By KARL DIETERICH,
Privatdocent in Mediæval and Modern Greek Literature in the University
of Leipzig.
The political unrest in the Near East which preceded the present world
war and accompanied its beginnings has turned attention once more to
the existence of the Greek element in the population of Asia Minor.
Two factors in particular have entered into this feeling of unrest:
first, the systematic persecutions of the Greeks by the Young Turks,
which have been going on ever since the spring of 1914, and secondly,
the recent communications in the press dealing with alleged promises on
the part of the Triple Entente to indemnify Greece through extensive
territorial concessions in Asia Minor—the talk was of an extent of
100,000 to 120,000 sq. km.—in order to repay her for her intervention
in the war. However one may feel as to both these points and their
justification, this much is clear, that the Turks believed that they
were in the presence of a Greek peril.[11]
There was thus started, in Asia Minor, a defensive struggle on the
part of the Turks that was just as sharply defined as the offensive
which this Greek element had for a long time been actually carrying on
against the Turks of this region; with this difference, however, that
the Turkish defensive has only recently acquired sufficient strength to
make its action felt, while the Greek offensive has for decades
been quietly at work getting the upper hand economically, culturally
and nationally in that land where they once ruled for a period of
more than a thousand years. Granted that the Greek propaganda, which
has, for a considerable time, been forwarded in Asia Minor by every
possible means, has in many particulars been carried on too bitterly,
and has injured the sensibilities of the Ottomans, the fact remains
that the Greeks in Asia Minor economically and culturally have control
of Asia Minor even now, not as an outside or foreign element in the
population, though the movement has been forwarded from the outside,
but as something that has developed from within on the very soil of
the country itself, something that has in centuries of growth become
a historic fact and that is only to be understood when one has fully
grasped what has gone before.
To do this one must go back into times which are long since past,
though their resultant forces, far from having ceased to operate, seem
just now, as a matter of fact, to be renewing their strength.
Asia Minor was in prehistoric times a field for Greek colonization.
Long after its littoral had, in early Hellenic times (dating back,
in fact, to the 10th century B.C.), been bordered with a fringe of
Greek settlements, which were the basis of the old Ionic and Æolic
civilizations, this coast colonization had, in later Greek times, been
extended and developed through the victorious eastern expeditions of
Alexander the Great into a real colonization of the interior.
Just as had been the case in the whole of the western regions of Asia
Minor, there arose in the 4th to 2nd centuries B.C., in the interior
of the country as well, a whole series of new Greek cities, which from
that time on have constituted firmly fixed centers for the Hellenizing
and civilizing of the land. This began with Byzantine and Turkish times
and has extended up to the present, forming a sure testimony to the
stubborn endurance of this late Greek civilization. One needs only to
think of towns like Nicæa, Nicomedia, Prusa, Pergamon, Philadelphia,
Thyatira, Laodicea, etc., which were all founded in the 3rd and 2nd
centuries B.C. and were named after the Diadochi[12] or their wives.
After the fall of the states founded by the Diadochi, the Romans came
in and conquered Asia Minor. Without having succeeded in permanently
Romanizing it, they gave it a solidity which enabled the Byzantine
emperors, after the later Hellenizing of the Eastern Roman Empire, to
advance farther and farther into the interior and toward the east,
accompanying the victorious advance of Christianity: in Cappadocia, the
home of Greek monastic life in the East, there was firmly established
in Cæsarea, in the 6th century, a new outpost of Greek civilization.
Thus, throughout the centuries, by a process of colonization that
was forwarded now by peaceful means and again by war, Hellenism
forced its way steadily eastward, and on the basis of the older
indigenous population a new sphere for Greek colonization was opened
up which developed its own peculiar cultural strength only after the
passing away of the ancient Greek civilization, in Christian, that
is, and Byzantine times. Up to the end of the first millennium of
the Christian Era, at a time when the Balkan Peninsula, including
Ancient Greece, had long since lost its ancient city-life and culture
beneath the inroads and devastations of Goths, Avars and Slavs, Asia
Minor was still a populous and blooming land with countless large
cities, whose inhabitants combined Hellenistic culture with Christian
fervor. Intellectual traditions, associated with the names of Arrian,
Dio Cassius, Strabo, Galen and Epictetus, were still living and
were perpetuated in the writings of the Byzantine historians of the
10th-14th centuries, the most famous of whom came from Asia Minor.[13]
At that time the strongly ascetic ideals of Greek monastic life were
still in full vigor, as they had been first preached and practiced by
the three great Church Fathers, Basil of Cæsarea, the Cappadocian,
and the two Gregories of Nyssa and Nazianzus, and as they had assumed
controversial form in the monastic castles of Asia Minor (the
forerunners of the monasteries of Mount Athos), built on the Bithynian
Olympus, which is still called by the Turks Keshish-Dagh, _i.e._,
Monks’ Mount, on the Auxentios (also in Bithynia), on Mounts Sipylus,
in Lydia, and Latmos, in Caria. In ecclesiastical architecture, too,
Asia Minor was an originator: the so-called “Domed” Basilika, which
reached its greatest perfection in St. Sophia in Constantinople and its
most perfect reproduction in St. Mark’s in Venice, owes its development
to Asia Minor.[14]
Finally there arose in Asia Minor a new folk-poetry that dealt with the
deeds of heroes. What the Nibelungen is to the Germans, the Chanson de
Roland to the French, and Beowulf to the English, that, to the Greeks
of the Middle Ages, was the romantic epic of Akritas (_i.e._, Count)
Basilios. Discovered only a few decades ago, though scattered widely,
wherever Greek is spoken, in countless fragments of folk-poetry, it
is a sort of crystal precipitate in verse of those struggles which
the Byzantine Counts were forced to wage against the Saracens on the
eastern confines of their realm, in Cappadocia. The poem has for us a
double value: first, as proving that the national center of gravity of
Hellenism lay then in Asia Minor, and second, as enlightening us as to
the ethnological relations of the country, for its hero is the son of a
Greek woman by an Arab Emir (hence his surname Digenis, that is, born
of two races).[15]
From a political as well as a cultural point of view, Asia Minor
formed a center of Hellenism. From here sprang all the great ruling
families, which from the 8th century to the 13th constantly renewed the
kingdom: the Isaurians (717-867), the Armenians (867-1057), the Comneni
(1057-1185), the Laskarides (1204-1261), the Palæologi (1261-1453).
They are all rooted in the feudal nobility of Asia Minor, which is
comparable with our east Elbe colonial nobility. If it had not been
for these powerful and energetic noble families the Byzantine Empire,
and with it Hellenism as well, would long ago have been destroyed, and
if the Greeks in Asia Minor had not succeeded in these struggles, that
lasted 300 years, in stemming the advance of the Turks, their hordes
would have poured over the Balkan Peninsula and Hungary centuries
earlier than they did. We must briefly review these wars, for in no
other way can the present ethnical and cultural constitution of the
country and the position of Hellenism in it be fully understood. The
annihilation of Hellenism and the coincident erection, one after the
other, of two Turkish empires came in two great phases: the first, at
the end of the 11th century, in the conquest by the Seljuks, and the
second, at the beginning of the 14th century, in that by the Ottomans.
The geographical situation of the capitals of these two kingdoms,
Iconium (Konia) and Prusa (Brussa), is in itself an indication of the
swinging of the Turkish center of gravity from the east toward the
northwest.
