Losing a Homeland, 1923–1924 life-or-death battle of the fittest between Armenians and Greeks, on the
one side, and Muslims and Turks, on the other. To Dr. Mehmet Raşid,
who was honored by the young Turkish Republic for his services to the
fatherland, in order to save the fatherland he had to kill the microbe or
cut out the tumor (Christians) in the body of the nation (Turks), and this
required violent measures in order to liberate the economy and people
(Muslims).^36
As a result of these policies and a devastating war, the populace faced
cataclysmic mortality rates and ensuing homogenization. Anatolia was ut-
terly devastated, facing proportionally greater population losses than even
France. Two million Muslims, 800 , 000 Armenians, and 500 , 000 Or-
thodox Christians were killed between 1915 and 1922.^37 Half of the Jews
fled during the 1920 s.^38 Anatolia’s population decreased by an estimated
one-quarter between 1913 and 1923.^39 Whereas in 1913 , one in five people
( 20 %) within the borders of what would become Turkey were Christian
or Jewish, by 1923 only one in forty ( 2. 5 %) were non-Muslim.^40 For exam-
ple, whereas in 1900 , the non-Muslim (i.e., primarily Christian) percent-
ages of the population of the cities of Erzurum, Trabzon, and Sivas were
32 , 43 , and 33 percent, respectively, they had fallen to 0. 1 , 1 , and 5 percent
by 1927. Thus, “the success of the new nationalist republic in avenging
itself on the Ottoman Armenians and Greeks who, as the victors saw it,
had so treacherously turned against their Muslim compatriots was mani-
fest.”^41 Such demographic change, and the general feeling among Mus-
lims that non-Muslims, particularly Armenians and Greeks, had acted as
fifth columns, led to unprecedented anti-Christian sentiment. This was
exacerbated when Greek forces occupied western Anatolia and committed
atrocities during the Greek-Turkish War of 1919 - 22.
The Impact of the Population Exchange on the Dönme
In this time of great loss, suffering, and anxiety, as the Ottoman Empire
was disintegrating, Turkish nationalism came to the fore among Muslim
peoples in Anatolia. The new demographic and political situation allowed
Muslims to imagine the creation of their own national state. And in this
period, Muslims began to look more closely at the identity of the Dönme.
They questioned the vanguard role that Dönme such as Mehmet Cavid,
a member of parliament and of the cabinet, were playing in society. There
was no parallel debate about Armenian or Jewish identity, since members