Muslim Minority in Greek Historiography: A Distorted Story?

European History Quarterly

42(3) 444–467

! The Author(s) 2012

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DOI: 10.1177/0265691412448044

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Article

The Muslim Minority inGreek Historiography:A Distorted Story?

Stefanos KatsikasGoldsmiths, University of London, UK

Abstract

This article provides a bibliographical review of the major academic works which have

been published in or translated into Greek and deal with the life of the Muslim minority

of Greece. The article focuses on the methodological approach of these works, the time

of their publication and the research fields which they cover or disregard. It argues that

Greek academic works on the subject are highly influenced by the climate of Greek–

Turkish relations. Most remain silent about Muslim populations who lived in the country

prior to 1923 and focus on the Muslims of western Thrace, of whose minority life they

give a distorted picture. This has started to change since 1989, but there is still a long

way to go until Greek academia overcomes its biased, emotional and politically-

influenced modus operandi on the subject and adopts a more dispassionate approach.

Keywords

Balkan minorities, Greece, Muslims

Introduction

The focus of this article is Muslims who became ‘citizens’ of the Greek statethrough its territorial expansion from the time of its establishment as a newnation state in the 1830s to 1947, the year of its last territorial expansion – theannexation of the Dodecanese insular complex. With the exception of theAlbanian-speaking Muslims of northwestern Greece, known as Cams and regardedas ethnic Albanians by the Albanian authorities, who thus sought to offer thempolitical protection, the rest of the Muslims in Greece have been seen by theOttoman Empire and later the Republic of Turkey as a religious kin group.Istanbul – and later Ankara – sought to protect this group’s minority rights in

Corresponding author:

Stefanos Katsikas, Department of History, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14

6NW, UK

Email: [email protected]

the various treaties which the Ottoman Empire, and after its demise the Republic ofTurkey, signed with Greece.1

All that remains today of these people is a community of around 120,000 livingin western Thrace – in the northeast of the Greek mainland – as well as fewer than5,000 people living on the islands of Rhodes and K �os.2 The rest left the country as aresult of forced and voluntary emigrations, the compulsory Greek–Turkish popu-lation exchange of 1923 and retaliatory measures taken by the Greek state autho-rities and paramilitary organizations.3 The above numbers exclude the very manyMuslim immigrants from neighbouring Balkan states, and the Middle and Far Eastwho have come to Greece since 1989 seeking work and temporary or permanentsettlement away from the political and economic hardships of their respectivecountries. These Muslim migrants are not, in any case, the focus of this article.

The existence of Muslims within the Greek territory has always been a hot issuein Greek politics and public life. This is especially so for the Muslims of westernThrace, the only officially recognized religious or ethnic minority in Greece, andboth officially and widely known as ‘the Muslim minority of Greece’. For themajority of Greeks, the Muslims of western Thrace are seen as a Trojan horse,an ethnically and religiously alien group, akin to the country’s perceived biggestnational enemy, namely Turkey, which could in the long term question state sov-ereignty in that region.

Greek historiography shares responsibility for this attitude. Overall the relation-ship between Greek historiography and the Muslim minority has been problematicin the sense that most published academic works have been influenced by thecurrent political climate in Greek–Turkish relations. For this reason, this articleaims to explore the way the Muslim minority is portrayed in major academic workswhich have been published in or translated into Greek. It examines the politicalenvironment in which they have been published, especially in relation to the pol-itical climate in Greek–Turkish relations, and discusses how this environmentaffects the timing of publication of these works and the research subjects theydiscuss, as well as their arguments in relation to these subjects, and, finally, theirmethodology and literary style. The article reviews major published monographs,journal articles and research papers written in Greek by academics working inacademic institutes, and NGOs in the Hellenic Republic. Of course, there are pub-lished works which are not referred to in the article. This is for practical reasons, asit would have been impossible to review all the published work on the subject in asingle such article, and because, rather than providing an exhaustive review of allpublished Greek historiographic works on the subject, the author’s primary aim isto provide an overall picture of the issues mentioned above by focusing on someeminent Greek academic studies.

The author is aware that much work on the issue has been published in otherlanguages by non-Greek as well as Greek scholars.4 However, the focus of thediscussion in this article is intentionally upon academic works on the Muslims ofGreece which have been written in or translated into Greek. This is because thearticle is interested in discussing the various narratives produced on the subject by

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the Greek academic elite, including those foreign narratives which the native aca-demic community showed an interest in translating into their mother tongue, andin exploring the reasons why they have done so.

Timing of Publications

Prior to 1989 the number of published works on the Muslims of Greece was rela-tively small. The majority of publications on the subject appeared during the lateCold War and the early post-Cold War periods. This is exemplified by the exhaust-ive bibliographical overview of Fotein�e Asimakopoulou and Sevast�e Christidou-Lionarak�e.5 From the approximately 164 Greek titles provided on the authors’bibliographical lists with direct or indirect references to the Muslim minority ofGreece, only 55 (34%) were published before 1989. Of the 55 titles published before1989, around 18 (11%) are translated works by non-Greek academics, mainlyTurks working in Turkish academic institutes, which leaves the number of pub-lished works by Greek academics working in Greece at 37 (22.7%).6

The main explanation for this proportional discrepancy between the periodsbefore and after 1989 is related to the current climate in Greek–Turkish relations,and the way in which that climate has affected the relationship between the Muslimpopulation and the Greek state. Following the ethnic conflicts of the 1950s, 1960sand early 1970s between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus, which led to the1974 Turkish invasion of the island, Greek–Turkish relations entered a prolongedperiod of tension, with the two states reaching the brink of war twice, in March1987 and in January 1996.7 The crisis resulted from a series of bilateral issues,including respect for the minority rights of Muslims in western Thrace in linewith the provisions of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. In this context, the affairs ofthe Muslims in Thrace began to be a focal point of political and academic debate inGreece.

In April 1990, the conservative New Democracy party came to power and abouta year later this government, under the premiership of the party’s leader,K �onstantinos M�etsotak�es, tried to reform the legal framework governing theminority status of the Muslims of Greece by introducing Law 1920/1991. Thislaw regulated the appointment of Muslim religious leaders, muftis. It was notwell received by members of the minority elite and a debate followed with theparticipation of members of the Greek academic community, which in turn resultedin an increase in Greek published works referring to western Thrace Muslims.Thus, works such as those of Georgoul�es, Soltarid�es and Tsitselik�es were publishedafter the introduction of Law 1920/1991 and attempted to situate the 1991 legalreforms of the status and duties of muftis in western Thrace in a broader historicalframework, with the first two even providing examples of the status and duties ofmuftis elsewhere in the world.8

Besides monographs and academic articles, academic debate on western ThraceMuslims has also been conducted through the press, magazines and the massmedia, and in this way reached the wider Greek public. Articles by Greek

446 European History Quarterly 42(3)

academics and specialists, such as Alex�es Alexandr�es and K �onstantinosVakalopoulos among others, have often appeared in the Greek press and maga-zines.9 In addition, at around the same time, in 1993, the first extensive biblio-graphic guide on western Thrace, with the inclusion of titles relating to the Muslimminority of the region, was compiled by Xanthipp�e Kotzagi �org�e and AnnaPanayotopoulou. This guide was published through the Institute for BalkanStudies in Thessalonik�e.10

The increasing academic focus on the Muslim minority in the 1980s and thepost-1989 period can also be explained by a well-established view among academiccircles in Greece and abroad that the end of the Cold War would result in regionalinstability in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, with minority issues being a majorfactor in this instability.11 This view was corroborated by the ethnic conflicts in theneighbouring Yugoslavia and by the disturbed state–minority relations in Bulgariadue to the Bulgarian communist regime’s attempts at the end of the 1980s to forcethe country’s Muslims to adopt Bulgarian names and to force a large number ofBulgarian Muslims to leave the country, as well as by the disturbed state–minorityrelations elsewhere in the Balkans.12

Within this context a number of academic works, such as those of Koppa,Rozak�es and others, discussed the significance of the minority factor in the domes-tic and regional security of southeastern Europe and referred to political measurestaken by international actors such as the European Union (EU), the USA, NATOand other international organizations, which improved or undermined inter-ethnicas well as state–minority relations, and thus the political, economic and socialstability of the region.13 Other works, such as those of Tsitselik�es andChristopoulos, refer to the issue of protecting human and minority rights inGreece, including those of the country’s Muslim minority, with reference to pro-visions in international law, the European legal framework and social practiceelsewhere in Europe.14 Scholars like Troubeta, Tsibiridou and Petrak�e exploreissues such as Greek national ideology, national identity construction, bilingual-ism, ethnic as well as labour relations, sexuality, gender identities, and roles insidethe family, with reference to the Muslim minority of western Thrace.15

The introduction on 10 April 1989 of a form of proportional representation,for the general elections of 18 June 1989 allowed the election of Ahmet Sadik,a member of the Muslim minority in western Thrace, as an independent MP (with-out affiliation to any of the existing parliamentary political forces). Here wasanother reason for Greek academics to focus on Muslim minority affairs in thepost-Cold War period. Ahmet Sadik and his colleague Ahmet Faikoglou, who waselected as the second independent Muslim MP in the general elections ofApril 1990, insistently and openly raised issues such as the violation of Muslimminority rights by the Greek state and local authorities in western Thrace, theright of those minority members who wished to call themselves Turks to beallowed by the authorities to do so, and many other subjects which had beentaboo for the majority of Greeks until then. Within this context, and possiblyinfluenced by the parliamentary representation of Muslims elsewhere in the

Katsikas 447

Balkans, works such as those of D �odos and Nikolakopoulos were published, whichanalysed the electoral behaviour of the Muslim minority in western Thrace:16 theformer in comparison to the electoral behaviour of religious and ethnic minoritiesin Bulgaria and Albania, while the latter focuses on its electoral behaviour from1923 to 1955.

