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COPYRIGHT 2006 Professors World Peace Academy
This article looks at the history of the Greek diaspora and the relationship of Greeks in the diaspora to Greece. Greeks who emigrate retain a special attachment to their homeland.
Greece was under the Ottoman Empire until 1821, isolating the people from the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was the Greeks in the diaspora, many who became successful in the West, who took leadership and gained support of other European nations in the Greek revolution that led to the formation of the modern Greek state.
Greeks of the diaspora today provide the impetus for the modernization of Greek society. Money sent to relatives and investments in Greece constitute a significant part of the Greek economy. Greeks, in their adopted countries, form interest groups to lobby on behalf of Greece.
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Although it is common to consider 1830 the beginning of the first period of the modern Greek diaspora, many Greek diaspora communities were established between the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 and the inception of the modern Greek state in 1830. Actually, Greeks began to emigrate to the West even before 1453, as early as the late fourteenth century when the Turkish attacks on the Byzantine Empire became more intense. At first sluggish, emigration picked up just before and after 1453 in response to the increasing oppression of the Turks in the conquered Greek territories. Ultimately, the number of Greek migrants increased enough to justifiably be called diaspora. (1) The Greek diaspora in Europe, unlike that in the United States, (2) offered leadership prior to and during the Greek revolution of 1821 and assisted in the modernization of Greece.
Internal as well as external factors caused expatriation during the early period of modern Greek diaspora. First of all, the drastic changes to the traditional landowning arrangements brought about by the Ottoman expansion along with the demographic pressures on Christians resulting from the placement of Muslim settlers, especially in the rich flatlands, undermined the prevailing social web and led to general insecurity and a tendency to flee toward more secure places. Many escaped by relocating in the mountainous parts of the Ottoman Empire while others, when possible, moved to neighboring Venetian possessions and from there to Western Europe. Some of them found refuge in northern Balkan states as well as the Caucasus. To such involuntary relocations ought to be added those caused by the clashes between the Ottomans and European countries as well as direct opposition to Ottoman rule. The escape of those affected was at times organized (sometimes with the cooperation of interested Christian countries), at other times was spasmodic (often initiated by those fleeing). (3)
Under Ottoman rule the Greeks occupied an inferior status, life was harsh, the fate of individuals depended on erratic sultans and greedy pashas, Christianity became a second-class religion, and the Greek population was heavily taxed. One of the most notorious taxes was the one known as the "tribute of children," which was an instrument used to recruit soldiers for the sultan's army. It required that in every Christian family one male in five between the ages of ten and twenty had to serve in the Ottoman army. Yet the Ottomans regarded each religious community as an autonomous millet, or "nation" under its religious leaders. The Greeks were given a degree of self-rule. The Greek religious community was supervised by the patriarch of Constantinople. Under such an administrative structure, the Orthodox church had considerable power. The patriarch was not only the religious leader, but he also was the political head of the Greek community. (4) The church was the most important means for gaining access to the sultan's court. "The millet system performed one invaluable service: it made possible the survival of the Greeks through four centuries of alien rule. At the same time, it fused religion with nationalism which provided the arsenal necessary to actualize a people's dream for independence." (5)
Ottoman rule "had a paralyzing effect upon Greek people and their country. The patient peasants pushing their wooden ploughs behind small, bony oxen and the women grinding their cereals between primitive millstones were as typical of 1821 as of 1453. Greece had undergone no Renaissance, no Reformation, no Age of Enlightenment, although it was affected obliquely by the cultural and religious upheaval that transformed Europe. In 1879, almost fifty years after the War of Independence, about 82 percent of the Greek population lived in rural communities. While the political leadership was consumed with regaining all its unredeemed territories, the vast majority of Greeks were trying to eke out a living in a barren and arid land of which two-thirds was mountainous ..." A story that is part of the Greek folklore of Greece and much reflects the plight of the country goes as follows: "When the world was made, God put all the earth through a sieve. He set some good soil down here, and this was one country. And He set some down there, and that was another country. And so He went one, and when He finished, He threw all the stones over his shoulder, and that was Greece." (6)
Voluntary expatriation during the early period was primarily the result of economic conditions. On the one hand there was an acute economic crisis coupled by a corrupt Ottoman administration, and on the other hand there was an expansion of western economic penetration of the Near East. As a result of the European states' expansion of commercial activities, Greeks as well as Jews and Armenians were given the opportunity to become middlemen and to become familiar with Western economic patterns as well as the commercial centers abroad. During the 16th and 17th centuries, when Ottoman decline became more serious, there was an increase in the number of Greeks who decided to relocate within the Empire or to move beyond its boundaries. A smaller number, but a strong component of the diaspora during the early period was composed of Greek students studying abroad. Most of them went to Italy and more specifically the universities of Padua, Bologna, and Pisa. Some of them attended German universities. (7)
Favorable academic employment opportunities also induced many Greek intellectuals to move westward. Communities established by this diaspora came to slowly include most strata of society. Despite the diversity of this population, the majority tended to become merchants and shopkeepers. Almost none of them became involved in agriculture although some had been farmers in their homeland. (8) "As early as the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Greeks in particular made impressive advances as maritime traders, compradors, and stock-brokers, which apart from their effect on the modern Greek economy and society, also gave a quantitative and qualitative boost to the existing colonies...
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