Hellenism in Asia Minor

by Karl Dieterich

In Smyrna too is still published the first Greek newspaper to appear on Turkish soil, Amalthea, which has existed now for almost seventy-five years. Alongside of this old school for advanced studies there were in Smyrna in 1894 other Greek schools, and in particular seventeen grammar schools, two trade schools (the oldest having existed since 1857), four private girls’ schools and one large girls’ college with three associated schools and more than 2,000 pupils in all. The largest Greek school community in Asia Minor, next to that of Smyrna, is that of Aïvali, the second largest Greek colony of the west coast. It supports more than twenty grammar schools, two intermediate schools, a gymnasium and a girls’ boarding school, which in 1892 were attended by more than 1,100 pupils. Then comes Chesme, known for its old advanced-school, which at that time possessed only eleven schools but showed the largest number of pupils (675). Nearly equal to this were Phocæa with nine schools and 560 pupils, Adramit with nineteen schools and about 600 pupils, Artaki with twenty-two schools and 700 pupils, Panderma with fifteen schools and 536 pupils, Gemlik (Kios) with nine schools and 530 pupils, Mudania with eight schools and 330 pupils, Gebize with thirteen schools and 1,000 pupils. Although the wide dissemination, as well as the prosperity and the intellectual development of the Greeks on the north part of the west coast is reflected in the large number of Greek schools, that of the southern part is in this particular far more backward. Apart from Scalanova with five Greek schools and 440 pupils, Adalia on the south coast is alone worthy of mention with its ten schools and 600 pupils. Taken all together these sixteen cities have more than two hundred schools with more than 17,000 pupils,[30] a number, the significance of which can only rightly be appreciated when compared with the corresponding Turkish figures, which show, to be sure, that the number of schools is a hundred larger but that the number of pupils is 6,000 less than that of the Greeks. There are therefore nearly three times as many pupils per school in the Greek schools as in the Turkish. The Greek settlements on the north and south coasts are to be distinguished from those on the west coast not only through their smaller number, but also through the fact that only scanty and weak settlements in the inland correspond to them. In the west, on the contrary, as we have already seen, Greek colonization has, since late antiquity, extended up into the interior, and the consequences of this have been felt even up to the present time, or, at any rate, have been made anew noticeable, owing to the fact that the Greeks of the west coast have for several decades been pressing farther and more vigorously into the interior, and have settled there more definitely. This region that has at present been occupied by them only in its chief centers is, in general, bounded by a line which may be drawn from Ismid in the north, past Eskishehr, Afiun-Karahissar, and Isbarta to Adalia. All that lies between this line and the west coast may be regarded as within the Greek sphere. The second phase of these Hellenizing efforts of today begins with this forward push into the interior of this region. Just how far and in what way has this succeeded?

If we start on the basis of the actual facts of the case, we find that in thirty towns of the western interior of Asia Minor of more than 5,000 inhabitants, the Greeks have a share in the population of from 1,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. Arranged according to the ratio of this share in the population, these cities fall into different groups, as follows:

First, a Greek majority is found in only two cities, Michalitsh (about 7,000 Greeks out of a total of 8,000) and Koplu (about 5,000 out of 8,000). Second, in nine cities the Greeks form between one-half and one-third of the population: Baindir (4,500 out of 10,000), Tireh (6,000 out of 14,000), Edemish (3,000 out of 7,000), Menemen (about 3,000 out of 10,000), Bergama (5,500 out of 14,500), Isbarta (7,000 out of 20,000), Sokia (4,000 out of 12,000), Soma (2,000 out of 6,000), Manissa (11,000 out of 35,000). Third, in four cities the Greeks form about a fourth: Inegeul (about 2,000 out of 8,000), Kassaba (6,000 out of 23,000), Kermasti (1,200 out of 4,800), Aïdin (8,500 out of 35,000). Fourth, in five cities they form from a fifth to a sixth part: Kutaiah (4,000 out of 22,000), Dimetoka (1,300 out of 7,000), Alashehr (4,500 out of 22,000), Milas (2,000 out of 12,000), Bigha (1,600 out of 10,000). Fifth, in five cities the Greeks form from a seventh to a ninth of the total population: Kirkagatch (2,000 out of 18,000), Ushak (1,500 out of 12,500), Balukiser (1,300 out of 10,000), Sabandsha (1,000 out of 7,500), Kyrkagatch (about 200 out of 18,000). Sixth, less than a tenth in seven cities: Denizli (1,600 out of 17,000), Soyut (1,500 out of 18,000), Nazilli (1,700 out of 21,000), Brussa (6,000 out of 80,000), Adabazar (1,600 out of 24,000), Eskishehr (1,150 out of 19,000), Nugla (1,100 out of 15,000).

