Pontic Greeks

The Pontic Greeks, Pontians, or Black Sea Greeks (Greek Πόντιοι, Ποντιακοί) are Greeks from the shores of the Black Sea, the Pontus. They traditionally speak Pontic Greek.

History

Greek colonies had been established on the shores of the Black Sea since antiquity. Placed under Byzantine control in the Middle Ages, they remained isolated from the rest of the Greek-speaking world afterward. Like other Christian minorities as Armenians or Assyrians, Pontic Greeks had to face persecution and ethnic cleansing at the beginning of the 20th century (Hofmann 2004). In 1923, those remaining were expelled from Turkey to Greece as part of the Exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey defined by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Population

Nowadays, the actual number of Pontic Greeks is unknown. The largest communities of Pontic Greek (or people of Pontic Greek descent) around the world are: According to the Pontian Diaspora 2000, more than 1 million in Greece, more than 500,000 in Russia and in other countries of the exUSSR, 120,000 in the Ukraine, 50,000 in Georgia ("Rumka") (a number of whom speak Urum), 80,000 in the USA, 56,000 in Australia, 25,000 in Kazakhstan, 20,000 in Canada, 11,000 in Uzbekistan, 5,000 in Syria, 2,000 in Armenia. Some writers estimate that there are 300,000 people of Pontic Greek-speaking descent (Ömer Asan 1996) in Turkey (in Trabzon, entirely Muslim and a majority (225,000 - 250,000) speaking Turkish today). There is also a sizable Pontic community in Germany and a significant growing number in the Republic of Cyprus. A small portion of Greek-Americans are Pontic.

Cities

Some of the cities settled by the ancient Pontic Greeks include:

In Crimea and the northern Azov Sea:

On the Taman peninsula, Krasnodar Krai and the Colchian coast:

On the northern (Black Sea) coast of Anatolia ("Pontos" - "Romania" - "Karadeniz"):

On the southwestern coast of Ukraine and the Eastern Balkans:

Kingdoms either established or ruled by Pontic Greeks, or heavily influenced by Pontic Greek culture, include Pontus, Bithynia, and the Bosporan kingdom.

Trivia

In his 1998 movie From the Edge of the City, with dialogues in Greek, Pontic Greek and Russian, the film director Constantinos Giannaris, describes the life of a young "Russian Pontic" (Ρωσσοπόντιοι) from Kazakhstan in the Athens prostitution underworld. Some film critics compared this movie to My Own Private Idaho.

Sources

Asan, Ömer. Pontos kültürü. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 1996.
Hofmann, Tessa, ed. Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Christen im Osmanischen Reich 1912-1922. Münster: LIT, 2004. ISBN 3-8258-7823-6

External links