Perception of the other's fate: what Greek Orthodox

[Joseph]

Journal of Genocide Research
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Perception of the other's fate: what Greek Orthodox
refugees from the Ottoman Empire reported about the
destruction of Ottoman Armenians

Hervé Georgelin



Given the policy of denial about the reality of the Young Turk planned annihilation of the Ottoman Armenian population, I believe that it is useful to consider whether this attitude was ever shared by the Ottoman subjects themselves, and how the Greek Orthodox group, the Rum, perceived the government’s treatment of theirArmenian neighbours. Did solidarity exist among Christians, of whatever denomination,on Ottoman lands? Were the Rum informed about what was happening, andat what level?Were they interested in what was being perpetrated, and how did theyaccount for what happened?

In the period under scrutiny, the Rum were also brutalized in diverse ways. From the end of the Balkan Wars (1913) onwards, the Greek Orthodox populations still living on the reduced Ottoman territories faced the harsh policy of the Committee of Union and Progress, which aimed especially to reduce the Orthodox presence in territories possibly claimed by Greece: Eastern Thrace, the Aegean region and the Pontic seashores. This policy took different forms and was of different intensity depending on the location: fiscal harassment, displacement of whole settlements towards the inner lands of Anatolia, severe treatment of Greek Orthodox conscripts
in forced labour battalions (amele tabrurlari) provoking desertion, and, as an overall result, the flight of the Orthodox population in the Aegean region to the islands recently conquered by Greece.1 The deserters were searched for in a brutal fashion.2 The Hellenic citizenship of Greek Orthodox residents was submitted to scrutiny by the local authorities, contesting a number of naturalizations by previous Orthodox Ottoman subjects, and threatening those concerned with renewed conscription and taxation. Even voices from Germany acknowledged the facts of
“the systematic persecution of Greeks by the Young Turks since spring 1914.”3

During the conflict proper, the Pontic shores were particularly targeted:
In 1916–1917, they exiled us from Agatsoli [close to Sinop]. From all the places, they exiled the Hellenes. They brought us, the people of Agatsoli to Tas¸ko¨pru¨ , and we stayed one and a half years, we suffered a lot, illnesses came and we wanted to leave. But the Turks
would not let us go to our places.4


As a consequence, the possibility of helping other people was limited for a group that was itself under pressure. Besides, it was an official stipulation of the Armenian “tehcir” (deportation) that other Ottoman people of whatever creed were forbidden to provide assistance to the “displaced” persons.5
In the following, I will describe and analyse how the difference between
Armenian and Orthodox Christians was maintained and altered in the Ottoman context, as a historical background for the attitude of the Orthodox towards Armenian victims. I will then turn to the Rum and their memories of their normal social life on the Ottoman lands and of the major events that marked the end of the Ottoman Empire and made the reestablishment of the previous normalcy impossible. Finally, I shall consider the extent to which the late Ottoman history of the Armenians was known to the Orthodox, and how sources in Greece after 1924 can be of use when researching the past of the Ottoman Armenians.

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The making of two different Christian groups


Cultural frontiers between Christians did exist from the Byzantine times onwards, and the common condition of Ottoman zimmi, that is, of an acknowledged and, to some extent, protected, non-Muslim subject of the Muslim state, did not profoundly alter the mutual stance of church hierarchies towards one other, despite local arrangements that made coexistence bearable in a small geographical space.6 The Armenian Apostolic Church did not profess the same theological doctrines
as the Orthodox one. The Armenian Apostolic Church had been separate from the Byzantine Church since the Council of Chalcedon (today Kadiko¨y on the Asian shore of Istanbul) in 451, at which it had no representation.7 But this absence did not prevent the two parts from deepening the split within the Christian community retrospectively. The Armenian Apostolic Church was called “monophysite” by the Orthodox Church, together with the Syrian and the Coptic Churches. The dissent in Chalcedon may have had other reasons than strictly religious ones.

The Byzantines’ feelings of cultural supremacy caused difficulties in
intercultural communication and subtle matters such as “person” or “nature”
hardly corresponded in every language used by the Christians of that time.
Mutual religious rejection had strong cultural and political motivations. Orthodox Christians considered themselves, and wanted to be considered, as the only real Christians, and used this very word to describe themselves. Being “Christiani,” they had little respect for other groups who proclaimed to be Christians but were not in full communion with the Patriarchate based in former Byzantine Constantinople.


The great divide between Western and Eastern forms of Christianity was also a major factor in the Ottoman geographic setting. Roman Catholicism had been present in these places since the treaties between Byzantium and the Italian merchant republics, Venice and Genoa, but also in Palestine since the Crusades and after the first capitulations were signed between France and the Ottoman Empire in 1535–36, institutionalizing their presence. Mutual hostility weakened the possibility of a united Christian group, once more divided by the appearance of Protestant churches that were active in the late Ottoman Empire in the form of missions, which had to abandon as a matter of life and death their initial aim of converting Muslims and Alevis to the “true” faith, and which then concentrated their efforts on the local Christians.8 Out of the local Oriental Christian groups grew new communities with Western affiliations and local believers.

Thus we
reach an initial conclusion: there was no such a phenomenon as one Ottoman Christian world until 1923, and therefore no given brotherhood between Ermeni and Rum in the Ottoman lands.9 I would like to emphasize this absence of sustained solidarity between Christian groups in the Ottoman Empire, which was a mere opportunist construct after World War I.10 Social life in the cities of the Western regions of the Empire, but also in the provinces, did not enhance cultural and political closeness, at least from the nineteenth century onwards, although the Ottoman modus vivendi had as a prerequisite a largely common code of social behaviour and many similar points in material life. In this article, places in inner Anatolia, and especially Upper Mesopotamia, are granted special attention. Not only the Armenian institutions but also the Armenian geography within the Ottoman framework underwent radical changes. The Armenian Patriarchate of Ottoman Constantinople was a step-by-step creation during the first half of the sixteenth century.11 The intricate growth of the Armenian Ottoman institutions with the Ottoman State in no way made the latter more approachable for Orthodox Christians. Schismatic Christians were legalized and submitted to similar regulations as “true” Christians, which would not have been the case in the Byzantine times. Along the same lines, there was hardly anywhere in Ottoman Asia Minor and Ottoman Thrace without Armenian presence, which blurred the frontiers between Armenia and the Christian Orthodox lands. Armenians migrated away from “historical Armenia” for various reasons: the fall of Ani12 (1236) and subsequent
earthquakes in the region,13 and the fall of the Armenian Kingdom of
Cilicia (1375). Later shifts occurred within the Ottoman space itself, because of centrally designed demographic policies, including collective deportation
(su¨rgu¨n).14 In addition, because of local dangers, the neighbouring Kurds or Turks would not spare their Armenian neighbours.15 Finally, there was greater social, economical and cultural perspectives that larger urban centres, for the most part located in the Western parts of the empire, could offer to Ottoman subjects in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result, cities that in contemporary Greek cultural perspectives may be strictly associated with “hellinismos” were in fact major Ottoman Armenian cities too. Constantinople became the political, religious, economical and cultural centre of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire, though it was far away from any territorial concept of
Armenia and was close to the Orthodox Christian presence.16
While the phenomenon of Ottoman cosmopolitanism was striking in Constantinople, Smyrna, and Salonica, it was no less real, though according to another modus vivendi, possibly more Ottoman, with less Western elements, in cities on the Black Sea like Trebizond, Samsun, Merzifun, in Cappadocia, Sivas (Sebastia) and Kayseri (Cæsaria), or in Adana or in cotton-growing Ottoman Cilicia. Living side by side, but without sharing the majority of their religious life: this state was a given in the Ottoman Empire, more than ever before its creation and after its
destruction.17