Two publications, one by the Centre for the Study of Greek Society at theAcademy of Athens and another by Lois Lambrianid�es, point to the economicunderdevelopment of the region and its economic and social effects onMuslims,17 including those living inside the zone of military surveillance whichthe Greek state authorities imposed in the region from 1936 to 1995.18 Thesepublications are sited in the context of political measures taken by the thenPASOK government which aimed at relaxing the restrictive measures affectingthe Muslims in Thrace and culminated in the abolition of the zone of militarysurveillance in 1995.

The deterioration of Greek–Turkish relations in the 1980s and during most ofthe 1990s dramatically increased the number of Greek academic works on theMuslims of Greece and led to the appearance of a number of publications whichapproach the subject through a narrow nationalistic prism. Their aim was to alertthe Greek state authorities and public to the changing political, economic andsocial state of the minority through a more active political involvement byTurkey in minority affairs. Works such as those of Gerondopoulos, K�epouros,Magriot�es and many others fall into this category.19

From the 1980s onwards, the academic landscape in Greece began to change,and by the 1990s an increasing number of young scholars with postgraduatedegrees from Western universities were taking up posts in Greek academic insti-tutes. They have introduced new fields to Greek academia, including social history,anthropology, identity formation, human rights and gender studies, often using theMuslims of western Thrace as their case study. A number of scholars mentionedabove, such as Asimakopoulou, Christidou-Lionarak�e, Tsitselik�es and others, fallinto this category.

Greek–Turkish relations were not only an influence on academic publicationsafter the 1980s, but they also influenced those rarer publications which hadappeared on this subject in the earlier period. Andread�es’ seminal work �EMousoulmanik �e Meionotis t �es Dytik �es Thrak �es (The Muslim Minority in WesternThrace), which discusses the life of Muslims in western Thrace during the interwarperiod as well as their relations with the Greek and Turkish state authorities, waspublished in Thessalonik�e in 1956, about a year after the independence movementin Cyprus and the September 1955 pogroms against the Greek population inIstanbul. In the introduction, the author justifies his decision to write the bookas follows: ‘When due to the Cyprus issue, the demagogy of Turkish newspapers inIstanbul regarding the living conditions of the Muslims in western Thrace began. . .I decided to write. . . a special essay’.20

Andread�es’ book was not unique in the timing of its publication. Bekiarid�es’work was published in 1973, during a period of ethnic conflict in Cyprus and


increasing tension in Greek–Turkish bilateral relations.21 By the same token,Eleftheriad�es’ study, and some others that followed, appeared at a time whenGreece had doubled its territory after the end of the two Balkan wars and theFirst World War, and, as a result of this, a great number of Muslims had becomesubjects of the Greek Kingdom.22

Methodology and Writing Style

Most published Greek works referring to the Muslims of Greece approach variousaspects of the life of Muslims within the narrow prism of Greek–Turkish relations.They are not dispassionate academic works whose task is to shed light on unknownaspects of minority political, economic, social and cultural life. Rather, theircommon denominator is that they emphasize that the Muslims of Greece enjoyall the minority rights they should or enjoy much more freedom and better livingconditions than those of the Greek Orthodox in Turkey. This is done either tosupport existing minority policies on the part of the Greek state authorities or tocriticize these for the allegedly excessive freedom they allow to the country’sMuslims, thus not reciprocating past and/or current tough minority policiestowards the Greek Orthodox by the state authorities in Turkey. That Greek schol-arly works on the Muslims of Greece are not always academically dispassionate iswell illustrated by Syme �on Soltarid�es’ 1997 monograph, in which he explains that:

A proof of the political freedoms which the Muslim Minority of western Thrace

enjoys is that all its members participate, like ethnic Greeks, in the general and

local elections. It is noteworthy that in 1928 19 out of 92 elected local leaders

(mayors) in western Thrace were Muslims. . . On the contrary, Turkey has violated

the civil, political and economic rights of the Greek Orthodox in Istanbul and the

islands of Imvros and Tenedos, by forcing the vast majority to leave these places

without the existence of any bilateral treaty to rule any population exchange between

the two states.23

Elsewhere in his book, Soltarid�es includes a section which discusses the way inwhich muftis are appointed in states where the majority of the population isMuslim, citing Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt, and claiming that they offer: ‘proofthat Ankara’s accusations that the Greek state authorities interfere with the reli-gious life of the Muslims in western Thrace are totally unfounded because similarprocedures of appointment of muftis to those of Greece existed elsewhere’.24

However, the author’s argument at this point contradicts information providedelsewhere in the monograph, according to which, Greek Law 586/1941, whichwas in use during the entire Cold War and much of the post-Cold War period,provides that the Muslim minority authorities need the prior consent of the localOrthodox Metropolitan bishops for the erection of mosques in western Thrace,which is not the case in Jordan, Tunisia or Egypt, indicating that the Greek legal

Katsikas 449

system provides for the interference of the established Greek Orthodox Church, inminority affairs.25

Many of the Greek historiographical works on the country’s Muslims are empir-ical analyses of events, with respect to religious as well as other institutional andminority affairs, which lack a theoretical framework and are mostly descriptive. Inthis they follow a historiographical tradition in the country, also found elsewhere inthe Balkans and beyond, according to which a good historian should be in a pos-ition to provide more information on a subject than analysis or argument, leavingthe reader to reach his or her own conclusions. Scholarly works which employedtheoretical tools were relatively rare before the 1990s. For example, in her 2001monograph Troubeta employs existing theoretical works on identity and minoritybuilding and applies these to the case of the Pomaks and the Muslim Roma inwestern Thrace in order to answer questions such as: how do religious, national,linguistic and cultural factors on the one hand, and social conditions on the otherhand, affect the way members of a minority define themselves and are defined byothers?26

The terminology adopted by scholars when referring to the Muslims of Greece isproblematic and inadequately defined. With the exception of Turkish academicworks which have been translated into Greek and refer to western ThraceMuslims as a ‘Turkish minority’ or ‘Turks of Greece’, the majority of Greek aca-demic works published by Greek scholars use the term ‘Muslim minority’ whenreferring to the Muslims of western Thrace. This is a politically correct termaccepted by the majority of the Greek political elite and public and was mentionedin both the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 and the 1923 Greek–Turkish Conventionwhich determined the rules for obligatory population exchanges.27 The only excep-tion was during the early Cold War years, when the Greek authorities followed apolicy of purposeful Turkification of the minority in which the Muslims of westernThrace were then called ‘Turks of Thrace’ or the ‘Turkish minority of Thrace’.28

Many Greek academic works argue that the Muslim minority of western Thraceconsists of three ethnic components, namely those of Turkish origin (sometimesreferred to as Turkish-speaking Muslims), the Pomaks and the Roma (Athigganoior Tsigganoi), but only a few of these works define these terms and when they dothe definition is problematic. The terms ‘Muslims of Turkish origin’ and ‘Turkish-speaking Muslims’, which are often given to the majority ethnic group of theMuslim minority, are problematic. The first is based on genetic criteria and thusit is difficult to determine who is of Turkish origin and why. The second refers tolanguage, whereas, due to the educational policies followed by the Greek autho-rities after 1923 and the inter-ethnic and inter-cultural contacts among all ethnicelements of the minority, Turkish is a widely spoken language and is used by manyPomaks and Roma. The term Pomak is problematic in the sense that it is a labelwhich has been mainly decided upon and given by others to that particular ethnicgroup, and was not recognized by the members of the ethnic group themselves.Similar problems occur with the definition of the third ethnic group. Terms likeGypsies, Athigganoi, Tsigannoi are avoided by the members of that ethnic group


because they are pejorative. In addition, human right reports have referred topersons identifying as Pomak and Roma and objecting to a Turkish ethnicidentity.29

The first serious academic attempt to deal with issues of self-definition by themembers of the Muslim minority, as well as of their definition by members outsidethe minority, is made by Troubeta in her 2001 monograph.30 In this monograph theauthor discusses all the problems regarding definitions of the three ethnic groups ofwestern Thrace Muslims which have already been discussed, while the concepts‘Minority Turks’, ‘Pomaks’ and ‘Athiganoi’, which are adopted by convention, are,by the author’s own admission, problematic.31

The majority of Greek publications on the subject by the end of the 1980s, andmany of those published after that time adopt a militant and aggressive literarystyle. Their analyses are often emotionally driven and discuss aspects of Muslimminority life in western Thrace in comparison to how these issues are dealt with bythe state authorities in the Republic of Turkey. The reference points of these worksare the bilateral Greek–Turkish agreements, especially the 1923 Lausanne Treaty,rather than international agreements, treaties, conventions and policies of inter-national organizations such as the UN, the EEC/EU or the CSCE/OSCE, in whichGreece also participates.

