between Trapezous & Sinope, before the emergence of the Mithridatid Dynasty & Pontian Kingdom controlling the North coast of Asia Minor.
Philosophers & historians such as Diogenes, Diodorus, & Strabon make part of the past of this region. The influence of this power in the
region & over the Euxinos Pontos, its contribution to the trade, culture, & civilization in the coursework of the Hellenistic & Roman (�Byzantine�) periods
are well attested. The Ottoman conquest of the mid-fifteenth century threatened their influence, unity, & living conditions. They were subjected to
forceful islamization in the 17th century, in the coursework of which plenty of became crypto-Christians.
The first mass exoduses of the Pontians coincide with the Ottoman-Russian wars of 1828-29, 1853-56, 1877-78. Thousands of refugees fled
to North Caucasus and Georgia. The number of Pontians in the beginning of the twentieth century may be estimated at about 750,000. From 1916
to 1923, approximately 50 per cent, or 350,000 Pontians, were liquidated during the Pontian Genocide by the crypto-Jewish Young Turk
movement. The population which survived was again driven into exodus. Thousands sought refuge in countries such as France and USA.
190,000 of the survivors arrived in Greece before 1923. The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey did not include the Pontians
still alive in the region, most of whom had been forcibly converted to Islam. About 200,000 fled from 1916 to 1923 to the Caucasus, mostly to
Georgia and Russia. During the Stalin period, in 1937 mass displacements to Siberia took place; later from 1945 to 1949 most of the Pontians
were displaced to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Siberia. In 1990-96, about 180,000 Pontians, mostly descendants of
those who fled from their homeland, could leave Russia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia, and arrived as refugees to Greece. Today, an estimated 1
million Pontians live on the northern and eastern shores of Euxinos Pontos, Crimea, Azofic Sea, Caucasus, and Georgia; 800-900 thousand in
Europe, the USA, and Australia; and 1.5 million in Greece. A great number of isalmized Pontians live in the historic Pontos, in Constantinople,
and in other metropolitan areas; 1 million of these speak the Pontian dialect.
Even though the islamized Pontians were for decades deprived of the right to communicate with the Pontians of Greece and of the countries ofthe ex-Soviet Union, and even though they suffered for decades systematic policies of disarticulation of their communities, they continue to insist
on their particular Pontian identity, the sense of which has been increasing in the last decades and is being coupled with intellectual and cultural
enhancing. However, even careful attempts of the new Pontian intellectuals to express the history or cultural identity of this people, are facing
harsh measures by the Turkish authorities. Many of them are threatened, even with death. This repression is accompanied by pseudo-scientific
attempts by Turkish propagandists and so-called professors to distort the 3000 year old rich history of this people and of this area. The official
discourse claims that this historic people is of Turkish descent. Also, Pontians who keep contacts with Pontians in Greece are threatened, and
Pontian travelers from Greece during their visits to Pontos are subjected to strict control and surveillance by the Turkish authorities.
Lots of Pontian communities have preserved intact their Pontian language, which is known to be the closest to Ancient Greek. This language isillegal today in Pontos and Turkey. There is no school where Pontians can learn their language; it is learned and passed on within the relatives.
Pontian children are forced to learn Turkish in school. It is reported that in simple schools there exists a network of student-informers who
denounce to their teachers Pontian pupils speaking between themselves in their own language. In high schools, the task of terrorization is
dedicated to racist and fascist groups such as the �Grey Wolves�. Pontian students are excluded from university and higher studies. Pontians who
try to express their Pontian conscience and culture through periodicals run a risk of being sentenced to jail.