The situation of dispersion was welcomed by the Ottomans. The
administrative eyalet of Ermenistan (province of Armenia) was erased in 1864–66 by statesmen eager to destroy any potential base for national claims, similar to those which gave birth to Modern Greece and Serbia and were threatening the remaining Ottoman territories in the Balkans (Bulgaria and though under a different status, Romania).18 This did not mean, however, that the toponym Armenia, either in Greek or in Armenian, had disappeared from vernacular use,even in a naı¨ve, non-national way, referring to the place where many Armenians lived. This naivety made all inhabitants of Smyrna call the Armenian quarter of the
town “Armenia´” in local Greek, in order to describe the most visible group of this place.19 In an analogous way, a small and again heterogeneous Greek Orthodox population were living on Ottoman Armenian lands. Some of them were able to reach Greece after 1922 and were interviewed by representatives of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. Greek Orthodox refugees from Yerznga/Erzincan would spontaneously speak about their region as being “Armenia.”

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The Ottoman era reinforced the mingling of population groups and the scattering of Armenian people within the empire and the places with which it was economically connected, such as Vienna, Marseilles, Italian port cities, and Alexandria in the almost independent (1805) and then semi-colonial (1881) Egypt. The developments are noticeably similar to those of the Greek Orthodox group.21 The society that is under examination here is thus one forever lost, and is not deemed significant enough by nationalist historiography of the two Christian and subsequently national groups, who inherited in one way or another these pieces of Ottoman history. Consequently, the image of the Ottoman past presented in most books written in Armenian or Modern Greek, or by authors of Greek or
Armenian descent, or by foreigners with a special connection to one of the
groups, tends to be a negative one and excludes other groups, aside from one’s own and the “Turks.” This article aims to break with such historiographical habits and discourse.


Such a break is all the more necessary as the two groups, though theologically strictly defined, were in fact in close contact, to the extent that some Greek Orthodox were mother-tongue speakers of Armenian, the famous Hay-Horoum.22 Similarly, in a synchronic approach, many Ottoman Armenians knew Modern Greek better than Armenian, as was the case in Smyrna, if the monographer Father Qossian’s words are to be taken seriously.23 Even more overwhelming was the phenomenon of sharing Turkish as a mother-tongue or at least as a lingua franca 24 (as evidenced by the production, religious and secular, of karamanlidika and dajgeren—texts printed in Turkish, but with the Greek or the Armenian script, respectively). Along the same lines, according to Marc Aymes, religious lines of division may have been overemphasized in research.25 Nevertheless, the dispassionate approach Aymes advocates is of little help when attempting to understand extremely violent situations, which characterized the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, during which smooth social adjustments were jeopardized by centrally planned political decisions. However fruitful Aymes’ suggestion may be for regular times, when religious canons certainly were negotiated with, despite the national historiographical doxa, it underestimates the potential narcissist use of small differences, which may appear as minor in a peaceful mindset.

The demographic proportions of the two groups were unequal. Statistics are
often deceptive in Ottoman historiography, because of the scarcity of reliable sources, and the production of many statistics for political reasons in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.26 Both groups consisted of a few million each, with a Greek Orthodox surplus. Going westwards, travellers would come across more Greek Orthodox, and travelling to the east more Armenians, but that left plenty of room for mutual contacts in Ottoman society. This was also the case in the West, at places like Salonica or Rodosto/Tekirdag˘ , home for some Ottoman Armenians, and in the East, at a place as remote from the Ægean as Diyarbakır, where a Rum community used to live, having partly arrived in 1924 in Greece as exchangees.

The Ottoman past of the Ermeni and Rum groups


There are few authors, specializing in modern and contemporary Greek or
Armenian history, who take the “other” Christian group into account in a
serious way. Ioˆannis Chassioˆ tis is a noteworthy exception on the Greek side, who has focused on issues including the interrelations between Ottoman and former Ottoman Christians.27 I am not aware of any corresponding name in Armenian historical studies, though the historiographical production in the Soviet times was richer than people usually imagine in the West.28 I doubt that the Western Armenian diaspora—that is, the direct heirs of the Ottoman Armenians—could ever produce a historian who would be able to find the means to publish in Armenian about such issues, since the bulk of the historiographical production has been and still is strictly self-centred and aims, consciously or not, at defining
if not flattering the (damaged) collective self, especially in countless local
monographs of the territories left behind in today’s Turkey.29


The reality of the methodical destruction, in different ways but with an analogous result is that the eradication of Christian groups on the territory of the Republic of Turkey is no longer a question worth debating among serious scholars.30 The PhD thesis recently defended by Fuat Du¨
ndar provides us with a precise analysis of Ottoman documents detailing the steps and control procedures of the “demographic engineering” at the core of the CUP government’s policy towards the non-Muslim populations.31 This academic work marks a turning point in studies about the Armenian genocide and the elimination of the Greek Orthodox on the Ottoman
lands (but also of Ottoman Bulgarian, Jewish, Assyrian, Chaldean and Kurdish Ottoman history, since they too were targeted by the Committee of Union and Progress). Sadly, it has not yet been offered the interest it deserves. Du¨ndar’s text should provoke a reassessment of other sources, such as diplomats’ andmissionaries’ writings and victims’ testimonies, not necessarily to counterbalance them but rather to validate them anew, which the Turkish authorities supposed would never happen. It corroborates Raymond Kevorkian’s soma, Le ge´nocide des Arme´niens, which aimed
at presenting a comprehensive picture of the annihilation of Ottoman Armenians.32