Although the Seljuk kingdom did not embrace the whole peninsula within
its boundaries, it threatened, at first, with that terrific thrusting
strength of the Mongolian conquerors, to reach out far beyond its
boundaries, and to wrest from the Greeks that northwestern part of
Asia Minor that was so greatly coveted. In 1080 the Seljuks were
already in the extreme northwest in Bithynia, and in possession of
Nicæa and Nicomedia, and were ranging the whole coast regions from
Smyrna to Attalia (Adalia) as pirates. The Greeks, who were at first
purely on the defensive, joined in with the Crusaders, and succeeded,
after twenty years of stubborn fighting, in thrusting the Turkish
conquerors back of a line which corresponds pretty closely to that
of the Eskishehr-Karahissar-Akshehr railroad line of today. This was
in the early part of the 12th century (1117). A second thrust by
the Greeks (1139) drove them back upon their old base and center,
Iconium. Western Asia Minor was thus again rescued to the Greeks and
nearly forty years of quiet followed. This time was utilized by the
Greek emperors to build a strong line of fortresses against possible
further attacks; all strategically important points were defended by
strong forts, especially the valley of the Sangarios, which formed the
corridor of attack against Constantinople. Even today, as one travels
over the railroad from Ismid-Eskishehr, he sees numerous, fairly
well preserved ruins of these Byzantine forts which served the same
purpose of border-defense as those of today in the valley of the Saal
in our own land.[16] They bear Turkish names, but he who has studied
into these things knows that these are only literal translations of
old Greek names: Inegeul, shortened from Angelokome = Angelstown;
Kupruhissar, from the Greek Gephyrokastron = Bridgefort; Karadjahissar
= Greek Melangeia (Turkish, karadja = blackish). They mark, therefore,
the boundary between Byzantine and Turkish history.
Thanks to these fortresses, the Greeks succeeded in repulsing the
Turkish assaults, so vehemently renewed in 1177, until, by the Latin
conquest of 1204, the Byzantine Empire was entirely restricted to Asia
Minor, where, in the so-called Nicæan Empire, it experienced such a
promising rebirth that it soon embraced the whole northern half of
western Asia Minor. This new kingdom secured to the Greeks the mastery
in Asia Minor for 125 years more, and it would have secured it to
them for an even longer period if the Mongol invasion of 1241 and the
consequent weakening of the Seljuks had not tempted the ambitious
Greek emperors to stretch out their hands once more toward that fatal
Constantinople, instead of using their whole strength in maintaining
their hold on Asia Minor; for the Greek Empire of that time was no
longer strong enough to hold control over two continents that were so
seriously threatened, especially since a new avalanche was already
rolling in from the east, the mighty Ottomans, who rose up in the
strength of youth among the ruins of the fallen empire of the Seljuks.
What the Seljuks in 240 years had failed to accomplish, the Ottomans
were destined to bring about in a single generation, the ruination of
Hellenism in Asia Minor.
It was in 1299 that the petty Turkish feudal prince, Osman, broke
through the fortified region of the Sangarios, and after sixteen
years of desperate fighting succeeded in forcing his way through to
Nicæa, the chief defensive point of the Greeks, in order to lay the
foundations of that great Ottoman Empire that was to be the mighty
successor to the Byzantine Empire. He still met with almost invincible
resistance; Nicæa with its mighty walls could not be forced, and it
was only in 1326, the year of his death, that Prusa, after a ten-year
siege, fell, and under the name of Brussa became the first Ottoman
capital. In 1330, and after a siege of fifteen years, came the fall of
Nicæa, and later that of Nicomedia. The hardest part of the task had
thus been done, the first great breach had been made in the stronghold
of the Greek Empire, and the conquerors now turned to the south.
Pergamon fell in 1335, Sardis in 1369, and Philadelphia (Alashehr),
the last of the Greek cities of the interior, which, according to the
expression of a Greek chronicler, stands like a star in a clouded sky,
was captured in 1391. Smyrna, the old Greek acropolis, had already
fallen a prey early in the 14th century to the Seljuks, who had found
in Aïdin, the ancient Tralles, a last support for their sinking
power. Apart from Trebizond in the extreme northeast, which up to
1461 maintained itself as the capital of the little coast state which
was also called Trebizond, all Asia Minor was now in the hands of the
Turks. The Greeks, as a political factor, had ceased to play any part.
The question as to whether they had ceased to be of any importance as a
civilizing and cultural factor we must now attempt to investigate.
Byzantine sources show clearly enough that Asia Minor, even in the
11th century, was suffering from decrease in its population. This
was caused partly by the endless levies of troops, necessitated by
the struggles against the Bulgarians in the Balkans, and partly by
agrarian conditions in Asia Minor, of which I have yet to speak. The
consequences of this systematic depopulation first became evident
when the country collapsed under the inroads of Seljuks, Mongols and
Ottomans; for the defensive military strength that was for a while
maintained could not disguise the fact that the national strength of
the Greeks was already broken when the inroads of these peoples began.
Furthermore, there was no longer any means at hand to renew this
strength which had been for centuries so systematically drained. On
the contrary, the depopulation went on from bad to worse, and it took
place in different ways according to the varying character of the three
conquering peoples.
The Seljuks, who were bent chiefly on gaining new pasturing grounds,
seem to have drawn the Greek population closer to themselves and to
have made them of some service, instead of attempting to drive them
out by force. This is proven by the accounts of voluntary or forced
submission to the conquerors, into which the inhabitants were driven by
the unsound agrarian conditions in Asia Minor, which were characterized
by an ever-growing tendency toward larger and larger estates, a
tendency against which, even in the 10th century, the clear-sighted
emperors had vainly enacted the strictest laws. The consequences
appeared at the time of the inroads of the Seljuks; evidently with full
knowledge of these conditions, they promised the oppressed peasants in
the conquered regions complete freedom in return for the payment of a
head tax, if they would yield to their control. Thus great masses of
the Greek population went over to the Turks and were lost to Hellenism.
Emperor John Comnenos, on one of his campaigns against the Seljuks of
Iconium (1120), was forced first to fight bitterly with the Greeks
of that region, who had either been already half Turkified, or were,
at any rate, strongly Turcophile. We see, then, that at that time
large intermixtures of the native Greeks (or of the Hellenized native
population) with the Seljuks must have taken place, for only through
such intermixture is the fact to be explained that the Anatolian
population of today, both Christian and Mohammedan, instead of showing
a distinct racial stamp, rather presents strongly modified features
which cannot be described as either Aryan or Mongolian.[17]
The Ottomans were less bent on peaceful assimilation than on forcible
subjection and extermination. In their character as masters they
sought to make the conquered as harmless as possible, and they used
to this end a means that they had learned from the Byzantine emperors;
they transplanted, from the conquered cities that had a large Greek
population, large numbers of these Greeks to other cities where the
Greeks were less numerous, so that everywhere the Greeks were forced
into a minority. Furthermore, the Greeks were no longer permitted
to live in the large cities that were at that time still strongly
walled, but were compelled to settle outside in the suburbs. From
these suburbs there gradually developed later, as the Greek population
increased, entirely new towns, which crowded the old city-center
from its predominating position and established itself in its place.
