 I mean, there are certainly writers, you know, through that period, I think it's an opportunity to say, um, I mean, there are certainly writers, you know, through that period. I mean, it is dramatic. Yeah. Yeah. It's all right. I'll do this. Shall I start? I mean, sorry, I didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are certainly writers, you know, through that period. I mean, there are certainly writers, you know, through that period. I think it's an opportunity to say. I mean, it is dramatic. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, I didn't. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay, great. So, so we can go ahead. So, well, everyone can hear me all right. Well, first of all, hello and good morning, everyone and welcome to the second day of the global 1922 workshop or welcome back. And if you're rejoining and more specifically, welcome to the fifth session of the workshop entitled Pontus and Armenia. We're continuing from yesterday's terrific set of papers and discussion. It was really excellent in every way. So before moving on to to our papers, allow me to say a bit on our speakers. The order that they will be speaking. Our first speaker is Victoria Abrahamian. Victoria is a PhD candidate in the history department to the University of Syria and a part of the ERC funded border project entitled towards a decenter history of the Middle East, trans border spaces, circulations, frontier effects and state formation 1920 1946, led by Professor Jordi Tejal. Her research focuses on Armenian refugees, nationalism, state building and borders in interwar Syria during the French mandate from 1920 to 1939. Her research explores how specifically the Armenian refugees played at once a direct and indirect role in shaping the state building processes in Syria in terms of defining national identity, expanding state authority and expanding state borders as her paper vences. She has recently published an article on the topic entitled citizen strangers, identity labeling and discourse in the French mandatory Syria 1920 1932 in journal migration history. Our second speaker is Zeynep Turkilmaz who received her PhD from the Department of History at UCLA in 2009. Her dissertation, anxieties of conversion, missionaries, state and heterodox communities in the late Ottoman Empire, which I'm personally a big fan of, is based on intensive research conducted in Ottoman, British and several American missionary archives. She was a recipient of several fellowships, among which our Mellon Foundation saw your seminar, a post doctor fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill between 2009 and 2010 and then a fellowship at the forum trans regional studio in 2010-11. She worked as an assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College between 2011 and 16. And as a program coordinator and research fellow at Coates University's Research Center for Natalian Civilizations in Istanbul, finishing her book project based on her dissertation. She returned to Aume as a fellow recently for the academic years at 2017 to 2021. And since October 2021, she's a research fellow, the research training group minor cosmopolitanism at University of Potsdam and remains affiliated with Aume. So without further ado, let us begin. So over to you, Victoria. Thank you very much. Can you hear me well? Yes. Yes, great. So the paper I will be presenting you today is titled Armenian Refugees Between Greece, Soviet Armenia and Syria, 1922-1926. And in fact, as Professor Karamuza just presented, my core research is about Armenian refugees in Syria during the interval years and not in Greece. This is, it is only through systematic reading of my primary sources in particular and the Armenian press published in Syria that I came to understand how intimately the experiences of Armenian refugees in Greece and Syria were connected. And moreover, how intimately the discussions happening in Geneva about the settlement of Armenian refugees in Greece, in Syria, but also Soviet Armenia were entangled and interconnected. In fact, in the beginning of the 20s, after the successful start of the Greek, the resettlement of the Greek refugees in Greece, Armenian political leaders approached Nansen asking to extend or to stimulate a similar refugee settlement scheme for the Armenian refugees in Soviet Armenia. Nansen agreed and a major developmental project in Soviet Armenia was being discussed in Geneva, which became known as the Nansen settlement scheme or the Sardarapat or Yerevan settlement scheme. In fact, this means that large parcel of land needed to be irrigated to make it suitable for farming on which as many as 50,000 Armenian refugees could be settled. The money to be obtained was to be based on the model of the Greece, an international loan brokered by the League of Nations where member states would be giving or lending the money. However, unlike to Greece, this settlement scheme failed because many member states of the League of Nations were reluctant to donate or to give money for a development project to a state which was on the opposite ideological orbit to Soviet Armenia. The discussions on this settlement connect a bit to the yesterday's discussions and Professor Robson's discussion on creating profitable refugee settlement schemes. It was in this context that even though the settlement scheme in Yerevan failed, however the Greek government used these discussions and this opportunity to ask the League of Nations to give the priority to the 50,000 Armenian refugees who were in Greece as a part of population exchange but also after the disaster of Spirna to remove them as a priority out of Greece. In fact, by reading these documents, it is interesting that the Greek authorities explicitly say why they wanted to get rid of the Armenians. It was not their big numbers which were about 60,000 nor the League of the Funding but the fears that Armenian refugees would not be willing to assimilate easily and quickly and it will become or it will create a new minority issue for the Greek government which it did not want obviously. It was in this late that new discussions started in Geneva. What to do with the unwanted Armenian refugees of Greece and several destinations were discussed among them France, Syria, South America and of course, Soviet Armenia. The question that more refugees would probably be coming to Syria created in turn a nationalist polemic in Syria among the Syrian nationalists who feared that French mandatory authorities had a hidden plan of bringing more Armenian refugees to Syria which was already home to a substantial number of Armenian refugees and by doing this to implement their hidden political goals similar to the refugee Jewish settlements that was happening in the neighboring Palestine during the same time for example. Discussions intensified that something had to be done for these refugees transferring them to elsewhere. Soviet Armenia too became increasingly more interested to claim these refugees as the only legitimate homeland for these refugees and being categorically against their transfer out of