The Macedonian Tendency: Oxford University Press: Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: Elisabeth Kontogiorgi

Friday, January 26, 2007

Oxford University Press: Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: Elisabeth Kontogiorgi

I have not read this book, but I did see a Greek map on the Oxford web, which had Macedonian names of the towns and villages. The the book seems to at least deal with the tensions between ethnic Macedonians (Slavophones) and the Greek refugees. Macedonian emigre groups should come together to a consensus as to the numbers of Macedonians in Greece. We gain nothing by blowhard exaggeration.

Oxford University Press: Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: Elisabeth Kontogiorgi: "Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia
The Rural Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930"

Dr Kontogiorgi examines the exchange of populations and the agricultural settlement in Greek Macedonia of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Asia Minor and the Pontus, Eastern Thrace, the Caucasus, and Bulgaria during the inter-war period. She examines Greek state policy and the role of the Refugee Settlement Commission which, under the auspices of the League of Nations, carried out the refugee resettlement project. Macedonia, a multilingual and ethnically diverse society, experienced a transformation so dramatic that it literally changed its character. Kontogiorgi charts that change and attempts to provide the means of understanding it. The consequences of the settlement of refugees for the ethnological composition of the population, and its political, social, demographic, and economic implications are treated in the light of new archival material. Reality is separated from myth in examining the factors involved in the process of integration of the newcomers and assimilation of the inhabitants - both refugees and indigenous - of the New Lands into the nation-state. Kontogiorgi examines the impact of the agrarian reforms and land distribution and makes an effort to convert the climate of the rural society of Macedonia during the inter-war period. The antagonisms between Slavophone and Vlach-speaking natives and refugee newcomers regarding the reallocation of former Muslim properties had significant ramifications for the political events in the region in the years to come.

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