The same pattern is followed by Turkish works translated into Greek, such asthose of Aydinli, Kadurgali and others, to which this paper refers elsewhere andwhose prose style is as militant and aggressive as that of their Greek colleagues injustification of arguments put forward by the Turkish authorities that the minorityrights of the Muslims of western Thrace have been violated by the Greek autho-rities. In fact, it is not coincidental that these Turkish works have been translatedinto Greek. Their translation and circulation in the Greek book market is partlybecause many of these works respond to published works in Greek, and thereforethere is a genuine interest in how the Turkish academic community reacts to theviews of Greek colleagues on the issues of the Muslim minority of Thrace.However, the translation of these Turkish works, and not of others, into Greekis often due to the fact that they are not academically dispassionate and thereforethey could easily feed and justify the aggressive attitudes of the Greek governmenttowards Turkey, as well as justifying the polemical and politically driven argumentswhich many Greek works employ.

Fields of Research

The majority of Greek academic works on the Muslims of Greece refer to the post-Second World War period. For the earlier period one can find works such as thoseof Eleftheriad�es, analysing treaties which the Greek state had signed with theOttoman Empire. Being a legal specialist and high-ranking civil servant himself,the primary aim of Eleftheriad�es’ publications was to instruct the Greek courts andcivil service on how to deal with various issues relating to the rights of Muslims inGreece.32 Besides Eleftheriad�es’ works there are also publications such as those

Katsikas 451

discussing the issue of Islamization of indigenous people in the region of westernThrace in the late Byzantine and Ottoman periods. One such is Zegin�es’ work,which analyses the influence of the Muslim religious order of Bektashism in con-verting residents of Thrace to Islam.33 But, if Eleftheriad�es’ works were publishedto instruct Greek civil servants on how to deal with legal cases raised by Muslims,Zegin�es’ work appeared at the end of the 1980s when Greek–Turkish relations werein crisis and is part of the Greek academic fervour of the time to ‘enlighten’ theGreek political elite and public on what was regarded as a foreign national groupinside the country who were often part of the Greek–Turkish controversy.

About ten years after the end of the Second World War, in 1956, the monographof A. Andread�es was published, which provides detailed information on the legalstatus as well as the political and social life of the Muslims of western Thrace at thetime, including the powers of the muftis, Muslim education and other matters.Andread�es’ monograph covers these issues in a way which, at the time of its pub-lication, provoked reaction among academic circles in Turkey, which claimed thatmany of the historical facts presented in the monograph were biased. Thus, inresponse to this work, there were a series of Turkish publications at around thesame time which discussed aspects of the lives of Muslims in western Thrace priorto, as well as after, the Second World War.34 Many of these works have beentranslated into Greek and published in academic journals, such as Valkanik �eVivliografia (Balkan Bibliography), Deltion Tourkik �es Vivliografias (Bulletin ofTurkish Bibliography) and Valkanika Symmeikta (Balkan Mixed), while anumber of Greek translations of Turkish academic works with reference toMuslims in western Thrace have also been published. Most of these translationsare of works which were originally published in the Turkish academic journal TurkKulturu (Turkish Culture).35

Ethnic Components of the Muslim Minority in Greece

The origin of the Pomaks has been a source of discord for Greek, Turkish andBulgarian historians since the beginning of the twentieth century. For Bulgarianhistorians they are Islamized Bulgarians who adopted Islam during the Ottomanperiod. Turkish historians see Pomaks as Bulgarized Turks. Finally, Greek histor-ians see them as Islamized indigenous peoples, descendants of ancient Thracians –the latter are viewed as ancient Greek tribal groups. The Greek scholarCharalambid�es provides a review of the dominant views of Greek, Turkish andBulgarian historians regarding the origin of the Pomaks, which is published in theGreek academic journal Thrakik �e Epet �erida (Thracian Bulletin).36

Indeed, the majority of Greek works have attempted to trace the relationshipbetween the Pomaks and ancient Thracian tribes in the region in an effort to dis-prove Bulgarian claims that Pomaks are Islamized Bulgarians. These works havebeen influenced by the political climate of the time. Recognizing the Pomaks as aBulgarian ethnic group was viewed as paving the way for Bulgarian communistauthorities in the future to claim political, cultural and other rights over that


ethnic group. A number of works have been published since the early Cold Waryears which argue that the Pomaks are related to ancient Thracian tribes and aretherefore not Bulgarian. Among these one could mention the works ofPapachristodoulou, Xyrotyr�es and others.37

The deterioration of Greek–Turkish relations in the late 1970s and during the1980s and 1990s was a turning point in published works referring to the Pomaks.Until then Greek academics had denied the relationship between Pomaks andBulgarians, but Turks were now added to the picture and the Pomaks were pre-sented as an ethnic group with no ethnic relation to either the Turks or theBulgarians. Within this context, Papathanas�e-Mousiopoulou employed a seriesof historical sources in order to argue that western Thrace Pomaks are a sui generisethnic group which speak a Bulgarian dialect, practise Islam and originate fromancient tribal groups living in the region.38 The anthropological works ofTsiribidou and Efstratiou, as well as the sociological work of Mavrogian�es, showthat the Pomaks constitute a unique ethnic group in the Balkans, whose commu-nity, cultural and everyday lives include both elements found in other ethnic andreligious groups in the Balkans and others which are unique to that ethnic group.39

Papadimitriou, although he recognizes the distinctness of the Pomaks as an ethnicgroup, examines how the rise and development of Greek nationalism has impactedon the ethnic identity of the Pomaks.40

With reference to Muslim groups outside western Thrace, Manta’s monographon Cams is worth mentioning.41 The monograph analyses the way in which his-torical developments in this ethnic group affected Greek–Albanian diplomatic rela-tions during the first half of the twentieth century and discusses claims which areoften raised by the Albanian state regarding the economic compensation which theGreek state authorities should pay to the Cams for the properties they left behindafter their departure from northwestern Greece. It provides a dispassionate analysisof events during and after the Second World War which led to the departure ofCams from Greece and moves away from biased Greek and Albanian academicworks on the subject. In a similar way, Gi �orgos Margarit�es’ work compares thepolicies of the Greek state towards the Cams and the Jews. This is an importantcontribution to the whole debate on the minority policies of the Greek state and avaluable work for anyone interested in the subject.42

A number of academic works, such as those of Ladas, Pentzopoulos and others,focus on the issue of the 1923 Greek–Turkish obligatory population exchange,primarily the diplomatic negotiations and legal documents of the exchange, andto a lesser extent its impact on the societies of the two states.43 However, Greekacademic research has shown little interest in Muslim groups who lived in Greeceprior to 1923, such as those of Epirothessaly, Epirus, Macedonia and the islands ofthe Aegean, including Crete and the Dodecanese insular complex. This is becauseGreek academics have avoided touching such a sensitive issue, which challengedestablished views of nationhood and the establishment of the modern Greek state.This could have brought them into conflict with the political establishment, the

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Greek Orthodox Church and other national institutions, and could have had impli-cations for their academic careers and even their personal lives.

Political Structures of Muslims in Greece

Greek scholars like Minaid�es, Georgoul�es, Tsitselik�es, and others, have researchedissues relevant to the political organization of the Muslims of Greece, such as theappointment of muftis, and the election of Muslim community councils and theirpolitical powers.44 For the legal framework of Greece’s Muslims prior to 1923,Eleftheriad�es’ research is the first of its kind, and a reference point for most sub-sequent academic works on the subject.45 Georgoul�es and Bekiarid�es focus moreon the region of western Thrace.46 A number of academic works discuss the exist-ence of a civil society among western Thrace Muslims. Tsibiridou, Kourtovik, andothers, shed light on Muslim civil associations during the 1980s and 1990s, anddemonstrate the decline of civic life in those years.47

Nikolakopoulos was the first Greek scholar to examine the electoral behaviourof Greece’s Muslims with reference to the country’s general elections.48 His workfocuses on western Thrace from 1923 to 1939. The author argues that during theinterwar period the Muslims of western Thrace were represented politicallythrough existing Greek political parties and that that situation continued afterthe Second World War and throughout most of the Cold War years. The 1985general elections, however, seem to have marked a turning point in electoralbehaviour. In those elections Muslims in western Thrace sought political expres-sion though a political party named Eir �en �e (Peace) which was religiously based,and mainly represented the Muslims of western Thrace. This pattern continuedwith the foundation of the Muslim parties Embistosyn �e (Trust) and Pepr �omeno(Destiny). Ahmet Sadik was elected as a member of the former party in the con-stituency of Rhodop�e, in the general elections of June 1989, with Ahmet Faikoglouelected for the latter in the April 1990 general elections in the constituency ofXanth�e.

