Pro-Republic Period and Population Exchange

IMMIGRATIONS FROM THE VILLAGE

With the exception of Emir and Salanlar, Turks did not live in the houses abandoned by the Greeks when they left our village between 1923-26 during the years of population exchange. Turks live in Asagiköy settled in these houses in 1938 after the Treasury Department rented out places through contracts. Some families live in Budak, formerly Sive-Torul, settled in here, after rental contracts began. This has continued since 1938. In this reason, as a result of the cadastral works which started in 2003 in our village, those who live in Aşağıköy bought land only from the villagers were able to have the property deeds of places put up for sale. In the early years of settlement (when Muharrem Sönmez was reeve) their registrations could not be brought to Ugurtasi.  They were later obtained their registrations from Sive (during the time that Cemal Karakullukçu was muhktar) and then brought to Uğurtaşı.  Only the people from Sive did not come to Uğurtaşı after the Greeks left. As the population was declining, some Chepni(Turkish boy) families arrived to fill in the gaps. As is well known, the Chepnis are from one of the Oghuz tribes. They played an important part in the conquest of Anatolia and its Turkification. The arrival of the Chepni in our region is as old as the Kınık tribe of the Oghuzes and the arrival of the Uzs in the 11th century. During the founding years of Atatürk, the commander of the special guard detachment composed of Chepni from Giresun was Çepni Topal Osman.

They generally settled in Tirebolu, Şalpazarı, Ağasar (Kasımağzı) and the vicinities thereof. They mostly settled in this region and some of their children bought land, married and settled there. The family names are Canfer Uçar, Helim Arslan, Ayşe Çoban, (children: Musa Çoban and Cakır Ayşe), Emine Tahmaz and Hasan Aydemir (Zurnaci).  Annex-9,10,11,12,13

Also, Salim Usataoğlu Mahmut Öztürk from Hacımehmet (Trabzon) married his daughter Fadime and lived in our village for a long time. Abdullah Zengin from Zimera (Atalar) village also lived and worked in our village for many years.

In the early years of the 20th century, when Turks and Greeks were still living together, there were insufficient resources to provide for the needs of so many people, as a result Turkish families started to leave the village. During the Ottoman era, Turks as well as Greeks went to tsarist Russia(Russian Empire) to work. Especially, the number of the Greek families was very high. Notwithstanding, the number of the Turkish families who went there was not less than the number of the Greek families.  Some worked for 5-10 years and then returned. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, with the arrival of communism the borders closed. Turks and Greeks that were in Russia could not return.  The Turks who managed to escape returned to Turkey and the Greeks to Greece. Others remained in Russia and died there.  The people who I know died there include Nuri (1866) from mollas Baki ancestry Ahmet (1897) from Mollas Ahmets’, my mother’s father Emin Yılmaz (1865), and Tufan Karakullukçu (1894 - 1942) from the Tufan’s ancestry and Kamil (1890) from the Himmetoğullari family. Tufan Karakullukçu married over there and had three children. His grandson Olexandr later found me through the internet and helped me complete the family tree.  During the time of Greek-Turk exchange, some Greeks in Russia went directly back to Greece. Whilst they worked in Russia, they were able to support themselves and also give to the development of the village. After the declaration of the Turkish Republic, Greeks left our village as result of of the Treaty of Lausanne (30^th January 1923)  but also Turks continue to leave our village despite the changing conditions. During the Ottoman era Turks migrated to Trabzon and Zonguldak. With the advent of the Republic they went to Istanbul and Ankara. In order to know where this population lived in the past (where their family homes were), I drafted a village layout plan (Annex-20) by means of talking to the elders in the village.

From Greek sources that I have obtained, there were Turks and other minorities living in Asagiköy (Alpullu), Monamatli, Yerantli and others  but it has not been possible to get any information about these families. We only know of the movements of the Uzunibrahimoğullari family lived in Asagiköy. We know of Mr. Osman Aga from Monamatli, whose daughter-in-law died whilst sitting on the streamside with a bush on his back without noticing that the water came from behind in Ispele and was carried away by floodwaters. What happened to Mr.Osman Aga and his family after this is unknown but it is recorded that his daughter-in-law’s body was found three days later on the banks of the Harşit River and then buried in Monamatli. We have no details of Mr. Aga Rüzvan (probably Kurdish) who lived in Kürtlü and served as a muhtar from 1851-1854.  There is no information available about Mr. Kurtoğlu Ali who also lived in Kürtlü  and we have few details about Mr.Kahraman (probably from Karakullukçu ancestry) or his family who lived in Yerantli.

