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Istanbul pogrom

This article is about the anti-Greek pogrom in Istanbul in 1955. For the anti-Greek activities that occurred in the same city in 1821, see Constantinople Massacre of 1821.
Istanbul pogrom
Turkish mob attacking Greek property
LocationIstanbul, Turkey
Date6–7 September 1955
TargetPrivate property, Orthodox churches and cemeteries of the Greek population of the city
Attack type
Pogrom
DeathsExact number is unknown, estimates vary from 13 to 37 or more[1][2]
InjuredMore than 1,000 injured,[2] approximately 200–400 Greek women and boys raped[2][3]
PerpetratorsTactical Mobilisation Group (special forces), Democrat Party,[4] National Security Service,[5] Turkish Cyprus Association[citation needed]

The Istanbul pogrom, also known as the Istanbul riots,[6][3] were a series of state-sponsored anti-Greek mob attacks directed primarily at Istanbul's Greek minority on 6–7 September 1955.[7][8] The pogrom was orchestrated by the governing Democrat Party in Turkey with the cooperation of various security organizations (Tactical Mobilisation Group, Counter-Guerrilla and National Security Service).[9] The events were triggered by the bombing of the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece, – the house where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in 1881.[10] The bomb was actually planted by a Turkish usher at the consulate, who was later arrested and confessed. The Turkish press was silent about the arrest, and instead, it insinuated that Greeks had set off the bomb.[2]

The pogrom is occasionally described as a genocide against Greeks, since, per Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, despite its relatively low number of deaths, it "satisfies the criteria of article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG) because the ‘‘intent to destroy in whole or in part’’ the Greek minority in Istanbul was demonstrably present, the pogrom having been orchestrated by the government of Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes" and "As a result of the pogrom, the Greek minority eventually emigrated from Turkey."[2]

A Turkish mob, most of whose members were trucked into the city in advance, assaulted Istanbul's Greek community for nine hours. Although the mob did not explicitly call for the killing of Greeks, over a dozen people died during or after the attacks as a result of beatings and arson. Armenians and Jews were also harmed.[11] The police were mostly ineffective, and the violence continued until the government declared martial law in Istanbul, called in the army and ordered it to put down the riots.[12] The material damage was estimated at US$500 million, including the burning of churches and the devastation of shops and private homes.[2]

The pogrom greatly accelerated emigration of ethnic Greeks from Turkey, in particular the Greeks of Istanbul. The Greek population of Turkey declined from 119,822 in 1927,[13] to about 7,000 in 1978.[14] In Istanbul alone, the Greek-speaking population decreased from 65,108 to 49,081 between 1955 and 1960.[13] The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry placed the number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at 3,000–4,000;[15] while according to the Human Rights Watch (2006) their number was estimated to be 2,500.[16]

The attacks have been described as a continuation of a process of Turkification that started with the decline of the Ottoman Empire,[7][17][18][19][20] as roughly 40% of the properties attacked belonged to other minorities.[10] The pogrom has been compared in some media to the Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany.[21][3][22]

In 2009, Turkish then-Prime Minister Erdogan said that Turkey had committed mistakes, and that: "Those minorities with different ethnic identities were expelled from our country in the past. It was a result of fascist policy."[23][24][25]