This system, as we shall see, resulted in strengthening rather than
weakening the Greek element. And yet, in this Turkish conquest, a
great part of the Greeks in the towns were constantly being forced
to leave Asia Minor and to take refuge in the European part of the
Empire, for the Byzantine historians of that time (the 14th century)
tell of mass emigrations to Europe, of homeless refugees crowded in and
around Constantinople, and of growing insecurity in the neighborhood
of the capital. This exodus from the towns betokens a second essential
difference as compared with what had happened in the Balkan Peninsula.
While, in the Balkans, the cities appear as the supporting centers, the
bulwarks, of the Greeks against the Slav inundation, forming a base
of operations for winning back the open country that had become Slav,
in Asia Minor not only the country regions but the towns as well fell
into the hands of the conquerors, evidently because the Turks were
better trained soldiers and more familiar with the art of besieging
towns than were the Slavs, who were accustomed only to campaigns in
the open. The degree to which the Greek communities of Asia Minor
suffered under the Turkish conquest is shown by the old Church Acts
which are still preserved in the Patriarchate in Constantinople.[18]
While Asia Minor before the Turkish invasion counted no less than
fifty seats of Metropolitans (the highest church dignitaries) it has
today only twenty.[19] Of these, twelve alone are distributed in the
western provinces, while the other provinces have only eight. Even
of these the greater part are maintained only for the sake of the
names. These numbers show better than anything else how seriously the
Greek town-population in the interior of Asia Minor melted away as
a result of the Turkish conquest, for every withdrawal of the seat
of a Metropolitan, and every uniting of several such seats in one,
presupposes a decided decrease in the population of a district.
The greatest direct losses of the Greeks were caused by the two
great Mongolian invasions of the years 1241 and 1402, especially the
latter under the much-feared Timur. These hordes found their only
joy in burning, murdering and pillaging, and poured forth like a
plague of locusts “in separate bands over Galatia, Phrygia, Bithynia,
Paphlagonia, the coast region of Caria, Lycia and Pamphylia in such a
way that it seemed as if the whole Tartar army was billeted in every
separate province, so numerous were they.” So says one of the last
Byzantine historians (Dukas), who pictures also, in vivid colors, the
consequences of this predatory incursion in the words, “Timur left
neither living men, nor weeping children, nor barking dogs, nor crowing
cocks, but everywhere nothing but the stillness of death.” Thus every
one of these three Turkish inundations had in its own way contributed
to decimate the Greek population of Asia Minor.
Only in two greater districts have compact groups of Greeks of
considerable extent preserved their nationality, their speech and, in
part, their religion, that is, in Middle Cappadocia, in the interior
of eastern Asia Minor, and in Pontus, in the extreme northern coast
region; in the former as a relic of the old church settlements and
in the latter as the last remains of that latest Greek effort at
establishing a state in Asia Minor, the Empire of Trapezus. The Greek
population of these two districts can therefore serve to bring clearly
before us the Asia Minor Greeks of the Middle Ages, in their physical
as well as their linguistic character.
Before proceeding further I must state that these peoples, like those
of the Balkan Peninsula, must already have acquired their present
physical stamp in the early Middle Ages, at any rate, before the
Seljuk-Turkish conquest, for the modified, ethnically but slightly
distinguished type of the western Anatolian peasant population is
not characteristic of these Greeks. Rather do the Cappadocian Greeks
show unmistakable Armenian influence, especially in the broad and
extraordinarily high skull, and the large fleshy nose, as well as
in their compact and sturdy build, while those of the mountainous
coast region of Pontus have retained the more finely cut features of
the Greeks and their more graceful form. Some claim to find a third
type in the Greeks of south-eastern Asia Minor, a type which shows
strikingly Semitic features, and which is probably to be traced
back to the numerous Syrian immigrations into Asia Minor during the
supremacy of the Isaurian Dynasty of Byzantium, 717-867. In the same
way the Armenian type of the inland Greeks is to be traced back to the
extensive intermingling of Byzantine Greeks and Armenians during the
9th and 10th centuries, when the Byzantine Empire received a strong
quickening of Armenian blood. A dynasty of Armenian origin at that
time gave the Byzantine imperial throne a new hold and lent renewed
strength to the new kingdom and a great Byzantine province of Asia
Minor was called “the Armenian Province.” In any case, we must be
on our guard against deriving our present ethnographical picture of
Asia Minor directly from the old racial divisions into Hittites,
Phrygians and Lydians. The fact that Asia Minor served as a bridge
between Asia and Europe prevented such a preservation of the old
ethnical relations, as had been the case in the Balkan Peninsula, that
great reservoir of people in migration; here as there, in judging
of ethnological characteristics, we should, far more than has up to
now been the case, start out from Byzantine times, which completely
transformed the ancient ethnological nature of both peninsulas.[20]
That we have to do, however, in the case of the Cappadocian and
Pontic Greeks with autochthonous remains of pre-Turkish times, and
not with later immigrants, is shown not only by their racial type but
by their dialect. This belongs to the very oldest forms of the Modern
Greek language, if one leaves out of account the still more ancient
Tzakonian, and enables us to conclude that it broke away from other
Greek at a very early period, and followed a separate development of
its own. This is particularly true of the Pontic dialect of Samsun
(Amisos), Œnoe (Unieh) and Ophis; there is in the phonetics of the
dialect, as well as in the vocabulary, so much that is peculiar that
it is almost unintelligible to those conversant with the ordinary
Modern Greek. But this holds true also of the dialect of some twenty
Cappadocian towns—for with only twenty are we here concerned—a
dialect which is still quite on the level of the Greek of the early
Middle Ages, evidently going back to the time of the settlements in
the country of the old monks, which can be proved, in the region of
Cæsarea, to go back in many cases as far as the 4th century B.C.
These dialects,[21] however, are, as compared with those larger and
continuous regions where common Greek is spoken, only small and
distinct islands of the Greek speech, which are constantly wearing away
and giving up ground, more and more, although the proportion of Greeks
in these regions is much higher than elsewhere. The ratio is highest
in Pontus, where there are nearly 250,000 Greeks (25 to 30 per cent of
the population), and where they form a large percentage even of the
city population, especially in Trebizond and Samsun. On the contrary,
in Cappadocia they are to be found settled only in a large number
of villages, comprising altogether something like 40,000 souls.[22]
The number of these Greeks in Pontus as well as in Cappadocia is,
furthermore, all the harder to fix accurately, because there are among
them many communities of Christians who conceal the fact that they are
Christians, and, for political reasons, pass as adherents of Islam
(even making use of the Turkish language), but who are really devoted
to Christianity and have kept up their Greek national feeling. In
Pontus they are especially to be found in the districts of Tonia and
Ophis, where in the seventies of the last century they were estimated
at about 14,000, while in other districts, as in Krom and Torul, a
strong process of Christianizing them anew has taken place.[23]
Apart from these two isolated areas of Greeks, the Turks have inundated
the whole peninsula, subjecting it to the Turkish nationality and
to the Turkish language, while Hellenism, though not entirely
destroyed, has been so seriously broken up and shattered that it has
been obliged to give up even its language and its religion, that is
to say, has completely lost its national consciousness. The numerous
Greek names of rivers, villages and mountains have, with very few
exceptions, all disappeared, being replaced by Turkish names.[24] As
far as administration and ways of living were concerned, the Turkish
conquest produced very few radical changes. The very towns which
under Greek control had formed commercial and administrative centers,
continued to be such under the Turks, keeping, for the most part,
their old Greek names as a proof of the strength of 1500-year-old
traditions. Towns like Smyrna, Prusa, Pergamon, Magnesia, Attalia,
Adana, Tarsus, Iconium, Ancyra, Cæsarea, Amasia, Castamuni, Trapezus,
Sinope, Amisos and others experienced a new quickening under their
old names, which the Turks altered only slightly. Not only did they
continue to be the capitals of their various districts for purposes
of administration, but their names were extended so as to apply to
the entire districts of which they were centers. Practically all the
vilayets and sanjaks of Asia Minor received their names from these old
centers of city-civilization and comparatively few have Turkish names,
the ancient Tralles, Philadelphia and Dorylæum, for example, bearing
the Turkish names Aïdin, Alashehr and Eskishehr respectively. On this
weighty point, therefore, the Turks, as an unhistoric people, have been
as little able to interrupt the continuity of civilization as in the
Balkan Peninsula, where the larger towns likewise have kept their Greek
names.
