Greeks began settling Asia Minor or Anatolia which means “east” in Greek in the 12th Century BCE. They mainly settled along the Aegean littoral although some traveled farther east and settled along the southern shores of the Black Sea and the surrounding coastal areas. This area was known as Pontus or Greek Pontus. Pontus is an ancient Greek word for sea. Pontus and the Pontian hinterland were once the most powerful city-states until its defeat by the Romans in 63 B.C.
In the first millennium CE Turkic people began migrating into Anatolia. They had established the Ottoman Empire by the 14th Century. For over the next five centuries the Empire’s ethnically diverse population was organized into a “millet system, thereby ensuring cultural and religious pluralism” (Rutgers, 2013).
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This established the current Greek state at the tip of the Balkan Peninsula however the Greeks living in Anatolia broke off from the Balkan State. There were over two million Greeks living in Anatolia that would take the punishment for the Greeks defeating the Turkish state.
The Pontian Greeks were the victim of Turkish genocide during 1914 to 1923 when the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal tried to rid the Ottoman Empire of all Christian minorities. This genocide affected the Greek nation greatly by killing over half of the population and making the rest of the population leave their homeland. As horrific as this genocide was, it is equally horrific to realize that these genocides were not an isolated
The Great Peloponnesian War was an extensive and devastating war that significantly changed Greek civilization. It began in a distant, insignificant area in Greece at Epidamnus, a Corcyraean colony on the Adriatic Sea, with a civil war between Corcyra and Corinth, which dragged both Athens and Sparta into the quarrel. Athens made alliances with Corcyra due to it having the second largest navy next to Athens. Sparta was an ally of Corinth. The Spartans refused to arbitrate, declared war, and sent their armies to the Athenian homeland of Attica in 431 B.C.E. The Great Peloponnesian War paved the way for the takeover of Greece. Previously, Greece worked together to fight against outside enemies, but during the Great Peloponnesian war, Greek city-states
The colonies had the same form of government and religious traditions as the original metropolis. However, there were no political ties between the metropolis and the apoikia, resulting in political independence. In the 8th century B.C., when colonization first occurred, the locations of the colonies reflected the trading outposts on the coast of the land; the colonies were in those locations in order to secure and control the trade routes. Consequently, the Greeks frequently came into contact with other groups of people who would pass through these trades post, connecting them with other resources. As the Greeks expanded from the western direction, another power was expanding to the same place from the eastern direction. The Greek colonies located in Asia Minor were overtaken by the Persian Empire under the rule of King Darius. In the early 5th century B.C., the Ionian Greeks intended to revolt against the unwanted Persian rule. As they revolt against the Persians, they get help from Athens, “Once persuaded to accede to Aristagoras’ appeal, the Athenians passed a decree for the dispatch of twenty ships to Ionia…These ships were the beginning of evils for Greeks and barbarians” (Herodotus, 5.97). Because Athens helps her former colonies revolt against the tyrants appointed by Persia, Persia seeks revenge against Athens. The rapid colonization of the areas outside of mainland Greece, particularly to Asia Minor, created an inevitable conflict between the Greeks and the
In the 1900’s one of the most harrowing of Genocide’s occurred in the Ottoman Empire the Greek Genocide. What was the Greek Genocide? The Greek Genocide was the removal of Christian Greeks during the first World War. The accusations to begin killing the Christian-Greeks lasted for nine years. Beginning in 1914 ending in 1923 killing over one million Greeks.
There were good things about being a seafaring civilization. As the Ancient Greeks migrated to the coast of the Mediterranean, and Black Seas, they were able to put all of their energy into maritime trade, eventually making them dominant of the busiest waterway in the ancient world. (Acrobatic, 2014)
The still night was interrupted by the screeching tyres of Detective Micky Fausten’s wailing squad car. A moment later he hit the siren and bolted through the air as he came to the top of Harrison Hill. His car landed smoothly back on the road and shot through the small residential area, weaving in and out of each street in the neighbourhood.
One of the most gruesome genocides to happen during the 20th century is the Greek Genocide, often referred to as the Pontian or Ottoman Greek Genocide. This genocide consisted of mass killings and exterminations of the Ottoman Greeks by the Turkish rule from 1914-1923. The main dispute was difference in religion and beliefs, Christians versus Islam. What most people do not know is that the Ottoman Greek Genocide is responsible for the almost complete destruction of the Christian Orthodox culture, including monuments and history. Many Greeks suffered from forced deportations, death marches, forced conversion of religion, executions, labor battalions, hunger, and the overall cruelty of the Turkish government during this time period. The ones responsible for these acts was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and the Young Turk reformists who seized control of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Greeks of all ages and genders were persecuted because of their culture and minority in Turkey, so that the CUP and the Young Turks could achieved perfect “Turkification” of the empire.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the longest enduring territories ever. One of the purposes behind its life span was, to some degree, that it endured the presence of different confidence groups. As being what is indicated, ten million Turks had the capacity standard more than 250 million individuals on three continents. The Ottomans governed their subjects through the Millet community structure; every group had its own particular independent courts and could enact as indicated by its own particular religious laws. They additionally accepted different religious qualities.