In this new epistemological but also inescapably political context, I want to
focus on echoes of the ill-treatments endured by the Ottoman Armenian population and its almost complete destruction from 1915 onwards, detailed in the Archives of the Oral Tradition kept at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, as well as in the few unpublished typescripts of Greek Orthodox refugees from places which many may rhetorically annex to Armenia: the “Lands of the River Euphrates” and the “Lands of the River Tigris.”33 The information collected was not supposed to be published and since still few people outside of Greece use Modern Greek sources, the content of these files and typescripts can be considered as genuine in intent and free from exploitation. Memory is often opposed to history. But some historians have tried to use memories, however unstable and always on the verge of possible reformulation they may be, as a way to “bring
history into, and out of, the community. It helps the less privileged, and especially the old, towards dignity and self-confidence. [. . .] Oral history offers a challenge to accepted myths of history, to the authoritarian judgement inherent in its tradition. It provides a means for a radical transformation of the social meaning of history.”34 I operate this way in this article. A prudent historian must question the popular or individual myths that oral history may convey. The testimonies I have chosen do not deliver anything incompatible with the broader framework of the Armenian genocide as it has been already established. Rather, they show the stance and thoughts of Greek orthodox refugees in Greece towards that time.

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Greek Orthodox refugees from what had by then become Turkey, and who were residents and citizens in the Modern Greek state. But she enlarged her focus to include memories and even the full narratives that the refugees told her and her collaborators about their former home. As a result, and despite institutional changes, a whole archival fund came to being, documenting almost every single area formerly inhabited by Greek Orthodox Ottoman people until 1924. Many villages or hamlets have left no other trace than those kept in the files of CAMS. The method used by the representatives
of CAMS was progressively determined. While the oldest materials,
dating back to the 1930s, are handwritten and very sketchy in their content, the files from the 1950s onwards all follow a similar pattern which covers many areas of social, economic, and cultural life, as well as events of special importance.

The narratives the informants delivered are personal memories as well as customs, sayings and memories shared by the group. This gives the archival material a diverse quality, being at the crossing-point of individual and collective histories. Surprisingly enough for a Greek-only trained researcher, the other neighbouring human groups are regularly mentioned in these pages, though not in a homogeneous way. The Armenians are no exception. They are present, more or less,in accordance with the place from which the refugees came from, and they are never silenced in those narratives. Ottoman Rum were also aware of their situation as Ottoman subjects among others. While the files of the Archive of the Oral Tradition have many authors and are made up of fragments providing a patchwork of memories and impressions, the typescripts are individual works, authored mostly by more educated people, who wanted to give their testimony and who also had the necessary literacy to do so. The two typescripts I have used were produced by two former Rum teachers with a good command of Ottoman Turkish. Comparing academic historiography with these grassroots’ testimonies, one gets a general picture of what Greek Orthodox Ottoman subjects could have perceived about the destruction of the neighbouring group. The documents of CAMS lack a certain degree of precision.

No one can expect witnesses who testify years later after the events, without having had access to official documents, to have the overview of an omniscient professional historian, working on a non-controversial issue with free access to official archives. But they tell us something different: for instance, whether the Greek Orthodox were aware, to a certain extent, that a neighbouring group was about to disappear from the social setting. They enable us to recreate the most probable horizon, as Alain Corbin would put it, of perception of their fellow Ottomans in the last stage of Ottoman history. Normalcy and watersheds in Ottoman history
The Oral Tradition archives at CAMS resonate with nostalgia for life in former Ottoman territories. This can be seen as symptomatic of the standard phenomenon of an older generation mourning their lost youth, but it also underlines the perception of an Ottoman normalcy lost for ever, rarely broached in nationalist historiographies
of both groups:

"We had very good relations with the Turks before the events, the massacre of the Armenians and the destruction of Smyrna. They would not annoy us at that time. In 1925, we left in a nice way. Of a tormented and dishonoured people, we did not sense anything." 36F or some fortunate Christian Orthodox Ottoman subjects, the Treaty of Lausanne(1923), which included a compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Modern Turkey, was carried out smoothly. They did not have to go through the trauma of mass expulsion as the inhabitants of Smyrna and the whole Ionian
region, which preceded the signature of the treaty, and which made it a mere formal acceptation of a fait accompli. The normalcy of the places left behind clearly included the contribution of different neighbours, but refugees may tend to overemphasize the happiness of daily life in missed places:
Apart from the mine, we produced wheat, maize, vegetables. The largest watermelon in the world: 80–100 oka. [. . .] At that time, Armenians would grow those; I don’t know what happens now. They prospered on the Tigris banks because small bostan need sand and
there was manure from the many pigeons that lived in the thousands over there.37

PERCEPTION OF THE OTHER’S FATE

During the normal Ottoman times, the reciprocal perceptions among the two
Christian groups were not uniform everywhere in the Empire. However, diffuse animosity was, at least, common. Open hostility could even be the norm at some places, like Argana Maden (Ergani Maden in today’s Turkish), while Christians of whatever group in neighbouring Diayarbakır were reported to have had a less Hellenized and thus more ecumenical perception of their Christianity:In Argana there were about 300 Armenian families that used to live in a separate mahalle
[city quarter]. The Pontic Greeks had no relation with them and would not intermarry. If an Armenian girl wanted to marry a Rum, she had to baptize again on the Sunday of Orthodoxy. When the Rum saw an Armenian, they used to spit. People would exclude (xegraphane) the girl who married an Armenian. In Diyarbakır though, intermarriages used to occur. Armenian women preferred to go and work as house maids in Turkish
places, not to Greek ones.38 Even the Christianity of Armenians was dubious for the Church of Constantinople, whose power stretched over those Orthodox living on the Black Sea shore in Argana. Hence the above insistence on the re-baptism of an Armenian girl who was the bride-to-be of an Orthodox man. The Muslim/Christian divide was, at least in some circumstances, easier to handle than the unwelcome brotherhood
between Christians of different denominations, because of its conspicuous character.

It was even easier for Orthodox girls to go to work in Turkish rather than
Armenian houses. The conversion to Islam or the marriage with a Muslim
young man was less likely to happen, given the scope of the taboo involved,
than a misalliance between an Armenian and an Orthodox girl. Nostalgia for the Ottoman past is also consistent with reports, by refugees from
those places concerned, when it comes to the Hamdian massacres (1894–96).
There were signs of modern outbursts of violence, clearly perceived by the Orthodox Ottomans. The outbursts of violence that took place in the provinces, for instance, in Cappadocia between 1894 and 1896, were especially vivid recollections for the Greek orthodox refugees in Greece. There are complete descriptions of these episodes in the files of CAMS:
During the Armenian massacres of 1896, he was 5–6 years old. He was at school on that day.