Greece especially to French mandatory Syria or in South America and eventually 5000 of these refugees were indeed transferred to Soviet Armenia and arrived to Syria from Greece. The other important interesting aspects of the discussions was in fact the desire of the Greek government to make pressure and indeed get rid of these refugees so they started immediate deportations of these refugees refugees were given very short notice they were given only one two days their names were posted on the doors of the civil administrations of the cities that they resided and they were given two days to depart without the right to sell anything or to exchange anything in the beginning small number of Armenians were reported to the island far away Greek islands to make a pressure to find a solution for these refugees these deportations created a profound impact elsewhere and it created also a shock for the Armenian refugees everywhere all the colonies were following day by day what was happening in Greece because many could not believe that such deportations could happen in Greece in a country which was considered a brotherly country people who suffered a great deal similar to the Armenians previously and they were it's unthinkable that harsh or brutal deportations could happen but because they were happening in Syria in particular I started to observe the resources and the press in particular how Armenian refugee leaders the intellectuals the editors started to discuss daily what could they do in order to avoid such a fate in fact the fate of the refugees in Greece they started also to analyze what were the main concerns and the complaints of the Syrians about the Armenians and then they found it out that many Armenian articles and the local press turned around the refugee camps the large refugee camps in the outskirts of the large cities main cities of Syria but also Lebanon and Armenian refugee leaders started to advocate actively against the camps there was an urgent need to remove these refugees out of the camps into the urban or rural settlements and get rid of the camps which created a negative opinion about them and the second issue was about begging to make sure that no Armenian was seen begging in the streets especially on Sundays this was a way to also make Armenian refugees less visible in decision society in a way especially that could create a negative opinion about them and the third issue which was a contentious issue both in Greece and in Syria it was the issue of the citizenship in fact in 1924 just a year after the signature of the Lausanne Treaty when the treaty was ratified by the French parliament within days Armenian refugees in Syria and Lebanon were given the opportunity to take the local citizenship to become Syrian and Lebanese and it is interesting to note that no refugee rushed to take this opportunity rather they started to debate was it that how should they proceed and mostly in fact they debated to organize upon Armenian conference where they would discuss all the aspect of this new citizenship and then to decide and the same was happening in Greece in fact Greek government provided citizenship as an alternative to the deportations but all the Armenians refused to take the local citizenship they had two arguments for this first of all as they argued that citizenship it was the new trap it was a new tool of assimilation it was not a solution and secondly they argued that if this the deportation policies of the Greek government were informed by the Iqtihadis policies then it means that if they take the citizenship they were to be deported anyway but in later stage in the same way as those who converted to Islam were not deported immediately but later on by the Iqtihadis during the genocide years in fact the citizenship issue of the Armenians in Greece was problematic up until the end of 30s it was not resolved because they refused and when they changed their mind a few years later it was the Greek government who refused to give them citizenship meanwhile in Syria it was different so they were offered the opportunity of citizenship in 24 and given the deportations in Greece Armenian political leaders and one political party in particular the REF Armenian Revolutionary Federation started to actively advocate for this petty accusation of the citizenship arguing that by taking the citizenship we will become natives locals and we will get rid of our refugee level and most importantly we will not be deported maybe just before finishing to mention another interesting episode that I found in this entangled refugee settlement that Soviet Union Moscow authorities in their turn wished to use these discussions of the refugee settlement of Armenians in Greece and the deportations suggesting to exchange equal number of refugees with the autoctonous Greek refugees around the Black Sea region nowadays Georgia, the homie region with the unwanted refugees of Greece just to turn down initially by the Greek government but later on I found an evidence that it indeed took place later on which shows how the conversations about the exchange of populations was very much seemed to be the accepted option of unmixing and the solution of the refugee settlement and also how intimately Armenian refugee experience of Syria, Greece were connected. Thank you very much and stop here. Excellent, Victoria thank you very much keeping to the exact time of 15 minutes Zeynep now you are next, on to you. I would like to share my screen if I can manage that briefly. I don't know why I'm having trouble here we go. Can you see it with that problem? Is it okay? Yep, it looks okay. First of all I would like to thank organizers for including me in this event thank you very much for a very wonderful first day of panels and today I will present the issue of Pontus. In my initial proposal actually I proposed a bigger project but I am nowhere close to there yet. Hopefully I will get to that as time progresses without further delay. So a cypher telegram marked as extremely confidential and personal and addressed to the minister of Interior Talat Pasha, sent on May 11th 1916 from Gresem conveyed the following message When one considers due to the abundance of Greeks along the coast, necessity of their transfer to the interior areas in a manner unlike the transfer Armenians, this brings to mind a strong possibility that a significant number of troops would be occupied with this business. Yet I propose for instance, if at first all the Greeks that are within 20 kilometre range of the battle line could withdraw to the interior of the coastal areas they desired, within the time limit we assigned and after this and gradually this area could be expanded to 30, 40, 50, 60 kilometres then complains the surgeon Brigham which would not take place. And thereby I doubt that civil and military administration would have to be occupied with these too much. Implementation of this plan should start with Bakfi Kebir Göreli and then should continue in the following order to Trebolu, Gresem, perhaps all the towns and thus relatively cleansing these of the resident Greek