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The Greeks of Istanbul

See also: Ottoman Greeks
Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the capital of the Byzantine Empire until 1453, when the city was conquered by Ottoman forces. A large Greek community continued to live in the multi-ethnic Ottoman capital city. The city’s Greek population, particularly the Phanariotes, came to play a significant role in the social and economic life of the city and in the political and diplomatic life of the Islamic but multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman Empire in general. This continued after the establishment of an independent Greek state in 1829, as well, despite the fact that during the Greek independence war incidents of massacres against Greek clergymen were seen. A number of ethnic Greeks served in the Ottoman Imperial diplomatic service and even leading politics in the 19th century and early 20th century.

Following the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the establishment of the nation-state Republic of Turkey, the population exchange agreement signed between Greece and Turkey resulted in the uprooting of all Greeks in modern Turkey (and Turks in Greece) from where many of them had lived for centuries (Asia Minor, Anatolia). But due to the Greeks' strong emotional attachment to their ancient capital as well as the importance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for Greek and worldwide orthodoxy, the Greek population of Istanbul was specifically exempted and allowed to stay in place. Nevertheless, this population began to decline, as evidenced by demographic statistics.

Punitive nationalist exclusivist measures, such as the 1932 parliamentary law, barred Greek citizens living in Turkey from a series of 30 trades and professions from tailoring and carpentry to medicine, law and real estate.[9][page number needed] The Wealthy Levy imposed in 1942 also served to reduce the economic potential of Greek businesspeople in Turkey

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Context

The pogrom was triggered by Greece's appeal in 1954 to the United Nations to demand self-determination for Cyprus. Britain had the ruling mandate over the mostly ethnic Greek island, and wanted the Cyprus dispute to be resolved without being taken to the United Nations Security Council, where it could be problematically framed as an anti-colonialist struggle.[10][7] To this end, Britain diplomatically encouraged Turkey to agitate Greece. The British ambassador to Greece also incited, saying in an August 1954 speech that Greco-Turkish ties were superficial, so nothing would be lost if, for example, something were to happen to Ataturk's house in Thessaloniki. More bluntly, an official of the Foreign Office said that some agitation would be much to Turkey's benefit. In any case, said parliamentarian John Strachey, Turkey had a large ethnic Greek minority in Istanbul as a card to play against Greece if she should consider annexing an independent Cyprus to Greece.[11]

Since 1954, a number of nationalist student and irredentist organizations, such as the National Federation of Turkish Students (Turkish: Türkiye Milli Talebe Federasyonu), the National Union of Turkish Students, and Hikmet Bil's (editor of the major newspaper Hürriyet) Cyprus is Turkish Association (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türktür Cemiyeti), had protested against the Greek minority and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.[6][7][8]

In 1955, a state-supported propaganda campaign involving the Turkish press galvanized public opinion against the Greek minority, targeting Athenogoras, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Phanar, in particular.[7][12] Leading the pack was Hürriyet, which wrote on 28 August 1955: "If the Greeks dare touch our brethren, then there are plenty of Greeks in Istanbul to retaliate upon." Ömer Sami Coşar from Cumhuriyet wrote on 30 August:[7]

Neither the Patriarchate nor the Rum minority ever openly supported Turkish national interests when Turkey and Athens clashed over certain issues. In return, the great Turkish nation never raised its voice about this. But do the Phanar Patriarchate and our Rum citizens in Istanbul have special missions assigned by Greece in its plans to annex Cyprus? While Greece was crushing Turks in Western Thrace and was appropriating their properties by force, our Rum Turkish citizens lived as free as we do, sometimes even more comfortably. We think that these Rums, who choose to remain silent in our struggle with Greece, are clever enough not to fall into the trap of four or five provocateurs.

Tercüman, Yeni Sabah, and Gece Postası followed suit.[12] The `Cyprus is Turkish` Association (CTA) stepped up activities in the weeks leading up to the riots, increasing the number of branches from three in August to ten by the time the pogrom took place. On September 4, Hikmet Bil ordered students at Taksim Square, the heart of the city, to burn Greek newspapers. The same day, Kamil Önal of the CTA—and the National Security Service—handed out to students twenty thousands banners emblazoned "Cyprus is Turkish".[13]

The day before the Tripartite London Conference (29 August–7 September 1955) began, Prime Minister Menderes claimed that Greek Cypriots were planning a massacre of Turkish Cypriots. Seeing the opportunity to extricate Britain, Prime minister Harold Macmillan advised the Turkish delegates that they should be stern. Foreign minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu paid heed to MacMillan and launched a harsh opening salvo, stating that Turkey would reconsider its commitment to the Treaty of Lausanne unless Greece reconsidered its position on Cyprus. The Greek delegates, surprised by harshness of the speech, blamed the British.[11]

