1st Edition

Across the Aegean A Century of Forced Migrations Between Greece and Turkey, 1922-2022

Edited By Violetta Hionidou, Dimitris Skleparis Copyright 2026
250 Pages 25 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

250 Pages 25 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

For a century, the Aegean has stood as both a border and a bridge. The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey – the forced relocation of over a million Christians to Greece and some 400,000 Muslims to Turkey – transformed both states and societies. Refugee movements from occupied Greece to neutral Turkey during the Second World War, and more recently the crossings from Turkey to... Read more

Introduction

Violetta Hionidou and Dimitris Skleparis

Part 1: Navigating Humanitarianism: War, Displacement, and Marginalised Lives

Chapter 1

Fleeing across the Aegean Sea: Orphans and unattended minors in Greece under the aegis of the Near East Relief after the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922

Eleftheria Daleziou

Chapter 2

Forced Migrations, Humanitarianism and Sex-Trafficking: the case of the Anatolian Greeks revisited, 1921–1925

Panagiotis Karagkounis and Georgios Giannakopoulos

Chapter 3

Dystopias of sexual abuse and prostitution: the case of Greek-Orthodox refugee women in the 1920s

Georgios Kritikos

Chapter 4

Lived experiences of dehumanisation: a case study of Asylum Seekers in the Zervou Refugee Camp in Samos, Greece, 2022-2024

Clara De La Hoz Del Real

Part 2: Identity of peoples and places

Chapter 5

The Social Construction of Ottoman Greek Identity in an Early 20th-Century US Context

Yiorgo Topalidis

Chapter 6

Identity Confusion of a Multifaceted Landscape: Revisiting the Isolated Rum Heritage in Rural Ayvalık (Late 19th/Early 20th Century)

Hasan Sercan Sağlam

Chapter 7

Intertwined Settlements, different Memories: Lithri and Ildiri in the shadow of Forced Migrations

Nurşen Kul and Ela Çil

Chapter 8

Diasporic Homelands in the Greco-Turkish Context (post-1923): The Locality of Imbros (Ίμβρος/Gökçeada)

Laura Brody

Part 3: Memory

Chapter 9

Legacies of the 1923 Turkish-Greek Population Exchange: Greek Refugees in Turkey during World War II

Alexandros Lamprou

Chapter 10

Odyssey across the Aegean: The Perilous Exodus of Greek Jews (1943–1944) in Light of Individual Agency and Refugee Experience

Julia Fröhlich

Chapter 11

Postmemories of the 1922 Asia Minor refugee experience on Chios: The perspective from oral histories, 1999–2020

Violetta Hionidou

Chapter 12

Impossible Homecomings: Reconsidering the Legacies of the Greco-Turkish War and Population Exchange through the Life and Work of Etel Adnan (1925–2021)

Kristina Gedgaudaitė

Chapter 13

Perceptions of the Past: Pleasant Remembrance and Difficult Memories of Greco-Turkish Population Exchange Descendants

Serkan Günay

Conclusions

Dimitris Skleparis and Violetta Hionidou

Afterword

Bruce Clark

Bibliography

Biography

Violetta Hionidou is Professor of Modern European History at Newcastle University, UK. Her research interests span from famines to birth control; from popular medicine to family history; and from migration and refugee studies to the displacement experiences of Pontic Greeks in the former USSR. Currently, she is researching migration in times of famine. She has published three monographs, two of which are prize-winning. Hionidou has held research fellowships at Princeton University's Seeger Centre for Hellenic Studies, at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (George Papaioannou Fellowship), and at the University of Cambridge (Lewis-Gibson Visiting Fellowship).

 

Dimitris Skleparis is Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Security at Newcastle University. His research explores the intersections of security and forced displacement, focusing on threat perceptions, empathy, and collective memories of historical victimisation. He has published widely in international journals and edited volumes, and has contributed to research reports and policy briefs. Dimitris is Co-Convenor of the Greek Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association and serves on the Scientific Board of the Greek Review of Social Research. He previously held academic and research positions at the University of Glasgow, the University of California, and ELIAMEP.