The Amasya trials in 1921, were special ad hoc trials, organized by the Turkish National Movement, with the purpose to kill en masse the Greek representatives of Pontus region under a legal pretext. [1] They occurred in Amasya, modern Turkey, during the final stage of the Pontic Greek genocide. [1] The total number of the executed individuals is estimated to be ca. 400-450, among them 155 prominent Pontic Greeks. [2]
| Greek genocide | |
|---|---|
| Background | |
| Young Turk Revolution · Ottoman Greeks · Pontic Greeks · Ottoman Empire | |
| The genocide | |
| Labour Battalions · Death march · Massacre of Phocaea Evacuation of Ayvalik · İzmit massacres · Samsun deportations · Amasya trials · Burning of Smyrna | |
| Foreign aid and relief | |
| Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor · American Committee for Relief in the Near East | |
| Responsible parties | |
| Young Turks or Committee of Union and Progress · Three Pashas: Talat, Enver, Djemal · Bahaeddin Şakir · Teskilati Mahsusa or Special Organization · Nureddin Pasha · Topal Osman · Mustafa Kemal Atatürk | |
| See also | |
| Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) · Greeks in Turkey · Population Exchange · Greek refugees · Armenian genocide · Sayfo · Istanbul trials of 1919–1920 · Malta Tribunals | |
The Ottoman genocide policy against the Pontic Greek populations was initiated after the outbreak of World War I (1914), mostly through deportation and forced death marches. This policy of extermination was intensified, after accusations that the Pontic Greek communities supported the Russian army. As a result, the Ottoman authorities deported thousands of local Greeks to the interior of Anatolia. The Ottoman genocide policy took a more violent form in 1917, when Greece entered World War I. [3] A large number of the deported populations died from disease, exhaustion and epidemics during death marches. Those who managed to survive the marches were either raped, subject to forced islamization or murdered. [4] Meanwhile, Turkish irregular band (cete) leaders, like Topal Osman, notorious from his role in the Armenian genocide, were dispatched against the Greeks of Samsun province in 1916. [4]
The same policy continued after the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), where groups of irregular Turkish bands acted with the support of the Turkish nationalists of Mustafa Kemal and committed massacres in the Pontus region in 1920–21. [5]
The Turkish nationalists' aim was to conduct summary trials and executions of the Pontic Greek elite. Thus they would be able to exterminate the main representatives of the Greek community of the Black Sea coastal area under a legal pretext, as part of the still active genocide policy. [1] These "Independence tribunals" were conducted in Amasya, a town in the interior of Anatolia, far from any foreign consulate, in order to avoid the presence of western representatives, since this was considered an "inner case". [1]
From December 1920 the Turkish nationalists started to arrest en masse various Greek representatives from all parts of the Pontus region and imprisoned them in Amasya. [1] [6] The trials began in the end of August 1921, however, no concrete evidence was ever found to link the accused with anti-Turkish activity. [7] There were only abstract claims that some of them supported the Russian army during World War I. [8] In the same fashion, the Turkish nationalists felt offended when they realised after investigation that the jerseys of the local Greek soccer team Pontus Metzifon displayed the colors of the Greek flag (blue and white). [9]
The trials were presided by Emin Bey Gevecioğlu, solicitor from nearby Samsun. [6] After summary proceedings, where insults and berating comments were shouted at the accused persons by the judge, the verdict for the vast majority of them was death, with the pretext that they organized the independence of Pontus. The sentences were handed down immediately. [8]
From August 20 to September 21, 1921, 177 Greeks of the Pontus region were hanged as a result of these proceedings. [6] The exact total number of those executed by the Amasya trials is unknown, while estimations vary from 400 to 450 persons. On 25 September 1921, a local Turkish newspaper, published a list of 155 prominent Pontic Greeks who were hanged in the central square of Amasya. [2]
Those sentenced to death were politicians, businessmen, journalists and religious figures of the local Greek community. Among them was the local assistant bishop of Amasya, Euthemios Zelon, who died in prison from typhus. Nevertheless, the court sentenced him to death posthumously and his dead body was hanged in the central square of the town together with the others. [6]
The trials and the executions in Amasya by the Turkish movement of Mustafa Kemal succeeded in the extermination of the Pontic Greek elite under a legal pretext, [1] while the total death toll of the Pontic Greek community, as a result of the Ottoman and Turkish policies, from 1915 to 1923, is estimated from 353,000 to 360,000. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
Reactions for the atrocities committed occurred both inside and outside Turkey. The hanging of Matthaios Kofidis in Amasya, former member of the Ottoman parliament, who opposed any form of armed resistance movement against the Turkish authorities, caused anger even among the Muslim population of Trebizond, who refused to collaborate with the Turkish nationalists, thus saving the lives of several local Greeks. [15]