Deflecting domestic attention to Cyprus was politically convenient for the Menderes government, which was suffering from an ailing economy. Although a minority, the Greek population played a prominent role in the city’s business life, making it a convenient scapegoat during the economic crisis in the mid-50s which saw Turkey's economy contract (with an 11% GDP/capita decrease in 1954).[7] The DP responded first with inflationary policies, then when that failed, with authoritarianism and populism.[7] DP's policies also introduced rural-urban mobility, which exposed some of the rural population to the lifestyles of the urban minorities. The three chief destinations were the largest three cities: Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. Between 1945-1955, the population of Istanbul increased from 1 million to about 1.6 million. Many of these new residents found themselves in shantytowns (Turkish: gecekondus), and constituted a prime target for populist policies.[7]

Finally, the conference fell apart on 6 September, the first day the subject of Cyprus would be broached at the conference,[14] when news broke of the bombing of the Turkish consulate (and birth place of Atatürk) in Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki.

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The Pogrom

[edit] Planning

The 1961 Yassıada Trial against Menderes and Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu exposed the proximate planning of the pogrom. Menderes and Zorlu mobilized the formidable machinery of the ruling Demokrat Parti (DP) and party-controlled trade unions of Istanbul. Interior minister Namık Gedik was also involved. According to Zorlu's lawyer at the Yassiada trial, a mob of 300,000 was marshalled in a radius of 40 miles (60 km) around the city for the pogrom.[9][page number needed]

The trial also revealed that the fuse for the consulate bomb was sent from Turkey to Thessaloniki on 3 September. The Yassıada Trial established that a twenty-year-old National Security Service agent named Oktay Engin was given the mission of installing the explosives, two sticks of gelignite, in the consulate's garden.[14][15][16] The consul M. Ali Balin allegedly first pressured consulate employee Hasan Uçar, but Engin was brought in when Uçar resisted. Both of them were arrested after the attack.[17]

Engin was born in Komotini (Turkish: Gümülcine) to Faik Engin (a well-known parliamentarian in the late '40s; the first person president Celal Bayar visited on his trip to Greece, says Oktay Engin) and became the first Turkish student to graduate from the Greek gymnasium. Turkish officials encouraged him to study law, offering him a scholarship, so that he could promote the interests of Turkish citizens in Greece. He thus entered Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1953, and was then given his mission. Engin said that he had been followed by Greek intelligence agents so closely during his law years that he could name one ("Triondafilos").[17][18]

In his 2005 book, Speros Vryonis documents the direct role of the Demokrat Parti organization and government-controlled trade unions in amassing the rioters that swept Istanbul. Ten of Istanbul’s 18 branches of Cyprus is Turkish Party were run by DP officials. This organization played a crucial role in inciting anti-Greek activities. Most of the rioters came from western Asia Minor. His case study of Eskişehir shows how the party there recruited 400 to 500 workers from local factories, who were carted by train with third class-tickets to Istanbul. These recruits were promised the equivalent of 6 USD, which was never paid. They were accompanied by Eskişehir police, who were charged with coordinating the destruction and looting once the contingent was broken up into groups of 20–30 men, and the leaders of the party branches.[9][page number needed][19]

While the DP took the blame for the events, it was recently revealed that the pogrom was in actuality a product of the Turkey's Tactical Mobilization Group; a clandestine special forces unit.[1][6] Four star general Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, the right-hand man of General Kemal Yamak[20] who led the Turkish outpost of Operation Gladio under the Tactical Mobilization Group (Turkish: Seferberlik Taktik Kurulu), proudly reminisced about his involvement in the pogrom, calling it "a magnificent organization".[21][12]

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The Porgom

Execution

Municipal and government trucks were placed in strategic points all around the city to distribute the tools of destruction (shovels, pickaxes, crowbars, ramrods and petrol), while 4,000 taxis were requisitioned from the Drivers Association and Motor Vehicle Workers' Trade Union (Turkish: Şoförler Cemiyeti ve Motorlu Taşıt İşçileri Sendikası) to transport the perpetrators. In addition, flags had been prepared by the Textile Workers' Union (Turkish: Tekstil İşçileri Sendikası).[13]