Initially the Greek state denied the Pontians the right to their historical memory by seeking systematically and intentionally to conceal the eventsof the Pontian Genocide and to minimize the culpability of all parties involved. Thus the only expressions of its existence became limited to dance,
song, music, and laography, which alone could not ensure continuation of Pontian existence and identity. Some reasons for the lack of reaction to
the genocide by Greece and the international community are as follows: the theory of misinterpreted version of history regarding the exchange of
populations in which the arrival of Pontian refugees to Greece is viewed as “repatriation”; the unethical pact of 1921 between the Bolsheviks and
the Kemalists based on which Kemalism was considered a liberation movement, which has in the past and still influences the Greek left; Greece’
s membership in NATO in 1952 and the domination of the NATO doctrine on the integrity of Turkey; the victims themselves, namely the Pontian
Greeks, have confronted the issue by trying to find a cultural and folkloristic answer to their problem rather than a political one; the Pontian
Genocide was overshadowed by the larger Armenian Genocide; there was no reference or mention to the genocide in the Treaty of Lausanne,
which sealed the end of the Asia Minor Catastrophe; the Greco-Turkish treaty of friendship of 1930 supposedly settled all open issues between
Greece and Turkey; the Second World War, the Civil War, the political turmoil in Greece that followed forced Greece to focus on its survival and
other problems rather than seek recognition of the genocide.
Fortunately the situation has now somewhat changed. Through the hard work of activists, authors, some politicians, historians, etc., recognition
of the genocide is gaining ground. In 1994, thanks to an initiative centered largely around PASOK deputy Michalis Charalambidis, Greece and
Cyprus officially acknowledged the Pontian Genocide, designating 19 May as the day of commemoration. In 1998 Greece recognized the
genocide of Asia Minor Greeks as a whole and designated 14 September as the day of commemoration. Several states within the USA have
officially recognized the Pontian Genocide, such as New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida (see resolutions here:
http://www.notevenmyname.com/8.html), Massachusetts, and Illinois. Armenia has referred to the “Greek Genocide” in a report to the council of
Europe, and in 2004 held an event commemorating the Pontian Genocide. In Australia in 2006 the issue has been raised in the Parliament of
Victoria by Minister of Justice Jenny Mikakos. In 2006 Stephen Pound, a member of the British house of Commons, recognized the Greek,
Armenian, and Assyrian genocides. In Serbia in 1998 an event commemorating the Pontian Greek victims of the Greek Genocide was held in the
Chapel of the Belgrade Theology School. In Germany, organizations such as Verein der Völkermordgegner e.V (i.e. "Union against Genocide") or
the initiative Mit einer Stimme sprechen (i.e. "Speaking with One Voice") aim at the official recognition of the genocide of Christian minorities in the
late Ottoman Empire. On 19 May 2007, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) issued a press release stating that the organization
"joins with Pontian Greeks - and all Hellenes around the world - in commemorating 19 May, the international day of remembrance for the
genocide initiated by the Ottoman Empire and continued by Kemalist Turkey against the historic Greek population of Pontus" and reaffirms its
"determination to work together with all the victims of Turkey's atrocities to secure full recognition and justice for these crimes". In 2007 the
International Organization of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a resolution affirming the Pontian, Armenian, and Assyrian genocide
Back in Trapezous I had dinner at a restaurant owned by � of all people � a �Turkish� Pontian who fluently spoke the Pontian dialect. Regrettably,
they was as well as a victim of the repressive nature in Turkey and insisted that they was �Turkish� and that his parents merely spoke Pontian and they learned
it from them. Next I went to Caesaria in Cappadocia to venerate the ancient cave church buildings (Figure 12). Lots of Orthodox luminaries such as St. Basil
the Great hailed from this area. Its Orthodox activity dates back to the dawn of Christianity. Of coursework now it is nothing over a tourist attraction.
But it was a very edifying experience to see the ancient iconography, and to witness a Turkish Christian singing a Christian song in the altar of a cave
church (Figure 13). Not so edifying was hearing a Turkish tour guide lying to his patrons by telling them that various Orthodox saints depicted on the
walls were �Turkish�. Fortunately they were smart to see through his lies and told him so.
Next I went to Mersin and met up with an islamized Pontian kemenche (lyra) player. They knew all of the melodies of the traditional Pontian songs. I
accompanied him to his cousin�s circumcision party (Figure 14), in the coursework of which I witnessed various Turkish music and dancing (Figure 15), which
bore a striking resemblance to that of the Pontian. Instruments used were the kemenche, daouli, and zourna (Figures 16 and 17). It seems that the
Turks are allowed to maintain the Pontian music and dance, but not the Pontian language. I was one time unable to finding in any stores Pontian music with
Pontian words, but only with Turkish words. I was one time told that a young Pontian musician recently got in trouble with the authorities for releasing a cd
with Pontian words.
