The Historical Timeline

The first traces of human culture in the region of Thrace dates back to Palaeolithic Age (10000 - 7000 BC). The next prehistoric stage was considered revolutionary as foundations of modern civilisation are laid. Neolithic Age covers 5th and 6th millennia BC in Aegean Thrace. A city called Makri, on the outskirts of Alexandroupoli, being the only fully excavated community of that period, reflects lots of details on the daily life during the Neolithic Era. Amongst the excavated objects there are many clay objects, hermaphrodite statues which might be used for worshipping purposes. Furthermore through smaller excavations on the lower parts of the region there are findings indicating commercial relationships between locals of Thrace and Minoans of Crete during the Bronze Age (3000 - 1050 BC). In the following centuries Thrace was ruled by tribes until it got integrated within the Roman Empire (1st - 4th century BC). Instead of canceling out the local features and culture Romans enhanced the Greek characteristics and culture. This policy was due to the accession to the mountainous areas, which were still partially controlled by Thracian populations.

During the Byzantine times Thrace gets an important role as it is very connected with the capital Constantinople. The later found Byzantine monuments in the area state the prime era of Evros at that time. These findings are very valuable pieces of Constantinople art, as they are unique pieces of the great artistic activity.The Byzantine Empire was threatened by many wars and invasions by Bulgarians, Ottomans and others. Ottomans conquered parts of Thrace in 1354, making Didymoteicho the first capital in Europe in 1361. In 1366 the capital moved to a Roman founded city Adrianople ( todays Edirne), which was later moved to Constantinople with the invasion in 1453. In the 19th century Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Serbians and many other minority groups lived in the area.

After the first world war during the conferences and treaties on determining the borders of Balkan states Thrace got divided into three parts. Northern Thrace which was by far the largest part became a part of Bulgaria, Western Thrace, between Xanti and Evros river went to Greece and Eastern Thrace, east of Evros until the Bosphorus remained in Turkey.

With the forced population exchange on 1923 between Greece and Turkey many people found themselves on the wrong side of the river. This process of immigration continued into late 20th century. Despite the migrations Greek Thrace was left as the most ethnically mixed area of Balkans

Eleftherios Venizelos made the initial request for the population exchange in a letter he sent to the League of Nations on October 16, 1922, as a way to normalize relations given that the majority of surviving Greeks who had been living in Turkey at the time had already fled to Greece following recent massacres. Venizelos requested Fridtjof Nansen to make the required arrangements and recommended a “compulsory swap of Greek and Turkish populations.” 1 .

This major forced population exchange, or mutually agreed upon expulsion, was based on religious identity rather than language or ethnicity and involved nearly all of the native Orthodox Christian peoples of Turkey (the Rûm “Roman/Byzantine” millet), including even Armenian and Turkish speaking Orthodox groups, and on the other side most of the native Muslims of Greece, including even Greek-speaking Muslims such as Vallahades and Cretan Turks, as well as Muslim Romans 2 .

Each group were native peoples, citizens, and in cases even veterans of the state which expelled them, and neither had representatives within the state to hear their voices. Historians have described the exchange as a legalized form of mutual ethnic cleansing 3 .

Note:

1. Shields, Sarah (2013). “The Greek-Turkish Population Exchange: Internationally Administered Ethnic Cleansing”. Middle East Report (267): 2–6. JSTOR 24426444.

2. Bilgehan, Zeynep (13 March 2019). “Roma people tell of ancestors’ 1923 ‘population exchange’ stories”. Hürriyet Daily News. Retrieved 9 May 2022.

3. Pinxten, Rik; Dikomitis, Lisa (May 2009). When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts. Berghahn Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-84545-920-8.

The Historical Timeline

Thrace as a shared land

Note:

Thrace, a modern province of Greece with a coastline on the Aegean Sea, the Mountain of Rodopi, and the Rivers Nestos and Evros, was formerly a minor portion of a larger area that ran from the Aegean Sea and the Hellespont to the Danube and from the Black Sea to Macedonia. Its historical formation was influenced by its geopolitical position between Europe and Asia. Thrace has endured more migrations, colonizations, hostile invasions, wars, and military occupations than any other region. Thrace was also continually subject to the strong forming influences of the nearby populations and cultures 1 .

Thrace being a region connecting the Asia Minor to Europe, or in a larger scale, the east to the west over the years transformed into a border. The three main cultures sharing this land stretched to the north, west and east and split from this union into three different countries. Furthermore the said border found a body within the Evros river, becoming one of the many water borders of the world. For almost 100 years, Evros has served as a frontier in its last section. Its history and its stories have changed, possibly even more than it is easy to imagine now, in terms of separating territory and dividing itself. For decades, this river and this boundary have told the tale of a forced split, of expulsions, deportations, and persecutions; the results of the notion that reality should adjust to a mark drawn on a map.