Total population | |
---|---|
10,453 [1] (1989, census) | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Greeks in Kazakhstan, Greeks in Kyrgyzstan |
The Greeks in Uzbekistan number approximately 9,000. The community is made up of Greeks from Russia who were deported by force from that country to Uzbekistan in the 1940s, and political refugees from Greece. The biggest Greek community in the country is in the capital city of Tashkent where most of the Greek political refugees were relocated by the Soviet authorities. [2]
Year | Pop. | ±% |
---|---|---|
1959 | 20,047 | — |
1970 | 32,422 | +61.7% |
1979 | 14,025 | −56.7% |
1989 | 10,453 | −25.5% |
Sources: [3] [4] [5] [1] |
In ancient times the south of modern day Uzbekistan was part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Kingdom, but the few Greek communities from that time assimilated into the general population over time. [6]
About 30,000 Greeks lived in the country before World War II and a further 11,000 arrived after the defeat of the communist Democratic Army of Greece in the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949. Their numbers have dwindled from a high of some 40,000 in the 1960s. The main reason is emigration to Greece after the end of the Cold War when laws allowed the return of all ethnic Greeks who had been exiled for political reasons after the Greek Civil War.
The most important organization representing ethnic Greeks is the Greek Cultural Association of Tashkent. The activities of this organization include Greek language instruction (19 classes with a total of 571 students, classes for adults) and the teaching of Greek dances and music. [7]
Demographic features of the population of Uzbekistan include population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The nationality of a person from Uzbekistan is Uzbek, while the ethnic Uzbek majority call themselves Uzbeks. Much of the data is estimated because the last census was carried out in Soviet times in 1989.
Tashkent or Toshkent ; historically known as Chach, Shash, Binkat) is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 3 million. It is located in northeastern Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan.
The Greek diaspora, also known as Omogenia, are the communities of Greeks living outside of Greece and Cyprus.
Assyrians in Georgia number 3,299, and most arrived in the Southern Caucasus in early 20th century when their ancestors fled present-day Turkey and Iran during the Assyrian genocide.
The history of the Jews in Uzbekistan refers to the history of two distinct communities; the more religious and traditional Bukharan Jewish community and the Ashkenazi community.
Assyrians in Armenia make up the country's third largest ethnic minority, after Yazidis and Russians. According to the 2011 census, there are 2,769 Assyrians living in Armenia, and Armenia is home to some of the last surviving Assyrian communities in the Caucasus. There were 6,000 Assyrians in Armenia before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but because of Armenia's struggling economy during the 1990s, the population has been cut by half, as many have emigrated.
The Greeks in Armenia, like the other groups of Caucasus Greeks such as the Greeks in Georgia, are mainly descendants of the Pontic Greeks, who originally lived along the shores of the Black Sea, in the uplands of the Pontic Alps, and other parts of northeastern Anatolia. In their original homelands these Greek communities are called Pontic Greeks and Eastern Anatolia Greeks respectively. Seafaring Ionian Greeks settled around the southern shores of the Black Sea starting around 800 BC, later expanding to coastal regions of modern Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. The Pontic Greeks lived for thousands of years almost isolated from the Greek peninsula, retaining elements of the Ancient Greek language and making Pontic Greek unintelligible to most other modern Hellenic languages. They were joined in the region by later waves of Greeks in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine period, ranging from traders, scholars, churchmen, mercenaries, or refugees from elsewhere in Anatolia or the southern Balkans.
The population of Armenia includes various significant minority ethnic groups.
During and after the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949, members and or supporters of the defeated Communist forces fled Greece as political refugees. The collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and subsequent evacuation of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to Tashkent in 1949 led thousands of people to leave the country. It has been estimated that by 1949, over 100,000 people had left Greece for Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc, particularly the USSR and Czechoslovakia. These included tens of thousands of child refugees who had been forcefully evacuated by the KKE. The war wrought widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after it had ended.
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.
The Greeks in Kazakhstan are mainly the descendants of Pontic Greeks who were deported there by Joseph Stalin, from southern Russia and the Caucasus region, at first the Crimean Greeks on 1944, under the resolution 5984 of June 2, 1944. then the Caucasus Greeks in June 1949, Feb 1950, Aug 1950. The total number of deported persons was about 60,000 people.
Poles in Kazakhstan form one portion of the Polish diaspora in the former Soviet Union. Slightly less than half of Kazakhstan's Poles live in the Karaganda region, with another 2,500 in Astana, 1,200 in Almaty, and the rest scattered throughout rural regions.
The Circassian diaspora refers to ethnic Circassian people around the world who live outside their homeland Circassia. The majority of the Circassians live in the diaspora, as their ancestors were settled during the resettlement of the Circassian population, especially during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. From 1763 to 1864, the Circassians fought against the Russian Empire in the Russian-Circassian War, finally succumbing to a scorched-earth genocide campaign initiated between 1862 and 1864. Afterwards, large numbers of Circassians were exiled and deported to the Ottoman Empire and other nearby regions; others were resettled in Russia far from their home territories. Circassians live in more than fifty countries, besides the Republic of Adygea. Total population estimates differ: according to some sources, some two million live in Turkey, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq; other sources have between one and four million in Turkey alone.
There is a long history of Poles in Azerbaijan. Although the current Polish population of the Republic of Azerbaijan is lower than in former times, the number of people with Polish descent in the capital city Baku is around 2,000 and several thousand self-identified Poles live in Azerbaijan. Poles as an ethnic group have lived in Azerbaijan for centuries. The Russian Empire included Azerbaijan and parts of Poland, thus it could deport members of opposition of Polish nationality there, which explains the presence of Poles in Azerbaijan.
Armenians in Central Asian states: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, were mainly settled there during the Soviet era for various reasons.
The Greeks in Azerbaijan have not formed a large community in comparison to those in neighbouring Georgia and Armenia. It was composed mainly of Pontic Greek immigrants from the Ottoman Empire.
Russians in Uzbekistan comprised the country's second-largest ethnic group after Uzbeks, numbering 1,653,478, in 1989 representing 5.5% of the population. During the Soviet period, Russians constituted more than half the population of the capital city, Tashkent. Uzbekistan counted nearly 1.5 million Russians, 12.5% of the population, in the 1970 census.
Diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Uzbekistan were established on 25 August 1992.
Poles in Uzbekistan form a small population, although historically the second most numerous Polish diaspora of Central Asia. Polish presence in Uzbekistan dates back to the 19th century.
Poles in Tajikistan form a small population, part of the Polish diaspora in Central Asia.