Kechriotis|307Emmanouil Emmanouilidis (1867–1943), the other Smyrniot Greek deputy
in the Ottoman Parliament, was also elected on the CUP ticket in 1912. He had
replaced his uncle Aristidis Pasha Georgantzoglou (1850–?) when the latter was
appointed to the senate and who later became minister of Agriculture, Mines,
and Forests. All these figures were connected to each other through their Cap-
padocian origins and kinship ties.
No Place to Go
When in 1912 Carolidis agreed to be a candidate on the CUP ticket, he was
warned by newspapers in Athens that there was no place for him in Athens or
even Istanbul. It was a few months before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, when
Greece and Bulgaria were already close to an alliance. This led Carolidis to com-
ment bitterly, “Our beloved allies the Bulgarians” would eventually capture Ha-
gia Sofia, the symbol of the Orthodox faith in Istanbul. From that point on,
the CUP would systematically work with four Greek deputies: Carolidis, Emma-
nouilidis, Traianos Nallis (1874–?), and Georgios Artas (1883–?). Carolidis speaks
very highly of these figures.
Carolidis’s trajectory added a diasporic element to his ethnic and social ori-
gin. A Turcophone Cappadocian who had studied in the Ottoman Empire and
Germany, he tried while in Athens to survive in an environment rather hostile
to his origin. In a way, he was trying to prove his Greekness without denying his
cultural heritage. Then, in Smyrna, he was perceived as a Hellene and an outsider,
for good or bad, by many among both the local Greeks and the Turks. He had to
prove his Ottomanness, first and foremost, in a manner that would allow him
to retain his identity as a Greek national. Finally, in Istanbul, as a deputy in the
Ottoman Parliament, he seemed to be more at ease than in any of his previous
positions. In this position, though, he would have to articulate his political dis-
course against Greek deputies who openly supported the interests of the Hellenic
state and supporters of CUP policies that violated what he considered to be the
genuine interests of Hellenism in the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the political turmoil, Carolidis published his translation into Ot-
toman Turkish of Kritovoulos’s biography of Mehmed II, which had previously
appeared in installments in the journal of the Ottoman Historical Association,
established in 1910. History of the Sultan Mehmet II was published as a whole in
1912, when the Balkan Wars broke out, a few months after the suspension of the
parliament. It has been argued that this translation is the last in the tradition of
contributions to Ottoman letters by the Greek Orthodox of the empire, which
dates back to prominent Phanariots in the late eighteenth century.
Carolidis was accused of being a Turcophile by the Athenian press. Kri-
tovoulos has been always treated similarly by Greek historiography. They are