Across the Aegean

For a century, the Aegean has stood as both a border and a bridge. The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey – the forced relocation of over a million Christians to Greece and some 400,000 Muslims to Turkey – transformed both states and societies. Refugee movements from occupied Greece to neutral Turkey during the Second World War, and more recently the crossings from Turkey to Greece of Syrians and others during ‘Europe’s refugee crisis’, highlight the Aegean as a recurring site of forced migration. Today, the region remains defined by militarised borders and the criminalisation of humanitarian actors.

This book investigates the major forced population movements across the Aegean in the last 100 years. It uses the 1922-1923 forced population exchange as an intellectual point of departure to investigate the multiple refugee movements across the Aegean and their interconnections. It addresses the forced displacement of not only Turks and Greeks but also Jewish people and Syrians while also investigating the remembering of these episodes, within and beyond Turkey and Greece. Bringing together leading experts on Greece and Turkey, the volume advances a dialogue between national and international historiographies and offers fresh perspectives on the enduring legacies of displacement.

Across the Aegean is essential reading for scholars and students of modern Greek and Turkish studies, cultural heritage, refugee/forced migration, and memory studies. Its insights also resonate with policy practitioners, journalists, and wider audiences seeking to understand how histories of displacement continue to shape the politics and societies of the Aegean today.