Special issue of İstanbul Ekspres. The headline reads "Our Father's house was damaged due to a bomb".A protest rally on the night of September 6, organized by the authorities in Istanbul, on the Cyprus issue and the bombing of Atatürk's home was the cover for amassing the rioters. At 13:00, news reports of the bombing were announced by radio.[12] However, most people at the time did not have radios, so they had to wait until 16:30, when the daily İstanbul Ekspres, which was associated with the DP and the National Security Service (NSS), repeated the news in print.[16]

According to a September 2005 episode of the weekly show Files on the Greek Mega Channel, the accompanying photographs were seen by Salonican photographer Yannis Kyriakidis on September 4 (two days before the actual bombing). The consulate's wife had brought the film to his father's Kyriakidis Photo Shop to be printed. The photographs were then photomontaged, according to the program.[12][15]

On the day of the event, the editor, Gökşin Sipahioğlu, called the owner, Mithat Perin, asking for permission for a second run. The weather was bad, so Perin declined thinking the prints would not get sold. The newspaper's main dealer, Fuat Büke, soon called and offered to pay for the run in advance. By the time Perin went to inspect the Tan Press, 180,000 copies had already been printed. Sensing something fishy, Perin tore up the paper and stopped the run. The prototype was still intact however, and the workers secretly resumed printing after Perin left. They had eventually printed 300,000 copies (on paper stocked in advance), of which 296,000 were sold. This was far above the newspaper's average circulation of 30,000-40,000 (by comparison, the best-selling Hürriyet sold 70-80 thousand copies). Perin was arrested the next day. Gökşin Sipahioğlu later alleged the NSS had pressured him to do it, while Perin says Sipahioğlu himself was an agent.[22] Perin's innocence, however, was cast into doubt after intrepid journalist Uğur Mumcu published an excerpt from a 1962 letter between Perin and the undersecretary of the NSS, Fuat Doğu, stating that in his 25 years of journalism, he had acted in full knowledge of the NSS and had not refrained from doing anything.[23]

At 17:00, the pogrom started in Taksim Square, and rippled out during the evening through the old suburb of Beyoğlu (Pera), with smashing and looting of Greek commercial property, particularly along Yüksek Kaldırım street. By six o'clock at night, many of the Greek shops on Istanbul's main shopping street, İstiklal Avenue, were ransacked.[12] Many commercial streets were littered with merchandise and fittings torn out of Greek-owned businesses.

According to the eyewitness account of a Greek dentist, the mob chanted "Death to the Gavurs" (English: infidels), "Massacre the Greek traitors", "Down with Europe" and "Onward to Athens and Thessaloniki" as they executed the pogrom.[citation needed]

The riot died down by midnight with the intervention of the Turkish Army and declaration of martial law. Eyewitnesses reported, however, that army officers and policemen had earlier participated in the rampages and in many cases urged the rioters on.

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The Pogrom

Personal violence

Thirty-two Greeks were severely wounded. In addition, dozens of ethnic Greek women were raped,[12][6][8] and a number of men were forcibly circumcised by the mob.[citation needed] 4,348 Greek-owned businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, 21 factories, 73 Greek (and other Christian) churches and over a thousand Greek-owned homes were badly damaged or destroyed.[7][9][page number needed] The American consulate estimates that 59% of the businesses were Greek-owned, 17% were Armenian-owned, 12% were Jewish-owned, 10% were Muslim-owned; while 80% of the homes were Greek-owned, 9% were Armenian-owned, 3% were Jewish-owned, and 5% were Muslim-owned.[12]

While the pogromists were not instructed to kill their targets, sections of the mob went much further than scaring or intimidating local Greeks. Between 13 and 16 Greeks and one Armenian (including two clerics) died as a result of the pogrom. 32 Greeks were severely wounded. Men and women were raped, and according to the account of the Turkish writer Aziz Nesin, men, mainly priests, were subjected to forced circumcision by members of the mob and an Armenian rite Christian priest died after the procedure.[9][page number needed] Nesin wrote:[24]

A man who was fearful of being beaten, lynched or cut into pieces would imply and try to prove that he was both a Turk and a Muslim. "Pull it out and let us see," they would reply. The poor man would peel off his trousers and show his "Muslimness" and "Turkishness": And what was the proof? That he had been circumcised. If the man was circumcised, he was saved. If not, he was doomed. Indeed, having lied, he could not be saved from a beating. For one of those aggressive young men would draw his knife and circumcise him in the middle of the street and amid the chaos. A difference of two or three centimetres does not justify such a commotion. That night, many men shouting and screaming were Islamized forcefully by the cruel knife. Among those circumcised there was also a priest.