Just as the Turks in Asia Minor have taken over the way of living
of their predecessors in power, so too have they accepted almost
unchanged their social relations. Two points alone deserve special
mention here, the possession of large landed estates and the feudal
system. The Turkish landowners, the Beys, are nothing but the direct
successors of the Byzantine archontes, and the Turkish peasants have
been forced to render compulsory service to the Beys just as the
Christian peasants did to the archontes. That strongly developed feudal
system, too, which has existed from Byzantine times, especially ever
since the 11th century, with its distinction between the little and
large fiefs for foot soldiers and cavaliers, respectively, was taken
over by the Turks, and was by them even more highly developed.
In this accommodation to the conditions and institutions of the subject
peoples did the strength, as well as the weakness, of the new masters
consist: in so far as they found before them fast-bound customs,
which they simply took over, they were obliged to accept, along with
their advantages, their drawbacks as well. The only real advantage
that they received came from their acceptance of feudalism, while the
retention of cultural and social conditions in town and country was
bound gradually to weaken their power, because these conditions either
outlived them or, at any rate, were not suited to them. The first
statement applies to agrarian relations, and the latter to commercial
relations in the towns. This free shepherd and peasant race (for this
they had previously been) lost its free character through taking over
the Byzantine provincial nobility without, however, in doing this,
developing a genuinely urban civilization, which is an absolutely
necessary prerequisite for trade-activity. Thus the Turkish peasantry
went backward without a Turkish bourgeoisie arising. At any rate, only
a limited town-folk arose which made its living by handicraft but did
not know how to conquer economically the regions that it had subdued
politically. There existed here, therefore, a twofold, dangerous breach
in the social organism of Mohammedanism, and into this breach sprang
the ever-alive and ever-enterprising Greek, first the Greek trader, and
then the Greek farmer. Both had in the west coast of Asia Minor and
in the islands, regions where Greeks have always lived, a field for
their activity that, though at first modest, has slowly but steadily
broadened out.
In the first place, Greek trade in Asia Minor was destined to have an
awakening. The impulse to this came from the trade policy inaugurated
in the Levant by Colbert, the gifted Minister of Louis XIV. A special
trade-society was founded for this purpose (1664), the consular system
was reformed, French merchants were united in permanent corporations
and a state system of control was arranged between the most important
harbors of the Levant and Marseilles. An interesting account has been
preserved, dating back to the year 1733, which tells of measures
taken to increase the trade of Smyrna as over against its rival
Constantinople, and one from the year 1778, containing a regulation
decided upon by the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce for the French
merchants of Smyrna.[25]
The number of firms there that represented French houses had, in
the period from 1752 to 1783, already increased to twenty-nine as
against eleven in Constantinople and eight in Salonika. This French
trade-policy was systematically based on a strengthening of Smyrna,
with the evident purpose of driving the rival trade of Italy out of the
field. In this it must have succeeded, for in the forty years from 1750
to 1789 the value of French goods imported from Smyrna to Marseilles
rose from 5,629,000 pounds to 12,805,000 pounds and, at the same time,
the export from Marseilles to Smyrna rose from 4,250,000 pounds to
9,500,000 pounds. This increase in the trade of Marseilles naturally
postulated a similar increase in the trade of Smyrna; this attained
even in 1787 no less a figure than 52,750,000 Turkish pounds, in which
figures is included the rapidly increasing trade with Russia which
resulted from the latter’s position as Turkey’s protector since 1774.
Smyrna thus became a new and important reloading place in the trade of
the Levant, and although, at the beginning of the 18th century, it had
numbered hardly 30,000 inhabitants, it had, in the year 1803, 100,000,
of whom about a third were Greeks. The new blood was mostly to the
advantage of the Greeks. In fact, one may say that the new enlargement
of Smyrna, which had formerly been the center of Hellenism in Asia
Minor and became so in an increasing degree from now on, opened a new
period of prosperity to the Greeks of Asia Minor; from all parts of the
Greek Orient a stream of enterprising Greeks gathered together here, so
that the old capital of Ionia soon became once more an almost purely
Greek city; in 1850, of about 125,000 inhabitants, 60,000 were Greeks,
in 1880 of about 160,000, 75,000 or 80,000 were Greeks, and in 1910,
over 100,000 inhabitants of the city’s 225,000 were Greeks. On the
contrary, the number of Turks has, in the last 100 years, dropped from
75,000 to 60,000, or, according to some authorities, to 50,000, while
the number of Greeks has almost quadrupled.[26] The trade of Smyrna
has correspondingly increased, especially since the opening up of the
interior through the railroads that go out from Smyrna into the valleys
of the Hermos and Mæander. Though the trade in 1839 amounted only to
53 million francs, it had increased in 1855 to 120 million, and by
1881 had even reached the figure of 220 million francs. It had already
surpassed the commerce of Constantinople, and the Turks therefore call
Smyrna too, mingling envy and scorn, “the infidel Smyrna” (Giaour
Ismir). For Hellenism in Asia Minor, however, it became a new and firm
support for its interests and a source of prosperity. Even in the
year 1818 the Greek merchants of Smyrna were able to build at their
own expense a beautiful casino, intended alike to serve business and
social ends. This proved, however, to be a tender blossom that had come
out prematurely and was soon destroyed by the storms of the Greek War
for Independence (1821-1829), though it did bloom forth all the more
strongly after the war’s fortunate ending.
For Hellenism began to spread over the west coast in a large number
of little places, which were in part old Hellenic sites, and in part
places settled during the Middle Ages, or in later Turkish times.
Among the very old sites is Phocæa, which through a strange play of
circumstances has formed the beginning and the ending of a development
that has embraced the world. Famous as the metropolis of Marseilles
(Massilia), it was, after a long period of decay, revived in modern
times by the reflux movement from her daughter of old, a movement that
affected Smyrna first, and then its neighbor Phocæa as well, for this
too, in spite of its changing political fortunes, had always been a
bulwark of Christianity and was again destined to experience a new,
though modest, rejuvenescence. Although, during the first half of the
19th century, the Greeks there were still in the minority, as compared
with the Turks, constituting two-fifths of the population (2,000 out
of 5,000), the relation has in the intervening decades so changed that
now out of 8,000 inhabitants, 6,000 are Greeks, so that these now
form three-quarters of the inhabitants. This increase is due to the
vigorous local shipping trade which centers here and which numbers
annually something like 3,000 ships. The most remarkable thing is,
however, that this rejuvenated Old Phocæa has already become once more
the mother-city of a young Phocæa (New Phocæa), which is about ten
kilometers northwest of the old and although only a few decades old
already has about 5,000 inhabitants of whom about 4,000 are Greeks. New
and Old Phocæa then, taken together, already number about 10,000 Greek
inhabitants as compared with 3,000 Turks. Working the salt pits and
exportation of raisins constitute the chief sources of livelihood of
the two cities.
