The Pontic eagle is the primary ethnic symbol of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks. The bird has spread wings and looks to the side. The eagle appears on proposed Pontic Greek ethnic flags, and many Pontic organizations use it as part of their logo.
An eagle with spread wings, looking over its left shoulder, has been a symbol in the Pontus since at least 200 BCE. Pontic historian Sam Topalidis posits that the double-headed eagle emerged as a symbol in ancient Mesopotamia and came to ancient Anatolia with Assyrian merchants. It was later used as by the Hittites, Armenians, and Persians. [1] Hittites also used the single-headed eagle in their iconography. [2]
Coins depicting eagles found in Olbia, an ancient Greek colony in what is now Ukraine, have been dated to c. 350-330 BCE. [3] Greek burial mounds on the Taman Peninsula in modern Russia also contain depictions of eagles. These date to the 400s BCE. [4]
Coins minted in Sinope, one of the earliest Pontic Greek settlements, depict eagles as early as 330 BCE. [2] The eagle with its head turned and wings spread appears on the coins of Sinope between 300 and 200 BCE. [2] The eagle was also an ancient Roman symbol (aquila) and, later, a Byzantine symbol. The double-headed eagle appears in Byzantine art in the 900s or 1000s. [1] Historian George Finlay saw a portrait of Manuel I Komnenos in the Hagia Sophia, Trabzon; Finlay said "his robes are adorned...with two rows of single-headed eagles on circular medallions." The portrait is now lost. Finlay also saw the St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in Trebizond, now destroyed, and took note of the art on the walls. Paintings in the church depicted an emperor and empress; the empress' robes had double-headed eagles, while the emperor's robes had single-headed eagles. [2]
The eagle was later used as an imperial symbol in the Empire of Trebizond, a medieval kingdom of the Pontos region. Single-headed eagles appeared in city architecture in Trebizond in the 1200s. Emperors and empresses of the Empire of Trebizond were depicted with single- or double-headed eagles on their clothes. For example, Theodora Kantakouzene, the empress during the reign of Alexios III, was depicted with double-headed eagles on her robes. [2]
Today, the Pontic eagle is used as a symbol by Pontic groups and publications. For example, the Committee For Pontian Studies, which produces the Greek-language journal Archeion Pontou, has used the Pontic eagle as a symbol since the 1920s. [2] The journal Pontiaki Estia also used the eagle as their icon in the 1950s. [5]
The Pontic eagle may also be a symbol during religious events. On the Feast of the Dormition, Pontian Greeks in northern Greece hold a procession, carrying the icon of the Virgin Mary. The icon stand is decorated with images of peacocks, crosses, and the Pontic eagle. [6] [7] During a ceremony to commemorate the Greek genocide, Archbishop Elpidophoros of America used a banner depicting the Pontic eagle. [8]
Multiple organizations use the Pontic eagle as part of their logo: The Pontian Federation of Australia has a gold Pontic eagle, layered on top of a drawing of Australia, as its icon. [9] The Australian group Pontiaki Estia also has an eagle logo. [10]
There are many proposed Pontian flags; none has been universally adopted as the official flag. A yellow flag with a black Pontic eagle is common across many organizations. Different Pontian organizations use different flags and banners. The Komninoi Pontian Society, based in Queens in New York City in the USA, uses a yellow flag with a black Pontic eagle. [11] So does the Vityazevo Greek Society in Russia. [12] The Pontian Brotherhood of South Australia, based in Adelaide, also uses a yellow flag with a black Pontic eagle. [13] Their banner has the same design. [14] The Argonauti-Komninoi Pontic Greek Association, based in Athens, uses a yellow flag with black lineart depicting an eagle and the Argonaut. [15]
The Apollon Pontou F.C., a men's football club based in Kalamaria, Greece, was founded by Pontian refugees in 1926. A black and yellow Pontic eagle makes up part of their logo. The club was founded with the intention to uphold Pontic history and tradition; however, the club is not exclusive to Pontians. [16]
The Pontian Eagles Soccer Club is a member of the South Australian Amateur Soccer League. It was founded in 1992 by the Pontian Brotherhood of South Australia, a community organization which aims to preserve Pontian history in the diaspora. The soccer club was intended to give Pontian youth a space to belong; like Apollon Pontus F.C., however, it accepts players of all ethnicities. The logo is a stylized eagle in yellow and black. The head is facing forward, unlike in the typical Pontic eagle design where the head is in profile. [17]
Trabzon, historically known as Trebizond, is a city on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon 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.
Pontus or Pontos is a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region and its mountainous hinterland by the Greeks who colonized the area in the Archaic period and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Εύξεινος Πόντος (Eúxinos Póntos), "Hospitable Sea", or simply Pontos as early as the Aeschylean Persians and Herodotus' Histories.
Sinop, historically known as Sinope, is a city on the isthmus of İnce Burun and on the Boztepe Peninsula, near Cape Sinope which is situated on the northernmost edge of the Turkish side of the Black Sea coast, in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, in modern-day northern Turkey. It is the seat of Sinop Province and Sinop District. Its population is 57,404 (2022).
The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.
