Loyal Greeks or Crafty Imposters?
Denying Dönme in Thessaloníki, 1923 – 1941
As many as a hundred Muslims, among them an indeterminate num-
ber of Dönme, remained in Thessaloníki after the population exchange.
How did they fare? How did debates about their place in society and their
lived experience compare with those in Turkey?
Greece’s Prime Minister Eleuthérios Venizélos noted: “Turkey herself—
new Turkey—is the greatest enemy of the idea of the Ottoman Empire.
New Turkey does not wish to hear anything about an Ottoman Empire.
She proceeds with the development of a homogeneous Turkish national
state. But we also, since the catastrophe of Asia Minor, and since almost
all of our nationals from Turkey have come over to Greek territory, are
occupied with a similar task.”^1 In Greece, the Muslim population de-
clined from 20 percent in 1920 to 6 percent less than a decade later.^2
Following the population exchange, the Athens government provincial-
ized Thessaloníki by marginalizing and ignoring its businesses and mer-
chants, and through such measures as briefly prohibiting the export of
tobacco, and redirected its economy away from traditional markets such
as Istanbul and toward the Greek national economy.^3 Similarly, the Turk-
ish government taxed imported timber from northern Greece, another
market niche dominated by Dönme, heavily in order to decrease its use
and promote demand for and drive up the prices of Anatolian timber,
which would monopolize the market.^4 Beyond Greece, political changes
meant disruptions to the southeastern European, Black Sea, Anatolian,