The Pontic Greeks before the Diaspora

Abstract

The Pontic Greeks are among the world's survivors. Curiosity about their own identity culminated in the ‘First World Congress of Pontic Hellenism’, Thessalonike, in 1985 (swiftly followed by the Turkish ‘First International Black Sea Congress’, Samsun, 1986). Their second respective congresses gathered in 1988. More recently the Pontic Greeks' own, perhaps final, long march home aroused the attention of meetings in Oxford, London, Birmingham and elsewhere to their fate. At these conferences, I tried to introduce three millenia of history in thirty minutes! What follows is but a synthesis; it cannot serve as a history of the Pontos. Rather, it is a selective review; a task achieved in a few pages of text by considering five features of Pontic Greek society, livelihood and identity, illustrated by quotations and accompanying maps and photographs.