Γεωγραφική Θέση Southeastern Asia Minor. Ιστορική Περιοχή Cilicia

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1 Περίληψη : Tarsus, unlike Adana and Mersin, didn t experience great development during the 19th century. However, the population increased there too, due to the economic development of the entire region of Cilicia and reached about inhabitants many of whom were immigrants from inner Asia Minor, Cyprus and Aegean. The church and the community of Tarsus went through difficult times due to the so-called Antioch Question, which brought at least a part of the Arabic-speaking Christians into conflict with the Greek-speaking and the Turkish-speaking people of the city. Γεωγραφική Θέση Southeastern Asia Minor Ιστορική Περιοχή Cilicia Διοικητική Υπαγωγή The Seat of kaza in Adana sancak, which belonged to Adana vilayet until Then it became seat of kaza in Mersin sancak, which belonged to Adana vilayet too. 1. The city The city of Tarsus is built along the river Cydnus (Tarsus Çay), in the lush and fertile plain of Cilicia. The city has been continuously inhabited since the antiquity. Its foundation is attributed to the Assyrians and the king Sardanapalus. Tarsus had been an important early Christian centre and is known as the birthplace of Apostle Paul. In its long history, the city had been part of the Assyrian Kingdom and the Persian Empire, the apple of discord between Seleucids and Ptolemies and the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia. Between the 8th and 11th century, there were particularly intense hostilities between Byzantines and Arabs over the city, during which the city changed hands twice until 965, when the Byzantines finally seized control. It remained under Byzantine administration until its capture by the Crusaders in 1097, but a little bit later it came under the control of the kingdom of Armenia Minor until the end of 13th century, when it got occupied by the Mamelukes. Eventually, in the 16th century, Tarsus was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as part of Aleppo eyalet and in 1571 it became a sancak of Cyprus eyalet. In the early 17th century, Tarsus became part of Adana sancak, within which it remained as kaza administration even after the reorganization of 1867, when Adana constituted a separate vilayet. In 1889 Tarsus kaza was incorporated into Mersin sancak, within Adana vilayet. In its long history, the city was continuously inhabited. The available information indicates that after its first capture by the Arabs in 950, Muslim population came to inhabit the city beside Christians and Jews. The Muslim population of the city increased considerably after the re-conquest by Mamelukes, but mostly after its integration into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman conquest did not eliminate the Christian population, although it decreased considerably. In the early 19th century, Tarsus was inhabited mostly by Muslims, but Armenian and Orthodox families lived there too. The city of Tarsus had been a major cultural and commercial centre of Cilicia in the past, but in the 19th century it started to decline as a result of the development of Adana (40 kilometers Northeast of Tarsus) and Mersin (22 kilometers Southwest of Tarsus). The city maintained the productive activities in agriculture as it continued to produce cotton and wool, but its geographical position and the swampy land around it left little room for significant growth in production. It has to be noted that in ancient times the distance between Tarsus and the mouth of the river Kydnus wasn t longer than meters, but as the time went by, the alluvial deposits increased this distance to approximately 18 kilometers. In this region, there were created swamps that limited its productive capacity and aggravated the climate. Despite the relative decline of Tarsus comparing to the two other centers of Cilicia, the city ultimately benefited from the broader transformation of the region. The population was renewed by immigrants from inner Asia Minor and other areas of the Empire albeit to a lesser degree than Adana and Mersin. The cotton production increased considerably as well as cultivation of other products, Δημιουργήθηκε στις 3/7/2017 Σελίδα 1/5