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The Pogrom

Material damage and cost

The material damage was considerable, with damage to 5317 properties. Among these were 4214 homes, 1004 businesses, 73 churches, 2 monasteries, 1 synagogue, and 26 schools.[2] The Greek-owned portion is: 4,348 businesses, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, 23 schools, 21 factories, and 73 churches and over 1,000 homes.[citation needed]

Estimates of the economic cost of the damage vary from Turkish government's estimate of 69.5 million Turkish lira (equivalent to 24.8 million US$[25]), the British diplomat estimates of 100 million GBP (about 200 million US$), the World Council of Churches’ estimate of 150 million USD, and the Greek government's estimate of 500 million USD.[

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The Pogrom

Church property

Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople inside the ruins of the destroyed Orthodox church of Saint Constantine, Istanbul.In addition to commercial targets, the mob clearly targeted property owned or administered by the Greek Orthodox Church. 73 churches and 23 schools were vandalized, burned or destroyed, as were 8 asperses and 3 monasteries. This represented about 90 percent of the church property portfolio in the city. The ancient Byzantine church of Panagia in Veligradiou was vandalised and burned down.[8] The church at Yedikule was badly vandalised, as was the church of St. Constantine of Psammathos. At Zoodochos Pege church in Balıklı, the tombs of a number of ecumenical patriarchs were smashed open and desecrated. The abbot of the monastery, Bishop Gerasimos of Pamphilos, was severely beaten during the pogrom and died from his wounds some days later in Balıklı Hospital. In one church arson attack, Father Chrysanthos Mandas was burned alive. The Metropolitan of Liloupolis, Gennadios, was badly beaten and went mad. Elsewhere in the city, Greek cemeteries came under attack and were desecrated. Some reports also testified that relics of saints were burned or thrown to dogs.

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The Pogrom

Witnesses
An eyewitness account was provided by journalist Noel Barber of the London Daily Mail on 14 September 1955:

“ The church of Yedikule was utterly smashed, and one priest was dragged from bed, the hair torn from his head and the beard literally torn from his chin. Another old Greek priest [Fr Mantas] in a house belonging to the church and who was too ill to be moved was left in bed, and the house was set on fire and he was burned alive. At the church of Yeniköy, a lovely spot on the edge of the Bosporus, a priest of 75 was taken out into the street, stripped of every stitch of clothing, tied behind a car and dragged through the streets. They tried to tear the hair of another priest, but failing that, they scalped him, as they did many others. ”

On the occasion of the pogrom's 50th anniversary, a seventy-year-old Mehmet Ali Zeren said, "I was in the street that day and I remember very clearly...In a jewelry store, one guy had a hammer and he was breaking pearls one by one."[26]

One famous eyewitness was James Bond novelist Ian Fleming, who as an MI6 agent was present under the cover of the International Police Conference on 5 September (which he ditched in favor of covering the riots for The Sunday Times). Fleming's account was published on 11 September bearing the title "The Great Riot of Istanbul". It has been said that Fleming may have been tipped off by Nâzim Kalkavan, who appears in 1957's From Russia with Love as "Darko Kerim"; the Istanbul station chief of the MI6. According to Fleming's biographer, John Pearson, Kalkavan was rather like Kerim bey.[27][28]

For some Turkish eyewitness accounts, read Ayşe Hür's article in Taraf

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The Pogrom

Resistance
There are accounts of protection offered to the minorities by their fellow citizens that were successful in fending off the mob. The most organized team rallied behind air force captain Reşat Mater. Mater happened to be off duty and visiting his home in Cevizlik's Muhasebeciler Street, which is right next to the rally point, İstanbul Caddesi. Mater first hid some of his neighbors in his house, then he took to the street with his gun and his uniform. The boys in the neighborhood joined him, bringing domestic implements as substitute weapons. The mob passed by after seeing the barricade.[29]

Mater rose to all the way to the Commander of the Air Force, making him third in the military line of command. His son Tayfun, who witnessed the pogrom, maintains ties with those who survived and fled to Greece

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The Pogrom

Secondary action

While the pogrom was predominantly an Istanbul affair, there were some outrages in other Turkish cities.[12] On the morning of 7 September 1955 In İzmir (Smyrna), a mob overran the İzmir National Park, where an international exhibition was taking place, and burned the Greek pavilion.[6] Moving next to the Church of Saint Fotini, built two years earlier to serve the needs of the NATO Regional Headquarters' Greek officers, the mob destroyed it completely. The homes of the few Greek families and officers were then looted.