Pontic Greek Culture

Nella caotica e complessa fase finale dell’Impero Ottomano le autorità centrali di Istanbul si macchiarono di atrocità terribili ai danni di tutti quei gruppi etnici non turchi che facevano parte dello Stato. Spesso, addetti ai lavori e studiosi citano correttamente come paradigma della brutalità turca di quel periodo il caso armeno. Ed in effetti si trattò del primo genocidio del Novecento, secolo che è passato tristemente alla storia per brutalità ed eccidi compiuti verso i segmenti minoritari delle società. Ad onor del vero, un altro gruppo etnico molto numeroso nell’Impero Ottomano subì gravi ritorsioni su base etnica e veri e propri massacri a causa della non appartenenza al dominante ceppo turco: si tratta dei Greci del Ponto, una antichissima minoranza ellenica stanziatasi in Asia minore sin dai tempi di Omero. In questo contributo, si cerca di analizzare la storia, le lotte e le atrocità di cui furono vittime centinaia di migliaia di Greci ottomani costretti, loro malgrado, a fare i conti con l’ultimo violento virgulto di un impero ormai morente: la persecuzione su base etnica dei soggetti non turchi della società.

If we would apply it to Trebizond and its district, the duchy of Chaldia, the concept of 'border' may be declined in two different ways. Firstly, in its 'classic' meaning, for the region was located on the north-eastern edge of the Anatolian peninsula and since Late Antiquity represented the eastern limit of the imperial authority. Secondly, in political and cultural terms, as the geographical characteristics of the territory and the 'separatist temper' of local ruling classes, slowly led Chaldia to detach from Constantinople's sovereignty.
The 'porosity' of byzantine frontiers fostered the penetration of significant population groups – Lazes, Armenians and Georgians – from the neighbouring Caucasus, which gradually amalgamated with the Greek majority, until creating a specific 'Pontic' character in the inhabitants of the region. Byzantine scholars noticed the latter's 'otherness' already in the 10th century, for they described Chaldean rural elites as semi-barbarian. Indeed, those people prospered thanks to their looting in the neighbouring Islamic principalities and to the extortions at the expense of those who were crossing their possessions: not exactly like Constantinople's sophisticated aristocracy.
A truly independent principality was founded in Trebizond only in 1204, contemporarily with the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, however, at least from the final quarter of the 11th century, Pontic aristocracies drew up and systematically applied a wide-ranging separatist strategy. Led by the most prominent military clans, local magnates retook Chaldia after it had momentarily fallen into the hands of the Turks after the battle of Manzikert (1071) and then hindered imperial agents to regain full control of it. Although until 1204 separatist dukes alternated with officials who were loyal to the basileia, Pontic political balance increasingly tended to exclude the emperor. Chaldean governors connected with local provincial elites not only did not accept a compromise with the central authority, but also developed their own foreign and religious policies, which was often openly at odds with that of the Empire. The latter were substantially the harbingers of the foundation of the so-called Empire of Trebizond, which would have survived to the imperial restoration of the Palaiologoi (1261) and resisted to the Ottomans until 1461, eight years after Constantinople's fall.

*This book is at http://amzn.to/bBqICQ *.  With an epic historical sweep, “Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan,” reveals how the struggles by nations and empires to establish their regional supremacy resulted in the destruction of families and human groups. This book presents a new theory of the meaning and scope of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, based on the drafting history, the case law of international criminal tribunals, and practice of the states parties to the convention since the 1950s. It then paints an expansive portrait of genocide against populations on all six inhabitable continents, with a special focus on the greater Middle East and North Africa since the nineteenth century. In the Ottoman Empire, the Interior Minister issued orders describing the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek subjects of the empire as saboteurs allied to Russia who needed to be deported from their homes, and led efforts to massacre entire cities, carry out systematic rapes, and impose famine and disease on the surviving remnants. Similarly, in 1980s Iraq the Revolutionary Command Council of the Ba’ath party issued orders that served as the basis of convictions for genocide and other crimes in the Iraqi High Tribunal. These orders declared that areas serving as a base of operations for Kurdish and pro-Iranian insurgents should be rendered devoid of all life. Finally, in the Darfur region of Sudan, as in southern Sudan before it, the President and Interior Minister issued orders to the army and allied militia to kill and drive out entire communities in regions seeking independence, autonomy, or simply political equality. This book also provides cause for hope, explaining how former dictators have been tried and convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, and how their victims have won independence and compensation for their losses after the fact in places like Armenia, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, northern Iraq, East Timor, and southern Sudan.

