Asia Minor of Aegean

Greeks in Turkey lived in their historic homeland, Asia Minor, where ancient Greek cities flourished until Hellenistic times. Much later, Asia Minor was conquered by Turkish tribes, who moved there from Central Asia. The Greeks remained in these territories until the early 20th century, when the Kemalists seized power of the Ottoman state. The Seven Churches, the seven wolves of Greek Christian civilization, were wiped out. The Greeks of Asia Minor held "Thermopylae", until the great disaster, which hit not only Hellenism, but also global culture, after the Greeks were ripped out, not only from their homes, but also from a region that thousands of years ago, the Greek element was intense and marked with high ideas, his ideals and lifestyle, all of humanity.. Written sources, but mostly archaeological monuments of the region, which have survived to this day, from the hordes of the "barbarians," testify to the truth. They have a Greek stamp and Greek letters. From Aeolia to Lycia and Cilicia, from Bithynia to Paphlagonia and Cappadocia and from Karia and Ionia to Lydia, Mysia, Pisidia and Pamphilia, the Greek element was culturally dominant, except for some seasons until the Roman conquest, when the Hittites at the beginning and the Persians beyond, subdued with the power of the weapons and their arithmetic superiority the flourishing Greek cities and towns of Asia Minor.. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 gave the last blow to the Turkish economy. In addition to the loans and issuance of notes, caused by military needs, the Ottoman Empire had to repay and compensate Russia. Under these circumstances, Turkey was forced to declare full bankruptcy. In the early 1920s, in a mutually beneficial relationship between Soviet Russia and Turkey, intertwined political, military, ideological and economic interests emerged. The national interests of Soviet Russia and Turkey, in an unorthodox and unlikely way, were aligned, while for many centuries ago Russia and Turkey were incompatible opponents. Until the year 1915, when the persecution of Christian populations by the Turks on the territory of Asia Minor began, there were already many Greeks and Armenians there. But, in addition to the waves of advertising campaign and speculation, European forces have made a carefully thought-out plan: to conquer Turkey financially in order to achieve its full political submission. The emergence of foreign capital in Asia Minor brought together the local political interests of France, England and Russia. The results were not long overdue.. To manage public debt, the Ottoman Debt Administration was created, which turned into a kind of "state within state". European capital has invested in Asia Minor in two directions. On the one hand, his field of activity was the entire empire, which he tried to cover with a network of railways, banks, and import-export offices. On the other hand, European powers have long sought to assert their dominant economic influence in a particular area, chosen for reasons not only purely economic but also political and strategic in general. Italy‘s involvement in the distribution of Asia Minor territories is probably the most curious page in the history of diplomatic relations during World War I. The conditions for Italy‘s entry into the war on the side of the Entente forces were laid down in the London Agreement of 1915.. Asia Minor‘s refugees arriving in the major urban centres of Greece, as early as September 1922, except for homelessness, had to cope with the total absence and lack of welfare of the State; but also the bureaucracy of its banking institutions, which after the people-to-people treaty, they took over the financial part of the compensation of refugees and the rural establishment of refugee farmers..