The two other important harbors north of Smyrna are, like Phocæa, of
recent origin and are therefore purely Greek; I mean Dikeli and Aïvali.
Dikeli may really be described as founded by the German archæologist
Karl Humann, who in 1869 had the road that led to this place from
Pergamon rebuilt, in order the better to transport the Pergamene
sculptures excavated by him. Enterprising Greek merchants have taken
advantage of this road in the exportation of the products of the
country, and have built up here a trading place which in 1880 had 3,000
exclusively Greek inhabitants but which now contains 5,000 such.[27]
Owing to this fact the older harbor of Chandirli, situated more to
the north, has steadily diminished in importance. The chief exporting
harbor of northwest Asia Minor is, however, Aïvali, newly built in
the third decade of the 19th century on the site of an older Greek
settlement named Cydonia, a name which, like Aïvali, means “quince.”
It is an almost unique example, on Asia Minor soil, of a large, purely
Greek and practically self-governing community, with 25,000 to 30,000
inhabitants, a yearly export business of ten to twelve million francs
and a shipping of over 3,000 vessels. It has thoroughly modern business
institutions as well as a Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture and an
Agricultural Bank. It is the seat of three consular agents, those of
England, France and Italy. Through Aïvali’s growth the ancient Adramit
(Adramyttium), which was formerly on the coast but is now further
inland away from the bay, has been put into the background and now
contains about 6,000 inhabitants. As compared with these three ports,
the three that are situated on the west coast, south of Smyrna, are by
no means so important, perhaps just because they are older settlements,
in which Hellenism has had to force its way against the Turks, who were
here numerically superior. This is particularly true of Chesme, which
lies on the projecting west point of the peninsula of Clazomenæ.[28] It
is a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, which prospers through its raisin
trade. The Turks, to be sure, form the majority of the population
(about two-thirds), but the shipping (2,500 ships annually) is entirely
in Greek hands. The chief place of export for the products of the
Mæander valley is Scalanova, settled in the Middle Ages and named by
the Turks Kush-Adassi, by the Greeks New Ephesus. The Greeks, 3,000
to 4,000 in number, are constantly forcing the Turks, who are settled
in the old walled town and are about equal to them in number, further
into the background, and in commerce they completely control the
field. Lastly, Budrum, a Turkish settlement on the site of the ancient
Halicarnassus and still inhabited by about 3,000 Turks, has become
Hellenized in proportion as the growing importance of the place as a
center of export for southwest Asia Minor—the ancient Caria—has been
appreciated by the Greeks. Their number, which twenty years ago was a
little over 2,200, may since then have come to equal that of the Turks,
or may even have surpassed it.
The other little seaport towns on the southwest coast, as Marmaras,
Macri, Levisi, Kalamaki and Phœnix, since they are not connected by
railroad lines with the interior, are as yet without any commercial
significance and are of importance only in connection with local
coast-shipping. None of them has more than 3,000 inhabitants, but these
are overwhelmingly Greek.
With these constantly increasing Greek settlements on the west coast,
settlements which have their economical support in the great islands
just off the coast, Mitylene, Chios, Samos and Rhodes, the settlements
on the extended, exposed and less indented north and south coasts of
Asia Minor can bear no comparison either in number or in importance,
and this is true particularly of the south coast. The chief places here
are the ancient Adalia (Attalia) founded in Hellenistic times, with
about 30,000 inhabitants, and the entirely modern Mersina, founded in
1832, with about 22,000 inhabitants. In Adalia, which was an important
station for the fleet in Byzantine times, and is now the chief emporium
for the whole interior of the southwest, there live about 10,000
Greeks, _i.e._, about a third of the total population, while in Mersina
they form the majority. This city, too, owing to the fact that it is
connected with the Bagdad railroad by the Mersina-Adana line, has
obtained the commercial supremacy on the south coast; it had in 1911 an
import and export business of some twelve to thirteen million francs,
while Adana had a business of only two and a quarter million. Here
too, therefore, the more flourishing condition of the cities is in
direct ratio with the increasing number of Greeks. On the north coast,
which is twice as long as the southern, no new Greek settlements have
developed, but those that have existed since antiquity have maintained
their importance, thanks to the fact that they have preserved their
Greek element, which from these bases has controlled the trade of the
Black Sea. Trebizond, Kerasunda (Kiresun), Œnoe (Unieh), Amisos
(Samsun), Sinope (Sinop), Ionopolis (Ineboli), Heraclea (Eregli)
are still strong supporting and gathering points of the Greeks, who
constitute in Trebizond half of the population (about 25,000 Greeks out
of 50,000 inhabitants), while Samsun, the greatest trade center of the
north coast, with an export business of about forty million francs, has
even a larger proportion of Greeks.
Economically developed in quite another way, because more blessed by
nature and more highly favored by its nearness to Constantinople,
and on these accounts from of old, more densely populated, is the
northwest coast of Asia Minor, the littoral of the Sea of Marmora.
Here are situated on relatively shorter stretches of coast, no less
than seven important old seaports which also belong completely to the
Greek sphere of influence. There lie first, at and on the peninsula of
Cyzicus, the old cities of Panormos (Panderma) and Artake (Artaki). The
former is the more important as being the chief place of export for
the sheep of Asia Minor, the value of which, even in 1893, amounted to
fifteen million francs. Since then, the town, which has about 12,000
inhabitants, of whom 2,000 are Greeks, has become the terminus of the
road that branches off from Manissa, and will take a sudden jump as
soon as it has direct steamer connection with Constantinople. Artaki,
an almost purely Greek town of about 7,500 inhabitants, subsists,
in great part, from its manufacture of wine, liqueurs and cognac.
In particular, the white wines produced here are highly esteemed in
Constantinople. In the southeast corner of the Sea of Marmora are
situated Mudania and Gemlik, the former, the old Apamea, the point of
departure of the railroad to Broussa, having about 4,000 Greek and
2,000 Turkish inhabitants; the latter, the ancient Kios, which the
Greeks have once more renamed by its old name, being an almost purely
Greek town of 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants, which, like Aïvali, enjoys an
almost complete independence. The chief exports are chromium-ore and
tobacco (Kios-cigarettes!). Finally, in the deep bay of Ismid, besides
Ismid itself, are at one and the other side of the city Karamursal (the
ancient Prænetus) and Gebize (the Byzantine Dakibyza). Both are the
capitals of districts in which the Greek population already surpasses
the Turkish (1893: 15,000 Greeks and 11,000 Turks), although in the
towns themselves the Turks are still in the majority (Gebize has about
4,000 Turks and 2,000 Greeks). Alongside of these places, however,
especially along the line of the Haidar-Pasha-Ismid Railway are to be
found many Greek places whose Greek population increases, in a very
striking way, the nearer one gets to Constantinople. So, for example,
Daridsha, the Byzantine Aretzu, which is now once more inhabited
exclusively by Greeks, and Cadikioi, the ancient Chalcedon, which now
numbers 30,000 to 35,000 inhabitants, who consist in almost equal
numbers of Armenians, Greeks and Turks, while at the beginning of the
19th century it was inhabited almost entirely by Turks.