Inter-ethnic Relations

Notaras portrays Greek society as tolerant towards its religious and ethnic mino-rities, including the Muslims of western Thrace. He explains this tolerance as theresult of Greeks’ long-standing experience with the multi-ethnic environments ofthe Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Also, through the Greek diaspora,Greeks have been in cultural contact with almost every religious, social and culturalformation in the world.49 Other scholars, however, such as Voulgar�es et al., arguethat Greek society has not been as tolerant as scholars such as Notaras have por-trayed it. With reference to western Thrace, in particular, Voulgar�es et al. showthat the Muslims of the region have been regarded as a non-Greek group, reli-giously, ethnically and linguistically, and that because of this they have often fallen


victim to discriminatory policies by the Greek state and xenophobic treatment bythe ethnic Greeks living in the region.50

Economic Life

Little is known about the economic life of Greece’s Muslims prior to the 1923Greek–Turkish obligatory population exchange, or of those living outside westernThrace after 1923. For example, academic works like Nakos’ monograph mainlydiscuss land or property issues, agricultural relations and the problems faced by themodern Greek state after its establishment in 1832, owing to the incorporation ofparts of the Islamic Ottoman law into the country’s legal system. But Nakos doesnot discuss any other aspects of Muslims’ economic life beyond those justmentioned.51

As regards the Muslims of western Thrace, there are references to their eco-nomic activities in various published works. Andread�es, for instance, refers to theeconomic life of western Thrace Muslims in a section entitled Oikonomik �eKatastasis (Economic Situation), while the following section discusses measurestaken by the Greek authorities to reconstruct the minority’s economic life afterthe Second World War and the Greek Civil War.52 A study conducted by theResearch Centre for the Greek Society of the Academy of Athens and publishedin 1995 refers to the geographical, social and economic isolation which character-izes the life of western Thrace Muslims.53 This research argues that western ThraceMuslims are highly dependent on traditional agricultural activities, such as thecultivation of tobacco, cereals, corn, sugar-beets and other crops, which, togetherwith their low level of educational attainment, makes them a marginalized socialgroup in the region and dependent on external funding from Muslim migrants towestern Europe and from Turkey. This situation renders them susceptible to pol-itical propaganda from Ankara.54

In his translated article published in Valkanik �e Vivliografia, Erdogan Mercilrefers to the mechanisms used by the Greek junta regime to confiscate Muslimproperties in western Thrace.55 Tahsin Unal discusses a series of Greek laws whichimpede western Thrace Muslims from buying land and other types of property.56

Scholars such as Oran and Akgonul refer to how a possible re-allotment of land inwestern Thrace would not be to the benefit of its Muslim population because itwould leave them with small infertile pieces of land.57 Both scholars were respond-ing to Greek colleagues who argued that land re-allotment in the Greek-Bulgarianborder zone under military surveillance would put an end to the arbitrary occupa-tion of public properties by individuals which had occurred as a result of thegradual relaxation of the strict land regulations in the area.58

In an article published in the Greek newspaper Kathimerin �e (Daily), Alexandr�esargues that the low educational level of western Thrace Muslims is an elementwhich characterizes Turkish people, whether they live in Turkey or abroad.59 Inhis view, Turks follow traditional ways of life: they are emotionally attached to

Katsikas 455

Muslim religious institutions and the land as a means of economic production.Within this context, the majority of Muslim farmers in Thrace, who in the articleare implicitly thought of as Turks, show limited interest in higher education andmany of them remain farmers without any prospects of significant change in thefuture. This view is not supported by the findings of later works, which argue thatby the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s an increasing number ofPomaks had left their villages for urban centres in the region, where they workedmainly as builders. At the same time a number of Muslims in the Komot�en�e areawere small business owners and merchants.60

Press

The Muslim press constitutes an important historical source for the study ofGreece’s Muslims. Research into articles and news with political, social and cul-tural content could shed light on unknown aspects of their life. Yet, despite thisthere have been few works on Greece’s Muslim press. This is due to the fact thatmany Greek academics, even those whose research interests lie in the fields ofOttoman and modern Turkish history, refuse to learn Turkish or Ottoman. Inaddition, many Greek academics have not been as interested in studying thesocial and cultural life of the minority as they were in studying its relations withTurkey and the Turkish establishment, and for this reason issues related to Greek–Turkish relations are their main interest. Extracts from the Muslim minoritypress during the period of the Greek junta, 1967–1974, which are included inpublications of the Turk Kulturu academic journal, have been published in Greekby the Greek academic journal Valkanik �e Vivliografia (Balkan Bibliography).61

Iordanoglou refers to the press conflict between the anti-Kemalist conservatives(Palaiomousoulmanoi) and the reformist pro-Kemalists (Neoteristes), from theaftermath of the signing of the Lausanne Treaty to the present, and the gradualpredominance of the pro-reformist group. Iordanoglou’s work also provides aseries of articles from Greek newspapers in Xanth�e, Komot�en�e, Athens andThessalonik�e referring to the western Thrace Muslim minority.62 Iordanoglou’swork appeared at a time when Greek academics and politicians were seeking tochallenge the view that the Muslim minority of western Thrace could be homo-genized as a minority group, as the Turkish political establishment liked to see it,and opposed the policy of Turkification which Greece promoted in the early yearsof the Cold War. Greek–Turkish relations were at a critical point – in 1987 the twocountries reached the brink of war – and the politicization of the minority with theelection of independent MPs to the Greek parliament in the general elections of1989 and 1990 was intense. Orhonlu’s work, which is published in Greek in theDeltion Tourkik �es Vivliografias, refers to efforts made by Greeks, including theGreek press, to control the content of the Muslim press of western Thrace,which has been of political interest to Greek–Turkish relations since the mid-1950s, and this is the main reason for its translation into Greek.63


Education

Asimakopoulou claims that the current educational regime of Greece’s Muslimsreproduces social differences and intensifies their introversion and marginalizationfrom the wider social environment in which they live.64 Yet, despite this andalthough education has been one of the thorniest minority problems, most of theacademic works on the subject provide a rather general picture of this issue and donot discuss specific issues of Muslim education. Statistical information regardingthe number of Muslim minority schools in western Thrace and the number ofstudents and teachers can be found in many works.65 In his article, which hasbeen translated into Greek, Erdogan discusses minority education from the mid-1930s to 1966 and argues that during those years the Greek authorities interferedby supporting the operation of minority religious schools, known as medresses, tothe disadvantage of secular education, lest a Muslim intelligentsia be producedwhich could challenge state sovereignty in the region of western Thrace.66 Thefact that Erdogan argues that the Greek state interfered with education in westernThrace attracted the attention of Greek publishers, who translated his work intoGreek.

Little is known about the teaching staff in the Muslim minority schools.Exceptions are the works of Panagiotid�es and Fragoudak�e et al., which refer tothe categories of teaching staff and the educational training they received from theGreek state.67 Also, Stathi and Tressou refer to the functioning of the SpecialEducational Academy of Thessalonik�e (Eidik �e Paidagogik �e Akad �emiaThessalonik �es), an educational institution which was founded by the Greek juntaregime within Aristotle University of Thessalonik�e in order to train teachers for theMuslim minority schools in Thrace.68 The objective behind that political move wasto prevent the employment of teachers from Turkey and thus reduce Ankara’sinterference in minority educational affairs. Panagiotid�es’ and Fragoudak�e’sworks appeared in a period, the late 1990s, when the picture in Greek academiabegan to change, with young academics, most of them educated in US and WestEuropean universities, becoming genuinely interested in the political, social andeconomic life of the minority. However, their work is not totally detached from thepolitical climate of Greek–Turkish relations at that time. In January 1996,the newly appointed Socialist government of K �ostas Simit�es took the country tothe brink of war with Turkey over the territorial status of Imia (in Greek, orKardak in Turkish), a set of two uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea situatedbetween the Greek island chain of the Dodecanese and the southwestern mainlandcoast of Turkey. Within this context a number of young academics showed aninterest in studying the Muslim minority of western Thrace and assisting itsbetter integration into Greek society. This would release it from being a hostageto Greek–Turkish competition.

Poul�es, Tsitselik�es and Baltsiot�es refer to the legal framework of post-1923Muslim minority education in Greece.69 As these scholars argue, this frameworkwas mainly established between 1952 and 1997. Tsitselik�es’ work, in particular,

Katsikas 457

touches on issues such as the foundation and functioning of Muslim minorityschools in the region, their status in comparison to non-Muslim state schools,the appointment of their teaching staff and the management of their propertiesby the school authorities. He is quite critical of the policies which the Greek statefollowed on the issue. These and other similar works should be seen within thesame context which influenced Frangudak�e’s and Panagioti�es’ work.

