After many years of research at the University of Birmingham, at the Center for Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek Studies, the author presents the reasons for the migration of Greeks from Constantinople within their historical context, primarily focusing on the educational issues of the Greek minority.
Ms. Sarioglu, as a graduate of the Zappeion High School in Constantinople and of Marmara University, has successfully completed such a work: the information she has drawn from numerous original and unpublished sources, as well as from published primary and secondary sources, makes this book unique.
The author not only sheds light on the issue of education for the Greek minority, but also places it within the broader historical context, describing the implications of the policies of the Turkish state that emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
The policies of Kemalism, aimed at creating a singular Turkish identity by flattening any other ethnic identity, as described very well, regarded all non-Muslim minorities with suspicion, which at times reached the brink of paranoia. Certainly, despite Turkey's efforts at secularizing the state, Islam continued to exert a strong influence.
The deeply rooted perceptions that every Muslim equates to a Turk, while a non-Muslim equates to a non-Turk, have largely remained unchanged since then. (Certainly, the absolute correspondence of this phenomenon in the Greek territory is the obsession that a Greek identifies with an Orthodox Christian.)
(Diane Seale, journalist for the newspaper "Kathimerini" (English edition), published on 20/1/2005)