As the news was reaching school that the Turks were massacring the Armenians at the market of Cæsaria, the teacher who was from Skopi gathered the children and sent them back to their houses but not through the sokak [lanes]. The massacre did not last longer than 2 hours. The looting and the ill-deeds lasted longer. The massacre occurred at the market place. 150 Armenians and 17 Rum were killed, the latter by mistake, [because]
people took them for Armenians. A Turkish horseman was driving around the Christian quarters, shouting at the Turks who were running infuriated, to be careful and not hurt the Rum, to distinguish the Rum from the others. The Turks supported them a lot. They could not bear the Armenians. Therefore they did not approach the Christian mahalle [city quarter] and molest
them. The 17 Hellenes who were killed, were at the market during those hours. They were not recognized and were killed.39

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Still if the distinction made by the Muslim Turkish population and government guaranteed safety on that occasion, the atmosphere soon changed for all in 66 those provinces: “After the Armenian massacres that happened in Cæsaria in 1896, these Christians began to move to other Christian quarters because they were afraid.”40 The Hamidian massacres hit the entire Ottoman social fabric and distorted normal expectations among the Christians of all denominations: In my father’s years (1870–1880) the Christian houses in Cæsaria numbered about 500. [. . .]
Their number diminished because people emigrated to foreign places. When the Armenian massacres took place (in 1896), people were afraid. All those who had money took their families with them. [Only] the poor remained behind.41 The Hamidian policy caused changes of population, migration, and eventually weakened the Christian presence in the inner lands. Even if there is no continuity between the late 1890s and 1915, the first modern, centrally organized massacres made the eventual eradication of Ottoman Christians easier. The reinforcement of the Constitution in 1908 is generally systematically presented as an occasion of collective rejoicing, where scenes of fraternization occurred between all the different linguistic and religious groups. This was not only the case in large cities in the Western parts of the empire, events which are already well known,42 but also in the inner areas, as Koˆnstantinos Kaloyeris reports about Erzincan:43
In 1909 [sic] the Constitution (Hu¨rriyet) [sic] happened. In Erzincan, the Turks celebrated the Constitution with magnificence. There were demonstrations with flags, mutual invitations between Christians and Turkswith sherbet, speecheswere delivered. For the big demonstration,
they invited the Hellenes. I, along with five other pupils of the school, held one of the Turkish flags.We were altogether some twenty youths, along with older people, and with our flags first, we went to the saray [government’s building], shouting: “Yas¸asın Hu¨rriyet!” (Long live to the
Constitution!) [sic]. There we saw complete contingents of Armenian and Turkish pupils.44 The Orthodox witness emphasizes the presence of Armenian pupils taking part in the celebrations. He, as member of small group of Armenian-speaking Orthodox, has a rare position in between the main groups of the city. However, this initial enthusiasm was soon all too quickly followed by utter disillusionment. Thus it is that 1908 is presented by many refugees as the beginning of the end of Ottoman normalcy. As Petros Yoˆrgopoulos or Mu’alim Petraki put it, speaking about Diyabarbakır:45 “From the Turkish Constitution, the Christian people awaited a peaceful, fearless and free life with complete sincerity.
Unfortunately, the opposite happened.”46 Some people, with access to information, even relate the reinforcement of the Constitution and the Armenian massacres in Cilicia: “Right after the constitution, the famous massacre of Armenians in Adana, Cilicia happened. The Turks xxxxxled on the constitution, the freedoms, gave themselves up to the extermination of the Christian element.”47 The testimony shows that people could be informed about events happening elsewhere in the empire and that Orthodox may sympathize, at least in retrospect, with Armenians, who in this sentence are clearly included in the label “Christian.”

Seven years later, at some places, the Greek Orthodox population were deeply upset by the violence targeted against a neighbouring group. They could not be completely certain that the administration would make the distinction between the two groups for ever. In some places, the Greek Orthodox were directly threatened too: “When they slaughtered the Armenians in Argana, in 1914–1918, they also put
Hellenes under arrest48 [i.e. Orthodox Christians] with the pretext that they were hiding arms.”49 The menace did not materialize, but the possibility of a similar treatment must have remained present in the minds of Greek Orthodox Ottoman subjects: “In 1915–1916, the massacre took place. They caught Christians (too) [i.e. the Orthodox Christians] at the beginning, as well as the priest and they beat them two or three times. But an order came soon and they let them (go).”50 The scheme applied to Greek Orthodox was not exactly the same as that meant for the Armenians, and according to indications in the testimony, the Rum population were aware of this. The centrally planned decisions foresaw something else for Orthodox Christians, even if in some cases, similar methods could be applied locally and if the local implementation of orders coming from far away endangered the Orthodox, because of the outburst of enthusiasm among perpetrators.

According to Greek Orthodox testimonies, escaping the massacre was not an
option for most, although some could make it through conversion and other
ways of being incorporated into the Muslim group. Child labour, covered by the institution of fostering children, which presupposes the kidnapping of children, saved the life of many Armenian children, who, however, were spared only to find that they would no longer be Armenians. In some places, some seized the opportunity and worked hard to escape to another place which was safer for the Armenians and where a glimmer of collective future was preserved: Many Armenians converted and could stay in Diyarbakır. Quite a few small children who were house maids and boys (hypirites) at Turkish houses were saved too. The Armenians’
shops were seized by the ag˘a, but since they did not succeed in trade, they put in their shops some of those Armenian children and Chaldeans. Those, since they had learned their trade, saved money and escaped to Aleppo. There was a network of transportation that some Pontic Greek exiles also used in order to leave.51 Adults could occasionally try to escape through conversion: “From the Armenians, about one hundred escaped. Some had to become Turks.”52 The possibility of conversation in order to escape the annihilation of one’s group has been a taboo among Western Armenians until recently. The publication of books by today’s Turkish citizens claiming the Armenian part of their heritage has eased discussion about this issue. Some Armenian authors had already dealt with this issue, such as Yervant Odian, who was converted to Islam in Homs, Syria, but would not practise the imposed religion nor use his new Muslim name. The conversion
did not prevent the Ottoman authorities fromdeporting himagain toDer-ez-Zor, from where he was not supposed to escape alive, but which he did, by chance.

