army in Samsun, and the second, most terrible wave of extermination of foreigners began. Even a general mobilization against foreign intervention was declared. It is only interesting who the interventionist is here: the Greeks who settled on these shores three thousand years ago, or the Turks, who then not only as a nation, but also as a separate nation did not exist? And the massacre began - with all the cruelty impossible to imagine.
World War II expanded the political framework for nationalists and made it possible to implement a plan to exterminate Christians. First, the Greeks were expelled from Thrace, then from Ionia. Everyone is remembered on the Day of the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor. They drove Christians into the country, into the desert, and so that the persecuted perished on the way every day. The genocide of the Pontic Greeks was the culmination of this wave. Only the Levantines and Christian Turks did not touch (yet). There were few of them, and they were hiding. There were many other Christians - more than four million people. These are monophysites - Assyrians and Armenians, with whom the nationalists have already dealt with, Orthodox - Greeks and Syrians of the south, Protestants - Greeks and Armenians, Catholics - Arabs and Armenians. The worst thing is that after a hundred years nothing, in principle, has changed. All the same, in the Middle East, Christians are brutally killed, all the same, their shrines are destroyed.
View from the outside
Even the Germans and Austrians, allies of Turkey in the war, looking at the unprecedented scale of the killings, were amazed and began to speak about it, basing their objections on the fact that such intensity of persecution can not be dictated by military reasons, rather, political or religious goals are pursued here . Even some representatives of the Turkish authorities objected to this type of deportation. In Samsun, the Austrian consul Kwiatkowski called these persecutions a catastrophe that would turn out to be even more negative for Turkey than the massacre of Armenians. Moreover, in a memo he wrote that the complete extermination of the Pontic Greeks is a sincere desire of the Turkish people themselves.
And this desire was so strong that the Turks ceased to take into account one very important fact. When the genocide of the Armenians occurred, they could do anything; the Turks did not have a single deterrent. And in the case of the Pontic Greeks was. In northern Greece, recently liberated, there were still up to half a million Muslim Turks. Until 1916, Greece was neutral. And at any moment she could get out of neutrality. However, they began the second wave of genocide of the Pontic Greeks. Photos of those times will horrify anyone. Only the "amele tambour" of what are worth. These are the very working battalions of civilized death, which all male Greeks were called up to - from adolescents to the elderly. More than three hundred thousand died in these pre-Hitler concentration camps. However, the persecution of the Pontic Greeks took place in completely different conditions than, for example, the Ionian genocide of the Greeks. May 19, the Day of Sorrow, they always remember what kind of resistance the Pontians had. Partisan detachments were created everywhere, and the struggle was ongoing, which was not observed in the west of Asia Minor.
Resistance
The wealthy Pontic Greeks did not pay long for the "levy" in twenty golden Turkish liras. They were simply deprived of property, land, factories and factories. And the poor immediately went to the mountains. Deserters from the Turkish army also flocked here, since all military men of Greek and Armenian origin were gradually disarmed and shot. Thus, partisan detachments appeared, most often acting separately, since they did not have a single leadership. The battles with the well- armed Turkish army had to be carried on by the Greeks with picks and stakes. On the day of the memory of the Greek genocide, thousands and thousands of names are remembered, and all the same, it is impossible to remember everyone, because the whole people were exterminated - almost completely. But the names of the Pontic partisan heroes will forever remain in the annals of historical memory.
Only thanks to their protection in the area of Amis and Pafra, out of two hundred thousand Greeks, fifty thousand survived. Already in 1915, the Turks were horrified by the meeting with some partisan detachments. For example, the detachment of Vasileos Anfopoulos won his unfading glory. The partisans of Pandelis Anastasiadis confronted the huge Turkish army, the battle with which lasted for many days. When the ammunition ended, the partisans chose to die, but not to surrender. The detachment of Anastasios Papadopoulos destroyed seven hundred Turkish military Liva Pasha.
Rout
Resistance was widespread and fierce, and Atatürk was forced to send a huge army under Kopalanty to defeat the partisans. The partisans, led by Euclidis Kurtidis, barely managed to get children and women out of this zone. Pontic Greeks had many worthy commanders. Although this movement itself numbered no more than seven thousand participants, who until 1923 were in more than harsh conditions of mountainous harsh terrain, without the possibility most of the time (due to snow blockages) to get food for themselves in the surrounding villages. On the day of the genocide of the Pontic Greeks, May 19, they always remember this exceptional stamina.
