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Persistence of Pontic Greek identity as a part of ï¿½ellenism

Persistence of Pontic Greek identity as a part of ï¿½ellenism

ï¿½ichel ï¿½runeau

Pontic Greeks (about 2 millions in the world), from the first to the fourth generation, kept a strong specificity inside ï¿½ellenism, in Greece as in the diaspora. ï¿½his specificity depends on their dialect (pontic greek), their folklore (dances, music, popular songs) and religious pecularities (monasteries reproduced on exile territories). ï¿½he ï¿½lack Sea ï¿½ellenism, second centre after the ï¿½egean one must be understood in the long duration and in relation to the territories he held, at the margins of great empires in rivalry, the ï¿½ttoman and Russian empires, and on the coast of a sea which gave him his name.

Great mobility, deportations, a genocide (1916-1923), fragmentation of a multi-ethnic space in ï¿½ation-states, more than fifty years of totalitarism in USSR and the ï¿½alkans, did not break up the Pontic ï¿½ellenism which was on the contrary revived from the eighties in Greece, in the western diaspora (ï¿½ustralia, ï¿½merica, Germany) and then in the countries of the former USSR. ï¿½utside the cultural and religious characteristics of their identity, contributed to his long life his attachment for a montaneous environment, for an acritic position in relation to the centres of ï¿½ellenism, often reproduced on the exile territories, as well as his fidelity to some professions (cash cropping, mines and metallurgy, public works and construction, trade, intellectual professions).

Pontic ï¿½ellenism is more than an ethno-regional identity, as to be Cretean, ï¿½pirote or Peloponesian, it is a major component of ï¿½ellenism, as Cypriot ï¿½ellenism. ï¿½he loss of the origin territory, which is living in the memory, the experience of a genocide and the deportations under the stalinian rule, make apart the Pontians Greeks and give a great strength to their identity self assertion. We will try to show how, inside Greece and in the diaspora, in the previous USSR countries, the Pontic Greek identity is a structuring pole of ï¿½ellenism in spite of, if not because, his present troubles (refugee problem). ï¿½is recent cultural and identitary revival has been recognised by the Greek State which has ignored him for long.

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Persistence of Pontic Greek identity as a part of ï¿½ellenism