population. When disaster flies and misery captivating them and misery becomes their inseparable companion the misery captivating them would reduce the brigandage and any day there as well as their wealth to a desirable level. And would secure rest remaining in the coastal areas would be held out of our sacred patria. The lines belong to Cemal Azmi, the governor of the governor general of Trabzon province also known as the Bucro Trabzon for having not only ordered some of the most real forms of torturing and extermination against Armenians but also zealously taking part in the massacre in person only a year ago. The governor as Cemal Azmi sent this telegram from Ordu where he sought refuge after handing the city of Trabzon to Khrisantos, the Archbishop of Trabzon on April 16, 1916. After it became clear to him that Ottoman forces would not hold. Until February 1918 Cemal Azmi remained as the governor. And right after the armistice of Mundros on November 1, 1918 he fled on a German torpedo boat to Berlin where two Armenian Revolutionary Federation gunmen assassinated him along with Bahattin Shakir, another notorious name of the Armenian genocide four years later in 1922. Against such horrendous records however when it comes to 20 Greeks Cemal Azmi ironically remembered rather favorably almost fondly one common sanitation is his amiable address to Archbishop Khrisantos before surrounding Trabzon it has been alleged that he said in a rather submissive tone we took the city from the Greeks and now we are returning to them and pleaded him to take care of the Muslim Islamic heritage of the city. The authenticity of this anecdote has been challenged by some but even if it were genuine his favorable take on Cemal Azmi has been rather intriguing for me as the decipher telegram cited above and the rest of my research at the Monarchives testify Cemal Azmi was actually one of the earliest though now forgotten masterminds of Pontic displacement and this telegram was a smoking gun. Critical scholarship on mass violence caution us against specializing archives or looking for the document yet in this case argued the smoking gun for two reasons. First of all obviously given the Cemal Azmi's record and an ongoing genocide, extermination of Armenians his choice of vocabulary like very clearly using the work cleansing and removal and inflicting catastrophe and misery on a specific population this was a clear intent to obviously target and ethnically cleanse the Greeks of Pontic. The second and more importantly this telegram did not remain simply as a proposal. From 1916-1918 Cemal Azmi followed through the entire process of deportation of Pontic Greeks from the coastal areas to the interior personally involved in the venues on the use of troops and the mechanisms to carry out these acts but he was neither remembered for this his ex targeting Pontic Greeks nor held accountable for any of that. It was late Antoni Breyer who most eloquently defined Pontic experience under the Ottoman rule especially in Trout Zone proper and its highlands an exception for historians exceptions are very attractive but also often a fantasy a romanticism and a reality. As someone who worked extensively on crypto-christians of Pontus I can reify what Breyer established I have been repeatedly intrigued by the dynamics of coexistence in the region whereby Pontic Greeks enjoyed a cultural hegemony which helped create an environment where every way hierarchies on the base of religion did not disappear but was smothered and even blurred unlike the Armenian communities who were hit hard and devastated by the pogroms of 1890s and 1909 throughout Asia Minor Pontic Greeks continued to exist without the major intrusion or inflection of mess finance until 1914. So things began to change with the invasion of Trout Zone obviously in 1916 just to give you an idea of Pontic the line of red line I put on the map actually shows the area that was under the Russian invasion so the eastern part was under the Russian invasion whereas western Black Sea was where was based and continued to govern the rest of the province and even during this period Pontic Greeks tried to keep their everyday life intact and I also provided numbers to show the prosperous and flourishing life which actually became a Pontic settlement especially in the second half of 19th century after the closure of the mines. So in the literature actually what happened in 1916 or 17 is also pretty much a no issue for the Pontic Greeks who basically took the history predominantly from 1919 onwards and remembers the arrival of Mustafa Kemal to the area is the beginning of a genocide over 300,000 lives whereas in the Turkish literature there's a similar ignorance for what happened before 1919 it's a no issue and generally what happened in Black Sea is remembered as the Trout Zone and the activities of the Greek bands which was eventually subdued and suppressed maybe using little bit more violence but they deserved it because they were there were basically gangs killing Muslims So what was the justification used for these deportations? First of all obviously the most obvious justification he used was the invasion of Trout Zone and he underlined that Greeks were sympathetic to Russian advances through to their religious and political affinity Pontic Greeks might get arsenal and other military means to optimize and prepare the conditions for another invasion and deserters and drug dodgers among the Pontic Greeks were another problem that was often cited and yesterday fire was talked at the very last panel and actually fire putting entire villages on fire was used to prevent increasing numbers of drug dodgers among the villages starting from 1916 onwards and this was again a mechanism probably developed by Cemal Azmi and endorsed by Talat Pasha So the discussions around what needs to be with Pontic Greeks, whether Cemal Azmi pushed for it, transferred to the interiors, has any grounds has been very heavily discussed among Minister of Interior Talat Pasha, commander of the Third Avenue Behip Pasha or MR Pasha. Interestingly enough Talat Pasha was very cautious about it from the very beginning. He argued that as long as Greece doesn't join, didn't join the war, they should keep the Pontic Greeks on the place unless they were really engaging in rebellious acts and creating trouble. Commander Talat Pasha was also not very fond of it, but Cemal Azmi were on the more hawkish side and were quite supportive of a possible scenario for deportations How did the local officers understood these discussions? Was it really about the fans? Were they really concerned about the safety and security? Again, in conversations about taking place between the local and local governors and Minister of Interior Talat Pasha, basically the governor, district governor of Janik, it writes in 1916 and he says I mean we don't really have the means to do that, but actually dispersing the Greeks who are the majority of population in the district by these means and replacing them with the Muslim elements would be beneficial advantages from the perspective of the