Protests were reported in Greece and the United Kingdom. Moreover, countries which had been at that time in alliance with the Turkish nationalists, like France and Italy, also condemned the atrocities. [16] The issue of the extermination of the Pontic Greek population was also raised in the United States Congress on December 22, 1921, by Senator William H. King. [16]
Trabzon, historically known as Trebizond, is a city on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Persia in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast. The Venetian and Genoese merchants paid visits to Trabzon during the medieval period and sold silk, linen and woolen fabric. Both republics had merchant colonies within the city – Leonkastron and the former "Venetian castle" – that played a role to Trabzon similar to the one Galata played to Constantinople. Trabzon formed the basis of several states in its long history and was the capital city of the Empire of Trebizond between 1204 and 1461. During the early modern period, Trabzon, because of the importance of its port, again became a focal point of trade to Persia and the Caucasus.
The Turkish War of Independence was a series of military campaigns waged by the Turkish National Movement after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. These campaigns were directed against Greece in the west, Armenia in the east, France in the south, loyalists and separatists in various provinces, and British and Ottoman troops around Constantinople (Istanbul). They happened concurrently with other resistance movements against the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.
Amasya is a city in northern Turkey, in the Black Sea Region. It was called Amaseia or Amasia in antiquity. It is the seat of Amasya Province and Amasya District. Its population is 114,921 (2021). Amasya stands in the mountains above the Black Sea coast, set apart from the rest of Anatolia in a narrow valley along the banks of the Yeşilırmak River. Although near the Black Sea, this area is high above the coast and has an inland climate, well-suited to growing apples, for which Amasya province, one of the provinces in north-central Anatolia Turkey, is famed. It was the home of the geographer Strabo and the birthplace of the 15th century Armenian scholar and physician Amirdovlat Amasiatsi. Located in a narrow cleft of the Yeşilırmak (Iris) river, it has a history of 7,500 years with many traces still evident today.
The Pontic Greeks, also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group indigenous to the region of Pontus, in northeastern Anatolia. Many later migrated in various waves between the Ottoman conquest of the Empire of Trebizond in 1461 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. Common migratory destinations included other parts of Eastern Anatolia, the former Russian province of Kars Oblast in the Transcaucasus, and the country of Georgia.
Merzifon is a town in Amasya Province in the central Black Sea region of Turkey. It is the seat of Merzifon District. Its population is 61,376 (2021). The mayor is Alp Kargı (CHP).
The Greek genocide, which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. It was perpetrated by the government of the Ottoman Empire led by the Three Pashas and by the Government of the Grand National Assembly led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, against the indigenous Greek population of the Empire. The genocide included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches through the Syrian Desert, expulsions, summary executions, and the destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments. Several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Most of the refugees and survivors fled to Greece. Some, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire.
The Special Organization was a paramilitary secret police organization in the Ottoman Empire known for its key role in the commission of the Armenian genocide. Originally organized under the Ministry of War, the organization was shifted to answer directly to the ruling party Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in February 1915. Led by Bahaeddin Şakir and Nazım Bey and formed in early 1914 of tribesmen as well as more than 10,000 convicted criminals—offered a chance to redeem themselves if they served the state—as a force independent of the regular army that could be used to attack civilians. It was the progenitor of the National Security Service of the Republic of Turkey, which was itself the predecessor of the modern National Intelligence Organization.
The Republic of Pontus was a proposed Pontic Greek state on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Its territory would have encompassed much of historical Pontus and today forms part of Turkey's Black Sea Region. The proposed state was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, but the Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos feared the precarious position of such a state and so it was included instead in the larger proposed state of Wilsonian Armenia. Ultimately, however, neither state came into existence and the Pontic Greek population was killed and expelled from Turkey after 1922 and resettled in the Soviet Union or in Greek Macedonia. This state of affairs was later formally recognized as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. In modern Greek political circles, the exchange is seen as inextricable from the contemporaneous Greek genocide.