It would be helpful now to mention about the population exchange and the migration back to Anatolia that occurred during the years of the foundation of Turkish republic under a separate heading. The migration to Anatolia started after the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War, named as the '93 War in Turkish history. This speeded up after 1912 with the Balkan conflicts. In short, during the time of the conquests there was migration to the west but with the decline of the Ottomans they returned to the east and to Anatolia. Some families left their homelands and came to Anatolia. These migrations were a tragedy. The migration stopped for a while during the First World War and took another form after the War of Independence. A condition of the Lausanne Treaty on 30^th January 1923 was that the Turkish and Greek governments agreed to a population exchange. This was an enormous tragedy. The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos insisted on this exchange. Actually he had requested the English Foreign Minister Lord Curzon pressurized Turkey to agree to this.  Venizelos had his own justifications to insist on the population exchange. Anatolian Greeks and Turks lived in peace before the Independence War, but Anatolian Greeks started gangs supporting Greeks and, fought Turks when the war started.  After we won the war, they couldn’t return to their villages, towns and cities and, stayed in Greece.  Venizelos was desperate and could not give home to stay and job to work to such a large population in a country, where the economy was down due to war. And as a solution, he thought it would be better to send Turks living in Greece. He planned to give the houses evacuated by Turks to Anatolian Greeks, who could not return to Turkey.  As a result between 1923-26 Greek and Turk co-existence came to an end. The Greeks who had been living in Uğurtaşı settled in Greece. Some went directly to Greece while others stayed for a while in Istanbul with the hope of later returning,  because they did not believe that such a decision could be implemented (quotes from those living at the time). It is understood from those who lived in Istanbul that it was a difficult time (memoirs from writers). According to these writers life in Greece also had its difficulties. The property they were given in Greece was nothing compared to what they had owned in Turkey. They were either given a small house for their mansion in Turkey or very little money to build a new place. They were not offered land or opportunities to support themselves. The houses left by Turks were not given to them  because other Greeks in the area had already taken ownership of them. There were few opportunities for the newly arrived Greeks. They were settled in areas where there was no decent infrastructure, with not enough food or even water. The already established Greek community also ostracized the newly settled Greeks The most important reason was that they spoke also Turkish. This was especially true for those from the Black Sea regions who were Orthodox and spoke Turkish and could not speak fluent Greek. The Greeks who could not live with this humiliation migrated to America and settled in the Canton-Ohio region (statements from those who went from Olucak –Imera area). This population exchange caused disappointments for both nations. People had to leave their home where they had lived for years, which resulted in great traumas in their lives. Most of the first and second generation refugees died without getting adopted to their new places. Refugees from Greece to Turkey were much luckier than the Anatolian Greeks. This was because Turkey embraced them all with love. They were given large and fertile lands by the founders of the Republic. They were honoured being called with a special word (Mübadil) refugee then the ordinary word (Göçmen) refugee. It was a great privilege for them. This was because the Anatolian Greeks who went to Greece were treated as an ordinary immigrants. Only the third generation could get adapted to their new lives. Some Turks who were living in Greece settled in Uğurtaşı village. From information in Orhan Karakullukçu’s booklet, we know that assets Greek presently determinated given to an aristocrat refugees from the Thessalonica-Vodina by the name of Salih and his brothers Yaşar, Kazım, Eyüp and İzzet. They then sold the land to locals, as they did not want to live there. In others words, today there is nothing left of a Greek presence in our villages.

I now want to refer to Orhan Karakullukçu’s booklet for some information about the places used for the population exchange.

In 1923 following the decision to re-patriate Greeks living in the Eastern Black Sea area the Greeks in our village were of course included. All the property belonging to Greeks in the village was listed and recorded. These records are still available. The state has now allocated these lands to Turks coming from Greece.

Greek assets in our village were allocated to the aristocrat Salih and his brothers Yasar, Kazim, Eyup and İzzet, refugees from the Thessalonica-Vodina. As I mentioned before, they were later sold to the villagers. Now there remains nothing Greek in our village.

Seven title deeds were made in the names of the people listed below and then divided into 28 share