For centuries, even after the 1453 fall of Constantinople, a Greek population flourished in the city whose name eventually changed to Istanbul.
But despite attempts to “Turkify” it, the city retained its Greek linguistic characteristic.
Istanbul actually comes from the Greek words “eis tin poli” or “to the City.” The phrase refers to the nickname for the Queen of Cities, or “the City,” as Constantinople was known.
Greeks still refer to the city as “Konstantinoupoli.”
Today, Istanbul or Constantinople — however you prefer to refer to the city — is the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual head of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians.
A few thousand Greeks native to Turkey still reside here. Known as “Rums,” they take their name from the word “romios” which referred to Greeks.
The population decline began in the early 1900s during war between Greece and Turkey. In the 1920s, almost 140,000 native Greeks lived in the city.
Successive Turkish governments placed a stranglehold on the local Greek population over the past century. They imposed unjust taxes, confiscated property and in 1955 they perpetrated the largest anti-Greek riot in history. Repressive explosions subsequently followed in 1964.
According to late Byzantine and Greek historian Spyros Vryonis Jr., the 1955 anti-Greek riots all but marked the end of a once-thriving community.
“The lethal pogrom of September 6-7, 1955 delivered a fatal blow to the Hellenism of Constantinople in seven hours,” Vryonis wrote in an article for The Pappas Post. “Well planned (for some years), masterfully carried out in a well organized manner by the Turkish government, the Turks destroyed 71 churches, 41 schools, 4,008 stores, the offices and printing presses of eight newspapers, and approximately 2,100 dwellings, all the property of the Greeks and their communities.”
Much of the Greek elements in Istanbul were lost. But remnants of the once-thriving community still remain.
Turkish TV produced a short video featuring a native Greek retired teacher named Andon Pariziyanos. For a few minutes, Pariziyanos takes viewers on a tour through some of Istanbul’s old Greek neighborhoods.
Featured image / Chapultepec via Wikimedia Commons
Watch the video
Is The Pappas Post worth $5 a month for all of the content you read? On any given month, we publish dozens of articles that educate, inform, entertain, inspire and enrich thousands who read The Pappas Post. I’m asking those who frequent the site to chip in and help keep the quality of our content high — and free. Click here and start your monthly or annual support today. If you choose to pay (a) $5/month or more or (b) $50/year or more then you will be able to browse our site completely ad-free!
Click here if you would like to subscribe to The Pappas Post Weekly News Update
4 comments
What about ottoman and Turkish neighbors in Greek!! All of it deminished because of the racism and ” Greefication”
Turks don’t belong in Greece, actually turks don’t even belong in the occupied territories called turkey, turks are invaders that haven’t even been in the are 1000 years. Those territories belong to Armenians, Syrians, Kurds and Greeks, all these people have lived in the area thousands of years before the turkic invasion.
Greeks are not an ethnic minority in Turkey. Half a million Turks became overlords to 12 million Byzantines?and forcibly converted them over a thousand years. Today genetic analysis shows no genetic differences among Turks and Greeks and their Minoic and Mycenaic ancestors. However under the Ottomans people could not learn their Greek language or be educated in their history and after Ataturk the people of Turkey have been subjected to the only successful fascist construct of the 20th century which is becoming even more noxious under Erdogan.
The Ottoman Turks came and eventually took over. You had multiple battles and wars after that, and now we have our current state. I am a Greek…and, I look to the past to learn and understand, and I live in the present. My problem with Turkey is not that they came and took other people’s land – that was normal. The problem I have with Turkey is that they destroy, and try to manipulate history. They don’t respect, celebrate…or even acknowledge history. And in turn, they don’t respect, celebrate…or even acknowledge other cultures/religions.