The Refugees of Asia Minor

ΟΙ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΜΙΚΡΑΣ ΑΣΙΑΣ

In Memory of Those who Died and
in Remembrance of the Suffering of Those who Survived.

The Purpose of this Site - A brief essay on why I have built up this site

A. Family and Personal Histories

1. My Family History. History of the families of both of my parents, the expulsion of their families from Asia Minor, and their lives in Greece until around 1930. I have also included considerable background material.

2. Rocks and Roses. Synopsis of a book by Simos Kerassides.

3. The Story of Asa K. Jennings. How a single individual without formal authority saved hundreds of thousand of lives by following his conscience and acting on his own. Material for this narative has been provided by his grandson, Roger Jennings.

4. Chronicle of Kermira by Sofia Kottou. A fascinating chronicle of several families from Kermira and their branches in other cities of Asia Minor and Western Europe. The document is in Greek, 228 pages in several PDF files. This link takes you to a page that contains an abstract of the document and from where you can download the PDF files.

5. Remarkable People Having Roots in Asia Minor A list of people who have distinguished themselves in different fields (arts, science, politics, etc) and ackowledge their descent from Asia Minor Greeks. (Under construction as of 12/29/16.)

B. Memorabilia

1. A Karamanli Book A translation of a French novel into Turkish, printed in Karamanlidika.

2. Material about Karamanlides Little material now, but I hope to expand.

3. The Unye (Oinoe) Tombstone - translators wanted.

C. Essays

1. Refugees from Asia Minor and the Greek Left. An essay, pointing out (on the basis of published sources) that for many Asia Minor refugees their involvement with the Greek Left was mainly a consequence of the harsh circumstances they found themselves in.

2. Kemal Ataturk and Modern Turkey. This article tries to offer an objective view of both Kemal Ataturk and modern Turkey and point out the unfairness of the criticism seen in some sources. I am grateful to Professor Enis Cetin for information about Ottoman and Turkish history and helpful e-mail exchanges on the subject but I take full responsibility for the opinions expressed.

3. Nobody is Blameless. Both sides committed atrocities.

4. The Truth about Timur. His victims were mostly Muslim rather than Christian (as some authors claim).

5. The Byzantine and Ottoman Empires: This turned to be too big a topic for a single essay. It has grown into a treatise with 21 chapters under the title A Concise History of the Middle East. The transition from the Byzantine to the Ottoman empire is treated in two chapters: 13, Birth of the Ottoman Empire and 14. Rise of the Ottoman Empire. For about 150 years the two empires co-existed and many early Ottoman sultans took Byzantine princesses as wives. Many high ranking Byzantine officials converted to Islam to serve the Ottomans after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

D. Bibliography

E. Web Resources about Asia Minor

Centre of Asia Minor Studies in Athens: The major organization for Asia Minor material

Cappadocia by S.Kimosoglou (in Greek)

F. The Modern World

Impressions from a trip to Turkey (Istanbul and Cappadocia) in September of 2008.

Greek and Turkish Folk Music-Healing the Wounds (summer 2018)