A number of academic studies refer to the clash between the anti-KemalistPalaiomousoulmanoi (conservative Muslims) and the reformist Neoteristes (refor-mist Muslims) around minority education affairs, such as the teaching methods tobe followed in minority schools. The clash was particularly fierce after 1928, withthe introduction of educational reforms by the Kemalist regime in the Republic ofTurkey.70 The great appeal of Turkish culture to many Muslim teachers, alongwith the importing of school textbooks from Turkey, led to the gradual predom-inance of the reformist group in the clash over the education of the minority.71

These works aim to show the influence of the modern Kemalist state on Muslimminority education in western Thrace, and in this way have reinforced the view ofmany young Greek academics of the post-Cold War period that nationalism hasnegatively affected the life of Muslims in western Thrace, and that therefore thisshould be disengaged from the nationalist policies of both Greece and Turkey.

Article 41 of the Lausanne Treaty provides for the members of the Muslimminority of Thrace to receive their elementary education in their mother tongueas well as in Greek.72 For reasons which have been explained elsewhere in thispaper the Greek authorities forced all Muslims in western Thrace to regard Turkishas their mother tongue and thus to receive their education in that language. Thedeterioration of Greek–Turkish relations from the end of the 1960s led the Greekauthorities to review this position. An increasing number of academic worksappeared which researched the Pomak and Roma languages. Dictionaries andgrammars for the Pomak language were published, while academic interest wasshown in the Muslim Roma as a distinct ethnic group with their own language.73

Vakalios et al., Stath�e, and others, explore the curriculum, the teaching methodsand the materials used in the Muslim minority schools of western Thrace.74 Theyall agree that the textbooks for the teaching of the Greek language best suit schoolstudents whose mother tongue is Greek and not the Muslim students of westernThrace, for whom Greek is a second language with little or no use at home or intheir immediate environment. Sella-Maz�e is among the few Greek scholars whohave researched the Greek in use by the members of the western Thrace Muslimminority. Her research is mainly focused on Turkish-speaking Muslims.75 Sheargues that the use of Greek by Turkish-speaking members of the minority dependson a number of factors, such as the environment in which they live and grow up,the working conditions of the teaching staff in the minority schools, the use of TVand the employment of the children in various agricultural activities. Sella-Maz�eargues that the fact that the Turkish and Greek languages are quite different interms of grammar, structure and vocabulary creates problems in the way thatGreek is used as a second language.76


Drag �ona uses methodological tools from the fields of psychoanalysis and socialpsychology in order to analyse the reactions of the teachers to new and revisionaryknowledge which they are supposed to have in order to accept the ethnically,culturally, religiously and linguistically different students of the region.77

Drag �ona’s findings are based on her research into the educational programmeEkpaideus �e Mousoulmanopaid �on (Education of Muslim Children), which hasbeen in operation in western Thrace since May 1997. The programme has beenunder the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Education and Religions and its aim isto promote a smooth integration of Muslim children into Greek society by improv-ing their performance in Muslim schools as well as their command of the Greeklanguage

Conclusion

As elsewhere in the Balkans, since its establishment as an independent state, Greecehas sought to justify its existence in the name of a national myth which rejected theOttoman Empire as a non-Greek political entity which had placed Greeks under along-time ‘yoke’, had interrupted the glorious moments of their historical past anddeprived them of the benefits of cultural developments taking place in the ‘civilized’world. The Ottoman Empire had condemned the Greeks to remain for a long timein cultural backwardness, which, since the time of their independence fromOttoman rule, they had sought to overcome, and to catch up with the culturaldevelopments elsewhere in Europe – ‘Greece’s natural place’, as many modernGreeks have liked to call it due to the fact that modern European culture claimsrights upon Greek antiquity, which they see as forming part of their cultural past.

The classification of Greece’s Ottoman heritage as non-Greek is mainly foundedon the fact that the established religion in the Ottoman Empire was Islam, whichhas been viewed as an alien cultural element to modern Greek culture by theoverwhelming majority of the country’s political and cultural elites since the foun-dation of Greece in the 1830s. All Greek constitutions have recognized ChristianOrthodoxy as the established religion of the Greek state, while ‘Greekness’ hasbeen defined in close relation to Orthodoxy, thus leaving little space for non-Orthodox people to be either seen or treated as Greeks.78 Within this context,the Muslims of Greece have been viewed as second-class citizens by the Greekstate and the majority of the Greek people and have been treated accordingly inboth legal and practical terms. This is exemplified, among other things, by the 1923Greek–Turkish obligatory population exchange, whereby Athens agreed toexchange most of the country’s Muslims for Orthodox people from the newlyfounded Republic of Turkey, who were regarded as Greek due to their religion.

The Greek academic elites have done little to change this view. The result is thatthe Muslims living in Greece have either been silenced or at best badly representedfor most of Greece’s modern history. The history of Greece’s Muslims has to agreat extent been distorted. We know little about the history of the Muslims wholived in the country prior to 1923, while of those who continued their lives in

Katsikas 459

Greece after that year, the Muslims of western Thrace have monopolized academicinterest. Until the beginning of the 1990s, and, to a lesser extent afterwards, thisinterest has been mainly expressed in close relation to the climate of Greek–Turkishrelations. Publications have mainly followed periods of crisis in bilateral relationsand their subjects of discussion have been approached and analysed within thenarrow prism of Greek–Turkish relations.

This picture has started to change since the beginning of the 1990s with thepublication of academic works often by younger scholars who have spent timeundertaking academic research in US and West European universities. These scho-lars attempt either to emotionally detach their works from the contemporary pol-itical climate in Greek–Turkish relations, or, if taking part in it, try to do so in anacademically dispassionate way and by using analytical tools which extend farbeyond their personal experiences and desire to show that the Turkish territorialclaims to western Thrace are misguided. This situation has also been helped bychanging political circumstances in Greece, in the Balkan region and internation-ally, and by the activities of the NGOs which have been particularly active in thecountry since the end of the Cold War. However, there remains much to be donefor a complete picture – a more objective story, to speak in the title’s terms – of theMuslims of Greece to be produced. There are fields and subjects which have beenvery little explored or left totally unexplored; and those which have been exploredoften lack a complete conceptual framework within which the reader can under-stand their analysis.

Acknowledgements

This article was written in the context of a two-year research project (January 2008–

December 2009) which was conducted through the Department of History andArchaeology at the University in Athens and funded by the John S. Latsis Foundation(Athens, Greece). The author wishes to thank the John S. Latsis Foundation for funding

the project as a whole as well as the author’s participation in it. He also wishes to thank theDepartment of History at the University in Athens for hosting the project, Dr DimitrisKamouzis for his constructive and valuable collaboration, and Dr Paraskevas Konortas

for his leadership throughout the project, as well as for his useful comments on earlierdrafts of this article. The author also wishes to express his gratitude to the editorial teamof the European History Quarterly (EHQ) for accepting this paper, as well as to the twoanonymous academic reviewers and Professor Lucy Riall, the chief editor of the EHQ, for

their valuable and pertinent comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Note on transliteration

For the transliteration of the Greek alphabet, diphthongs, vowel and consonant complexinto the Latin alphabet the author has tried to be as consistent as possible with the following

system – inside the brackets are found the Latin letters by which the Greek characters havebeen transliterated: Aa (Aa), Bb (Vv), �g (Gg), �d (Dd), Ee (Ee), Fz (Zz), GZ ( �E�e), �y(Th th), Ii (Ii), Jk (Kk), �� (Ll), Lm (Mm), Mn (Nn), �x (Xx), Oo (Oo), �p (Pp), Qr (Rr),

� s & (Sss), St (Tt), Yu (Yy or Uu), j (Ff), V � (Ch ch), c (Ps ps), � o (O �o). The Greek


diphthongs have been transliterated as follows: Ai ai (Ai ai), Ei ei (Ei ei), Oi oi (Oi oi), �i ui(Ui ui), Ou ou (Ou ou). The following vowel and consonant complexes have been translit-erated as shown in the brackets that follow each: Au au (Au au), Eu eu (Eu eu), Lp mp (Bb),

Mt nt (Nt nt), �k gk (Gk gk), Ss ts (Ts ts), Sz tz (Tz tz), �g g g (Gg gg).

Notes

1. For example, clauses for the protection of the Muslim population of Greece exist in the 2

July 1881 Greek–Ottoman Convention of Constantinople. This ceded the area of

Epirothessaly to Greece and obliged Athens to respect the lives, honour, properties,

religious and cultural autonomy of Muslims, and to recognize the validity of the

Ottoman Shariah Law by allowing the functioning of Islamic religious courts (Shariah

courts) in the region. Fylon Ef �emeridos t �es Kyvern �eseos, No. 14, 13 March 1882. These

provisions were also confirmed by the 4 December 1897 Treaty of Constantinople, which

terminated the Greek–Ottoman war of that year. Fylon Ef �emeridos t �es Kyvern �eseos, No.

