Karaoli & Dimitriou Ton Kiprion 36 | Thessaloniki
- This event has passed.
Τen Aspects of the 1923 Lausanne Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations
February 19 5:00 pm - March 30 9:00 pm
Through the work of two guest illustrators – Dimitris Kamenos from Greece and Esra Yılmaz from Türkiye – this online exhibition aims at bringing to the fore ten aspects of the 1923 Lausanne Convention concerning the population exchange between Greece and Türkiye. While some of these aspects are better or less known than others, they had a direct impact on the lives of millions of people and influenced the evolution of international human rights and humanitarian law.
Esra Yılmaz is a Turkish graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Izmir for the past ten years. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in graphic design. Through colors and forms, her art aims at creating unique visual narratives. For the present project of theBasketGallery, she drew inspiration from historic photos and archives as well as contemporary sources related to concepts of identity and belonging. As she said, “despite progress in human rights, the fact that so many people are forced to migrate highlights the complexity and significance of individual human stories. It is the situation of these individuals that shaped my quest for depth and meaning in my artwork, including this project.” (www.instagram.com/esrayilmzzzz/)
Dimitris Kamenos is a Greek writer and illustrator. He holds degrees in Greek literature and history. His work as writer and illustrator started appearing in various newspapers, TV and radio shows since the early ‘00s. Having turned to comics, he scripts and draws the alternative history series ‘World War Sapiens’ and the satirical comic strip “A Bear Counts the Stars” which appears in the ‘Efimerida ton Syntakton” newspaper. He has also published “Mefisto”, a serialized parody of Goethes’s classic play “Faust”. For the present project of theBasketGallery, he borrowed the style of old newspaper cartoons from the 1920s, giving the reader a feeling of the era. As he said, “it was a challenging task as I had to simulate the work of people with great artistic skills and serious Academic training. Moreover, I tried to avoid the stereotypical depictions that were very much a part of their visual vocabulary but seem so outdated today. Exploring that area was both tough and fun!”. (www.instagram.com/megalo_kolpo)
1. What it meant for the people concerned? 
Dimitris KamenosAll Greeks and Turks that were to leave Türkiye and Greece respectively, were to officially lose their citizenship at the time, and gain the citizenship of the country they would be resettled in. They were also stripped of any right to return -even for the purposes of temporary visit- to their point of origin in Greece or Türkiye, unless especially permitted by the countries’ respective government. Their fortunes and belongings were items to be swapped-with each group having no representation on their behalf in either country. Some of those Greeks and Turks were even veterans, having fought wars for the state that was now deporting them.
2.Eleftherios Venizelos and Ismet Pasha 
Esra YılmazThe first formal request for an exchange of populations came in the form of a letter which the Greek politician Eleftherios Venizelos, then living in self-exile abroad, addressed to the League of Nations. The letter was dated October 16th, 1922. With a million Greek Orthodox people from Türkiye already seeking refuge in Greek territory, Venizelos was forced to seek a realistic way out in the form of a de jure settlement. He then led the Greek delegation in Lausanne, negotiating the terms of an agreement between the two powers. On the Turkish side, the Peace Treaty and Convention was signed by Ismet Pasha, who later took the surname Inonu (İnönü). Ismet Pasha, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s right-hand man and old comrade in arms had been appointed chief negotiator of the Turkish delegation with the task of replacing the treaty of Sèvres with a new one. The future Turkish Prime Minister and President was known for his relative rigidness towards certain negotiators, always turning his hearing device off when the British foreign secretary Lord Curzon was about to speak.
3.Fridtjof Nansen 
Dimitris KamenosFridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (1861-1930) was the driving force behind the signing of the treaty. Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, scientist, right wing politician and diplomat who at the time served as High Commissioner for Refugees in the League of Nations, oversaw the exchange while considering the interests of Türkiye, Greece and the major world powers involved. Although he admitted that the difficulties were immense, as more than a million people had to face hardship “being uprooted from their homes and transferred to a foreign land”, he was convinced that the solution was valid and served the greater good. For his contribution in resolving this critical matter and other measures taken to protect refugees globally, Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Greek State has also shown its gratitude by naming a street in Ymittos after him and erecting his bust at of the corner of Rizari and King Konstantine St., in Athens.
4.Exemptions 
Esra YılmazNegotiations in Lausanne were tense, with each side trying to achieve better terms for those they sought to protect. According to article 3 of the Convention, a portion (about 100.000) of Greek Orthodox Christians living in Istanbul as well as the inhabitants of Imvros and Tenedos were exempted from the agreement. The same went for, again, roughly 100.000 Muslims that were to retain their position in Western Thrace. To the Mixed Commission's question for advice, the then Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague opined that “[for] "Greek inhabitants of Constantinople " [to] be considered as “established” under the terms of the Convention and exempted from the compulsory exchange, they must reside within the boundaries of the Prefecture of the City of Constantinople as defined by the law of 1912; have arrived there, no matter whence they came, at some date previous to October 30th, 1918; and have had, prior to that date, the intention of residing there for an extended period.
