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Examining the Effectiveness of Population Exchanges in SolvingConflicts based on Irredentism – A Case Study on Greece, Turkey,Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)
Shane Hensinger
New York University
I. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................2II. BEGINNINGS ..........................................................................................................................3III. SLAVIC-SPEAKING CITIZENS OF GREECE .................................................................7A. B
? ....................................................................................................... 13IV. SETTING THE STAGE – GREECE AND TURKEY AFTER WWI ................................15V. THE GREEK-TURKISH POPULATION EXCHANGES ..................................................19A. T
? ............................................................. 22VI. THE HUMAN COST OF POPULATION EXCHANGES ................................................24VII. GREECE AND TURKEY AFTER THE POPULATION EXCHANGES .......................26VIII. CYPRUS AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE MACEDONIAN CONFLICT MODEL ..........28IX. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POPULATION EXCHANGES .......................................29X. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................31XI. BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................34
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BA, New York University 2008 (expected). Many thanks to my advisor for this project, Professor AmyHiger, whose wise counsel and gentle prodding have proven invaluable. Additional thanks to Professor Veena Thadani and Professor Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School (now Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley) as wellas Metropolitan Nikitas of the Orthodox Institute at UC Berkeley for their assistance and support.
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A note on language – I will be using the former names of places in the Ottoman Empire – such as callingIstanbul “Constantinople” and Izmir “Smyrna” when discussing these or other cities and islands before thedeclaration of the Turkish state in 1922. After this point I will revert to using the Turkish name for the place. The use of any particular place name does not necessarily indicate political acceptance of that name by the author.
I. Introduction
The use of transfers of populations between two or more states to solve territorial or self-determination issues is today looked upon as barbaric and potentially in violation of international law. But less than 100 years ago the invocation of both voluntary and forced population transfers between former adversaries in the Balkans was an accepted andcommonplace occurrence which took place under the watchful eye of the internationalcommunity with little debate as to the moral or human rights implications of suchmassive movements of populations. The suggestion of population transfers as a means tosolving seeming intractable conflicts was one accepted and promoted in the diplomaticlexicon.Today, almost a century onward from the period when Balkan population transfers inreached their zenith, the world can look to the region and reach a conclusion as to theeffects of the populations transfers between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria and their effectson the irredentist conflicts which raged at the time and apply that knowledge to the larger sphere of state-to-state conflict. The past century has seen highs and lows in relations between all three states but curiously there has not occurred a single armed conflict onthe basis of irredentist claims between any of the three states since each engaged in aseries of population transfers with the other. Whereas Greece and Turkey have comeclose to armed conflict over issues of territoriality in the Aegean (vs. issues of irredentism) the one area where they have closest to armed conflict – Cyprus - was the2
one area where their respective ethic populations remained mixed. In all other areas thede-mixing of each state’s populations has resulted in a long period of relative peace between the states. This paper will argue that population transfers can be a strongmitigating factor on solving irredentist conflicts and will examine their role in thesouthern Balkans in bringing a measure of relative peace and stability to the states in theregion.The focus of this project will be on Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and the Former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia (FYROM). I will explore the history of the southern Balkansfrom the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire through the end of the Greek-Turkish War until today and focus on the role irredentism played in inter-state conflict inthe southern Balkans. I will be exploring different theories on irredentism and ethnicconflict to understand the role population exchanges play in removing causal factorswhich contribute to conflict. Finally I will look at the issue of international law and howthe current regime of jurisprudence affects the possibility of mandatory exchanges of populations between states.
II. Beginnings
If Greece exists today as a homogenous ethnos, she owes this to [the AsiaMinor Catastrophe]. If the hundreds of thousands of refugees had not come to Greece, Greek Macedonia would not exist today. The refugeescreated the national homogeneity of our country – Augustinos Kandiotis,Metropolite of Florina (Karakasidou 141)
It is a worn but truthful cliché that the beginning of the 20
th
century saw the collapse of many ancient empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Imperial Russia) and the rise of newones (American, Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan). Throughout the world but in particular 3
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