akritas
02-09-2007, 05:41 AM
The exchange of populations with Turkey involved far greater numbers. The region lost 85,000 Muslims, mostly from the eastern lowland belt: 14,300 left from the district of Florina, 13,600 from the district of Kastoria, 6,700 from the district of Anaselitsa, 5,500 from the district of Grevena, 22,500 from the district of Eordaea, and 22,400 from the district of Kozani. Muslims represented almost a third of the inhabitants (according to the 1920 census figures, 286,000).
In their place came some 73,000 Greek Christians mainly from the Pontus, Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace and the Caucasus. All districts with the exception of Grevena in the southwest lost population, but the arrival of the newcomers, who represented a quarter of the region's inhabitants in 1928 (292,000), further strengthened the dominant Greek-speaking elements.
Almost half the refugees settled in the district of Florina spoke Turkish and little or no Greek. Many Pontians spoke Turkish and the Circasians spoke a h m l of Greek unintelligible to most Creek-speakers, let alone to the Slav Macedonians whom the refugees were expected to Hellenise in speech
The refugees were settled in scores of villages throughout the region, as well as in the towns. They settled in the villages abandoned by the Muslims, but also in villages and towns inhabited by Greek and Slav-speaking Christians, primarily in villages with a strongly or predominantly Slav-speaking element.
Some claims (Kolliopoulos) that the objective was to change the linguistic and cultural composition of the population by planting Greeks, not only near Slav-speaking villages, but actually within them. In my opinion this is not true because we had the same situation in West Macedonia with the Karamanlides, another Greek Turkish-speaking people and we didnt encountered problems.
Indigenous peasants, Greek- and Slav-speaking, resented the distribution of Muslim and communal land to the refugees. Cultural differences between these people and the refugees kept the two communities further apart. And administrators from southern Greece, bearers of an ideology and policy aiming to obliterate linguistic traces other than Greek, put Slav Macedonians ata disadvantage compared to other Greeks and turned the existing gap into a dangerous chasm.
Also Charges by zealous Greek gendarmeries and administrative officials increased as provocative autonomist statements on the Macedonian Question by the Greek communists in the late 1920s increasingly made government officials see seditious motives behind any expression of disagreement over government measures. In December 1929 the district governor of Florina reported that on visiting the Slav Macedonian villages of Ano Hydrousa, Sphika and Karyai he encountered not only resentment against state and communal taxation but also 'anti-state sentiments'. He discerned the same sentiments in the refusal of the inhabitants of five 'indigent' villages of Lake Prespa to cooperate in leasing the taxes on the lake fishery. Mikrolirnni, Agios Achilleios, Bronteron, Kallithea and Pyksos apparently harboured 'anti-state' sentiments. This is the era that the Communism make his appearance in the Macedonian Question
Source
1-Ionannis Koliopoulos,Lehlasia Fronimaton
2-Gounaris,Tautotites sthn Makedonia
In their place came some 73,000 Greek Christians mainly from the Pontus, Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace and the Caucasus. All districts with the exception of Grevena in the southwest lost population, but the arrival of the newcomers, who represented a quarter of the region's inhabitants in 1928 (292,000), further strengthened the dominant Greek-speaking elements.
Almost half the refugees settled in the district of Florina spoke Turkish and little or no Greek. Many Pontians spoke Turkish and the Circasians spoke a h m l of Greek unintelligible to most Creek-speakers, let alone to the Slav Macedonians whom the refugees were expected to Hellenise in speech
The refugees were settled in scores of villages throughout the region, as well as in the towns. They settled in the villages abandoned by the Muslims, but also in villages and towns inhabited by Greek and Slav-speaking Christians, primarily in villages with a strongly or predominantly Slav-speaking element.
Some claims (Kolliopoulos) that the objective was to change the linguistic and cultural composition of the population by planting Greeks, not only near Slav-speaking villages, but actually within them. In my opinion this is not true because we had the same situation in West Macedonia with the Karamanlides, another Greek Turkish-speaking people and we didnt encountered problems.
Indigenous peasants, Greek- and Slav-speaking, resented the distribution of Muslim and communal land to the refugees. Cultural differences between these people and the refugees kept the two communities further apart. And administrators from southern Greece, bearers of an ideology and policy aiming to obliterate linguistic traces other than Greek, put Slav Macedonians ata disadvantage compared to other Greeks and turned the existing gap into a dangerous chasm.
Also Charges by zealous Greek gendarmeries and administrative officials increased as provocative autonomist statements on the Macedonian Question by the Greek communists in the late 1920s increasingly made government officials see seditious motives behind any expression of disagreement over government measures. In December 1929 the district governor of Florina reported that on visiting the Slav Macedonian villages of Ano Hydrousa, Sphika and Karyai he encountered not only resentment against state and communal taxation but also 'anti-state sentiments'. He discerned the same sentiments in the refusal of the inhabitants of five 'indigent' villages of Lake Prespa to cooperate in leasing the taxes on the lake fishery. Mikrolirnni, Agios Achilleios, Bronteron, Kallithea and Pyksos apparently harboured 'anti-state' sentiments. This is the era that the Communism make his appearance in the Macedonian Question
Source
1-Ionannis Koliopoulos,Lehlasia Fronimaton
2-Gounaris,Tautotites sthn Makedonia