5.Who was what? 
Dimitris KamenosThe question of who was Greek and who was Turkish (or e.g. Albanian) arose constantly during the summit. The Ottoman State had been a vast empire that treated its subjects according to religion as the “millet” system distinguished citizens into religious/administrative groups. Therefore, some populations existed in an area of cultural, linguistical and ethnological ambiguity. The delegates at Lausanne kept religion as the decisive criterion by which ethnicity was determined, deeming all Greek Orthodox Christians as Greeks and all Muslims as Turks. As a result, many Greek Muslims such as those originating from Greece’s region of Macedonia (“Vallahades”) were forced to leave to Türkiye even though they spoke little or no Turkish and many Turkish Christians from Northeastern Anatolia and Cappadocia were deemed to be Greeks while speaking very little or no Greek. The same went for Greek Orthodox Armenian and Muslim Roma groups that found themselves forced to leave for Greece and Türkiye respectively. Marginal cases and complex identities had no place in the agreement.
6. A Mixed Commission 
Esra YılmazThe Lausanne Convention also called for the formation of a mixed Commission which was to consist of four Greek, four Turkish and three neutral members. All neutral members were to be picked by the Council of the League of Nations out of citizens of countries that had not participated in WWI. The Commission’s task was to oversee the implementation of the exchange of people as well as their estates. The total number of Greeks who fled to Greece was probably around 1.2 million with the main wave occurring in 1922 before the signing of the Convention. According to the official records of the Mixed Commission set up to monitor the movements, the Greeks who were transferred after 1923 numbered 189,916 and the number of Muslims transferred to Türkiye was 355,635.
7. Trading goods as well as citizens 
Dimitris KamenosIt was within the intentions of the Convention to protect the material possessions of those to be exchanged. The people concerned could gather up and take their movable assets with them or, in case of non- movable goods and real estate, have them registered with the local authorities of their country of birth. Every immovable possession was to be seized by the country it was set upon and liquidated. It was promised that, for property left behind, refugees would be compensated with new possessions of equal value. This worked in large numbers: The sum of all Greek properties was calculated against the sum of all Turkish and the difference balanced in favor of the state whose citizens had lost the most estates. Finally, each country would pass a complex system of new laws and decrees in an attempt to compensate all individuals. It was a Herculean Task with limited success. Many people found the houses they were supposed to settle in destroyed or looted. What’s more, the displaced were quick to find refuge in estates that had not yet been registered, preventing governments from conducting a proper seizure. In real life, things were not as plain as they appeared to be on paper.
8.States vs people 
Esra YılmazIt is safe to say that, given the momentum, all sides could see profit from that bilateral treaty. The new Turkish Republic, who was trying to build a solid nation-state out of the old Ottoman Empire ensured that the Greek Orthodox population who left on the aftermath of the Greek defeat was, by international law, not returning. What’s more, a significant number of Muslim Turks were hurrying to resettle in areas evacuated by the Greeks. In much the same fashion, Greece could ensure that the few remaining Greeks would leave Türkiye in safety. The Greek State, who was then facing a humanitarian crisis, could now legally issue Turkish properties to the homeless Greeks arriving from Türkiye. It also ensured that new settlers would be available to work the land that was acquired during the Balkan Wars and contribute to greater ethnic coherence inside the new Greek borders. The Great Powers monitoring the conference all hailed the population exchange as a new opportunity for stability and peace in the Southern Balkans and the Aegean. To the expense, of course, of the people who underwent a violent uprooting.
9.Nazi Press 
Dimitris KamenosIn spite of many German nationalists being afraid that the Greek/Turkish population exchange would set a bad precedent for German minorities in central Europe, the pro-Nazi press of the time was quick to salute it. To them, and to many writers of the Third Reich that followed, it was a drastic solution to the minority problem in both sides of the Aegean and would enable” harmony” between all populations. An overview of forced movement of populations in Europe throughout the 20th century and to date shows that forced displacement spans the spectrum of several practices such as evacuation, removal, deportation or expulsion of populations and individuals, as well as population exchange, ethnic cleaning and even genocide.
10.Today’s International Law 
Esra YılmazOur perception on population exchanges has come a long way since 1923. After the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such practices are considered a breach of International Law and are officially out of the picture. In fact, “deportation or forcible transfer of a population” is defined as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Legal views as well as public opinion on the matter changed drastically after the Nuremberg Trials condemned the practice of forced population transfers by the Nazis. On the basis of this consensus stands the trend that assigns more and more rights on people rather than states. Governments cannot make agreements violating their citizens’ individual rights. However, the problem of forced displacement still persists, with 2023 seeing a drastic increase in refugees and internally displaced persons globally.
Previous
Next