Coming now to the last of these places, Ismid (the ancient Nicomedia),
we find that this has lost its old significance as a place of transfer,
toward Constantinople, of the products from the rich Bithynian plain,
since the Anatolian Railroad has drawn this business in great part to
itself, and its exports, which in 1893 amounted to thirty-two million
francs, have since then decreased proportionately with the decrease
in the number of its inhabitants, which furthermore is fluctuating
greatly, being now reported as 40,000, again as 25,000, and again as
only 20,000. The number of the Greeks up to twenty years ago, when they
numbered 6,000, was constantly increasing, for in the first half of the
19th century they were estimated at not more than 1,000.
The whole Greek population of these sixteen towns is about 240,000, of
which number about half are found in Smyrna, so that the other fifteen
comprise a number about equal with that in Smyrna. But the number
of Greek inhabitants of the coast has not yet been fully enumerated.
For if we add the number of those who are settled in the districts of
the various provinces that border on the coast, we arrive at almost
twice this number, _i.e._, 450,000. There must then be living in these
coast regions, scattered outside the cities in the country, more than
200,000 Greeks. These make their living by fishing, and grape and fruit
raising, and extend in almost unbroken stretches between the towns
along the whole coast, so that the whole Greek population of the coast
consists in about equal proportions of city and country dwellers, a
ratio that we shall also find obtaining in the interior as well.
This fringe or wreath of Greek colonies which extends toward the
south as well as toward the north forms not only a strong economical
force, but also a no less strong spiritual force. This is usually
underestimated, as is too, in general, that idealistic element which
is coexistent in the Greeks with that confessedly very prominent
materialistic element, and this even in the times of its deepest
national humiliation it has never lost. This idealistic element is
rooted in a very strong national feeling, which has been nourished
by the recollection of a great intellectual past and which finds
its finest and most effectual expression in the fostering of Greek
schools. This desire for schooling is implanted in the Greek nature
from the times of late antiquity, and though it often savors rather
strongly of scholasticism, it has prevented the Greeks from losing
their national consciousness, as have the Jews and, to a certain
degree, Armenians. Even the church is held so sacred by the Greeks
only because she has been the bearer of national ideals in the times
of slavery and has, at the same time, been a powerful political
organ of administration, forming the only means in Turkey of putting
through the national demands for schools. The relation of church and
school is therefore, in the Greek Orient, quite different from that
in Catholic or even Protestant Christian lands. The church regards
itself not as the mistress of the school but rather as her servant
and patron. This fact must be clearly understood in order rightly to
estimate the relations now to be considered. If, for example, a Greek
community wishes to establish a school on Turkish soil, the council of
the community informs the bishop of the diocese of this desire and the
latter communicates it to the superior bishop, who then acquaints the
Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople with the matter. The latter is the
religious head of the Greeks in Turkey and must therefore represent
their educational interests. It is his task then to obtain the Sultan’s
permission to establish the desired school, and in obtaining this,
money plays a not unimportant rôle. The richer the community is,
therefore, the more easily does it obtain the permission, and since
the Greek communities of the coast of Asia Minor have always been, for
the most part, very rich, they were able to proceed to establish their
own schools at an early date. The oldest are those in Smyrna, Aïvali
and Chesme, and those that first came into existence were not common
schools but higher institutions of learning, corresponding to the
development of the times and the aristocratic character of the Greek
merchants. The oldest and most famous of these schools, and the only
one which still exists, is the so-called Evangelical School in Smyrna.
It goes back to 1708, but the year 1733 is really to be regarded as the
year of its foundation. Existing under English protection since 1747,
and being therefore absolutely autonomous, it was, in 1810, recognized
by the Sultan as a fully authorized gymnasium, and after being twice
reorganized—in 1810 and 1828—the Greek Government, too, gave it full
recognition. Although supported entirely by the funds of the community
and benefactors’ gifts, and demanding for its upkeep more than 100,000
francs, it still maintains in Smyrna two great affiliated schools. Its
significance for the intellectual life of Smyrna rests in its ancient
museum and in its rich library (30,000 volumes and 200 manuscripts),
the only one on Asia Minor soil.[29]
In Smyrna too is still published the first Greek newspaper to appear on
Turkish soil, _Amalthea_, which has existed now for almost seventy-five
years. Alongside of this old school for advanced studies there were in
Smyrna in 1894 other Greek schools, and in particular seventeen grammar
schools, two trade schools (the oldest having existed since 1857),
four private girls’ schools and one large girls’ college with three
associated schools and more than 2,000 pupils in all. The largest Greek
school community in Asia Minor, next to that of Smyrna, is that of
Aïvali, the second largest Greek colony of the west coast. It supports
more than twenty grammar schools, two intermediate schools, a gymnasium
and a girls’ boarding school, which in 1892 were attended by more than
1,100 pupils. Then comes Chesme, known for its old advanced-school,
which at that time possessed only eleven schools but showed the largest
number of pupils (675). Nearly equal to this were Phocæa with nine
schools and 560 pupils, Adramit with nineteen schools and about 600
pupils, Artaki with twenty-two schools and 700 pupils, Panderma with
fifteen schools and 536 pupils, Gemlik (Kios) with nine schools and
530 pupils, Mudania with eight schools and 330 pupils, Gebize with
thirteen schools and 1,000 pupils. Although the wide dissemination, as
well as the prosperity and the intellectual development of the Greeks
on the north part of the west coast is reflected in the large number
of Greek schools, that of the southern part is in this particular far
more backward. Apart from Scalanova with five Greek schools and 440
pupils, Adalia on the south coast is alone worthy of mention with its
ten schools and 600 pupils. Taken all together these sixteen cities
have more than two hundred schools with more than 17,000 pupils,[30]
a number, the significance of which can only rightly be appreciated
when compared with the corresponding Turkish figures, which show, to
be sure, that the number of schools is a hundred larger but that the
number of pupils is 6,000 less than that of the Greeks. There are
therefore nearly three times as many pupils per school in the Greek
schools as in the Turkish. The Greek settlements on the north and
south coasts are to be distinguished from those on the west coast not
only through their smaller number, but also through the fact that only
scanty and weak settlements in the inland correspond to them. In the
west, on the contrary, as we have already seen, Greek colonization
has, since late antiquity, extended up into the interior, and the
consequences of this have been felt even up to the present time, or,
at any rate, have been made anew noticeable, owing to the fact that
the Greeks of the west coast have for several decades been pressing
farther and more vigorously into the interior, and have settled there
more definitely. This region that has at present been occupied by them
only in its chief centers is, in general, bounded by a line which may
be drawn from Ismid in the north, past Eskishehr, Afiun-Karahissar,
and Isbarta to Adalia. All that lies between this line and the west
coast may be regarded as within the Greek sphere. The second phase of
these Hellenizing efforts of today begins with this forward push into
the interior of this region. Just how far and in what way has this
succeeded?
