Introduction

The year 2023 signalled 100 years since the signing of the Lausanne Treaty, the Treaty that authorised the compulsory exchange of almost two million people between Greece and Turkey, making those people refugees in their ‘own country’. While the effects of swapping peoples created shockwaves in both – already conflict-torn – societies, the ripples of which are still felt from time to time. The Aegean Sea and its islands have continued to act as bridges, sometimes more open than at other times, between the two countries, continents, and people. This occurred in 1941–44 when Greek citizens, both 1922 refugees and non-refugees, escaping from their famished and occupied country, sought refuge in neutral Turkey. More recently, in the 2010s, Syrians and others, escaping violence in their own countries, sought a safer and better existence by moving from there to Turkey, then Greece, and beyond, when possible. This book looks at the people's movements between Turkey and Greece during the long 20th century, focusing on issues of humanitarianism and the refugee experience in times of turmoil, identity of people and places, and memory.