Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions That Forged Modern Greece and Turkey

At the conclusion of a bloody war in 1923, Greece and Turkey agreed to a "population exchange" that sent over a million Turkish Orthodox Christians to Greece and nearly half a million Greek Muslims to Turkey. The result, argues this absorbing study, was a humanitarian nightmare that sheds light on the conundrums of religion, ethnicity and identity in the modern age. Drawing on archival research and (sometimes rambling) oral histories from aging survivors, journalist Clark recounts the political wranglings between two countries intent on ridding themselves of potentially troublesome minorities and consolidating a shaky sense of national unity. The author surveys the traumatic exoduses and revisits the cosmopolitan Ottoman communities—where Christians and Muslims had coexisted for centuries—that were torn apart by the expulsions. The story abounds with ironies, as Turkish-speaking Christians are uprooted and shipped overseas to assume an unfamiliar but supposedly truer Greek nationality, crossing paths along the way with Greek-speaking Muslims reluctantly on their way to take over the Christians' vacated Turkish homes. Clark contends that the mass expulsions were a model for similar, sometimes de facto, transfers after WWII in Europe, India and Palestine; his gripping, sensitive history highlights the costs of such expedient policies. 14 b&w photos, 3 maps. (Sept.)