  1. ^ Λιμπιτσιούνη, Ανθή Γ. "Το πλέγμα των ελληνοτουρκικών σχέσεων και η ελληνική μειονότητα στην Τουρκία, οι Έλληνες της Κωνσταντινούπολης της Ίμβρου και της Τενέδου" (PDF). University of Thessaloniki. p. 29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 January 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f de Zayas, Alfred (August 2007). "The Istanbul Pogrom of 6–7 September 1955 in the Light of International Law". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 2 (2): 137–154. ISSN 1911-0359. Archived from the original on 19 May 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2015. The Septemvriana satisfies the criteria of article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG) because the intent to destroy in whole or in part the Greek minority in Istanbul was demonstrably present, the pogrom having been orchestrated by the government of Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Even if the number of deaths (estimated at thirty-seven) among members of the Greek community was relatively low, the result of the pogrom was the flight and emigration of the Greek minority of Istanbul, which once numbered some 100,000 and was subsequently reduced to a few thousand. The vast destruction of Greek property, businesses, and churches provides evidence of the Turkish authorities' intent to terrorize the Greeks in Istanbul into abandoning the territory, thus eliminating the Greek minority. This practice falls within the ambit of the crime of ethnic cleansing, which the UN General Assembly and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have interpreted as constituting a form of genocide... Besides the deaths, thousands were injured; some 200 Greek women were raped, and there are reports that Greek boys were raped as well. Many Greek men, including at least one priest, were subjected to forced circumcision. The riots were accompanied by enormous material damage, estimated by Greek authorities at US$500 million, including the burning of churches and the devastation of shops and private homes. As a result of the pogrom, the Greek minority eventually emigrated from Turkey.
  3. ^ a b c Erdemir, Aykan (7 September 2016). "The Turkish Kristallnacht". Politico Europe. Archived from the original on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vryonis2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Birand, Mehmet Ali. "The shame of Sept. 6–7 is always with us," Turkish Daily News, 7 September 2005.
  6. ^ Also known in Greece as the September events (Greek: Σεπτεμβριανά, romanized: Septemvriana, lit. 'Events of September'; Turkish: 6–7 Eylül Olayları, lit. 'Events of 6–7 September'), also referred to as the Turkish Kristallnacht
  7. ^ a b Jongerden, Joost (2021). The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey. Routledge. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-429-55906-8. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 15 February 2022. In 1934 and 1955, the Thrace and Istanbul pogroms respectively, were state-sponsored attacks which were committed against non-Muslim populations as part of the Turkish government's plan to create a homogeneous Turkish nation during the post-Republican period.
  8. ^ Katsoulas, Spyros (2021). The United States and Greek–Turkish Relations: The Guardian's Dilemma. Routledge. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-000-51433-9. Archived from the original on 30 May 2022. Retrieved 30 May 2022. In September 1955, the Turkish government orchestrated anti-Greek riots in Istanbul, amassing an angry mob for a pogrom that left tens of people dead, thousands of houses and shops destroyed, and an indelible mark on Greek–Turkish history.
  9. ^ Benlisoy, Foti (2008). "Anti-Greek riots of September 1955 in Constantinople (Istanbul)". Constantinople.ehw.gr. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2020. There is a general consensus that the events broke out on the government's initiative and they were organised in collaboration with the secret police
  10. ^ a b Güven, Dilek (6 September 2005). "6–7 Eylül Olayları (1)". Radikal (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 15 September 2008.
  11. ^ de Zayas, Alfred (August 2007). "The Istanbul Pogrom of 6–7 September 1955 in the Light of International Law". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 2 (2): 138. ISSN 1911-0359. Archived from the original on 19 May 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  12. ^ Yaman, Ilker (17 March 2014). "The Istanbul Pogrom". We Love Istanbul. Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  13. ^ a b Tsilenisdemography-lab.prd.uth.gr Archived 9 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ Kilic, Ecevit (7 September 2008). "Sermaye nasıl el değiştirdi?". Sabah (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 12 March 2017. Retrieved 25 December 2008. 6–7 Eylül olaylarından önce İstanbul'da 135 bin Rum yaşıyordu. Sonrasında bu sayı 70 bine düştü. 1978'e gelindiğinde bu rakam 7 bindi.
  15. ^ "Foreign Ministry: 89,000 minorities live in Turkey". Today's Zaman. 15 December 2008. Archived from the original on 1 May 2010. Retrieved 15 December 2008.
  16. ^ "From "Denying Human Rights and Ethnic Identity" series of Human Rights Watch". Human Rights Watch. 2 July 2006. Archived from the original on 7 July 2006.
  17. ^ Ergil, Doğu. "Past as present", Turkish Daily News 12 September 2005.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference kuyucu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference holland was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Gurel, Meltem, ed. (2015). Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey: Architecture Across Cultures in the 1950s and 1960s. Routledge. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-1317616375.
  21. ^ Maglinis, Ilias K. (28 June 2005). "Istanbul 1955: The anatomy of a pogrom". Kathimerini. Archived from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2016. The rally got out of control and resulted in a «Kristallnacht» against Greeks in Istanbul.
  22. ^ Zeynalov, Mahir (5 September 2016). "Mahir Zeynalov on Twitter". Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2016. Tomorrow is the 61st anniversary of Turkey's own Kristallnacht, in which Greeks, Armenians and Jews were attacked and lynched.
  23. ^ "Erdoğan'ın sözleri Atina'da yankı buldu" [Erdogan's words echoed in Athens]. Sabah (in Turkish). 26 May 2009. Archived from the original on 26 August 2021. Retrieved 20 January 2020. Erdogan's words about the expulsion of people with different ethnic identities were covered in the Greek press with the headline "Prime Minister made self-criticism"
  24. ^ "Erdogan attacks the past, labels Kemalist ethnic cleansing Fascist". www.asianews.it. Archived from the original on 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  25. ^ "Farklı kimliktekileri kovduk 'sözüne tepki". www.ntv.com.tr (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 15 January 2022. Retrieved 15 January 2022.: "Yıllarca bu ülkede bir şeyler yapıldı. Farklı etnik kimlikte olanlar ülkemizden kovuldu. Acaba kazandık mı? Bunların üzerinde durarak bir düşünmek lazım. Ama aklıselim ile bunların üzerinde düşünülmedi. Bu aslında faşizan bir yaklaşımın neticesiydi. Bu hatalara zaman içerisinde zaman zaman biz de düştük ama aklıselim ile düşününce şuralarda ne gibi yanlışlar yaptık ki şöyle bir başımızı iki elimizin arasına aldığımızda hakikaten ne yanlışlar yapmışsınız, diyorsunuz."

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