From this combination of facts several interesting conclusions may be drawn as to the distribution of the Greek population in the interior itself, and as to the relation between the Hellenization of the interior as compared with that of the coast regions.

If we group the cities named above according to their distribution in the various provinces and districts, we find that only fifteen of these fall within the province of Aïdin, the largest province of the west coast of Asia Minor, and the one that is held to most stubbornly by the Turks. Of these fifteen, again, only thirteen come in the district of Smyrna, Sarukan and Aïdin, which form the most populous part of this province. These are Menemen, Manissa, Kassaba, Alashehr; Kirkagatch, Soma, Bergama; Baindir, Tireh and Odemish; Sokia; Aïdin and Nazilli. Now these thirteen towns, with the exception of Bergama, all lie, as the above grouping indicates, on the four railroad lines which go out in four directions from Smyrna, that is in those regions of the province which belong economically to Smyrna. At any rate, the significance for the Greek settlements of the economic factor is clearly evidenced in these towns, for they are, almost without exception, “capitals,” so to speak, of smaller districts, and are therefore important distributing and collecting centers for the local trade to and from Smyrna. With the increase of this trade the number of the Greeks in this group of interior cities is bound to increase quickly or has already done so.

Most of the other towns named above are in the province of Hodavendikiar, which lies due north of that of Aïdin; and once more is it true that they are in the most densely inhabited parts of the province, Brussa, Ertogrul and Kutaiah. Of the nine cities that belong here, five, again, are found on the line of the Anatolian Railroad, namely, Biledjik, Soyut, Eskishehr, Kutaiah and Ushak; one, Brussa, on a branch road and three on no railroad at all, though within reach of the Michalitch-Kirmasti-Inegeul Railroad. Here, too, therefore, the cities which are more or less decidedly Greek in their population lie along the main railroad lines, though they are not quite so strongly Greek as those in the province of Aïdin; for we are here in the very heart of Turkey, and its greatest city Brussa, which more than all the other cities of this region has preserved its Turkish character more purely. It is always to be borne in mind that the Anatolian Railroad goes out from Constantinople and that this, with its strong Greek population, is as important a gate of entrance to the northwest of Asia Minor as Smyrna is for the west.

Although up to this time it is impossible to speak of a Hellenizing of the great interior cities of western Asia Minor, since these are (thus being quite different from the coast cities) very far from succumbing, either numerically or culturally, to the Greek invasion—the number of Greeks is the largest in Manissa—yet, if one looks into the matter narrowly, he gains the impression that in the interior the Hellenizing influence comes from the smaller towns. This supposition, to be sure, is opposed to the view, still broadly accepted, that the Greek element is purely a city element, and that the country-folk consist only of Turks. This view, which, as we have seen, does not hold even in the coast regions, is, however, absolutely false and is only to be explained as arising from the impressions of superficial travelers who have rarely penetrated into the remoter regions with a predominantly rural population. Anyone who has, for example, visited the larger Greek islands of the Asiatic coast, like Mitylene, Chios, Samos and Rhodes, knows that these dense populations live in great measure from grape and fruit-raising or from silk culture, and only in a very small degree from trade. Farming plays no very large part, simply because of the lack of arable land. Since now, as we have said, these very islands for something like fifty years have become very densely populated or even in part overpopulated (as, for instance, Samos), there have been periodical emigrations of the island peasants, in considerable numbers, over to the mainland, where they have, in particular, settled in the fruitful valleys of the Mæander and the Hermos in the western parts of Asia Minor and in that of the Sangarios, farther north. In part, it is the descendants of the former Greek landowners who have been reduced to socagers or serfs, who, on getting possession of some little capital, have now, in their turn, driven back the Turks by buying them out or by working the soil more scientifically, a process in which they were helped by the immigrant islanders. If a sufficient number of them is thus found settled together, they try to obtain the Sultan’s firman permitting them to settle in a town. Thus the English traveler Hamilton states that the Greeks in a little town of Lydia (Singerli), in which they had settled ten years before, had, in his time (1837), increased to 40–50 families and were busied with building a new market. In this way numerous new and dense settlements came into existence in the midst of the more scattered Turkish populations, and the higher fecundity of the Greek settlers, combined with their industry, their intellectual keenness, their frugality and their community-feeling, helped always by the retrogression of the Turkish population itself, have contributed to extend the Hellenizing process more and more to the country districts.[31]