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Ottoman Orthodox remember their neighbours’ fate


Unsurprisingly, when it comes to what happened after 1915, similar scenes and analogous motives are constantly repeated in most of the files in the archives of CAMS. Some secondary details may change, dates may be recollected imprecisely or erroneously—but this can be expected when dealing with such material:memory functions in a dynamic with oblivion.54 This is also not surprising since official dates often played a minor role in everyday life, especially if one considers the multiplicity of calendars, the many different Ottoman systems, the two competing Christian calendars, and, not least, the official change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar experienced by Greece and the refugees in 1923. But the repetition of similar motifs is still impressive, despite the minor variations.
Research has already shown that the treatment was not a random one. There is an all-too-natural convergence between official written documents and oral (even if transcribed) sources from former civil society. History considered from above, that is, from within the Ottoman archives, and history considered from below, that is, the narratives of Armenian survivors or Greek Orthodox bystanders, eventually merge to a great extent. It is just a matter of time for the historiographical accomplishment to be turned into politically acceptable facts.


The refugees’ remembrance of the past is not equivalent to a clear knowledge of different periods of time, as some historians have already emphasized.55 Nevertheless, a gross chronology is present in the informants’ words. The main trouble experienced by the Ottoman Armenians took place after the empire went to war against the Entente. This testimony shows the difference of perception between 1915 and the Hamidian massacres, which targeted urban centres and were not of general scope. Greek Orthodox villagers considered the fate of the Ottoman Armenians according to what happened in their own village. Similarly, on the
basis of Greek Orthodox refugees’ testimonies, it is difficult to make a clear distinction in space between the different areas of the Ottoman Empire, though the Ottoman treatment of the Armenians differed according to an East–West divide. The “Armenian” provinces were targeted first by the Ottoman authorities, which resulted in massive massacres, while Armenians in the provinces of Western Anatolia, including Cilicia, were more likely to survive until Syria. In Bursa, the process took place quickly: “When they massacred the Armenians, they simply removed them from Bursa and we did not understand one thing.”56 This description is corroborated by an Armenian testimony too.57 The higher probability of survival for Armenians from Bursa cannot be seen in the Greek Orthodox testimony.


When reading the documents of CAMS, the first surprise is that Greek
Orthodox refugees commonly expressed indifference towards the treatment of Armenians on Ottoman lands. Some described what happened to their neighbours, putting the blame on the victims, possibly as a way to rationalize the extreme violence that took place. This scheme of explanation is common among bystanders and sympathizers of the perpetrators’ cause.58 This testimony originates from a region where Armenians were not disturbed in the war but carefully targeted in 1922, when the Greek administration was brought to an end: The massacres of Armenians did not sadden us. We had no fear. We had our consulate that
would support us. They were a people without any organization. They massacred them like lambs, but they too were guilty. They regularly rebelled. They were in a foreign place. Didn’t they know what was going to happen to them?59 The categories of “foreign place” and “consulate” testify to how legitimate the vocabulary of the nation state was, and how it had already pervaded some minds in the Near East, before and certainly after the constitution.

True, Armenians in the Smyrna region were not in Armenia. Before the constitution of the Caucasus Republic of Armenia with its representatives in Smyrna and Greece, true Armenians had no “consulate” of their own. Smyrna even received the official visit of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, Khadissian, who was first and foremost interested in the financial capacities of the Smyrna Armenians who were summoned to help the fledgling Republic. Clearly, however, the refugee’s specific political vocabulary
did not suit the Ottoman setting. The switch in categories accompanied or
even provoked the dissolution of the Ottoman social and anthropological
structures. Obviously, the Rum were already in another political situation, while Armenians had to stick to a mere Ottoman status.60 The blame put on the victims helps ease the position of the witness, and in so doing, prevents any reproach of not sympathizing with the victims.

The rationalizations of Orthodox bystanders could be quite refined. The secessionist projects of some among the Armenian elite were common knowledge for Ottoman subjects. The logic of violence targeted at a whole group was not seen or qualified as scandalous, since most Ottomans of whatever creed shared a similar political basis, something made obvious in the vocabulary used by simple people, who imagined the independent Armenian state in traditional Ottoman terms. Greek Orthodox refugees had understanding for the brutal policy implemented by the Ottoman state:
The Armenians wanted to create their beylik [principality] and the Turks were enraged and they slaughtered a great many of them in Cæsaria. I was in Samursaklı at that time and I remember. In Samursaklı we had Armenians but they did not kill them then. The Christians
[i.e. the Orthodox Christians] were not afraid. After the seferberlik [mobilization], they took them and persecuted them. They drove them far away and they were lost.61

Taking into account the social setting prior to the outburst of violence allows for a more refined interpretation by the Greek Orthodox of the perpetrators’ motivations for breaking down the former social and economic balance. Though not always clearly articulated in all documents, an intentionalist scheme can be perceived in the description of an earlier non-egalitarian economic and social system, bordering on injustice in favour of the non-Muslims, especially the Greek Orthodox and the Armenians, who were doing better in economic terms than the Muslims. Members of the Orthodox group, which was only targeted in a limited way in this area, rationalize the attitude of the perpetrators by noting the feelings of jealousy and the frustration towards Christians who were enjoying a more agreeable life, evoked in the image of them enjoying the refreshing banks of the Tigris River in summer time. The Christian population is described in this almost Orientalist
image as homogeneously well-off, while individual testimonies of local Christians provide us with another picture of the situation, where many people had difficulties in making both ends meet. The focus on one special place ignores other places where the Ottoman elite could socialize in their leisure time:

The city of Diyarbakır was built on the right bank of the River Tigris at a distance of approximately half an hour. The river flew east from the city. We went out of the city through the socalled “Yeni kapı” [New Gate], we went downwards and reached quickly the river. There
were many bostan [vegetable gardens] there. The watermelons of Diyarbakır were famous, each one weighed between 30 and 40 oka [oke]. Renowned watermelons. Such a sweetness and taste, I could never find again in watermelons. The bostan belonged to Hellenes
and Armenians. The Turks did not succeed with that. This spot was pleasant and cool in the summer. Many Rum and Armenians used to go down to the bostan when it was very hot and built c¸ardak [arbors] with reeds and they used to stay there a fortnight, a month if they wanted.