country's future. So clearly an intent for ethnic cleansing was simmering after Cemal Azmi began to push for his agenda So actually Cemal Azmi had already started the deportations, especially among the drug dodgers and any Pontic Greeks having trouble with Muslim neighbors and creating, you know, was a suspicious, basically they had already been deported by Cemal Azmi's intervention but we clearly see a decision for deportations starting as late as January 1970 First Talat Pasha's order and later on order detailing not only deportations transferred to the inferior not only in Pontus but entire Greek populations in the coastal areas and here obviously one should draw attention to the changes taking place in Greece after these discussions began to again take root, especially after the National Defense School in September 1916 and particularly after Greece joined the Allied powers in January 1917, basically both Talat Pasha and Mark Pasha was on the boat that, you know, their team had to be punished and the decision for deportations was finalized So sorry for my very poorly done map but I tried to mark the locations where these Pontic Greeks were inhabiting and the areas that they were deported hopefully I will have a better map but that gives you an idea I mean there's probably more than 20 kilometers much longer distances than had been originally suggested but the Karawans began to leave from these coastal areas So who were deported? Again the emphasis is still the gangs and that they are creating present and you know there is a risk for Russian invasion but then when it comes to actually the people who were deported we see that the first group of people very similar to what happened in Armenians were the prominent figures, notables of the community like the merchants priests and there were also some odd excites I mean I do two cases I would like to bring your attention again from the Ottoman archives One actually we know about his case through a letter submitted by his lawyer who was based in Germany and I can address directly to Talat Pasha and apparently merchant Ashila Nasiyadi was one of the major merchants providing tobacco to Germany and his lawyer and some of his family was already in Germany wrote person to Talat and asking for the reversal of this decision Another odd case and this time was supported by the German consul was the case of pro-German journalist Neolfitos was also sent to the interior and basically the German consulate was their consul was very surprised and saying that I mean how can you send this person to the interior on the suspicion that he's supporting Russia, I mean he's one of the few among them who actually was on our side Throughout this period also the questions of abundant property especially his and that orchard tobacco farms was repeatedly came to the foreground and although it was always underlined that this case is going to be different from the Armenian case this is not abundant property, this needs to be secured until the arrival of the refugees of the exiles but obviously that wasn't the case especially with the arrival of Muslim refugees the homes of the Greek deputies became the homes of these refugees which later on with the return of the deputies after the end of first world war became a serious issue. I will here refer to yet another governor, local governor Mehmet Reishi who was kind of an outlier he was a more marginal and more prominent voice that tried to separate himself from Jamal Pasha's position and he actually resisted from the earlier periods to deportation plans basically gave a number of an estimate number of deputies to us for the very first time from his own obviously town and he cited around I mean he cited 13,466 men who transferred to the interior and this constitutes actually one sixth of the population official population number and he's underlined that actually it should be expected that one third of these people only one third of these people can return because some of them obviously naturally would die and the destiny of the others are not done so the provisioning would be an issue but we see that it wasn't just provisioning especially land seizures home seizures became a prominent issue and burning issue especially after the Ottoman center lost the war and the British inspector in the black seat in certain locations particularly the homes occupied by the other than Greeks should be returned to the returnies in four days it's very doubtful that any of this could be implemented but the transfer of property transfer of especially living areas became an issue I think I'm kind of over my time right maybe with this one I will end so actually Greek gang's issue began to be a burning issue with the start with the beginning of the deportations the initial brigand by the draft Dodgers was a more manageable issue and they were not necessarily attacking any particular group almost they came under fire but in 1917-19 especially with 1918 we see that there were big arm brig bands that not only targeted the local militia or the Ottoman military but also began to attack on and Muslim local Muslims so for the first time actually the Ottoman center or the new Ankara government to take its place was justified in talking about the Greek bands as an issue and throughout this talk and in my overall project my global 1922 is about a very sudden very violent and unforeseeable form of unmixing of populations and here I try to see two processes taking place the community that's trying to make sense of their environment from being uprooted from their homeland but also I'm trying to understand the formulation of official policies why and how Cemal Azmi and later on Talat Pasha and many others and later on Ankara government actually took on this policy of targeting a community that had been marked with coexistence and exceptional form of coexistence. Thank you so much and looking forward to training. Thank you very much Zeynep for Victoria as well for these two fascinating papers. I have some comments and maybe just a few broad questions that have been invited to comment on these two papers and share this panel as well for many reasons but most notably because they bring two stories together that of Greek and Armenian experience which is typically told separately and as these two brilliant papers show us that these two unraveled more or less simultaneously intersect each other in important ways not just at the policy level not only as subject to international law not again only as at the discursive level but also in very physical material terms which I really found fascinating in both of these papers. So I found for example how the horrifying knowledge of being targeted to the excessive state violence traveled from one community to the other and used by the state very strategically as well just really fascinating if really terrifying at the same time or again to see how two refugee groups and experiences intersected in this space only to be used again by states and international community to define and set hierarchies for that specific experience which again I found fascinating. So