Κειμήλια από το σύμβολο της ορθοδοξίας του Πόντου έχουν φτάσει μέχρι και την Αγγλία. Τον τελευταίο καιρό μάλιστα κυκλοφορούν στα Μέσα Κοινωνικής Δικτύωσης φωτογραφίες από εκθέματα, που προέρχονται από τη Σουμελά, στο μουσείο Ashmolean της Οξφόρδης, το οποίο αποτελεί το παλαιότερο πανεπιστημιακό μουσείο τέχνης, αρχαιολογίας και φυσικής ιστορίας στη Μεγάλη Βρετανία.

Зайковская Т.В. 1993: Момоэры – новогодние ряженые у греков Аджарии // Полевые исследования. Новая серия. – Том I. – Выпуск 1. – Москва: Институт этнологии и антропологии им. Н.Н. Миклухо-Маклая РАН, 1993. – С. 94-105.

На основе полевых записей, сделанных в селениях греков-понтийцев Аджарии дается описания новогоднего обряда ряженья, момоэры (μωμόγεροι), основніе персонажи, приводятся образцы записей.

In: Археологія. 2014. № 3. С. 32—44
In the article, the relation between three terracottas depicting the Mother of the gods on the throne is determined. Fragments of two of them were made in one of the West Pontic centres in a single mould which was apparently imported from the north-western part of Asia Minor, the third one was made in Olbia based on the example of these figurines. The former ones are dated by the second half of the 4th c. BC and the beginning of the 3rd c. BC, while the latter is dated approximately by the middle of the 3rd c. BC. Cast made by the imported terracotta was altered according to the local tastes and religious believes. While the lion cub on original depiction is located under the foot, it appears on the lap of the goddess on the Olbian example.
It is ascertained that all the statuettes contained the depictions of sphinxes on the throne decoration. This motive in terracotta depictions of the Mother of the gods is known in Asia Minor and the west coast of the Black Sea. Analogous ornament was widely used on statuettes from Myrina. Parallels in design of other details and peculiarities of lion depiction also find their parallels in the north-western part of Asia Minor. Sphinxes sitting on both sides of the Mother of the gods are known on the statuette made in the mould from Pergamon. This type, in its turn, finds its roots in depictions of big sphinxes near a goddess from Lydia and Cyprus. The process of diminution in sphinxes’ size and significance in iconography of the Mother of the gods can be traced from the south to the north where, for instance, in Olbia and Callatis they are presented within the ornamental motif already in the 4th c. BC. This motif was transferred to depictions of other cultic furniture.
Imported statuettes derive from the local ones with the apotropeic symbols: a lion with showed tongue and a sphinx. This fact approaches them to chthonic ideas in cult of the Mother of the gods. These statuettes were found at the neighbouring houses in the area near agora which belonged to the wealthy citizens one of whom was an important person in the polis’ religious life. Apparently, some of them or their adherents were acquainted with coroplastics or a coroplast because his figurine became an example for making the local products. Analogous Olbian statuette was donated to the goddess, as it was found almost unused in one of botroi at the Western Temenos. Simplified depictions modelled by the terracottas of such type were produced also in Ancient Greek centres in Asia Minor in the 3rd and the 2nd c. BC.

Η ιστορία του Ελληνισμού της τσαρικής Ρωσίας, της πρώην Σοβιετικής Ένωσης και των ανεξάρτητων Δημοκρατιών της Κοινοπολιτείας σήμερα είναι μια περίοδος της γενικής ελληνικής ιστορίας και έτσι πρέπει να τη βλέπουμε και να τη διδάσκουμε. Γιατί ελληνική ιστορία δεν είναι μόνο η ελλαδική.

There are several dozens of terracottas in Olbia consisting of a bust and a cup atop the female image. Most of them were serially produced. In this paper, discussed are the untypical busts which were unique. They were produced in processed casts initially made for production of other types of terracottas. They evidence a high demand on bust thymiateria in the 2nd century BC when any means were used to achieve this popular ritual device.

Οι στίχοι των τραγουδιών του παλαιού, Πόντιου, λυράρη Νίκου Παπαβραμίδη δίνουν λαογραφικά στοιχεία για την Τραπεζούντα των τελών του 19ου και των αρχών του 20ου αιώνα, πριν την ανταλλαγή πληθυσμών του 1923. Παράλληλα υμνούν τον έρωτα των νέων με πιο ιδανική μορφή και αποτελούν παράδειγμα για τον τρόπο προσέγγισης του γυναικείου φύλου.