Another supposition of the German author that the Greeks of Anatolia
intermarried with the “Seljuk Conquerors” is not a historical fact.
On the contrary, judging from the general character of the people and
their attachment to the Christian religion, it is certain that the
Greeks did not intermarry with the Seljuks, since they invaded Asia
Minor after their conversion to Mohammedanism.
That many Greeks, abandoning the faith of their forefathers, embraced
Mohammedanism, is an incontrovertible and historical fact, but that
Turks or other adherents of Islam could not become Christians and
consequently could not intermarry with the Greeks is also a truism.
For, according to Mohammedan Law, a “true believer” who abandons
Islam is liable to be put to death. Therefore, although many Greeks
by becoming Mohammedans lost their nationality, no Turks or other
Mussulmans could become Christians and, consequently, Greeks. That has
been the strongest shield of Hellenism for the preservation of the
Greek nationality.
In the same way his allegation that, as the language of the Greeks in
the interior of Asia Minor was Turkish, they “did not share in the
national and racial consciousness of their kinsmen on the coast” (p.
52) is equally erroneous. Anyone who has lived in that country and
intermingled with these people could not have helped noticing their
intense patriotic spirit and their attachment to Greek ideals, the best
evidence of these being the creation of schools for the study of the
language of their forefathers, namely Greek. Nor is the other statement
of this writer that the Greeks “succeeded in introducing the Greek
language in their schools alongside of the Turkish” correct, because,
as a matter of fact, these schools were established for the study of
the Greek and not the Turkish language, the latter tongue being taught
as a foreign language, occupying the same place in the curriculum of
the Greek schools as foreign languages hold in European or American
schools.
The observation of the author that Germany will have to come to terms
with the Greek peasant of Asia Minor, because “he is on a higher moral
plane,” is worthy of especial notice, and his further remark that “it
would be just as perverse as it would be foolish to depend on the
Turk to the exclusion of the Greek, who has the controlling hand in
trade and traffic, as well as in the cultivation of the soil” (p. 50),
confirms the favorable opinion of both German and other writers and
travelers as to the vitality of the Hellenic element of Asia Minor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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