I have many questions and comments but mostly very very specific ones which I'm happy to share with Victoria and I'll see you shortly later on the interest of time and more importantly because the audience here will be asking way more informed questions that I'm capable of so I will keep my comments and questions very short focusing on a few themes categories that I found to be dominant in each paper. Let me start with Victoria's paper which is a terrific angle I thought specifically with her focus on Armenian refugees in Greece a history that I know nothing about admittedly but what really struck me in that part of the story specifically is the fluidity between two categories refugee them state of being refugee and citizenship but I tend to think it's mutually exclusive but antithetical to a certain extent particularly at this moment of excessive desire to homogeneity and to un-mixing ethnically, religiously, linguistically and so on and so forth. In this story citizenship appears almost a voluntary method on the refugee side so I'm really curious to hear more about that as possible. I know it's only part of the larger project that you're working on but if you can tell us a bit about that process about the Greek government side on deciding on offering that citizenship option and as well as the refugee side and minority citizenship which Laura Robson's paper yesterday as well as several others gave a broad context for that. This is a very peculiar concept but I found this one particularly peculiar so I'm especially curious about it and to add one more dimension to that this has to do with my own curiosity. I found it doubly interesting as it seems to create a lot of internal tension as well. This applies to I guess the Syrian case as well but this I found it quite interesting. Internal tension as if I understand it correctly between such groups as Dachnax and Finchaks you're looking at their particular publications so it would also help us to understand where those groups are coming from which I was curious about so this kind of connects to Derek's paper yesterday in this concept of the greater war and I'm really curious to understand what such groups as Finchaks made of this new strange order obviously they're against it but where they're coming from would be really interesting to hear and as for Zeynep's paper it too offers a really terrific fascinating angle which again admittedly I know very little about. What really struck me in Zeynep's paper is how exceptionally and I'm using this very differently from Briar's exception I guess and seemingly deliberately local of the Pontus story is that it's entirely detached by not just really the local Greeks in the Central State but variety of different actors from the rest of the Greek experience at least during this moment in time and what you said in your talk is really interesting that they all of a sudden they become akin by 1919 but the very localness of the earlier story I found really interesting arguably a similar situation has been going on not just 1914 but earlier too I mean the Balkan Wars this is already going on a lot of people are just terrified, terrorized to leave and probably in smaller scale but I wonder how that broader story comes about basically the emphasis on this locality that detachment in relation to Pontus it's historical and categorical meaning and function is precisely what I was curious about if that makes sense as a question and I mean the one especially fascinating example I found is that this localised understanding by the governor of Grimeshane, if I'm not mistaken specifically made in relation to Pontus and this again just connects to a point that was made I think by Maximiano yesterday about very individual, very local understanding and meaning put on Wilsonianism and those ideals in general but still in Pontus story as you said is taking place as part of an exceedingly global war globalising world so it would again be great to hear where that deliberately local story of Pontus is located how it's connected to that broader context so if that's possible if you could say a bit more about that so I will stop here I don't know Zeynep, Victoria if you want to respond to what I said take a minute to then we can open the floor of questions Sure Shall I start? Sure go ahead please Thank you very much Professor Karamuze for a very nice feedback and for very nice and important questions The one question about the fluidity of being between a refugee dormant citizenship very much yes and in fact studying the concept of citizenship and how it became to be understood and perceived by the Armenian refugees during the twenties has been very fascinating for me as well because it is so different from what we would have expected their reaction to be from today's perspective to take the citizenship and solve the issues and then it also connects what you are saying the great war which was over but the settlement issues were not very unsettled it is very much connected and citizenship had many dimensions and many layers and everything was being much more complicated by the incoming of Soviet Armenia claiming these refugees in the case of Armenian refugees in particular I think there were two issues first Armenian refugees dispersed in all these countries did not in the beginning of twenties did not consider that there was no solution for them yet that they still expected that something will be done eventually for them so the Lausanne treaty also it was concluded but the construction of so-called Armenian home was always in the air it was also so because the British high officials had told the Armenians that the Armenian delegation in Lausanne that although we take out the Armenian home from the treaty because Turkey refused to conclude the treaty if anything about Armenians was there but we keep it in mind I think this was this unkind of a promise unwritten promise that kept the Armenian leaders but also refugees waiting and seeing what could eventually be done for them and during this time a Soviet Union and Soviet Armenia had also legitimacy crisis with narrative because Soviet Union was not recognized yet officially in fact the British and French recognition came in the twenties but the USA recognized Soviet Union only in 33 or 32 until that moment it had it was this diplomatic isolation felt very strongly and in 24 when citizenship issue was being discussed both in Syria and Greece in fact the news arrived that Soviet Armenia is sending its delegations through hoax that time it was the 8th committee a political organization that collected relief for Soviet Armenia and eventually became a political tool for propaganda and to claim these Armenian refugees as citizens for Soviet Armenia and in fact Hanchak circles Hanchaks were socialist Armenian political party who were quite close with the communists and propagated pro-Soviet Armenian approach they of course took this side that all Armenian refugees abroad shall become the citizens of Soviet Armenia and I think this added another dimension to the internal tension yes the whole community was in