181, 6 December 1897; Historic and Diplomatic Archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, A.A.J.Th./4/1897, pp. 2 ff. Similar provisions to those of the Greek–Ottoman

Convention of Constantinople can be also found in the 14 November 1913 Peace

Convention of Athens. This, among other things, defined the rights of Muslims in the

occupied territories of Macedonia, Epirus and the Aegean islands, except Dodecanese,

Gokceada (in Greek Imvros) and Bozcaada (in Greek Tenedos), which Greece took from

the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan wars of 1912–13. Finally, see the Treaty of

Sevres, by which Greece extended its territorial control over the regions of eastern

Thrace and the district of Izmir (in Greek Smyrn�e), and the 24 July 1923 Lausanne

Treaty, which among other things determined the Greek–Turkish territorial borders

after the Greek–Turkish war of 1919–1922, known also as the Anatolian war, and

which also included clauses for the protection of the Muslim populations in areas con-

trolled by Greece.2. Ronald Meinardus, ‘Muslims: Turks, Pomaks and Gypsies’, in Richard Clogg (ed.),

Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society (London 2002), 81–93, 84. It is difficult

to have a precise estimate of the numbers of western Thrace Muslims. This is regarded as

a sensitive issue by the Greek authorities and there has been a lack of official data. The

last time the Greek government published official data indicating the religious affiliation

and mother tongue of the population of Greece was following the 1951 census, according

to which Muslims constituted the largest religious minority in the country and were

estimated to number 112,665 (or 1.4% of the entire population). They are divided into

three categories, according to their descent: (a) Turkish origin (Tourkogeneis); (b) Slav-

speaking (Pomaks); and (c) Roma (Tsigganoi, Athiganoi, Katsiveloi or Gyftoi). However,

despite the mystification of the Greek state around this issue, there have occasionally

been some approximate estimates of the number of Muslims living in western Thrace,

including the one provided in this article. These figures are based on the very rarely

broken secretiveness of some Greek officials on the issue. Alex�es Alexandr�es, ‘To

Meionotiko Z�et�ema, 1954–1987’ [The Minority Issue, 1954–1987], in Alex�es

Alexandr�es, Thanos Verem�es, Panos Kazakos, Vaggel�es Koufoudak�es, Christos

Rozak�es and Gi �orgos Tsitsopoulos (eds), Oi Ell �enotourkikes Sxeseis, 1923–1987

(Athens 1991), 495–552, 524.3. For more information on the Muslim communities living in Greece prior to the compul-

sory population exchange of 1923, see Alexandre Popovic, L’Islam Balkanique.

Katsikas 461

Les Musulmans du Sud-Est Europeen dans La Periode Post-Ottomane (Berlin 1986),

115–51. The Albanian-speaking Muslims of Thespr �otia (northwestern Greece), known

as Cams, although exempted from the 1923 obligatory Greek–Turkish population

exchange, left Greece before the outbreak of the Greek civil war due to retaliatory

measures taken by paramilitary organizations and guerrilla forces, which used the

cooperation of many of the Cams with the Italian and German occupation forces

during the Second World War as a pretext for ethnically cleansing the region of popu-

lations which were seen as non-Greek. See Eleftheria Manta, Oi Mousoulmanoi

Tsam �edes t �es �Epeirou, 1923–2000 (Thessalonik�e 2004), 133–98.

4. Published academic works on the issue written by Greek and non-Greek academics in

languages other than Greek and translated into Greek also fall within the scope of

analysis of this paper.5. Fotein�e Asimakopoulou and Sevast�e Christidou-Lionarak�e,Mousoulmanik �e Meionot �eta

t �es Thrak �es kai oi Ell �enotourkikes Sxeseis (Athens 2002).6. The numbers provided are only indicative and attempt to show the disproportionate

number of published academic works prior to and after 1989. Original works, such as

treaty documents – e.g. the Lausanne Treaty – or those referring to Greek Foreign

Policy and Greek-Turkish relations were exempted from the calculations provided.

Also, academic works published in languages other than Greek have not been included

in the above count, because, as has already been explained, these works fall beyond the

research scope of this paper.7. Alexandr�es, op. cit., 497–523; Vangel�es Coufoudak�es, ‘To Kypriako, oi Ell�enotourkikes

Sxeseis kai oi Yperdunameis, 1960–1986’, in Alexandr�es, Verem�es, Kazakos,

Koufoudak�es, Rozak�es and Tsitsopoulos (eds), op. cit., 215–68, 222-7; Gi �orgos

Tsitsopoulos and Thanos Verem�es, ‘Ell�enotourkikes Amyntikes Sxeseis, 1945–1987’,

in ibid., 173–214, 187–91; Chistos Rozak�es, ‘To Diethnes Nomiko Kathest �os tou

Aigaiou kai �e Ell�enotourkik�e Kris�e: Ta Dimer�e kai ta Diethn�e Thesmika Z�et�emata’,

in ibid., 269–492.8. Stamat�es Georgoul�es, O Thesmos tou Mouft �e st �en Ell �enik �e kai Allodap �e Ennom �e Tax �e:

Keimena Synthiko-Nomothesias (Athens and Komot�en�e 1993); Syme �on Soltarid�es, �E

Istoria t �on Mouftei �on t �es Dytik �es Thrak �es (Athens 1997); K �onstantinos Tsitselik�es, ‘ �E

Thes�e tou Mouft�e st�en Ell�enik�e Ennom�e Tax�e’, in D�em�etr�es Christopoulos (ed.),

Nomika Z �et �emata Thr �eskeutik �es Eterot �etas st �en Ellada (Athens 1999), 271–330.

9. Alex�es Alexandr�es, ‘Ex�enta Xronia Tourkik �on Paraspondi �on kai Prokl�ese �on: �E S�emasia

tou Meionotikou Provl�ematos sto Plaisio t �on Ellinotourkik �on Diafor �on’, Kathimerin �e,

17, 18, 20, 21, 22 May 1981; K �onstantinos Vakalopoulos,‘The Muslim Minority in

Western Thrace’, Kathimerin �e, 3 February 1990.10. Xanthip�e Kotzagi �org�e and Anna Panayotopoulou, Neoter �e kai Sygxron �e Istoria t �es

Thrak �es: Vivliographikos Od �egos (Thessalonik�e 1993).11. Stelios Perrak�es, ‘Oi Meionot�etes st�e Metapsyxropolemik�e Epox�e: Ell�enikes kai

Diethneis Diastaseis’, Thessalonik �e (Greek newspaper), 25 May 1993.12. Hugh Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict (London 1993); Natalie

Clayer, ‘Islam, State and Society in Post-Communist Albania’, in Hugh Poulton and

Suha Taji-Farouki (eds), Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (London 1997), 115–38.

13. Marilena Koppa, Oi Meionot �etes sta Meta-kommounistika Valkania: Politikes tou

Kentrou kai Meinotikes Apant �eseis (Athens 1997); Rozak�es, ‘Ethnikismoi kai

Meinot�etes sta Valkania: Evropaikes Apopeires gia ton Kateunasmo (t �on Pr �ot �on) kai


tin Prostasia (ton Defteron)’, in Sot�er�es Dal�es (ed.), Evropaik �e Enopi �es �e kai Valkanik �e

Polydiaspas �e (Athens 1994), 163–82; Alex�es Alexandr�es and Athanasios Paresoglou,

‘Mousoulmanoi t�es Ell�enik�es Thrak�es’, in Thanos Verem�es (ed.), Valkania apo ton

Dipolismo st �e Nea Epox �e (Athens 1995), 816–37; Alex�es Alexandr�es, ‘Mousoulmanoi

t �on Valkani �on kai Tourkia’, in ibid., 838–74; Katerina Manolopoulou-Varvitsi �ot�e,

Sygxrona Provlimata Meinotiton sta Valkania (Athens 1989); Bab�es B�ekas, ‘Nea

Katastas�e sta Notioanatolika Valkania’, Anti (477) (1991), 36–7.14. K �onstantinos Tsitselik�es and D�em�etr�es Christopoulos, ‘O Entopismos tou Meionotikou

Fainomenou st�en Ellada apo t�e Nomik�e Epist�em�e kai to Dikaio’, in K �onstantinos

Tsitselik�es and D�em�etr�es Christopoulos (eds), To Meionotiko Fainomeno st �en Ellada:

Mia Symvol �e t �on Koin �onik �on Epistim �on (Athens 1997), 415–61.

15. Sevast�e Troubeta, Katastevazontas Taftot �etes gia tous Mousoulmanous t �es Thrak �es: To

Paradeigma t �on Pomak �on kai t �on Tsiggan �on (Athens 2001); Fotein�e Tsibiridou, ‘ �E

Ethnologik�e Ereuna s’ ena Ch �orio t�es Orein�es Rodop�es: Symvol�e st�e Melet�e t �on

Syggenik �on Desm �on’, Thrakik �e Epet �erida, Vol. 6 (1985), 213–23; Georgia Petrak�e,

‘St�en Xanth�e kai sto Lavrio’, Sygxrona Themata, Vol. 63 (1997), 84–5.16. D�emosthen�es Dodos, Eklogik �e Geografia t �on Meionotit �on. Meionotika Kommata st �e

Notio Valkanik �e: Ellada, Voulgaria, Albania (Athens 1994); �Elias Nikolakopoulos,

‘Politikes Dynameis kai Eklogik�e Symperifora t�es Mousoulmanik�es Meionot�etas st�e

Dytik�e Thrak�e: 1922–1955’, Deltio Kendrou Mikrasiatik �on Spoud �on, Vol. 8 (1990),

171–204.17. Academy of Sciences, �E Anaptyx �e t �es Thrak �es: Prokl �eseis kai Prooptikes (Athens 1995);

Lois Lambrianid�es, ‘Topik�e Anaptyx�e kai Perioristikes Rythmiseis: H Peript �os�e t�es

Epit�eroumen�es Z �on�es sta Xoria t �on Pomak �on t�es Xanth�es’, Topos, Vol. 13 (1997),

17–46.18. The aim of the imposition of such a zone was to restrict contacts between the Muslims of

Greece and those of Southern Bulgaria in order to prevent any communist ideological

contamination of the former by the latter which might lead to the development of a

strong anti-Greek ethnic identity that could encourage secessionist political movements.

