Abstract
Culture and traditions are major factors of the communities to create spatial traces in accordance with their civilizations. Most of the countries in the world are full of the cultural traces of the civilizations lived in the past. Turkey, one of those countries, is a piece of the earth that hosted different communities throughout history. As the major community of those, architectural heritage of Greeks, who settled in various cities and towns of Turkey until the population exchange and forced migration are spatial evidence of their cultural heritage. In this chapter, some of architectural heritage as the tangible cultural heritage of the Greek community in Bartın is documented, and the reflection to the space of the relationship between the Greek and Turkish people as two different communities sharing life in a peaceful environment is emphasized.
TopIntroduction
At first glance, Anatolia’s cultural heritage may appear impossibly diverse, yet this panoply of customs and lifestyles has been married with a rich geography of traditions that was shared by communities that largely coexisted and were often intertwined (Eyüce, 2005).
This chapter reports the results of a cultural survey conducted by the author in modern day Bartın, a city located in the north of Turkey on the western shores of the Black Sea. It has hosted numerous civilizations over its long history a Greek minority in more recent times that was the main subject of the survey. It is known that Bartın was called Parthenia named after Parthenios, a Greek poet who lived in the city in ancient times (Çelikyay, 2016). Thousands of years later, Anatolia counted amongst its population a sizable Greek community with an active social life as evidenced by its churches, schools, hospitals and associations (Varjabedyan, 2016). In Ottoman times religious tolerance was shown towards non-Muslim minorities who were granted freedom of language, religion and sect, and could practice their customs and traditions without interference (Pamuk, 2001). They had opportunity to preserve their ethnic and religious identities in peace and order within the Ottoman nation system, and to develop their own culture in this way (Babaoğlu, 2012). Officially, this policy continued during the social and political upheavals that beset the Ottoman Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Following a revolt in the Peloponnese in 1821, the Ottoman State decided to uproot and relocated the Greek minority in Niğde, central Anatolia to the small city of Bartın on the Black Sea where they were able to build homes, religious and official buildings, remnants of which remain as lasting spatial evidence of their community.
The Greeks that lived in Bartın for a century between 1821 and 1921 are mentioned in official records of the period. At that time Bartın was part of the province of Kastamonu, whose Provincial Yearbook of 1870 mentions 5,762 Muslim, 3 Greek and 6 Armenian households. Shaw stated that the population of Bartın in 1885, consisted of 49,819 Muslim, 380 Greek and 195 Armenian households, while in 1914, 64,396 were Muslim, 1,104 Greek, 401 Armenian and 3 Jewish (Öztürk, 2011; Yurt Encyclopedia, 1983: 10,7727). In the 1890s, Şemsettin Sami reported that in the Middle and Western Black Sea Region, 22,600 people lived in Bartın, including the Çarşamba and Amasra sub-districts, of whom 1,000 were Christian farmers of wheat, barley and maize. They also produced wooden writing sets and ship ropes, and mined coal in the Tarlaağzı area (Öztürk, 2011). Among those who owned a coal mine in Zonguldak in the 1920s; Cevahircioğlu Bodosaki, Mihail Kozmidis, Kozmaoğlu Petro lived in Bartın. From the professional Christian community of Zonguldak; it is recorded that Osekyan, son of Hamparsum from Partalcıoğulları in Bartın, worked as a shoemaker, Bağdasar, son of Aragil from Bartın, was a tailor, Karabet Aragil from Bartın was an instrumentalist, and Dimitri Tilkioğlu was an egg trader in Bartın (Tuncer, 2012). Investigative journalist Tuncer (2012) mentions that the Greek population in Bartın was transferred to Safranbolu on 21 June 1921.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Compulsory Migration: It is the migration that occurs when people are forced to leave the country in which they were born or live, against their will, and go to another country. Compulsory migration mentioned in this chapter emphasizes the migration realized in the context of Turkish-Greek Population-Exchange in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne.
Mansion: A large, impressive house. In Turkish, a “government mansion” houses the provincial governor’s office.
Bartin: It is one of the cities located in Western Black Sea Region of Turkey. Bartin is one of the few cities in Turkey which has a navigable river passing through it.
Black Sea Region: It addresses the region in the northern part as one of the seven regions of Turkey. Geographically it is defined by this name because it stretches along the Black Sea coast.
Parthenios: The name of Bartin River in ancient times. Parthenios is “God of Waters” and is one of the hundreds of ancient Greek deities, who are the children of Okenaus, the father of the gods in Greek mythology. Another meaning of the word is “young virgin”, an epithet of the goddess Athena.
Nation Mansion: It is a building open to everyone in the society for activities such as meeting and chatting in daily life, sitting, and resting or reading a book. Nation Mansions have started to be built widely in most cities of Turkey in recent years, together with the park practices called “nation garden.”
Parthenia: It is the name of Bartin city in ancient times. As one of the most ancient settlements in the Paphlagonia region it was called Parthenia. It is mentioned in written sources that the name of the settlement on the riverside of Bartin River was Parthenia and then it changed to Bartin in time.