2 mostly sugar beet and sesame seeds. Moreover, the city acquired industrial infrastructure, albeit small. Finally, despite problems caused by the swamps, the city s infrastructure improved. In the early 20th century, the creation of a local electric power station exploiting the potential of the river Kydnus provided electricity for a big part of Tarsus. It was a luxury which Adana and Mersin lacked. Also, there are references that in the second decade of 20th century there was a theatre and a cinema in the city. Moreover, Tarsus served as the intermediate station of the small railway Adana-Mersin (about 67 km length) which connected the capital of the prefecture and its fertile plain with Mersin, the basic seaport of Cilicia. The city maintained the old urban planning. It was divided into neighborhoods (mahalas) based on religious distinction. The population of Tarsus remained almost stable during the 19th century. Although there are no population data for the period before the 19th century, it is estimated that the city had always had more than inhabitants. The first official Ottoman censuses of 1881/1882 reported that Tarsus kaza had inhabitants, of whom were Muslims. 1 The existing estimates about the population of the city of Tarsus differ significantly, as it seems that there was confusion over the population of the city and that of its environs. Probably, this confusion results from the fact that there were large numbers of seasonal immigrants from Diyarbakir, Sebasteia (Sivas), Van and other areas. According to the Dictionary of Geographical and Historical Terms of Voutyras, in the 1870 s Tarsus had inhabitants. Cuinet mentioned that in late 1880 s, the population of the city reached , of whom were Muslim. 2 Another source informs us that in the 1900 s the population of the city reached , 3 while Kontogiannis mentioned people. 4 Other information from the Archive of Oral History of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies indicates that the population of the city had been The Orthodox community of Tarsus The presence of Orthodox people in Tarsus had been continuous. However, the number of Orthodox steadily declined comparing to the Muslims. In the beginning of 19th century, the Greek Orthodox people were a small part of the inhabitants and together with the Armenians constituted the non-muslim population of Tarsus. Specific demographic information that is available refers to the late 19th and the early 20th century. Cuinet estimated that there were 250 Orthodox families in comparison with the 350 Armenian families. 5 According to the Calendar of the Christian Orthodox Brotherhood of Mersin, the number of Orthodox people in Tarsus reached The testimonies from informants born between the late 19th and the early 20th century, which are preserved in the Oral History Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, mentioned that there were approximately families. In any case, the size of the community seems to have been small, as it did not exceed inhabitants. The composition of this population is equally difficult to be defined. We know that in the 19th century, the Orthodox of Tarsus increased as a result of the general demographic and economic upheavals in Cilicia. Thus immigrants mostly from Cappadocia, Syria and Konya, but also from Cyprus and Aegean islands were added to the Orthodox population of Tarsus. However, we don t know the proportion of indigenous population to the immigrants, although it is likely that the second ones were more. Most of the immigrants were Turkish-speaking and Arabic-speaking, except those who came from the islands, though it is alleged that they knew Turkish too. The cause of immigrants settlement in Tarsus was nothing else but the economic prosperity of Cilicia in the second half of 19th century. The profits from the cotton cultivation and trade and the impetus given by the cotton production to other cultivations constituted a strong incentive to migrate in the region. However, this migration move must be assessed in relation to similar (and more large-scale) moves toward Adana and Mersin. Groups of immigrants who settled in Tarsus were often parts of broader kinship networks that had settled simultaneously in both the other urban centers of Cilicia. The settlement of Mavrommatis family, the most powerful Greek Orthodox family of Mersin, in Tarsus is a typical example. The social composition of the Greek Orthodox community of Tarsus was not considerably different from that of Mersin and Adana. Next to a relatively large and prosperous middle class there were many poor families working in the growing economic sectors of the city. The economically strong families were engaged actively in cotton and cereal trade, but also in industry. As Tarsus is situated on Kydnus, it benefited from the abundant energy ensured by the water of the river. During the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, mills, ginning and weaving industries were established in the city. Among those, the factory Kydnus of Mavromatis stood out with its spinning, ginning and flour milling machines. The factory had spindles and could produce yarn balls per day. 7 The spinning mill of Avanias, the flour mills of Ch. Paraskevas and Salvartzis and the foundry of M. Chatziathanasoglou were also among the industries of Diaspora. It seems that the position of Orthodox merchants was strong. According to the testimony Δημιουργήθηκε στις 3/7/2017 Σελίδα 2/5