fact split broadly between two lines pro-Soviet Armenia and the anti-Soviet coalition which was laid by the dashnaks by REF so citizenship in Greece in particular so Armenian refugees categorically refused in the twenties and this deportation of Armenian refugees from Greece not restarted but the conversations were opened up again in 30 the same demand the Greek government made in 27 but without a follow up and then in 30 demanding to remove the Armenians because before that only 5,000 had removed, had transferred but because of economic difficulties the community was already reduced by half anyways there were not many and Greek demand came after the Great Depression when Greece was hit with economic crisis and then the whole conversation was taking place again in League of Nations in Soviet Armenia in Syria because again the same question was if we bring a few thousand refugees from Greece to Syria again and this was in my dissertation I treat this as the culmination of this talks of the Armenian home and in this episode Soviet Union categorically refuses the transfer and once again another 5,000 to Soviet Armenia so the citizenship was seen very negatively by the refugees but in Syria where they took the citizenship in fact they hoped that by doing so they would erase the refugee level which did not happen obviously overnight they were still referred as refugees and many years was needed to erase this level if I may put it in this way I think I connected this to the Great War in this multiple claims so if you are fine I will stop here thank you very much Victoria and Zeynep thank you very much for your comments I will try to very quickly try to actually connect you of your questions the detachment and the global moment actually indeed Pontic Greeks were attached to the community and they were not the gem of the Greek nationalism, they were not really considered the high point of Greek nationalism particularly due to their very complex relations with the other local population with the Ottoman culture, Islam and conversion stories so there was a very local and flourishing culture a very prominent one but in terms of rising Greek nationalism and the Greek state they were kind of a strange case a strange community I mean there are more works coming from Greece looking at the relations between mainland Greek nationalism and emerging pointing enlightenment and nationalization but let me say that looking from the Ottoman perspective Pontic Greeks were not the first to be saved by the Greek nationalists and throughout this process actually very little has been done by Benizelos to help the Pontic Greeks that's actually part of the tragedy of the Pontic Greeks because global 1920 meant that their own means that secured that maintained their very complex matrix of coexistence did not work anymore their survival strategies their life standards could not be continuous as they had been at the verge of shattering empires they had to also collapse within those shattering mechanisms like professor Winter mentioned yesterday I mean civilization of the war the civilization of the populations without any kind of significant political activism on the part of Pontic Greeks and I want to emphasize this over and over and over again I mean retrospectively there are attributes and they're all you know nerfed civilization about heroism of Pontic Greeks too little too late so it's actually global 1922 is about inescapability inevitability of these processes as far as community even a community like Pontic Greeks a detached community like Pontic Greeks when I mean detached that doesn't necessarily mean that they were not connected they were very connected they were connected with as trade colonies they went all over the world they were very active but in terms of political attachment being independent that didn't really serve them good in this process excellent thank you very much Zeynep so we have a very short question by George Lemos in the Q&A and then we have two hands by Violeta and Nina then a longer question by Jane Cohen at the Q&A box again so let me read the first question I think this is for Victoria when did the Soviet-Greek-Armenian exchange take place? Yes, as I said I am not a historian of Greece or I am not studying the Armenian refugee experience in Greece explicitly so it comes in my research as far as it is connected with Syria and in fact it comes in the 24 and again it comes in 30 which I briefly mentioned when there is a second episode of transfer and there in the Armenian archival record I have seen one sentence in the Armenian state archival record saying that acknowledging that such transfer did happen saying that the exchange of Armenians with Greece of Soviet Union so I understood that it happened but I did not have a date to give you unfortunately sorry about that Violeta Thank you very much to both of you wonderful papers I declare here I am talking from my experience as an historian so forgive me if there is anything missing there and again it is a fair question to Victoria but I was wondering if you know anything about the Armenians who remained in Greece there are a few Jews who remained in Greece and if there is any research about them I would love to know because I am aware that there were people who remained in Greece up to the 70s I met some of them so for Zeynep I was wondering because Pontic Greeks had extremely strong links in the 1910s with communities in Georgia there were a lot of migrants there was there a movement or towards those communities did people try to escape from those deportations and rather choose to join relatives and friends in Georgia Thank you very much Thank you very much for your education for sure there is still a vibrant Armenian community in Greece not everyone was transferred and in fact one interesting point I found a discussion among Soviet authorities saying that the aim of claiming these refugees that they will never be able to take all of them out but just by taking a few thousand of them helped each time to calm the atmosphere and ensure the Greek government and as soon as the refugees where the refugees showed that they were on the waiting list waiting to be transferred to Soviet Union or Soviet Armenia they were left alone they were not dispossessed they were not deported anymore by the Greek government and obviously very small numbers were transferred in the beginning of the 30s I think this community numbered primarily because Greece economy was hardly hit by economic worldwide crisis and it was difficult even for the locals but this is not my research so I do not know any more about them but I know that during this time Davide Rodonio has had his own relations with the League of Nations settlement plans and I can probably look for new research who is researching about them and give it to you later on I am not really familiar thank you actually you have a great point I was already able to get into their survival strategies resistance but obviously the very closure of minds took some of them to western Black Sea also took some of them to deaths of Russia, Georgia, Armenia