Pontic Greek is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety, Pontic Greek is spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide, who are known as Pontic or Pontian Greeks.
The Pontic Greeks, also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group indigenous to the region of Pontus, in northeastern Anatolia. They share a common Pontic Greek culture that is distinguished by its music, dances, cuisine, and clothing. Folk dances, such as the Serra, and traditional musical instruments, like the Pontic lyra, remain important to Pontian diaspora communities. Pontians traditionally speak Pontic Greek, a modern Greek variety, that has developed remotely in the region of Pontus. Commonly known as Pontiaka, it is traditionally called Romeika by its native speakers.
The Laz people, or Lazi, are a Kartvelian ethnic group native to the South Caucasus, who mainly live in Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia. They traditionally speak the Laz language but have experienced a rapid language shift to Turkish.
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 in north-eastern Asia Minor, 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 massacred and expelled from Turkey after 1922 and resettled in the Soviet Union or in Macedonia, Greece. 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.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate and Mount Athos, and also the Greek Orthodox Churches in the diaspora under the Patriarchate use a black double-headed eagle in a yellow field as their flag or emblem.
Ukrainian Greeks are a Greek minority that reside in or used to reside in the territory of modern Ukraine. The majority of Ukrainian Greeks live in Donetsk Oblast and are particularly concentrated around the city of Mariupol.
Greeks have been present in what is now southern Russia from the 6th century BC; those settlers assimilated into the indigenous populations. The vast majority of contemporary Russia's Greek minority populations are descendants of Medieval Greek refugees, traders, and immigrants from the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Balkans, and Pontic Greeks from the Empire of Trebizond and Eastern Anatolia who settled mainly in southern Russia and the South Caucasus in several waves between the mid-15th century and the second Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29. As during the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks, the survivors fled to the Upper Pontus.
The Caucasus Greeks, also known as the Greeks of Transcaucasia and Russian Asia Minor, are the ethnic Greeks of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in what is now southwestern Russia, Georgia, and northeastern Turkey. These specifically include the Pontic Greeks, though they today span a much wider region including the Russian north Caucasus, and the former Russian Caucasus provinces of the Batum Oblast' and the Kars Oblast', now in north-eastern Turkey and Adjara in Georgia.
Apollon Kalamarias F.C. is a Greek football club based in Kalamaria, a suburb of Thessaloniki. It was founded in 1926.
Nikos Kapetanidis was a Pontian Greek journalist and newspaper publisher from Rizunda. He was hanged by Turkish nationalists serving under Mustafa Kemal during the Amasya trials.
As part of the persecution of the Greek population in the Ottoman Empire, many of the people living there had to leave their homes and move abroad or to Greece. This affected in particular the Greeks from Asia Minor and the Pontos Greeks living in the Black Sea region. Many refugees found a new home in Macedonia, and some of them reached Pieria. There they represent a large part of nowadays population. Occasionally they bought lands and founded purely Pontic villages.
Pontic Greek cuisine consists of foods traditionally eaten by Pontic Greeks, a Greek-speaking ethnic minority that originates from the southern shore of the Black Sea in modern Turkey. Their cuisine has been heavily influenced by the migration of different ethnic groups to the Pontos. Because of the Pontos' remote location, Pontic Greek cuisine has many differences from other Greek cuisines. According to Achillefs Keramaris et al., "Pontic Greek traditional cuisine is diverse and simplistic, incorporating traditions from mountainous and coastal regions, ancient Greece, nomadic regions, and influences from Russian, Turkish, Laz, Hemshin, and Armenian cuisines."
Pontic Greek folk dances are a group of over ninety dances traditionally performed by Pontic Greeks. Dance has been an integral part of Pontian culture since ancient times. Dances vary based on region. Today, few Pontians remain in the Pontus region, but those living in the diaspora worldwide still perform folk dances to preserve their cultural heritage and group identity. Dances are accompanied by traditional music. Some traditional instruments include the lyra, daouli, zurna, dankiyo, tulum, and oud. The instrumental music may or may not be accompanied by singing.
Pontic Greek music includes both the folk music traditionally performed by Pontic Greeks and modern Pontic music. Song and dance have a long history in the Pontos, ranging from ancient dances to the Acritic songs to folk songs. Certain dances, accompanied by music, date to ancient times, such as the pyrrhichios. Pontic music evolved alongside Pontic dance.
Pontic Greek culture includes the traditional music, dance, architecture, clothing, artwork, and religious practices of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks. Pontians are an ethnic group indigenous to the Pontos in modern-day Turkey. They have lived in the area for thousands of years, since the 8th century BCE. The majority were displaced in the early 20th century CE after the Greek genocide and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey; most Pontians today live in the diaspora. Small pockets of Muslim Pontian communities remain in Turkey. Although Pontians speak many different languages, the Pontic Greek language, Romeika, is especially important to their culture. Most religious Pontian Greeks practice Greek Orthodoxy, but a minority adhere to Sunni Islam or other Christian denominations. Folk dances such as the serra, traditional music instruments such as the Pontic lyra, religious celebrations, traditional clothing, and the land itself remain important to Pontian diaspora communities.