19. Ak�es Gerondopoulos, ‘Anagaies Sygryseis gia tis Meionotites st�en Ellada kai Tourkia’,

Endoxora, Vol. 32 (1993), 19–21; Chr�estos K�epouros, Den Theloume �e Thrak �e na Ginei

Nea Kupros (Athens 1989); Giann�es Magri �ot�es, Thrak �e: �E Epalx �e tou Ell �enikou Vorra

(Athens 1995).20. K �onstantinos Andread�es, �E Mousoulmanik �e Meionotis t �es Dytik �es Thrak �es

(Thessalonik�e 1956), 7–8.21. G. Bekiarid�es, Oi Muft �edes �os Thr �eskeutikoi �Egetai t �on Mousoulman �on t �es Periferias t �on

kai �os D �emosia Arh �e (Komot�en�e 1973).22. N. Eleftheriad�es, Oi Mousoulmanoi en Elladi (Athens 1913); N. Eleftheriad�es, Ta Dikaia

t �es Politeias epi t �on en Makedonia kai �Epeir �o Gai �on (Athens 1915); N. Eleftheriad�es,

Gn �omodotiseis peri Kt �ematik �on Z �et �emat �on kai Diafor �on en tais Neais Ch �orais (Athens

1917).

23. Soltarid�es, op. cit., 86; see also Soltarid�es, H Dytik �e Thrak �e kai oi Mousoulmanoi: Ti

Akriv �os Symvainei? (Athens 1990).

24. Soltarid�es, H Dytik �e Thrak �e kai oi Mousoulmanoi, op. cit., 97 ff.25. Ibid., 120.26. Troubeta, op. cit., 17–24.

Katsikas 463

27. According to a decision made by the Magistrates’ Court of Komot�en�e on 20 March

1986, which was also upheld by the Athens High Court on 28 June 1987, the adjective

‘Turkish’ was prohibited from being used to describe the members of the western Thrace

Muslim minority or any association and organization of any kind with reference to the

minority. However, it must be noted that, whilst the term ‘Turkish’ cannot be used to

describe the members of the western Thrace Muslim minority as a group or any asso-

ciation and organization with reference to the minority, individual self-determination as

‘Turkish’, is, according to official statements, allowed. Poulton, op. cit., 186.28. This was due to the fact that in the early years of the Cold War Bulgaria and not Turkey

was seen as the country’s prime enemy. Greece and Bulgaria belonged to different and

competing political and military camps: Bulgaria was a member of the communist block

and a close ally of the Soviet Union, while Greece, together with Turkey, belonged to the

Western camp, and both states became NATO members in 1952. Membership of NATO

and the Western camp technically rendered Greece and Turkey allies, but aside from

that, at the beginning of the Cold War Greek–Turkish relations were fairly good: the

ethnic tensions in Cyprus which spoiled Greek–Turkish relations became a problem in

later years and the Greek–Turkish treaty of friendship and non-aggression which the

Greek Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, signed with the Turkish leader, Kemal

Attaturk, in 1932 was still in force. Within this context, the Greek state authorities

wanted to restrict any political, economic, cultural or other contacts between the

Slavic speaking Muslims of western Thrace, known as Pomaks, and Bulgaria, and

therefore thought it wiser to promote a policy of Turkification of the entire Muslim

minority. Limiting any contacts of the Pomaks with the Bulgarian ‘motherland’ was

thought to limit the threat of secessionist movements amongst the Pomaks that might be

fostered by the Bulgarian state. At the same time, instilling a Turkish identity was

thought to be a safer option, since at that time Greek–Turkish relations were amicable

and could be improved even further through the policy of Turkification of the Pomaks.

See Andread�es, op. cit., 4; Christian Voss, ‘Language Ideology between Self-

Identification and Ascription among the Slavic-Speakers in Greek Macedonia and

Thrace’, in Klaus Steinke and Christian Voss (eds), The Pomaks in Greece and

Bulgaria (Munich 2007), 177–92, 185. During this period the common religious back-

ground of the Pomaks with the other Muslim minority groups was overemphasized.

They were encouraged to speak Turkish and to study in the minority schools whose

curriculum provided only for the teaching of Turkish and Greek languages and the

textbooks used for the Turkish language were printed in Turkey and imported and

distributed to minority pupils following their approval by the Greek government. To

a great extent, this policy continues to date. See Alexandr�es (Athens 1991), op. cit.29. See indicatively the UN Human Rights Council report on its mission to Greece 8–16

September 2008, A/HRC/10/11/Add.3,18/2/2009.30. Troubeta, op. cit., 4.31. Ibid., 4.

32. See note 22.33. Eustathios Zegin�es, O Bektasismos st �e D. Thrak �e: Symvol �e st �en Istoria t �es Diadose �os tou

Mousoulmanismou ston Elladiko Ch �oro (Thessalonik�e 1988).34. Ahmet Aydinli, ‘ �E Tragodia t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es’, Valkanik �e Vivliografia, Vol. 1 (1973),

311–456.


35. Turan Kadurgali, ‘K.G. Andread�es, �E Mousoulmanik�e Meionotis t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es

(vivliokrisia)’, Valkanik �e Vivliografia, Vol. 5 (1979), 409–10.36. Anastasios Charalambid�es, ‘Oi Pomakoi t�es Rodop�es’, Thrakik �e Epet �erida, Vol. 6

(1985), 88–97.37. Polyd �oros Papachristodoulou, Oi Pomakoi kai o Dikaios Ag �onas t �on n’ Apallagoun apo

ton Dusvastachto Voulgariko Zygo (Athens 1947); Nikolaos Xyrotyr�es, ‘Achrianes kai

Pomakoi: Thrakes �e Slavoi?’, in Praktika B Symposiou Laografias tou Voreioelladikou

Ch �orou ( �Epeiros-Makedonia-Thrak �e), Komot �en �e, 19–22 Martiou 1975 (Thessaolonik�e

1976), 333–58.38. Kalliop�e Papathanas�e-Mousiopoulou, ‘Ptyxes apo t�en Istoria t �on Pomak �on t�es Dytik�es

Thrak�es’, Thrakik �e Epet �erida, Vol. 8 (1991), 229–38, 229.39. Fotin�e Tsiribidou, ‘ �E Ethnologik�e Ereuna s’ ena Ch �orio t�es Orein�es Rodop�es: Symvol�e

st�e Melet�e t �on Syggenik �on Desm �on’ [Ethnological Research in a Village of

Mountainous Rhodopi: A Contribution to the Study of Family Relations], Thrakik �e

Epet �erida, Vol. 6 (1985–86), 213–23; F. Tsiribidou, ‘Choros: Domes kai Anaparastaseis.

Anthropologik�e Protas�e Anagn �os�es tou Chorou sta Pomakochoria tou Nomou

Rodop�es’, Ethnologia, Vol. 3 (1994), 5–31; F. Tsiribidou, ‘Processus de Modernisation

et de Marginalisation: Les Cas d’Une Minorite’ in Actes de deux Journees de Travail sur

la Transition: Les Mechanismes de la Transition dans L’Europe des Transformations

(Athens 1996), 53–70; F. Tsiribidou, ‘Esquisse d’une Problematique sur la

Construction des identites dans la Region Montagneuse du Rhodope en Grece’,

Ethnologia Balkanica, Vol. 2 (1998), 185–95; F. Tsiribidou, Les Pomak dans la Thrace

Grecque. Discours Ethnique et Pratiques Socioculturelles (Paris and Montreal 2000);

Dionys�es Mavrogian�es, ‘Koin �oniologik�e Ereuna gia ta Paradosiaka Epaggelmata st�e

Thrak�e kai to Voreio Aigaio kai gia tis Paradosiakes kai Perithoriakes Koin �onikes

Omades st�e Thrak�e kai t�e Makedonia’, Thrakik �e Epet �erida, Vol. 3 (1982), 165–74.40. Panagi �ot�es Papadimitriou, Oi Pomakoi t �es Rodop �es: Apo tis ethnotikes scheseis stous

Valkanikous Ethnikismous (Athens 2003).41. Manta, op. cit.42. Gi �orgos Margarit�es, Anepithym �etoi Sympatri �otes: Tsam �edes – Evraioi: Stoicheia apo t �en

Katastrof �e t �on Meionot �et �on st �en Ellada (Athens 2005).43. Stephen Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (New York

1932); Dimitri Pentzopoulos, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact upon

Greece (Paris 1962).44. Simos Minaid�es, �E Thriskeutik �e Eleftheria t �on Mousoulman �on st �en Ell �enik �e Ennom �e

Tax �e (Athens and Komot�en�e 1990); Georgoul�es, op. cit; Tsitselik�es (1999), op. cit.45. Eleftheriad�es (1913), op. cit.46. Bekiarid�es, op. cit.