If we start on the basis of the actual facts of the case, we find that
in thirty towns of the western interior of Asia Minor of more than
5,000 inhabitants, the Greeks have a share in the population of from
1,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. Arranged according to the ratio of this
share in the population, these cities fall into different groups, as
follows:
First, a Greek majority is found in only two cities, Michalitsh (about
7,000 Greeks out of a total of 8,000) and Koplu (about 5,000 out of
8,000). Second, in nine cities the Greeks form between one-half and
one-third of the population: Baindir (4,500 out of 10,000), Tireh
(6,000 out of 14,000), Edemish (3,000 out of 7,000), Menemen (about
3,000 out of 10,000), Bergama (5,500 out of 14,500), Isbarta (7,000 out
of 20,000), Sokia (4,000 out of 12,000), Soma (2,000 out of 6,000),
Manissa (11,000 out of 35,000). Third, in four cities the Greeks form
about a fourth: Inegeul (about 2,000 out of 8,000), Kassaba (6,000
out of 23,000), Kermasti (1,200 out of 4,800), Aïdin (8,500 out of
35,000). Fourth, in five cities they form from a fifth to a sixth part:
Kutaiah (4,000 out of 22,000), Dimetoka (1,300 out of 7,000), Alashehr
(4,500 out of 22,000), Milas (2,000 out of 12,000), Bigha (1,600 out
of 10,000). Fifth, in five cities the Greeks form from a seventh to a
ninth of the total population: Kirkagatch (2,000 out of 18,000), Ushak
(1,500 out of 12,500), Balukiser (1,300 out of 10,000), Sabandsha
(1,000 out of 7,500), Kyrkagatch (about 200 out of 18,000). Sixth, less
than a tenth in seven cities: Denizli (1,600 out of 17,000), Soyut
(1,500 out of 18,000), Nazilli (1,700 out of 21,000), Brussa (6,000 out
of 80,000), Adabazar (1,600 out of 24,000), Eskishehr (1,150 out of
19,000), Nugla (1,100 out of 15,000).
From this combination of facts several interesting conclusions may be
drawn as to the distribution of the Greek population in the interior
itself, and as to the relation between the Hellenization of the
interior as compared with that of the coast regions.
If we group the cities named above according to their distribution
in the various provinces and districts, we find that only fifteen of
these fall within the province of Aïdin, the largest province of the
west coast of Asia Minor, and the one that is held to most stubbornly
by the Turks. Of these fifteen, again, only thirteen come in the
district of Smyrna, Sarukan and Aïdin, which form the most populous
part of this province. These are Menemen, Manissa, Kassaba, Alashehr;
Kirkagatch, Soma, Bergama; Baindir, Tireh and Odemish; Sokia; Aïdin
and Nazilli. Now these thirteen towns, with the exception of Bergama,
all lie, as the above grouping indicates, on the four railroad lines
which go out in four directions from Smyrna, that is in those regions
of the province which belong economically to Smyrna. At any rate,
the significance for the Greek settlements of the economic factor
is clearly evidenced in these towns, for they are, almost without
exception, “capitals,” so to speak, of smaller districts, and are
therefore important distributing and collecting centers for the local
trade to and from Smyrna. With the increase of this trade the number
of the Greeks in this group of interior cities is bound to increase
quickly or has already done so.
Most of the other towns named above are in the province of
Hodavendikiar, which lies due north of that of Aïdin; and once more
is it true that they are in the most densely inhabited parts of the
province, Brussa, Ertogrul and Kutaiah. Of the nine cities that belong
here, five, again, are found on the line of the Anatolian Railroad,
namely, Biledjik, Soyut, Eskishehr, Kutaiah and Ushak; one, Brussa, on
a branch road and three on no railroad at all, though within reach of
the Michalitch-Kirmasti-Inegeul Railroad. Here, too, therefore, the
cities which are more or less decidedly Greek in their population lie
along the main railroad lines, though they are not quite so strongly
Greek as those in the province of Aïdin; for we are here in the very
heart of Turkey, and its greatest city Brussa, which more than all the
other cities of this region has preserved its Turkish character more
purely. It is always to be borne in mind that the Anatolian Railroad
goes out from Constantinople and that this, with its strong Greek
population, is as important a gate of entrance to the northwest of Asia
Minor as Smyrna is for the west.
Although up to this time it is impossible to speak of a Hellenizing of
the great interior cities of western Asia Minor, since these are (thus
being quite different from the coast cities) very far from succumbing,
either numerically or culturally, to the Greek invasion—the number of
Greeks is the largest in Manissa—yet, if one looks into the matter
narrowly, he gains the impression that in the interior the Hellenizing
influence comes from the smaller towns. This supposition, to be
sure, is opposed to the view, still broadly accepted, that the Greek
element is purely a city element, and that the country-folk consist
only of Turks. This view, which, as we have seen, does not hold even
in the coast regions, is, however, absolutely false and is only to be
explained as arising from the impressions of superficial travelers who
have rarely penetrated into the remoter regions with a predominantly
rural population. Anyone who has, for example, visited the larger Greek
islands of the Asiatic coast, like Mitylene, Chios, Samos and Rhodes,
knows that these dense populations live in great measure from grape and
fruit-raising or from silk culture, and only in a very small degree
from trade. Farming plays no very large part, simply because of the
lack of arable land. Since now, as we have said, these very islands
for something like fifty years have become very densely populated or
even in part overpopulated (as, for instance, Samos), there have been
periodical emigrations of the island peasants, in considerable numbers,
over to the mainland, where they have, in particular, settled in the
fruitful valleys of the Mæander and the Hermos in the western parts
of Asia Minor and in that of the Sangarios, farther north. In part,
it is the descendants of the former Greek landowners who have been
reduced to socagers or serfs, who, on getting possession of some little
capital, have now, in their turn, driven back the Turks by buying them
out or by working the soil more scientifically, a process in which
they were helped by the immigrant islanders. If a sufficient number of
them is thus found settled together, they try to obtain the Sultan’s
firman permitting them to settle in a town. Thus the English traveler
Hamilton states that the Greeks in a little town of Lydia (Singerli),
in which they had settled ten years before, had, in his time (1837),
increased to 40-50 families and were busied with building a new market.
In this way numerous new and dense settlements came into existence in
the midst of the more scattered Turkish populations, and the higher
fecundity of the Greek settlers, combined with their industry, their
intellectual keenness, their frugality and their community-feeling,
helped always by the retrogression of the Turkish population itself,
have contributed to extend the Hellenizing process more and more to the
country districts.[31]
In particular have they taken possession of the regions adapted to
silk culture, like that of the lower Sangarios Valley, and also of
such regions as are adapted to raising grapes. More recently, Greek
industrial enterprises, too, especially silk-spinning mills, cognac
factories and steam oil mills, have sprung into existence, meeting
with no rivalry on the part of the Turks. With this Greek peasant of
Asia Minor, who is on a higher moral plane, and who is therefore more
congenial to us Germans than the Greek trader or innkeeper in the
coast-towns, our German spirit of enterprise which is seeking to get
the economic control over Asia Minor, will have to come to terms, and
it would be just as perverse as it would be foolish to depend on the
Turk to the exclusion of the Greek, who has the controlling hand in
trade and traffic, as well as in the cultivation of the soil.[32]
Even to a traveler of a hundred years ago the great difference between
the Greeks of the cities and the peasants was especially noteworthy.