even further in Central Asia so they were all connected and related so at the Ottoman archives actually there are documents that show that some of them are trying to get on the Russian ships a small boat to escape especially women and children trying to get on the boat to get to Russia that does not specifically say it is Georgia but obviously one of the closest arrival points for them one of the easier access points for them would be Georgia and definitely escaping especially as I said women and children was considered but when they caught these women and children they stopped them so they did not let them escape either so this did not remain just as a mechanism to stop the man so it was also included women and children we have the longer question by Jane Colin and then we have Professor Winter I think from the room and go ahead Lina. Thank you I really enjoyed the two papers I learned so much about populations and the facts I didn't know I would like to suggest to Victoria that maybe the Armenians that were deported as you say were considered communists I think that you have to see that point of view in your research because I know that the Armenians were heavily suspected as being communists in Greece although I'm really not a specialist I have never heard of Armenian deportations in Greece so just consider that I'm not sure of what I'm saying and if you can comment on that and for Zeynep I would like to ask you if the project of creating a Pontus state a Pontic state and at the same time as the project of creating an Armenian state influenced the local relations there and if you can give us an idea of the differences that exist between apart from the Russian occupation the differences that exist between the east and west thank you very much and really excellent papers, thanks Victoria and Zeynep yes thank you very much for the important questions indeed this is the belief that Armenians but also many of the incoming Asian minor refugees of Greek origins were systematically suspected to be the ones to be more prone to this communist ideology there is, you are correct you are right in this but in fact the deportation of Armenians from Greece is really unknown even for me it was a big discovery I may say it was very small scale targeted but it did happen in the efforts of the Greek government state building efforts I guess in these critical years but there is an archival record that I have there is an interesting document that discusses why Greek government why was also one of the main arguments of the Greek government to do so it said that it was to remove these refugees from east trace in the Macedonia this is where they were in fact because these lands as I understood from my records were not that Greek at that time to put Greeks in these territories to kind of claim these territories but because Armenian refugees came and started to farm the abandoned lands there so they would be rooted there Greek government would not be able to claim this land for Greece this is what was my understanding so there was a lot of people going there and in fact as I said there was a League of Nations project to transfer 50,000 Armenian refugees to Soviet Armenia and Greek government just wished to have these 50,000 from Greece because it had already so many over a million own refugees to deal with I'm sure I can say thank you Thank you very much for your question so actually from 1917 I mean after the deportations began I guess there was more of more room for talking about Pontic nationalism or mobilization around some sort of Pontic idea after the Muros of course 1918 very quickly especially the archbishop in western Pontus and who was very much targeted by the Ottoman authorities as well and other prominent members of the community also joined the and claiming that and that since they have a demographic superiority in the region which was also established on the claim that there were crypto and converted Islamized Greeks and if you also can lead them into Greek communities because under a liberal government they will declare themselves as again that they constitute a majority so after 1918 very clearly you can talk about a desire for a Pontic state at least an autonomous region voiced by the prominent members of the community but as I said I mean Greek government in the mainland was not very fond of the idea or also didn't have the means to secure any kind of national project that would require military and other kinds of intervention so very shortly I guess Pontic Greeks once again felt betrayed because they were given kind of an autonomous region within an independent Armenian state which wasn't what they were expecting in terms of historical differences between west and east eastern Pontus I mean there is a lot already written and said about that especially in Greece among the Pontic Greeks there one of the I guess distinguishing features as far as my project is concerned western black sea was much more connected and an area that was more enjoying that kind of exceptional coexistence as defined by Anthony Briar first of all due to spatial arrangement prominent and significant population in the high lands that continued pretty much their own terms of life under the ultimate rule for several centuries without much change significant conversion Islamization in west again in the eastern part but that conversion didn't always come with the change of culture or the language in the Turkish whereas in the eastern part you see a significant population although you don't see a similar Islamization taking place more lower land not as much altitude which also comes with obviously more state power and more state control and also another factor that I briefly mentioned a significant population in the west actually migrated from the east in the second half of the 19th century so there are connections but in terms of spatial arrangement and what it made possible they were culturally also and politically eventually separated from each other Thank you very much Yes I mean we have a longer question in the Q&A box I think Victoria partially answered already and three more questions from the room and no time left so could we take them all and you can perhaps take a few minutes to respond will be a bit over time if that's okay and we can at least receive all the questions so the longer question in the box says can you tell us a bit more on the case of Armenians who were offered and chose to take up Greek citizenship and then were later deported anyway and what were the conditions in which this happened how was it justified and what were responses to it within the Greek government and beyond in other words was there unanimity within the Greek government or did some contest internal debates and discussions on the Greek side I wonder if Armenians were openly expressing unwillingness to assimilate just assumed by Greek government officials do you think the Greek government saw the Armenians as economic competitors to the Greek population just part of the thinking and the rationale for deportations many questions as Jane Conn noted so maybe we can