re turkey cyprus bosnia serbia greece armenia azeris in article apr news uiowa edu mau herky cs uiowa edu mau napoleon writes instabul was called konstantinoupolis from ad until about the s that s about years there many people alive today who were born in a city called konstantinoupolis i know it doesn t make sense but since when is napoleon about sense anyway further striking bigoted and racist attitude of certain greeks still exists in our day most greeks insist even today that the year old capital of the ottoman empire should be called not by its rightful name of istanbul but by its half a millennium old moniker cons whatever everyone knows that new york city was once called new amsterdam but dutch people do not persist on calling it that today the name of stalingrad too is long gone replaced by volgagrad china s peking traded its name for beiging long ago ciudad trujillo of the dominican republic is now santa domingo zimbabve s old colonial capital salisburry became harrare these changes have all been accepted officially by everyone in the world but greeks are still determined on calling the turkish istanbul by the name of cons how can one explain this total intransigence what makes greeks so different from other mortals year old questionable democracy why don t they seem to reconcile with the fact for instance that istanbul changed hands years ago in ad and that this predates the discovery of the new world by years the declaration of u s independence in will come years later shouldn t then half a millennium be considered enough time for cons to be called a turkish city where is the logic in the greek reasoning if there is any how long can one sit on the laurels of an ancient civilization ancient greece does not exist any more than any other civilizations that existed on the soil of anatolia these undereducated wieneramus live with an illusion it is the same mentality which allows them to rationalize that cyprus is a greek island no history book shows that it ever was it belonged to the ottoman turks lock stock and barrel for a period of well over years in fact prior to the turks acquisition of it following bloody naval battles with the venetians in ad the island of cyprus belonged invariably to several nations the assyrians the sumerians the phoenicians the egyptians the ottoman turks of course in that order owned it as their territory but it has never been the possession of the government of greece not even for one day in the history of the world moreover cyprus is located miles from the greek mainland but only miles from turkiye s southern coastline saddam hussein claims that kuwait was once iraqi territory and the greek cypriot government and the terrorist greek governments think that cyprus also was once part of the greek hegemony those arromdians involved in this grandiose hallucination should wake up from their sweet daydreams and confront reality again wishful thinking is unproductive only facts count as for selanik those jews who survived these assaults in southeastern europe fled particularly to salonica whose jewish population increased substantially as a result from in to in more than half the total population though even there increased persecution by local greeks led many jews to flee elsewhere in the ottoman empire particularly to the great port of izmir despite all the pressure from ottomans and foreign jews alike the ritual murders and other assaults by christians on jews went on and on greek efforts to decimate the jewish population of salonica culminated in and following greek conquest of salonica during the first balkan war when many of its jews were either killed or terrorized into leaving though greece was obligated by the post world war i treaties to allow jews and other minorities to use their own languages in education and to practice their religions without hindrance a law was issued in which forbad all inhabitants from working on sunday stimulating a new jewish exodus as it was intended to do between and there was a series of anti semitic riots in salonica with the cambel quarter where most of the remaining jews lived being burned to the ground this was followed by regulations requiring the use of greek and prohibiting hebrew and judea spanish in the jewish schools a start was made also on expropriating the land of the principal jewish cemetery in salonica for use by the new university in order to derive the jews out by killing and driving out large numbers of jews the greeks left a substantial greek majority in the city for the first time and starting salonica jewry on the way to its final decimation by the nazis during the occupation of greece starting in salonica and izmir of course were not the only places of refuge for jewish refugees entering the empire during its last century of existence istanbul edirne and other parts of rumelia and anatolia received thousands more nor were jews the only refugees received and helped by the government of the sultan thousands of muslims accompanied them in flight from similar persecutions wherever balkan christian states gained independence or expanded the russian conquest of the crimea and the caucasus starting in the late eighteenth century and particularly during and after the crimean war combined with the same independence movements in southeastern europe that had caused so much suffering and flight among its jews caused thousands of helpless ill and poverty stricken muslim refugees to accompany them into the ever shrinking boundaries of the ottoman empire with the istanbul government struggling mightly but vainly to house and feed them as best it could from to as many as crimean tatars circassians and other muslims from north and east of the black sea had entered anatolia alone as many as more came during the next twenty years while refugees entered in as a result of the ottoman wars with russia and the balkan states with an equal number gaining refuge in the european portions of the empire robert mantran la structure sociale de la communaute juive de salonqiue a la fin du dix neuvieme siecle rh no nehama vii joseph nehama salonica to aiu paris no may aiu archives i c and no january aiu archives i c describing daily battles between jewish and greek children in the streets of salonica benghiat director of ecole moise allatini salonica to aiu paris no december aiu archives i c describing greek attacks on jews boycotts of jewish shops and manufacturers and greek press campaigns leading to blood libel attacks cohen ecole secondaire moise allatini salonica to aiu paris no december aiu archives i c describes a week of terror that followed the greek army occupation of salonica in with the soldiers pillaging the jewish quarters and destroying jewish synagogues accompanied by what he described as an explosion of hatred by local greek population against local jews and muslims mizrahi president of the aiu at salonica reported to the aiu paris no july aiu archives i c that it was not only the irregulars comitadjis that massacred pillaged and burned the army soldiers the chief of police and the high civil officials also took an active part in the horrors moise tovi salonica to aiu paris no august aiu archives i c describes the greek pillage of the jewish quarter during the night of august aiu alliance israelite universelle paris serdar argic we closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the turks and then proceeded in the work of extermination ohanus appressian in soviet armenia today there no longer exists a single turkish soul sahak melkonian