The weapon was either primitive or trophy until the Russians helped the co-religionists. However, this could not radically change the situation; the partisan movement was in any case doomed to defeat. In February 1918, Russia left Trebizond, and most of the population withdrew from the historical sites of three thousand years of residence and followed the Russian army. Refugees settled on the Georgian coast and in the regions of the Caucasus.
Complete extermination
The apogee of the genocide of the Pontic Greeks (from May 19, 1919) was achieved not without the help of Germany, which laid eyes on the economic wealth of the Middle East - Turkey and Engis - much earlier. She even contributed to the genocide and its further spread. It was the Germans who proposed mobilizing Christians into workers' squads, which became their death camps. The German colonel Lyman von Santer directed this, it was his efforts by 1916 that the entire population was expelled from the territories in which he disposed. Young and old people wandered deep into the country without food and water - and perished, perished, perished ... By February 1917, only a quarter of the displaced population remained alive. In Kerasund, only four out of fourteen thousand survived.
But when Atatürk landed with the army, the whole past no longer seemed the most terrible of what could happen. Thousands and thousands of Greeks were driven into the temples and burned alive, all their settlements were plundered, women were raped and killed. In Pafra, ninety percent of the Greeks are destroyed. Everyone is killed in Samsun. Young Turks in nearby towns and villages tortured more than 350 thousand people. The Minister of War of Turkey rubbed his hands and smiled rather. "We will soon solve the Greek problem just as I already solved the Armenian one!" he declared.
Death march
Physical extermination or deportation was needed by the Turkish authorities in order to eliminate the unreliable and committed to Russia. All families were sent on foot to waterless areas, without medical assistance, without food, without men who were called up to "Amel Tabur" - labor camps, or rather concentration camps. Almost no one survived there. And the Pontic Greeks from Smyrna (Izmir), previously drafted into the Turkish army, were completely cut out as early as 1915, who did not manage to escape.
More than half a million women with old people and children were deported into the country, and almost no one was left alive either, as George Randall of the English Embassy recorded. According to US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, up to a million people. What do Turks mean by deportation? The male population is systematically destroyed, and the elderly, women and children are evicted at twenty-four hours - under guard, without food and water, on foot. Villages are burned directly when evicted - there is nowhere to return. So whoever is not immediately killed will die of cold, hunger and disease.
Smyrna
In September 1922, Atatürk brought Turkish troops to Smyrna. On the very first day, killings, rape and robberies began. First, the Armenian quarter was doused with gasoline and set ablaze, then the rest of the Christian ones, including the Greek ones. People died in the fire, and in order to drown their cries, a Turkish military band played loudly, and the Allied fleet at that time stood at the port, observing all this action with binoculars and not interfering in anything, even when the massacre moved directly to the harbor. The French consulate offered shelter to the famous for his holiness Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna, but he refused to accept this invitation without his own flock.
The French did not want to save the flock, but they gave the shepherd to the Young Turks. Ataturk’s forces commander Nureddin Pasha gladly sent the metropolitan to be torn to pieces. Vladyka Chrysosorm accepted a martyr's death and prayed while he was stabbed, beaten, his ears cut off, his eyes gouged out. And with him all the Christians of Smyrna perished. This was written by a visiting Izmir Hemingway: the consequences were really terrible, the Turks completely slaughtered Armenians and Greeks not only in the city. but also in its environs, and then sunk those ships on which refugees took refuge.
Turkey today
Today, Turkey is the direct successor to the state that created Ataturk, and May 19 - Memorial Day of the Pontic Greeks' genocide - is celebrated there as a holiday created as a counterweight. Every city (without exception - every one!) Is decorated with Kemal monuments, and one cannot speak impartially about Ataturk - such a prison awaits if the crowd does not have time to stone it. Their first president is an icon, and all his actions are surrounded by a halo of holiness. And if a person says that the Memorial Day of the Pontic Greeks' genocide was founded because the Turkish authorities were a little hot at one time, the prison was provided to this person seriously and for a long time. Turkey is a member of NATO and really wants to join the EU. However, they will be accepted there only subject to the recognition of the genocide of Armenians, Greeks and other small nations in the first half of the twentieth century.
In addition, Europe is very confused by the Turkish authorities' interpretation of the term “human rights”, as well as President Erdogan is not unreasonably reproached for pandering to the ideas of pan-Turkism, which again raises its head, even in attempts to reincarnate the Ottoman Empire in its more modern version. And the genocide of the Pontic Greeks on May 19 in Turkey will never be celebrated. They will have fun and be proud of the "great" history of their country. The systematic destruction of peoples here has not yet been forgotten, not condemned, and may well be repeated.