[Joseph]

7

The Greek Orthodox population in the remote inner parts of the Ottoman Empire was not directly concerned by the demographic engineering applied to their fellow Orthodox living in more critical parts of the Empire like the Ionian and the Pontic coastlines. Despite censorship, a diffuse knowledge of what was being perpetrated elsewhere developed. The historical mobility of the Greek Orthodox population, that is, the former economic migrations, made it possible for the Greek Orthodox from remote regions like Mesopotamia to establish solidarity links with deportees from far away, like the Black Sea shores:

The inhabitants of the city Argana Maden originated from Gu¨mu¨s¸ Maden. There were no grand fathers there, as the Pontic Greeks used to say, the mine created them. This place is located at the end of Turkey; it is called Mesopotamia, because it is situated between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Christians [i.e. the Orthodox Christians] consisted
of 250 families, the Armenians were more numerous, but they slaughtered them in 1915. I remember that well, the massacre took place in the River Tigris. They exiled them there
from the whole Pontic region. They, men, women and children, remained one whole year at Greek houses.63

The testimony suggests that Armenian deportees from the Black Sea region were hosted in Greek Orthodox regions for one year, which would mark a rare manifestation of solidarity between the two groups. Since the personal pronouns in Greek are not very precise, the same sentence may refer to Greek Orthodox deportees hosted at fellow Orthodox regions, which would be a more traditional situation.


Conclusion


The treatment of the Ottoman Armenians did not remain unnoticed by their Greek Orthodox neighbours. Though the two groups were firmly established in their ideological differences, the systematic elimination of the Armenian group was a bad omen for the Greek Orthodox Ottomans. As only a few expressions of solidarity occurred, the fate of the fellow Christians was terrifying enough for the Greek Orthodox and constituted a real possibility for them too. This article has concentrated on testimonies from inner regions, but those from the coastlines often include accounts of deportations experienced by the Rum too, with scenes similar to the forced deportation treks survived by some of the Ottoman Armenians in the Syrian deserts.

This is no random discovery: official Ottoman documents
have also shed light on the comprehensive “demographic engineering”
schemes that were applied. The testimonies held at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies show, however, that
the eradication of the other group was no secret among Ottoman subjects and that those events provoked different reactions and interpretations. These voices reach us from a time when the policy of denial was not even necessary. However, the mere crushing of the Ottoman Armenian survivors and its international acceptance by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), seemingly liquidating the “Armenian Question” for good, did not prevent the Orthodox grass roots from bearing witness to what had happened next to them.