The former were subservient and cringing like the Armenians, while the
latter were energetic and intelligent, irreconcilable in their hatreds
and by no means lacking in courage. And it is to these praiseworthy
qualities, and not to their much-bruited craftiness, that they owe
their progress in the interior of Asia Minor.[33]
As to the numbers of the Greek inhabitants of the interior of Asia
Minor, only an indirect estimate can be made. The whole number of all
the Greeks in the interior of the two provinces of Brussa and Aïdin,
exclusive of the inhabitants of the coast regions, even twenty years
ago, amounted to 200,000, _i.e._, less than half as many as in the
coast regions. About 100,000 of these lived in places with a population
of more than 5,000, so that about 100,000 were scattered among the
villages and towns. The distribution of this interior population
is very uneven. The densest Greek populations have gathered in the
Prefecture of Aïdin and here chiefly in the sub-prefecture of Smyrna,
with its five districts (Sarukan, with four districts, and Aïdin,
with only one). These three sub-prefectures, therefore, in their ten
districts, comprised, twenty years ago, a fifth part of the entire
population. In the province of Brussa the number of districts with
a considerable Greek population was only five, in the sub-prefecture
of Ertogrul, three; in those of Brussa and Kutaiah, one each. There
were the largest numbers in the district of Eskishehr, the ancient
Dorylæum, where they comprised two-fifths of the population, and in
Michalitch, where they formed one-third of the total. In fifteen of the
twenty-five districts of the interior of the two prefectures fifteen,
therefore, already contained a considerable part of the population. To
speak in greater detail, these districts may be classified as follows,
with relation to the proportions of their Greek inhabitants: The Greek
population is densest in the districts of Magnesia (Sanjak Sarukan),
and Eskishehr (Sanjak Kutaiah), where they constitute a fifth of the
population; less dense in the district of Sokia (Sanjak Aïdin), with
about a third; next comes the district Michalitch (Sanjak Brussa), with
from a fourth to a third; and then those of Bergama, Menemen, Baindir,
Tireh and Odemish (Sanjak Smyrna), where they form about a fourth; next
those of Alashehr (Sanjak Sarukan) and Yenishehr (Sanjak Ertogrul) with
about a fifth; and finally those of Inegeul, Biledjik (Sanjak Ertogrul)
and Soma (Sanjak Sarukan), with a sixth to a seventh of the entire
population.
What made the estimating of the numbers of these Greeks in the interior
so very difficult was the fact that up to a few years ago they spoke
Turkish and therefore did not share in the national and racial
consciousness of their kinsmen on the coast, and also the fact that
they do not essentially differ in physical type from the Ottomans,
who have become assimilated to the race type of the conquered people
and have lost their special Turkish characteristics. This state of
affairs began to change when the Greeks, with the help of their church,
succeeded in introducing the Greek language in their schools alongside
of the Turkish. Since then, that is, since the seventies of the last
century, the national propaganda has made great progress among them,
and the number of schools has greatly increased.
In the thirty cities of the interior of this region (prefectures
of Aïdin and Brussa) they possessed in the last decade of the 19th
century more than 400 schools with about 25,000 pupils, while the
Mohammedans in their thousand schools had only 20,000 pupils. The
number of pupils in each Greek school therefore averaged 60, while
those in the Turkish schools averaged only 20, a disproportion which
is to be explained by the fact that the Mohammedan schools are almost
exclusively poorly attended mosque-schools, while the Greek schools are
community-schools that are very well attended. The religious character
of the Turkish educational system is just as prejudicial to the Turks
as the nationalistic tendency of the Greek schools is beneficial to the
Greeks. There are towns in which, in spite of the Greeks being in a
minority, more Greek children attend the schools than Turkish children.
So Sokia, with 180 Turkish and 218 Greek children in school; the same
is true of Bigha (125:140), Alashehr (250:525), Nazilli (162:220),
Menemen (220:325), Biledjik (1,100:1,113). In other towns, such, for
example, as Bergama, Magnesia, Milas, Soyut, the number of the Greek
pupils almost equals that of the Turkish, and in most of them the
number is more than half as large as that of the Turkish pupils, even
in that stronghold of Mohammedanism, Brussa, where there are something
like 2,500 Greeks, as compared with 5,000 Turkish pupils, although the
Greeks comprise here only ten per cent of the population. These are
figures which more than anything else are indicative of the activity
and capacity for education of the Greek part of the population. The
intellectual superiority of the Greeks is set forth in an even stronger
light when one compares the sum total of the Greek schools and of their
pupils in both prefectures with that of the Turkish. For we find that
even in 1894 there were 540 Greek schools, with about 30,000 pupils,
as compared with 1,900 Turkish schools, with about 42,000 pupils. The
slight numerical superiority of the Turkish scholars is, to say the
least, entirely disproportionate to the large majority of Turks in the
population.
According to recent statistics, which are, to be sure, taken from
Greek sources[34] and are, therefore, perhaps a little too optimistic
in their tone, the number of Greek schools has since then risen to
more than 700 and that of the pupils to more than 100,000 (69,274
boys and 48,468 girls), which leads one to conclude that the Greek
population numbers a million, a number which, compared with the 650,000
of twenty-five years ago, does not seem to be too high an estimate,
particularly if we take into account the great increase of the Greeks
through a higher birthrate and through immigration. Thus, the sum total
of the Greeks in both prefectures, which have together a population of
about three millions, would be about a third of this number and would,
at any rate, not fall far below this.
With this rapidly increasing Greek population of the west coast
and interior, the prefectures of Brussa and Aïdin, and that in the
mountains of Pontus (prefecture of Trebizond) and Central Cappadocia
(prefecture of Angora), which number together a million and a third
more, we have not exhausted the list of Greeks of Asia Minor. There
are, as a matter of fact, large numbers scattered through the interior
and along the south coast, chiefly in the prefecture of Sivas and
Konia, where their number in 1890 approximated 75,000. Next comes the
prefecture of Adana, with about 50,000, and, least strongly Greek, the
prefectures Angora (about 30,000) and Kastamuni (about 25,000). It
has, however, been observed that the number of Greeks in the middle
and eastern provinces is always decreasing, which is doubtless due
to the fact that they wander away into the livelier and more fruitful
regions to the westward.[35] These are in this way becoming more and
more solid nuclei for the process of crystallization for Hellenism
in Asia Minor, which is thus once more, as it did in late antiquity,
shifting its center of gravity toward western Asia Minor, as though
it felt that here is ever that original free-flowing source to which
it now for the fourth time owes its strengthening and rejuvenation:
the first being when in the last centuries before the Christian Era
the native Lydians and Phrygians were assimilated; the second, when in
early Byzantine times it turned back the Romanizing process which had
been going on since the beginning of this era; the next, when in the
7th to the 10th centuries it averted the threatening Arabic peril, and
finally when, though apparently defeated by the Turkish conqueror, it
has after 500 years of relaxation again regained its vigor and strength
in order to fulfill its old historical mission, which consists not in
forcing its way on with the wild alarum of weapons, but through the
peaceful weapons put in its power by nature, _i.e._, by material and
spiritual civilizing agencies, that do their work quietly. This mission
Mohammedanism must meet through appropriate measures in administration
and education, if it desires to secure its political control even in
the western part of Asia Minor, now and in the future.