Hacı Topal Osman Ağa also known as Osman the Lame, was a Turkish officer, a militia leader of the National Forces, a volunteer regiment commander of the Turkish army during the Turkish War of Independence who eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was a perpetrator of the Armenian and Pontic genocides.
The Greeks in Georgia, which in academic circles is often considered part of the broader, historic community of Pontic Greeks or—more specifically in this region—Caucasus Greeks, is estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000 people to 100,000 down from about 100,000 in 1989. The community has dwindled due to the large wave of repatriation to Greece as well as emigration to Russia, and in particular Stavropol Krai in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia. The community has established the Union of Greeks in Georgia and there is a Cultural Centre and a newspaper entitled Greek Diaspora.
Ottoman Greeks were ethnic Greeks who lived in the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), much of which is in modern Turkey. Ottoman Greeks were Greek Orthodox Christians who belonged to the Rum Millet. They were concentrated in eastern Thrace, and western, central, and northeastern Anatolia. There were also sizeable Greek communities elsewhere in the Ottoman Balkans, Ottoman Armenia, and the Ottoman Caucasus, including in what, between 1878 and 1917, made up the Russian Caucasus province of Kars Oblast, in which Pontic Greeks, northeastern Anatolian Greeks, and Caucasus Greeks who had collaborated with the Russian Imperial Army in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 were settled in over 70 villages, as part of official Russian policy to re-populate with Orthodox Christians an area that was traditionally made up of Ottoman Muslims and Armenians.
The Pontic Greek genocide was the extermination of native Greek people who lived in the Pontus region of Ottoman Empire in 1914-1923. It was carried out by two regimes: Young Turk led by Three Pashas and Kemalist led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Both massacred and deported Pontians through the Syrian desert. Death estimates vary, but most historians and researchers give estimates of 300,000-360,000 in total.
Refet Bele, also known as Refet Bey or Refet Pasha was a Turkish military commander. He served in the Ottoman Army and the Turkish Army, where he retired as a general.
Matthaios Kofidis was an Ottoman Greek businessman, historian and a politician, who was a member of the Ottoman Parliament. He was elected in three successive periods from 1908 to 1918. In 1921 he was among the notables of the Greek community of the Pontus region who were hanged by the Turkish nationalists of Mustafa Kemal.
Nikos Kapetanidis was a Greek journalist and newspaper publisher. He was one of the notable Pontians hanged by Turkish nationalists serving under Mustafa Kemal.
The İzmit massacres were atrocities committed in the region of İzmit, Turkey, during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) which took place during the Greek genocide. An Inter-Allied Commission of Enquiry that investigated the incidents, submitted a report, on 1 June 1921, about the events.
Saint Euthymios of Zela the Ethno-Hieromartyr,, born Eustratios Agritellis, 1876–1921, was the last resident Bishop of the Diocese of Zela near Amasia, Western Pontus, which he served from June 12, 1912, until his death on May 29, 1921, during the period of the Greek genocide.
Hafız Mehmet was a Turkish politician and the Minister of Justice for the Republic of Turkey. While serving as a deputy in Trabzon, he was a witness to the Armenian genocide. His testimony of the event is considered by genocide scholar Vahakn Dadrian as one of the "rarest corroborations of the fact of the complicity of governmental officials in the organization of the mass murder of Armenians". He was sentenced to death after the Izmir trials of 1926, charged with attempting to assassinate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
The Samsun deportations were a series of death marches orchestrated by the Turkish National Movement as part of its extermination of the Greek community of Samsun, a city in northern Turkey, and its environs. It was accompanied by looting, the burning of settlements, rape, and massacres. As a result, the Greek population of the city and those who had previously found refuge there—a total of c. 24,500 men, women and children—were forcibly deported from the city to the interior of Anatolia in 1921–1922. The atrocities were reported by both American Near East Relief missionaries and naval officers on destroyers that visited the region.
Below is an outline of Wikipedia articles related to the Greek genocide and closely associated events and explanatory articles. The topical outline is accompanied by a chronological outline of events. References are provided for background and overview.
Professors Ch. Evstathiades, G. Lamprianos, and D. Theocharides, all former college faculty, and several students were charged with plotting armed rebellion against the Nationalist government of Turkey and were executed in Amasia in August.