Notes and References
1 Herve´ Georgelin, La fin de la Belle-E´ poque a`
Smyrne, des anne´es 1870 a`
septembre 1922, PhD thesis (Paris:
E ´
cole des Hautes E ´
tudes en Sciences Sociale, 2002).
2 Christos Spanomanoˆlis, Mpeı¨le´rSo ka´ k [Beyler Sokag˘ı] (Athens: Privately published 1966).
3 Karl Dietrich, Das Griechentum Kleinasiens [Hellenism of Asia Minor], in La¨nder und Vo¨lker der Tu¨rkei,
Schriften des Deutschen Vorderasienkomittees, No 9 (Leipzig: Verlag von Veit et Comp., 1915), p 1.
4 CAMS, AOT, file Po448, Sinop, “Exile-exodus,” Interview of Kyriakitsa Papadopoulou by Sophia
Dondolinou (CAMS) (other information missing).
5 Jakob Ku¨nzler, Im Lande des Blutes und der Tra¨nen, Erlebnisse in Mesopotamien wa¨hren des Weltkrieges
(1914–1918), Hans-Lukas Kieser, ed. (Zurich: Chronos, 1999, 2nd ed. 2004), p 90: “everyone who would
give shelter to Armenians would run the risk of being oneself deported.”
6 “Zimmi” designated in Ottoman times a non-Muslim subject. The word comes from Koran Arabic “dimmi.”
In the sura 9:29 Christian and Jews are declared protected minorities (ahl ad-dimma), on the condition that
they pay a special poll-tax (g˘izya), and are then granted a limited religious freedom. These norms are adaptable
in local contexts and variable according to the period under consideration. However, these regulations
can influence the mutual anthropological perception of Christians and Jews on former Ottoman lands until
today.
7 Ge´
rard De´de´yan, ed., Histoire des Arme´niens (Toulouse: Privat, 1982), pp 171 and following.
8 Hans-Lukas Kieser, “Missionary America and Ottoman Turkey. The seminal break of World War I,” in:
A Question for Belonging. Anatolia beyond Empire and Nation (19th–21st Centuries), pp 11–65 (Istanbul:
Isis Press, 2007), pp 16 and following.
9 “Ermeni” or Armenians, more precisely Armenian Apostolic Christians, and “Rum” or Romans, more precisely
Greek Orthodox Christians.
10 Herve´ Georgelin, “‘La Renaissance’ and the aftermath of World War I, December 9, 1918–February 10,
1920,” in: Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., Armenian Constantinople (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press, forthcoming).
11 Kevork B. Bardakjian, “The rise of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople,” in: Braude and Lewis, op
cit, pp 89–100.
12 Rene´ Grousset, Histoire de l’Arme´nie (Paris: Payot, 1984), p 615.
13 http://ermeni.org/ermenice/ani_uni.htm.
14 George A. Bournoutian, A Concise History of the Armenian People (Costa Meza, CA: Mazda, 2003),
pp 186–187.
15 Raymond Ke´vorkian and Paul Paboudjian, Les Arme´niens dans l’Empire ottoman a`
la veille du ge´nocide
(Paris: E ´
ditions d’Art et d’Histoire, 1992), pp 43 and following.
16 Hagop J. Sirouni, [Constantinople and its Role] (Beirut: Printing House of the
Armenian Catholicossate of Cilicia, Vol 1, 1965, Vol 2, 1970, Vol 3, 1987, Vol 4, 1988), Vol 1, p 9.
17 Bernard Lory, “Parler le turc dans les Balkans ottomans au XIX
e sie`cle,” in: Les Balkans: De la transition postottomane
a`la transition post-communiste, pp 47–60 (Istanbul: Les E ´
ditions Isis, 2005), p 52.
18 Raymond Ke´vorkian and Paul Paboudjian, Les Arme´niens dans l’Empire ottoman, Map No 1, p 52:
“De´coupage administratif du Haut Plateau arme´nien avant 1964”; and Chapter IV: “De´mographie et
de´coupages administratifs,” pp 53 and following.
HERVE´ GEORGELIN
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19 CAMS, AOT, file IOˆ N1, Smyrna, chapter “Mahalle,” Interview of Dimitrios Hiliadis (born in 1900, in
Smyrna) by Zoˆi Kyritsopoulou (CAMS), Athens, April 15, 1970.
20 CAMS, unpublished typescript (UT), Koˆnstantinos Grig. Kalogeridis, ChE5, To Erzincan ki ho Pontos,
Thessaloniki, 1957, p 1.
21 “Cadre Historique et ge´ographique, introduction,” in: Michel Bruneau, Ioannis Hassiotis, Martine Hovanessian
and Claire Mouradian, eds, Arme´niens et Grecs en diaspora: approaches comparatives, pp 29 and
following (Athens: E ´
cole franc¸aise d’Athe`nes, 2007).
22 Herve´
Georgelin, “Sur les marges de la roˆ
miosyni ottomane: le cas des Hay-Horoums,” in: S. Anestidis and
H. Georgelin, Proceedings of the Conference “Greeks of Anatolia and Istanbul,” E ´
cole franc¸aise d’Athe`
nes,
February 23–25, 2006, in collaboration with the Institut franc¸ais d’E ´
tudes anatoliennes (Istanbul) and the
Centre for Asia Minor Studies (Athens) (Athens: E ´
FA, forthcoming). The name of the group can be translated
fromArmenian to English by “Armenian Romans” or “Armenian Greeks,” or even “Armenian GreekOrthodox.”
23 Father Hagop Qossian, [The Armenians in Smyrna and the Surroundings],
Vol 1: [Smyrna and the Armenians] (Vienna: Mechitarists’ Printing
House, 1899), p 36.
24 Evangelia Balta, Karamanlidika, Bibliographie analytique (Athens: Centre d’E´ tudes d’Asie Mineure, Vols 1
and 2, 1987, Vol 3, 1997) and Hasmik A. Derstepanyan, Bibliographie des livres et de la presse arme´no-turcs
(1727–1968) (Istanbul: Tu¨rkuaz Press, 2005). These two bibliographies attest to the vivid Christian use of the
Turkish language, prior to the destruction, by various means, of both the Armenian and the Greek Orthodox
groups on the Ottoman central lands (1915–24).
25 Marc Aymes, “Lin-coton: l’e´toffe d’une communaute´
partage´e,” Labyrinthes, Atelier interdisciplinaire, No
21, 2005, pp 111–120, especially p 120.
26 Fuat Du¨ndar, op cit, Chapter 2, “Chapitre II: La Connaissance: Carte, recensement et ethnographie,” pp 63
and following.
27 Ioˆannis [C]hassioˆtis, “The Greeks and the Armenian massacres (1890–1896),” Neo-Hellenika, Vol IV, 1981,
pp 69–109; I. [C]hassioˆtis, “The historical background to the Greek and Armenian national movements, an
initial comparison,” in: To Hellenikon, Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr. (Athens: Aristide D. Caratzas
Publisher, 1993); I. Chassioˆtis, “The Armenian genocide and the Greeks: response and records (1915–1923),”
in: Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide, History, Politics, Ethics, pp 129–151 (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1992).
28 P. Kokinos, [Excerpts from the History of the Armenian Colony
in Greece] (Yerevan: Academy of Sciences of the SRA, 1965).
29 Western Armenian literature may be a different issue. The Istanbul-based novel
[The Sunset of the Ants] by Zaven Biberian, serialized first in the Armenian-
language Istanbul-based daily Jamanak and first published as a book in 1983, hosts all main human
groups residing in Republican Istanbul. It has just been republished (Istanbul: Ara Yayıncılık, 2007).
30 Fuat Du¨ndar, L’inge´nierie ethnique du Comite´ Union et Progre`s: la turcisation de l’Anatolie (1913–1918),
PhD thesis (Paris: E ´
cole des Hautes E ´
tudes en Sciences Sociales, 2006).
31 Abou Loussine, “The`se: ‘L’inge´nierie ethnique du Comite´ Union et Progre`s: la turcisation de l’Anatolie
(1913–1918)’ ou A `
propos d’un moment de graˆce universitaire,” available at http://www.yevrobatsi.org/
st/item.php?r¼10&id¼2434.
32 Raymond Ke´vorkian, Le Ge´nocide des Arme´niens (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2006).
33 Archive of the Oral Tradition (AOT) and unpublished typescripts at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies
(CAMS), Kydathinaioˆn 11, Athens 10 558, Greece.
34 Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past, Oral History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1878, 2000), pp 23,
24.
35 Paschalis M. Kitromilidis, ed., E jhn tap1´
n t1 xro´
n ia 1 pisthmon ikh´ 6 prosfo ra´ 6, Apo´ti´mhsh kai
proo ptikh´ [Sixty-five Years of Scientific Contribution, Evaluation and Perspective] (Athens: Centre for