3 of Vlassis Sachpeloglou in the Oral History Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, his father s commercial house exported around two thirds of the total production of Tarsus. Although there is a tendency of idealization in this kind of information, it seems that several Orthodox entrepreneurs were engaged in the trade of cotton and other products of Tarsus. The Orthodox merchants are distinguished by the same informant between those who came from Cappadocia (specifically: P. Sachlepoglou, S. Kessissoglou, Arzoumanoglou Bros, M. Kioultzitzekoglou, Peristianoglou) and those who came from the Aegean islands and Cyprus (M. Pintis, Chatzisiderikoulis, Avanias, Mavrommatis, Christophoros). Syrian Orthodox entreprenneurs must be also included among these, as they were part of the Orthodox community of Tarsus. The analogies between Mersin and Tarsus do not stop here. Tarsus established its own community which managed its schools and its property. There was also a church committee. Birth registrations and treasury operations of the community were regularly kept in books, which were transfered to Greece after the Catastrophe and now can be found in the General State Archives (GAK). However, contrary to the two other cities, the schools of Tarsus encountered operational problems. There were two Orthodox schools a boys school and a girls school, which were situated in a two-flour building in the Orthodox district, but it did not meet with the standards. There are only fragmented information on the number of students enrolled there. In the 1900 s, the school enrollement did not exceed 60 students (35 boys and 25 girls). There are strong indications that Orthodox families sent their children to Catholic and Protestant schools of Cilicia. In Tarsus, there were at least two missionary schools, one Catholic and one Protestant. The problematic situation of the Orthodox schools seems to correspond to a general estimation that the community of Tarsus was in decline. This hypothesis is interesting, but simultaneously it raises questions. Why didn t the wealthy bourgeois society of the city adopt an attitude toward education similar to that of the Orthodox entreprenneurs of Mersin and Adana, especially insofar as kinship and entreprenneurial linkages between them were close? Maybe the donation to schools does not constitute an integral middle class feature, but it comes up within specific conditions. Maybe, on the other hand, the hypothesis of being an educational decline in Tarsus is just a part of an imaginary created by the nearby (competing in some respects) local societies. It is certain that similar cases should be assessed in the context of the educational antagonism toward missionary schools and the uncertainties of the leading groups of communities in Cilicia and generally in Asia Minor, which were caused by the missionary activity. The Church constituted a fundamental element of the social life in Tarsus. The city was ecclesiastically subordinated to the Diocese of Adana and Tarsus, which had always been subordinated to the Antioch throne. In the centre of the city s Rum mahala, there was the church of St. Paul, built in 1825, where all the Orthodox of the city attended the liturgy regardless of the linguistic group which each one belonged to. Unlike Mersin, where the Turkish-speaking and the Greek-speaking Orthodox attended the liturgy in a different church from that of the Arabic-speaking Orthodox, the church of Tarsus had two priests to serve the Turkish-speaking and Arabicspeaking Christians. The division among the Orthodox in Tarsus emerged after the onset of the Antioch Question in 1898, when the Orthodox communities of Cilicia opposed to the election of the Arabic-speaking Meletios Dumani. This choice created tensions within the community, as at least a part of the Arabic-speaking people adopted a militant stance. The effort of the Patriarchate of Antioch to establish priests of its own choice met with drastic reactions. The same happened with the effort to fill the vacant seat of the Diocese of Adana and Tarsus with a priest chosen by