take the questions from the room I see Gondas hand but I'll be quick and it's not a question it's a comment and an answer the date of one of the major deportations is the 30th of August 1948 and an unpublished American observer says that 17,000 Armenians leave from mainly northern Greece and I quote they chose to risk the hazards of going to the Soviet Union Stalinist rather than to remain in Greece imagine the cost to Greece of the loss of the 17,000 Armenians who ever since the Turkish masochists had counted Greece as their home so the date to go looking at is the 30th of August 1948 all I wanted to say thank you excellent go ahead please thanks just on a factual point in Zeynep's excellent talk you referred once and again just now to Antony Brey but in the Gronik script which was underneath your presentation it was impossible to distinguish his name because it was completely distorted so it needs care in doing a transcript I have a question about going back a little bit to 1919 about great government policy from what I've read about the dealings between Venizelos and the Archbishop Venizelos was pretty cautious in what he said and what he thought Greece could do, i.e virtually nothing now what did he have in mind was he still hoping for a mandate an American mandate or something to relieve the following conditions of the Pontic Greeks he didn't imagine Greece being able to send military force up to Pontic it was impossible to do that so for me it's a further question about Greek policy in May 1919 and the entry into Asia Minor which surely would have made the flight of the Pontic Greeks worse but there was nothing he could do about it I'm not sure whether that's a question or a statement and is there one other question from the room yes it's a question for Victoria I believe you will find confirmation in the Bibliotheque in Paris the archivist there Boris Hajamiin who was taking his PhD in the next week he is in possession of material on the Armenian diasporas influence on French policy in Syria it's very rich and it is material confirmed in your case in this library I urge you to be in touch with these terrific libraries wonderful and I think you will find it a great assistance to use this resource because it will highlight Asperger's role in alerting French officials with whom they have very cordial relations if we call them cordial at the same time so it's simply a helping hand I hope you can take it Victoria and Zeynep if you take one or two minutes to respond very quickly that would be great thank you very much for all the comments and remarks I think it's very meaningful Jane Cohen's many questions it's easy to reply very quickly in fact there was not such a case that Armenians were given the Greek citizenship and then deported it was the Armenian fears maybe it was not clear in my speech so it was the fears of the Armenians that they deported anyway so this did not happen and then the Greek government saw the Armenians as competitors yet definitely even in farming they assumed that the incoming Armenian refugees were more entrepreneur than the Asian refugees in many cases who were in fact used to get the relief this was a jealousy there was also some sort of jealousy there and then the Greek government in fact Armenian refugees changed their minds in the end of the 90s and asked the citizenship because I think the main reason why in the beginning they refused it because they didn't know still how to be Armenian in the end of another country it was still in internal thinking how to keep the Armenianness and be the citizen of the local countries I think it's a bit because of these internal discussions and then thank you very much for providing the date I think the 48 was a big the largest I mean immigration to the Second World War between 46 and 48 where over 100,000 Armenians arrived in Soviet Armenia but I do not know when Soviet Union sent back their Greeks so this had happened before because I didn't consult any archival material after that date because in fact my research period is interwar years because I saw that Greek refugees were indeed and I assumed that it must be happened still in the 30s but maybe I am wrong as I said it's not my field of expertise actually if I may say it's for 1930s later half of 1930s and they were mostly Pontic so they were sent especially I mean after just some of the executions that came with the stillness hunt they had to be they had to escape then here is the answer and then for the name I would be much grateful because I did not understand the name of the Armenian scholar I would very much appreciate if you could please share the name and contact details with me it would be much much appreciated thank you thank you very much thank you Boris Adelian the director of Nubar Library I see thank you thank you very much I will be very quick if I may first of all let me just add in defence of my refugees who ended up in Greece I mean the local populations lazy I guess everyone considers other populations lazy and not working and getting money from the government so just to you know defend so maybe I don't know but in terms of the PowerPoint I'm very sorry my PowerPoint just collapsed right at the beginning of my talk and then it came up with subtitles and I couldn't stop them my apologies but thank you very much for your question actually Venizelos from the very beginning didn't really plan or intend or maybe also didn't have the means to do much so probably he thought that it would it's something that needs to be dealt with locally to be very honest I think his understanding of Greek nationalism didn't extend as far as Pontus I mean Pontus was you know really the odd bunch so he didn't really fit within the you know idealized Greek type their language was you know little bit different than the standardized more standardized Greek language so basically he as you suggested he left the issue to be taking care of locally maybe as a mandate means as a part of the Armenian Republic that would be established under some sort of Armenian American or British overthink but basically whatever the solution is he didn't want to commit any kind of responsibility any kind of undertaking coming from mainland Greek so and that actually meant that in the overall progression of the Pontic question after 1922-1923 Pontic Greeks remained as refugees moving from one place to the other from one I mean they ended up in Soviet Republic they had to flee Soviet Republic at several points they went to Greece and they were not welcoming Greece and they ended up in Australia in Europe so this is a constant story of homelessness which is one of the long term consequences of their uprooting and dispossession with that terrific we're 12 minutes over time and I apologize for that but it was a great discussion terrific papers thank you very much and thank you for all the excellent questions as well so we're breaking for lunch as I understand it and we'll see everyone in about an hour I guess thank you what next so we're breaking for lunch and we start again 131 and what did you say? okay sorry it's coming okay