Asia Minor Studies, 1996).
36 CAMS, AOT, file ChT1, Argana Maden, “Miscellaneous,” Interview of Koˆnstantinos Ioˆannou Tsimbolaı¨
dis
(born in 1907, in Argana Maden) by Zoˆi Karatza (CAMS), Athens, July 14, 1958, pp 14–15.
37 Ibid.
38 Centre for Asia Minor Studies (CAMS), Archives of the Oral Tradition (AOT), file ChT1, Argana Maden,
“Relations with the Armenians,” Interview of Silvestros Tsimbolaı¨dis (born in 1907, in Argana Maden) by
Eleni Karatza (CAMS), Athens, July 14, 1958.
39 CAMS, AOT, file 45-46-47, Cæsaria, “Armenian Massacres,” Interview of Ilpiktsoglou (unidentified in this
file, place of interview missing) by Sophia Dondolinou (CAMS), April 1953, p 59.
40 CAMS, AOT, file KP 45-46-47, Cæsaria, “Inhabitants,” Interview of Polyvios Michalis (born in 1872, in
Cæsaria) by Sophia Dondolinou (CAMS), Athens, September 10, 1952, p 118.
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41 CAMS, AOT, file KP 45-46-47, Cæsaria, “Inhabitants,” Interview of Mamas Mikoglou (born in 1880, in
Cæsaria) by Sophia Dondolinou (CAMS), Thessaloniki, April 20, 1953, p 122.
42 Feroz Ahmad, “Unionist relations with the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities of the Ottoman
Empire,” 1908–14, in: B. Braude and B. Lewis, op cit, p 401: “In July 1908, all the ethnic and religious
communities of the Ottoman Empire greeted the restoration of the Constitution with great enthusiasm.
Communal leaders fraternized together and joined in the public demonstrations celebrating the opening of
a new era.”
43 CAMS, AOT, file ChE7, Erzincan, “Informant’s identification note,” Interview of Koˆnstantinos Grigorios
Kaloyeris by Isaak Papadopoulos, Thessaloniki, November 23, 1955: “Koˆnstantinos Grigorios Kaloyeris
was born in 1898 in Kugh-Vanq. He came here [Greece] in 1923. He is literate. He speaks Greek, knows
Turkish and Armenian. He went in 1918 to Russia. He worked there as a teacher. Today he is a retired
teacher. He is married with three children. He is very helpful and remembers a lot. [. . .]”
44 CAMS, UT (unpublished typescript), ChE5, Koˆnstantinos Grig. Kaloyeris, E rzigkia´n. H zvh´ th6 po´l1 v6,
h´uh kai1´uima, Anamn h´s1 i6 th6 paidikh´ 6 mo y zvh´ 6[Erzincan, The Life of the City, Customs and Mores,
Memories of my Life as a Child], p 21. The Ottoman Constitution was reinforced in July 1908. “Hu¨rriyet”
means “freedom” and not “constitution” in Turkish. “Constitution” in that time was “Mes¸rutiyet.” The
Greek of the informants is pervaded by Turkish, especially their political and administrative vocabulary,
which is a strong indicator of the practical closeness of all groups.
45 CAMS, AOT, file ChT4, Bakos, “Informant’s identification note,” Interview of Petros Yeoˆrgopoulos by Eleni
Karatza, Nea Ioˆnia, July 13, 1958: “Petros Yeoˆrgopoulos (Mu’alim Petrakis ¼ Master Petrakis in Arabic, a
common language in Ottoman Diyarbakır) was born in Bakos in 1884. The family originated from the village
Chalda (where there were no family names. He became Yeoˆrgopoulos here because his family was a peasant
family). At the age of three, he went to Diyarbakır where he studied Turkish and some Greek. He worked
twelve years as teacher of Turkish in the Greek community of Diyarbakır. Later on, he learned better
Greek from some Greeks there. He knows Arabic and Kurdish too. He came to Greece with the Exchange.
He opened here a kiosk and afterwards he became chanter in 1956. He is now retired. His wife is from
Diyarbakır and there are two children. Although he lived briefly in his village, he went three times for two
to three months each time. He remembers quite an amount of things, he is a positive informant willing to
help. [. . .]”
46 CAMS, UT, ChT4, Petros Yeoˆrgopoulos, To bibli´on th6 zvh´ 6 mo y [The Book of my Life] (Athens:
Privately published 1965), p 31.
47 CAMS, UT, ChE5, p 24.
48 The word “Hellines” is omnipresent in the testimonies of some refugees, though it used to be of very limited
use in the Ottoman context unless one had to designate citizens of the Kingdom of Greece. The spontaneous
designation, still valid until today in Istanbul, was “Roˆmios” in Greek and “Rum” in Turkish.
49 CAMS, AOT, file ChT1, Argana Maden, “Persecutions in Argana Maden,” Interview of Christos
Papadopoulos (born in 1901, in Diyarbakır) by Eleni Karatza (CAMS), Athens, December 13, 1956.
50 CAMS, AOT, file ChT1, Argana Maden, “The massacre of the Armenians,” Interview of Silvestros
Tsimbolaı¨
dis (born in 1907, in Argana Maden) by Eleni Karatza (CAMS), Athens, July 14, 1958.
51 CAMS, AOT, file ChT2, Diyarbakır, “The flight of the Armenians to Aleppo,” Interview of Christos
Papadopoulos (born in 1901, in Diyarbakır) by Eleni Karatza (CAMS), Athens, November 29, 1956.
52 CAMS, AOT, file ChT1, Argana Maden, “The massacre of the Armenians,” Interview of Silvestros
Tsimbolaı¨
dis (born in 1907, in Argana Maden) by Eleni Karatza (CAMS), Athens, July 14, 1958.
53 Yervant Odian, 1914–1919 [Accursed Years,
1914–1919 (Personal Memories)] (Yerevan: Nayri, 2004), pp 392 and following.
54 Despite its plasticity, memory is not to be rejected a priori by historians: Paul Thompson, The Voice of the
Past, pp 25 and following.
55 Alain Corbin, Le Monde retrouve´ de Louis-Franc¸ois Pinagot (English translation: The Life of an Unknown:
The Rediscovered World of a Clog Maker in Nineteenth-Century France, trans. Arthur Goldhammer)
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), Chapter 7: “The dis-compound past.”
56 CAMS, AOT, file B135, Bursa, “Recent history,” Interview of Angeliki Kambanou (born in 1881, in Bursa)
by B. Nikiphoridis (CAMS), Athens, March 30, 1959.
57 Ange`le Kourtian, Ta t1 tra´ dia th6 An z1´l Ko yrtia´n, mn h´m16 apo´thMikra´ A si´a [Ange`le Kourtian’s
Notebooks, Memories from Asia Minor] (Athens: Plethron, 1980).
58 Jacques Se´melin, Purifier et De´truire, Usages politiques et ge´nocides (Paris: Seuil, 2005), pp 129 and following:
“Le roˆle du tiers”: “[le] tiers est bel et bien implique´ dans la dynamique sociale qui va conduire ou non a`
la marginalisation croissante des victimes de´signe´es. [. . .] Ce tiers voisin, ce tiers proche n’est pas ne´cessairement
un ennemi du nouveau re´gime politique. [. . .] si le tiers reste globalement indiffe´rent a`
la perse´cution des
victimes alors la voie est ouverte au de´veloppement d’une violence encore plus intense.”
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59 CAMS, AOT, file IOˆ N27, Bunarbas¸ı, “Echoes of historical events,” Interview of Koˆstis Lamprinoudis (born
in 1887, in Bunarbas¸ı) by Chara Lioudaki (CAMS), Athens, March 22, 1965.
60 Eva Achladi, “Opposite views on national politics and communal autonomy in the Greek-Orthodox
community of Smyrna: the by-elections of 1911 and the elections of March and August 1912 in the vilayet
of Aydın-Smyrna,” in: S. Anestidis and H. Georgelin, eds, Proceedings of the Conference “Greeks of
Anatolia and Istanbul.”
61 CAMS, AOT, file KP 45-46-47, Cæsaria, “Armenian massacres,” Interview of Stephanos Keı¨soglou
(information about the informant is missing in the file; it may erroneously be included in another one) by
Sophia Dondolinou (CAMS), March 7, 1956.
62 CAMS, AOT, file ChT2, Diyarbakır, “The River Tigris,” Interview of Damianos Papadopoulos (born in 1907,
in Argana Maden) by Eleni Gazi (CAMS), Athens, January 25, 1965.
63 CAMS, AOT, file ChT1, Argana Maden, “Miscellaneous,” Interview of Koˆnstantinos Ioˆannou (born in 1903,
in Argana Maden) by Zoˆ i Kyritsopoulou (CAMS), Athens–Saphrampoli, August 25, 1968.
PERCEPTION OF THE OTHER’S FATE