47. F. Tsibiridou, ‘ �E Ethnikistik�e Ideologia stis Syllogikes Anaparastaseis: Emfylioi Roloi

kai Sexoualikot�eta mesa apo to Logo t �on Politistik �on Fore �on mias Akrit�es Pol�es’, Din �e,

Vol. 8 (1995), 153–79; Gianna Kourtovik, ‘Dikaiosyn�e kai Meionot�etes’, in Tsitselik�es

and Christopoulos (eds), op. cit., 245–80.48. Nikolakopoulos, op. cit.49. Gerasimos Notaras, ‘Les Obstacles a l’ Integration des Musulmans de Trace’, in Robert

Bistolfi and Francois Zabbal (eds), Islams d’Europe. Integration ou Insertion

Communautaire? (La Tour d’Aigues 1995), 342–5.

Katsikas 465

50. Ge �orgios Voulgar�es et al., ‘ �E Prol�eps�e kai �e Antimet �opis�e tou ‘allou’ st�en S�emerin�e

Ellada. Porismata Empeirik�es Ereunas’, Elliniki Epitheorisi Politikis Epistimis, Vol. 5

(4) (1995), 81–100.

51. Ge �orgios Nakos, To Nomiko Kathestos ton Teos Dimosi �on Othomanik �on Gai �on, 1821–

1912 (Thessalonik�e 1984).

52. Andread�es, op. cit. 21–44.53. Academy of Sciences, op. cit.54. Ibid., 17–18, 20, 50.55. Erdogan Mercil, ‘ �E epi tou Tourkikou Typou t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es Askoumen�e Pies�es’,

Deltion Tourkik �es Vivliografias, Vol. 12 (1971), 45–8; Erdogan Mercil, ‘To Z�et�ema t�es

Afaires�es Edaf �on apo ta Xeria t �on Tourk �on t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es’, Valkanik �e

Vivliografia, Vol. 5 (1979), 368–72.56. Tahsin Unal, ‘Oi Tourkoi t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es’, Deltion Tourkik �es Vivliografias, Vol. 9

(1970), 11–16.57. Baskin Oran, ‘La Minorite Turco-Musulmane de la Thrace Occidentale (Grece)’, in

Semih Vaner (ed.), Le different Greco-Turc (Paris 1988), 145–61; Samin Akgonul,

‘L’Emigration des Musulmans de Thrace Occidentale’, Mesogeios, Vol. 3 (1999), 31–49.

58. Lambrianid�es, op. cit.59. Kathimerini (Greek newspaper), 21 May 1981.60. Academy of Sciences, op. cit.; Petrak�e, op. cit.61. Selahattin Yildiz, ‘O Mehmet Hilmi pou Anapse t�e Floga tou Tourkikou Ethnikismou

st�e Dytik�e Thrak�e, kai o Tourkikos Typos st�e Dytik�e Thrak�e’, Valkanik �e Vivliografia,

Vol. 5 (1979), 373–8.62. Anastasios Iordanoglou, ‘O Typos t�es Mousoulmanik�es Meinot�etas t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es

apo t�e Synth�ek�e t�es L �ozann�es �os S�emera’, Valkanika Summeikta, Vol. 3 (1989), 217–36.63. Cengiz Orhonlu, ‘O Tourkikos Plythismos eis t�en Dytik�en Thrak�en’, Deltion Tourkik �es

Vivliografias, Vol. 6 (1969), 19–48.64. Asimakopoulou and Christidou-Lionarak�e, op. cit., 306.65. Athanasios Papaevgeniou, Voreios Ellas: Meionot �etes apo Statistik �es Apopse �os en Sxesei

me ton Plythismon kai t �en Ekpaidefsin (Thessalonik�e 1946); Academy of Sciences, op. cit.66. Erdogan Mercil, ‘To Ekpaideutiko Provl�ema t �on Tourk �on t�es Dytik�es Thrak�es kai �e

Ell�enik�e Katapiesis’, Deltion Tourkik �es Vivliografias, Vol. 12 (1971), 37–43.67. Nathana�el Panagiotid�es, To Meionotiko Ekpaideftiko Syst �ema t �es Elladas,

(Alexandroupol�e 1996); Anna Fragoudak�e, Thalia Drag �ona and Alexandra

Androutsou, ‘Diapolitismik�e Ekpaideus�e kai Epimorf �os�e Ekpaideutik �on’, Sygchrona

Themata, Vol. 63 (1997), 70–5.68. P�enelop�e Stath�e and Euaggelia Tressou, ‘ �E Tritovathmia Meionotik�e Ekpaideus�e’,

Sygxrona Themata, Vol. 63 (1997), 68–9.69. Panagi �ot�es Poul�es, ‘To Nomiko Plaisio Leitourgias t �on Meionotik �on Sxolei �on st�e

Dytik�e Thrak�e’, Dioikitik �e Dik �e, Vol. 5 (1994), 1001–17; K �onstantinos Tsitselik�es, To

Diethnes kai Evropaiko Kathest �os Prostasias t �on Glossik �on Dikaiomat �on t �on Meionot �et �on

kai �e Ell �enik �e Ennom �e Tax �e, (Athens and Komot�en�e 1996); Lampros Baltsiot�es,

‘Ell�enik�e Dioik�es�e kai Meionotik�e Ekpaideus�e st�e Dytik�e Thrak�e’, in Tsitselik�es and

Christopoulos (eds), op. cit., 315–48, 321–9.

70. Nathana�el Panagiotid�es, Mousoulmanik �e Meionot �eta kai Ethnik �e Syneid �es �e

(Alexandroupol�e 1995); Tsitselik�es (1996), op. cit; K �onstantinos Tsioum�es, Oi

Pomakoi sto Ell �eniko Kratos (1920-1950): Istorik �e Proseggis �e (Thessalonik�e 1997).


71. Tsitselik�es (1996), op. cit.72. Ibid., 352–3.73. Zegin�es, op. cit.; Troubeta, op. cit. With regard to the issue of education of the Roma

and how this has led to their social segregation in Greek society, one should look at thebook by Gi �orgos Mavromat�es, Ta Paidia t �es Kalkantzas: Ekpaideus �e, Ft �ocheia kaiKon �onikos Apokleismos se mia koinot �eta Mousoulmanik �e t �es Thrak �es (Athens 2005).

74. Athanasios Vakalios, Elen�e Kanakidou and Nathana�el Panagiotid�es, To Provlima t �esDiapolitismik �es Ekpaideus �es st �e Dytik �e Thrak �e. �E Peript �os �e t �es Mousoulmanik �esMeionot �etas me Emfas �e stou Pomakous: Erevna, (Athens 1997); P�enelop�e Stath�e, ‘Ta

Tourkika Sxolika Egxeiridia st�e Thrak�e’, Sygxrona Themata, Vol. 63 (1997) 65–7;Syme �on Soltarid�es, Tourkika Sxolika Vivlia: Ideologikes Kateuthynseis kai PolitikosProsanatolismos. Melet �e-Erevna (Athens 1986).

75. Helene Sella-Maz�e, ‘La Minorite Turcophone Musulmane du Nord-Est de la Grece et

les Dernieres Evolutions Politiques dans les Balkans’, Plurilinguismes, Vol. 4 (1992) 203–31.

76. Elen�e Sella-Maz�e, Stoicheia Antiparavolik �es Grammatik �es Ell �enik �es-Tourkik �es (Athens

1994).77. Thalia Drag �ona, ‘Ekpaideuontas ton Anoikeio ‘‘Allo’’: To Paradeigma t�es Meionotik�es

Ekpaideus�es’, Psychologia, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2004), 20–33.

78. For the role of Orthodoxy in the formation of modern Greek national identity andnationalism see Adamantia Pollis, ‘Greece: A Problematic Secular State’, in WilliamSafran (ed.), The Secular and the Sacred: Nation, Religion and Politics (London 2003),

155–68; Victor Roudometof, Nationalism, Globalization and the Orthodoxy: The Originsof Ethnic Conflict (Westport, CT 2001) and Umut Ozkırımlı and Spyros A. Sofos,Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (London 2008).

Stefanos Katsikas is a lecturer in History at Goldsmiths, University of London. Heis the author of Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe: Foreign Policy in Post-Communist Bulgaria (2011), which won a Scouloudi Publication Award in 2011 bythe Institute of Historical Research, University of London, the editor of Bulgariaand Europe: Shifting Identities (2010) and co-editor of State-Nationalisms in theOttoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims, 1830-1945 (forth-coming in 2012).

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