What happened to the remaining Lycians in Lycia?
The Lycians that remained in Lycia following its decline may have intermarried with the Aegean Greeks who were resettled in Lycia in the early 19th century; both groups were Orthodox Christian and spoke the same language. However, following the Turkish War of Independence in which Greece (The Ottoman Empire had lost Greece as part of its territory by this time) invaded Turkey in hope of a Greater Greece but was repelled, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne was drawn up in the peace settlement. This is a very sad part of history as both Greece and Turkey agreed to a mutual exchange of populations, irrespective of those populations’ wishes. Greece expelled approximately 600,000 Turks, while the Turks expelled about 750,000 Anatolian Greeks (some were allowed to stay in Istanbul). These figures differ, depending on the source. In deciding ethnicity, the criterion used was religion. A Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian in Turkey was thus considered Greek, and expelled to Greece, while a Greek-speaking Muslim who knew no Turkish was considered Turkish and expelled to Turkey. Those expelled, even if they spoke the language of their new country, seldom felt entirely at home in their new "national homeland" and rather felt strong nostalgia for the "enemy" land that they had left behind, where life had been for most, good. Now they had to build new lives from scratch. With the departure of the Greeks, Turkey lost the skills of an entire commercial and industrial middle class.
In some places in the ancient Lycia region,
you may come across abandoned houses that once belonged to the expelled
Anatolian Greeks. The largest abandoned area is the formerly
prospering town of Levissii, now known as Kayaköy (stone village), a Greek
town near Fethiye. It is a haunting hillside settlement of some 2,000
buildings - houses, shops and churches, with roofs, tiles and timber gone,
having been scavenged by nearby Turkish villagers. Its 6,000
inhabitants were forced to re-settle in Greece. Kayaköy's story is
told in Louis de Bernières’s epic novel Birds Without Wings.
The Anatolian Greeks from
Kalkan (once a Greek fishing and trading
village) were resettled near Athens. They were resettled as a
community (like most Greek immigrants from Turkey) and named their new town
"Kalamaki", after Kalkan's previous name. The Greek buildings of
Kalkan and Kaş have fared much better than those of other places, due to
their location on the sea, and are
protected and beautifully preserved. Kalkan's Greek buildings
now form the "Old Town", the centre of Kalkan where houses, shops, pensions
and restaurants are located - it is a charming area with
bougainvillea-draped streets that wind down to the harbour. The
rooftop dining on these restaurants provide excellent views across the
harbour to the islands.
Kayaköy village near
Fethiye, see better photos
here.
Abandoned Anatolian Greek houses near the
village of Yavu, once a small settlement.
.
Kalkan Greek houses
This building which now
overlooks Kalkan's beach was built in 1854 and was
used at different times as an inn, customs house, for cotton storage and
as an oil production
facility. Lovingly restored by its owner according to the original
plans in 1997 and 1998, under the supervision of Turkish
Ministry of Culture.
Kalkan circa 1950, before tourism