the Patriarch of Antioch. The tension resulted not only in the division of the Orthodox people of the city, but mostly in the politicization of the cultural and ethnic traits, such as language and different origins. The community of Tarsus saw the Arabic-speaking peope as Arabs and these, in their turn, saw the rest ones as Greeks. In this framework, which was common to the other large communities of Cilicia, the cultural differences, such as language, acquired a new, national meaning. It must be noted that the imagery of division comes from the official stance of the community and the reports of the Greek sub-consul in Mersin. Probably, the national differentiation which resulted from the Antioch question was not so intense outside these circles. However, the intensity of the confrontation resulted in not filling the seat of the Diocese of Adana and Tarsus until the final expulsion of the Orthodox from Cilicia in After the Treaty of Lausanne, the Orthodox of Tarsus left their homes in order to settle in Greece under the Treaty s provision for population exchange. As a result, a very long historic presence in Cilicia ended in a dramatic way. 1. Karpat, K., Ottoman Population Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison 1985), pp Δημιουργήθηκε στις 3/7/2017 Σελίδα 3/5

4 2. Cuinet, V., La Τurquie d Asie. Géographie administrative. Statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l Asie Mineure 2 (Paris 1891), p «Ο νομός Αδάνων», Ημερολόγιον Ορθοδόξου Χριστιανικής Αδελφότητος Μερσίνης «Ορθοδοξία» (Μερσίνα 1911). 4. Κοντογιάννης, Π., Γεωγραφία της Μικράς Ασίας. Φυσική σύστασις της χώρας, πολιτική γεωγραφία, φυσικός πλούτος (Αθήναι 1921), p Cuinet, V., La Τurquie d Asie. Géographie administrative. Statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l'asie Mineure 2 (Paris 1891), p «Ο νομός Αδάνων», Ημερολόγιον Ορθοδόξου Χριστιανικής Αδελφότητος Μερσίνης «Ορθοδοξία» (Μερσίνα 1911). 7. «Εμπορική, βιομηχανική και γεωργική κίνησις της Μερσίνης και του νομού Αδάνων», Δελτίον του εν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Ελληνικού Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (Κωνσταντινούπολις 4 Ιουνίου 1911). Βιβλιογραφία : Κοντογιάννης Π., Γεωγραφία της Μικράς Ασίας. Φυσική σύστασις της χώρας, πολιτική γεωγραφία, φυσικός πλούτος, Αθήναι 1921 Γεωργιάδης Μ., "Περί της Κιλικίας Καθόλου και Αδάνων", Ξενοφάνης, Α, 1896 Εξερτζόγλου Χ., "Η διάχυση της εθνικής ταυτότητας στις ορθόδοξες κοινότητες της Κιλικίας", Δελτίο Κέντρου Μικρασιατικών Σπουδών, ΙΑ, , Karpat K., Ottoman Population, Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison 1985 "Ο Νομός Αδάνων", Ημερολόγιον Ορθοδόξου Χριστιανικής Αδελφότητας Μερσίνης «Ορθοδοξία», Μερσίνα 1911 Pamuk S., The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, Trade, investment and production, Cambridge University Press 1987 "Περί του Νομού Αδάνων", Ξενοφάνης, Δ', 1907 Καρολίδης Π., Περί της εθνικής καταγωγής των ορθοδόξων Συρίας και Παλαιστίνης, Αθήνα 1909 Cuinet V., La Turquie d Asie. Géographie administrative. Statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l Asie Mineure 2, Paris 1891 Bosworth C.E., "Tarsus", Bosworth, C.E., van Donza, E., Lewis, B., Pellat, Ch. (eds), Encyclopédie de l Islam, nouvelle édition, vol. 10, Paris 1987 Γλωσσάριo : kaza The basic grade of the Ottoman provincial administration. It included the surrounding region of a city or a town. During the late Ottoman Period it is identified with the kaymakamlık. Δημιουργήθηκε στις 3/7/2017 Σελίδα 4/5

5 sancak (liva) Medium sized unit of provincial administration of the Ottoman state, throughout its history. A subdivision of the early Ottoman eyalet (or beylerbeylik) and the later Ottoman vilayet. In the late Ottoman Period it was known also as mutasarrıflık. vilayet (valilik) The larger administrative unit in the Ottoman provincial administration system. The large provinces of the Ottoman Empire were previously called eyalet. The new regulation of 1864 introduced the vilayet as an equivalent of the French départment - albeit of smaller size. The governor of the vilayet was called vali and had extensive authority. Πηγές «Ευρετήριον Εμπορικών Οίκων», Δελτίον του εν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Ελληνικού Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (Κωνσταντινούπολις 1912). «Εμπορική, βιομηχανική και γεωργική κίνησις της Μερσίνης και του νομού Αδάνων», Δελτίον του εν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Ελληνικού Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (Κωνσταντινούπολις 4 Ιουνίου 1911). Δημιουργήθηκε στις 3/7/2017 Σελίδα 5/5