Imbros and Tenedos
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Image:Turkey bozcaada.jpg Imbros (Turkish Gökçeada or İmroz, Greek Template:Polytonic (Imvros) ) and Tenedos (Turkish Bozcaada; Greek Τένεδος (Tenedhos) ) are two islands in the Aegean Sea which are part of Çanakkale Province in Turkey.
Gökçeada/Imbros has a population of about 8,000, and the much smaller Bozcaada/Tenedos has a population of about 2,500. The main industries of the islands are fishing and tourism. The grapes, wines and red poppies of Tenedos have been famous for centuries. The population is mostly Turkish but there are still about 300 Greeks on Imbros and about 30 on Tenedos.
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In antiquity
Tenedos
According to Greek mythology, the name "Tenedos" is derived from the eponymous hero Tenes, who ruled the island at the time of the Trojan War and was killed by Achilles; Philoctetes was abandoned on Tenedos. In Vergil's Aeneid, Tenedos is described as the island in whose bay the Achaeans hid their fleet near the end of the Trojan War in order to trick the Trojans into believing the war was over and allowing the Trojans to take the Trojan Horse within their city walls.
In ancient Greek history, there was an Aeolian settlement on Tenedos; there was a naval battle between C. Valerius Triarius and Mithridates' fleet off the island. In Pausanias' time, Tenedos was subject to Alexandria Troas.
Imbros
In classical antiquity, Imbros, like Lemnos, was an Athenian cleruchy, a colony whose settlers retained Athenians citizenship; although since the Imbrians appear on the Athenian tribute lists, there may have been a division with the native population. The original inhabitants of Imbros were Pelasgians. Miltiades conquered the island from Persia after the battle of Salamis; the colony was established about 450 BC, during the first Athenian empire, and was retained by Athens (with brief exceptions) for the next six centuries. It may have become independent under Septimius Severus.
The island is famous for the wineyards and the wine produced .
Between Turkey and Greece
Although Russian sailors repeatedly captured Tenedos during the Russo-Turkish Wars and used it as their military base to achieve the victories at the Dardanelles and Athos, the island remained with Turkey until the 20th century.
Before and shortly after the First World War the population of Imbros was approximately 92% ethnic Greek. Tenedos, which is closer to the Asian mainland, had been ethnically divided between Greeks and Turks since the 14th century, and the division was more or less equal when counts were taken.[1]
Because of their strategic position near the Dardanelles, the western powers, particularly Britain, insisted at the end of the Balkan Wars in 1913 that the islands should be retained by the Ottoman Empire when the other Aegean islands were ceded to Greece.
In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres with the defeated Ottoman Empire granted the islands to Greece. After the Greco-Turkish War ended in Greek defeat in Anatolia, and the fall of Lloyd George and his Middle Eastern policies, the western powers agreed to the Treaty of Lausanne with the new Turkish Republic, in 1923. This treaty made the two islands part of Turkey; but it guaranteed a special autonomous administrative status there to accommodate the Greeks, and excluded them from the population exchange that took place between Greece and Turkey, due to their presence as a majority.
The Greek population
In all likelihood, the islands were inhabited primarily by ethnic Greeks from ancient times through to around the middle of the twentieth century. Because precise census records are a recent phenomenon, the detailed historic ethnic makeup of the islands must remain a matter of conjecture; however, a census taken shortly before the islands were granted to Turkey showed a strong majority of Greek inhabitants on Imbros and a bare majority on Tenedos. This, combined with the strong presence of the Greek Orthodox church, makes any other conclusion unlikely.
Article 14 of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) exempted Imbros and Tenedos from the large-scale population exchange that took place between Greece and Turkey, and required Turkey to accommodate the local Greek majority and their rights. Specifically:
The islands of Imbros and Tenedos, remaining under Turkish sovereignty, shall enjoy a special administrative organisation composed of local elements and furnishing every guarantee for the native non-Moslem population in so far as concerns local administration and the protection of persons and property. The maintenance of order will be assured therein by a police force recruited from amongst the local population by the local administration above provided for and placed under its orders.
In simpler language, the islands were to be largely autonomous and self-governing, with its own police force. Turkish policy consistently undermined both the spirit and letter of this commitment: The islands of Imbros and Tenedos were each given an official Turkish name (Gökçeada and Bozcaada respectively), schools were required to teach exclusively in Turkish, and the local Greek population was marginalized in multiple ways.
Large numbers of mainland Turks were settled on the two islands, and Greek property was expropriated by the Turkish government without any meaningful reparations being paid. Greeks had owned 95 percent of Imbros' agricultural land prior to these expropriations, today they own almost none. Guarantees that were made to all the Greek inhabitants of Turkey in the Treaty of Lausanne were ignored, and the Turkish government implemented a policy of intimidation.
While the Cyprus conflict between Greece and Turkey escalated in the 1960's, the situation of the Greeks of the two islands continually deteriorated. Turkey opened an open prison for dangerous criminals on the island of Imbros, resulting in grievious harm both to the Greek islanders' property and, in some cases, to the Greek islanders themselves.
All of these events have led to the Greeks emigrating from both islands: In all likelihood this was the intent of the Turkish harassments, thus it can be said that the Turkish policies have been successful. There remains only a very small Greek community on Imbros and Tenedos today, comprising several hundred mostly elderly people. Most of the former Greeks of Imbros and Tenedos are in diaspora in Greece, the United States, and Australia.
See also
External links
Template:Districts of Çanakkaleca:Bozcaada de:Imbros (Insel) eo:Tenedos fr:Ténédos