- The Last Ottomans: The Muslim Minority of Greece, 1940-1949
This is a very interesting and important book, which fills a big gap in the historiography of the Muslim minority in Greek (Western) Thrace by providing, for the first time, a detailed analysis of the period 1940-1949. Its clever and catchy title alludes to the belated transition of the minority from a traditional Ottoman to a Republican Turkish identity.
Following the introduction, which defines as a "historical puzzle" the "passive" attitude of the Muslim minority in the 1940s, Chapter 2 sketches the historical background up to World War II. From the outset, Table 2.1 highlights the relative weight of the minority's three distinct components: an overwhelming majority (exceeding 80%) of Turks, a sizeable group of Pomaks (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims), and an insignificant number (a few hundred) of Muslim Gypsies or Roma. The total was a little over 100,000 in the period under consideration.
In the main body of the book, Chapters 3 to 8 cover events during World War II and the ensuing Greek Civil War. During the former, the area inhabited by the minority was under Bulgarian occupation, as part of the province of "Belomorie" annexed to Bulgaria. During the latter, the minority became inevitably involved in the struggle between the government forces and the Communist DSE ("Democratic Army of Greece"), which occupied more or less continuously [End Page 347] mountain areas inhabited by Pomaks, while it had a safe sanctuary and source of supplies across the border in Bulgaria. Finally, a brief concluding chapter reviews what the authors consider as the book's major contributions.
The book makes exhaustive use of practically every available archival source in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Britain, and the United States, supplemented by local newspapers and interviews with more than ninety individuals. Relevant documents are interspersed in boxes throughout the text—a choice that is far more functional than relegating them to an appendix at the end.
Consequently, the narrative is very rich in lively and concrete detail, and this is definitely a major strength and attraction of the book. It even includes little-known episodes, like the Tamrash Rebellion in 1878-1886 (25-26), the escape of Greek army units into Turkey after the German attack in April 1941 (62), and the use of the "Pomak card" in 1946 to support the Greek demands for border changes at the expense of Bulgaria (166-174).
Given such overall thoroughness, the book's omissions are all the more surprising. There is disappointingly little, for example, on the parliamentary election and the plebiscite in 1946 (186-188), although they signaled the consolidation of a mostly Kemalist leadership within the minority (cf. 290, 300). Amazingly, developments in 1952-1954 are completely ignored in the book's concluding pages, which only briefly refer to the 1950s (302-304). And yet, in those years, there was a spectacular rapprochement between Greece and Turkey as they jointly entered NATO, with sensational consequences for the Muslim minority in Western Thrace. All its schools and other institutions were officially renamed "Turkish" (in place of "Muslim"). Its first-ever high school was named after the then-president of the Turkish Republic, Celâl Bayar (who had visited the area as prime minister in 1938, according to the book's Plate 1). He inaugurated the school himself, side by side with King Paul, while the two national flags flew overhead. Surely this phase, however brief, does not fit with some of the authors' more sweeping simplifications about Greek official policy.
Perhaps the most disturbing omission, however, has to do with land ownership—especially since the authors are prepared to repeat uncritically that the Muslims had held 84% of the land in 1922, whereas by 1941 they suffered "glaring economic and social inequality" (3). It is simply not enough to say that Vemund Aarbakke in his thorough (but alas unpublished) dissertation presents "a much different estimation" (18 n. 11). In fact, he confirms what is...