The Greeks in Turkey () constitute a small population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos ( and Bozcaada). Greeks are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, together with Jews, Armenians, and Bulgarians.
They are the remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks who were permitted under the provisions of the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations to remain in Turkey following the 1923 population exchange, which involved the forcible resettlement of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace. After years of persecution (e.g. the Varlık Vergisi and the Istanbul Pogrom), emigration of ethnic Greeks from the Istanbul region greatly accelerated, reducing the Greek minority population from 119,822 before the attack to about 7,000 by 1978. The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry places the current number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at the 3,000–4,000 mark. However, according to the Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey is estimated at 2,500 in 2006. The Greek population in Turkey is collapsing as the community is now far too small to sustain itself demographically, due to emigration, much higher death rates than birth rates and continuing discrimination.
Since 1924, the status of the Greek minority in Turkey has been ambiguous. Beginning in the 1930s, the government instituted repressive policies forcing many Greeks to emigrate. Examples are the labour battalions drafted among non-Muslims during World War II, as well as the Fortune Tax (Varlık Vergisi) levied mostly on non-Muslims during the same period. These resulted in financial ruination and death for many Greeks. The exodus was given greater impetus with the Istanbul Pogrom of September 1955 which led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city, eventually reducing the Greek population to about 7,000 by 1978 and to about 2,500 by 2006. According to the United Nations, this figure was much smaller in 2012 and reached 2,000.
A minority of Muslim Pontic Greek speakers, using a dialect called "Romeyka" or "Ophitic", still live in the area around Of.
Name
The Greeks of Turkey are referred to in Turkish as Rumlar, meaning "Romans". This derives from the self-designation Ῥωμαῖος (Rhomaîos, pronounced ro-ME-os) or Ρωμιός (Rhomiós, pronounced ro-mee-OS or rom-YOS) used by Byzantine Greeks, who were the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east.
The ethnonym Yunanlar is exclusively used by Turks to refer to Greeks from Greece and not for the population of Turkey.
In Greek, Greeks from Asia Minor are referred to as or (Mikrasiátes or Anatolítes, lit. "Asia Minor-ites" and "Anatolians"), while Greeks from Pontos (Pontic Greeks) are known as (Póntioi).
Greeks from Istanbul are known as (Konstantinoupolítes, lit. "Constantinopolites"), most often shortened to (Polítes, pronounced po-LEE-tes). Those who arrived during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey are also referred to as (Prósfyges, i. e. "Refugees").
History
Background
Greeks have been living in what is now Turkey continuously since the middle 2nd millennium BC. Following upheavals in mainland Greece during the Bronze Age Collapse, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was heavily settled by Ionian and Aeolian Greeks and became known as Ionia and Aeolia. During the era of Greek colonization from the 8th to the 6th century BC, numerous Greek colonies were founded on the coast of Asia Minor, both by mainland Greeks as well as settlers from colonies such as Miletus. The city of Byzantium, which would go on to become Constantinople and Istanbul, was founded by colonists from Megara in the 7th century BC.
Following the conquest of Asia Minor by Alexander the Great, the rest of Asia Minor was opened up to Greek settlement. Upon the death of Alexander, Asia Minor was ruled by a number of Hellenistic kingdoms such as the Attalids of Pergamum. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BC. Asia Minor was one of the first places where Christianity spread, so that by the 4th century AD it was overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. For the next 600 years, Asia Minor and Constantinople, which eventually became the capital of the Byzantine Empire, would be the centers of the Hellenic world, while mainland Greece experienced repeated barbarian invasions and went into decline.