The Greek War of Independence was a fight between, and for, communism and democracy. In the novel, Inside Hitler’s Greece, Mark Mazower talks about two individual groups that are associated with these parties. EAM/ELAS is affiliated with communism, and EDES/EKKA is identified with democracy. However, Mazower points out that these two groups did not always represent these political ideas. Not all participants in EAM/ELAS were communists, and in that same respect, not all members of EDES/EKKA believed in democracy. Representatives of each organization joined for different reasons. Also, not all members of either party, within the groups, shared the same ideologies. Mazower also paints a picture differently of these two resistance movements. Whereas EAM is portrayed as the liberator of Greece, EDES is seen as nothing more that an enemy of EAM.
The Millets were societies of non-muslims living in the Ottoman Empire under their own rule. The word “Millet” means “religious community” or “people” in Turkish, and it was quite fitting for its purpose.
Many scholars and philosophers had began to discover the longtime mysteries of the world. The Greeks had a system of writing and were very well educated. They were eventually taken over by King Philip V of Macedonia. He made and alliance with Greece and gave them military aid in order for control of their government and people. King Philip dreamed to make Macedonia a world power and intended on starting in the Mediterranean. Rome had also set these same goals for their future and there was nothing stopping them. One of Philip’s allies, Hanibel, went against him and fought him for Macedonia. The Macedonians allied with the Carthagenians and the Romans with the Aetolian League. By 168 B.C. Rome had Macedonia in their command. After this, the Archaen League in Greece sought freedom after the long rule of Macedonia. They tried to fight against the mighty army of the Romans, but this only resulted int he destruction of the city, Corinth. In 146 B.C. the Romans had abolished all leagues in Greece, and most trade was stopped in the big port cities. Rome would be over this land for sixty years to come. Meanwhile, the Romans realized the value of such things like gold. They soon found out that deposits of gold and other minerals were in the uncultivated land of Thrace. The people of Thrace were for the most part, barbaric, warlike, and unorganized. The Romans did not have as many troubles obtaining this land, considering the people
Jelavich continues on to explain the losses taken by the Greeks, “Within the Ottoman Empire they were regarded as traitors, particularly by the Muslim population; the Greek position in business and commerce was also weaker.” This nevertheless helps lead to the great revolutions of 1848, which all nonetheless
Culture is a way of life for a group of people, which includes their behaviors, beliefs, and values that are accepted and passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. When discussing Turkey’s way of life, it is like a cradle of cultures and civilizations, which connect Europe and Asia (TCF – Turkish Cultural Foundation, n.d.). Since the beginning of history, Anatolia, well known as one the earliest settlements, has continued to flourish with the migration of various tribes and accumulated a large cultural heritage through a line of succeeding empires and civilizations. Many empires ranging from the Sumerians to the Hittites, the Lydian is to the Byzantines, and the Seljuk’s to the Ottomans once thrived and expired within the borders of Turkey. Today, Turkey’s population consists of approximately 81,619,392 with a growing rate of 1.12%. Turkey’s ethnic groups consist of 70-75% Turkish, 18% Kurdish, and 7-12% other minorities. Their main religion is Muslim which makes up 99.8% of the religious population, and the other 0.2% are
Greece was formed after earlier civilizations in the Middle East, Egypt, Crete, and Mycenae were destroyed by invasions by 1100 b.c.e. Alexander the Great was in charge and created a military empire seen like no other. Greece and Rome were broken up into city states which were ruled by land-owing aristocrats. Free farmers were the citizens in the city states and they
The Greeks established some colonies on the coastline near the Mediterranean Sea. While The Romans ruled all over the Mediterranean. The Romans built roads which connects their empire to the main land. But The Greeks
Greece sits at the crossroad between the Eastern and Western cultures of Asia and Europe. Being at this critical junction, Greece has experienced the ebb and flow of two cultural currents which subjected and allowed her to assimilate creatively diverse influences. Once Constantinople fell in 1453, completing the collapse of the Byzantine empire, there followed four hundred years of slavery which greatly hindered the natural development of Hellenism and restricted its spiritual evolution.