In particular have they taken possession of the regions adapted to silk culture, like that of the lower Sangarios Valley, and also of such regions as are adapted to raising grapes. More recently, Greek industrial enterprises, too, especially silk-spinning mills, cognac factories and steam oil mills, have sprung into existence, meeting with no rivalry on the part of the Turks. With this Greek peasant of Asia Minor, who is on a higher moral plane, and who is therefore more congenial to us Germans than the Greek trader or innkeeper in the coast-towns, our German spirit of enterprise which is seeking to get the economic control over Asia Minor, will have to come to terms, and it would be just as perverse as it would be foolish to depend on the Turk to the exclusion of the Greek, who has the controlling hand in trade and traffic, as well as in the cultivation of the soil.[32]

Even to a traveler of a hundred years ago the great difference between the Greeks of the cities and the peasants was especially noteworthy. The former were subservient and cringing like the Armenians, while the latter were energetic and intelligent, irreconcilable in their hatreds and by no means lacking in courage. And it is to these praiseworthy qualities, and not to their much-bruited craftiness, that they owe their progress in the interior of Asia Minor.[33]

As to the numbers of the Greek inhabitants of the interior of Asia Minor, only an indirect estimate can be made. The whole number of all the Greeks in the interior of the two provinces of Brussa and Aïdin, exclusive of the inhabitants of the coast regions, even twenty years ago, amounted to 200,000, i.e., less than half as many as in the coast regions. About 100,000 of these lived in places with a population of more than 5,000, so that about 100,000 were scattered among the villages and towns. The distribution of this interior population is very uneven. The densest Greek populations have gathered in the Prefecture of Aïdin and here chiefly in the sub-prefecture of Smyrna, with its five districts (Sarukan, with four districts, and Aïdin, with only one). These three sub-prefectures, therefore, in their ten districts, comprised, twenty years ago, a fifth part of the entire population. In the province of Brussa the number of districts with a considerable Greek population was only five, in the sub-prefecture of Ertogrul, three; in those of Brussa and Kutaiah, one each. There were the largest numbers in the district of Eskishehr, the ancient Dorylæum, where they comprised two-fifths of the population, and in Michalitch, where they formed one-third of the total. In fifteen of the twenty-five districts of the interior of the two prefectures fifteen, therefore, already contained a considerable part of the population. To speak in greater detail, these districts may be classified as follows, with relation to the proportions of their Greek inhabitants: The Greek population is densest in the districts of Magnesia (Sanjak Sarukan), and Eskishehr (Sanjak Kutaiah), where they constitute a fifth of the population; less dense in the district of Sokia (Sanjak Aïdin), with about a third; next comes the district Michalitch (Sanjak Brussa), with from a fourth to a third; and then those of Bergama, Menemen, Baindir, Tireh and Odemish (Sanjak Smyrna), where they form about a fourth; next those of Alashehr (Sanjak Sarukan) and Yenishehr (Sanjak Ertogrul) with about a fifth; and finally those of Inegeul, Biledjik (Sanjak Ertogrul) and Soma (Sanjak Sarukan), with a sixth to a seventh of the entire population.