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Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey Paperback – May 15, 2009

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 36 ratings

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In the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, nearly two million citizens in Turkey and Greece were expelled from homelands. The Lausanne treaty resulted in the deportation of Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece and of Muslims from Greece to Turkey. The transfer was hailed as a solution to the problem of minorities who could not coexist. Both governments saw the exchange as a chance to create societies of a single culture. The opinions and feelings of those uprooted from their native soil were never solicited.

In an evocative book, Bruce Clark draws on new archival research in Turkey and Greece as well as interviews with surviving participants to examine this unprecedented exercise in ethnic engineering. He examines how the exchange was negotiated and how people on both sides came to terms with new lands and identities.

Politically, the population exchange achieved its planners' goals, but the enormous human suffering left shattered legacies. It colored relations between Turkey and Greece, and has been invoked as a solution by advocates of ethnic separation from the Balkans to South Asia to the Middle East. This thoughtful book is a timely reminder of the effects of grand policy on ordinary people and of the difficulties for modern nations in contested regions where people still identify strongly with their ethnic or religious community.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

“At the conclusion of a bloody war in 1923, Greece and Turkey agreed to a "population exchange" that sent over a million Turkish Orthodox Christians to Greece and nearly half a million Greek Muslims to Turkey. The result, argues this absorbing study, was a humanitarian nightmare that sheds light on the conundrums of religion, ethnicity and identity in the modern age...Clark contends that the mass expulsions were a model for similar, sometimes de facto, transfers after WWII in Europe, India and Palestine; his gripping, sensitive history highlights the costs of such expedient policies.”Publishers Weekly

“In
Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey, Bruce Clark, the international security editor of The Economist, explores...the population exchange that helped create modern-day Greece and Turkey. Weaving together a rich variety of sources--interviews with some of the last surviving eyewitnesses, documents and accounts from the time, research by local historians in Greece and Turkey--Clark tells both the diplomatic and human stories of the exchange. He shows how 20th-century nationalist ideology affected the lives of ordinary people caught in its wake, raising complicated issues of identity that transcended each side's claims about who was "Turkish" and who was "Greek."”Belinda Cooper, New York Times Book Review

“A book about something that happened in the 1920s cannot always be expected to raise acute questions about the world today; the power of this book is the terrifying way that it does...Clark has tracked down nonagenarian Greeks and Turks who remember the pre-exchange world.These reminiscences, plus the story of the exchange, are judiciously intertwined to make for a pacy read, which also explains how the exchanges forged modern Greece and Turkey.”
Tim Judah, The Observer

“Bruce Clark's fascinating account of these turbulent events draws on new archival research in Greece and Turkey, and interviews with some of the surviving refugees, allowing them to speak for themselves for the first time.”
New Europe

“While Greece and Turkey remain antagonistic, there lingers a deep cultural and emotional tie between them which is puzzling to outsiders, and which Clark's excellent book does much to explain...The story Clark tells is complex, but it reminds us that ethnic homogeneity--the dream of nationalists throughout the last century--is illusory. Multiculturalism is not new, it is a return to what was the normal state of affairs before the upheavals of the 20th century.”
Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday

“A wise new book...Clark is particularly good on the human cost of the exchange, which he illustrates with first-hand testimony, much of it new, of almost unbearable poignancy.”
Brendan Simms, Sunday Times

“[A] brilliant book...Coming from Northern Ireland, Clark is well placed to comment on this riot of religious, ethnic, historical and political tensions. His analysis of the broad picture and the horse-trading at Lausanne is fair and unsentimental...
Twice a Stranger is a book that needed to be written, and Bruce Clark has achieved it superbly. He has made a complex subject accessible. Anyone with an interest in Greece or Turkey ought to read it.”John de Falbe, Daily Telegraph

“Absorbing and thorough...Clark's history is welcome for shedding light upon this 'giant divorce settlement,' an event that is barely known beyond the Aegean, largely because its architects were quick to close the book on a pitiless exercise in political expediency...With Turkey's ongoing interest in joining an insistently multicultural European Union, and the current state of relations between Muslims and the West,
Twice a Stranger cannot fail to ring with topical resonance...This is a welcome and readable account of what it means to be twice a stranger: both in the place where you were born and in the place where you grow old.”Jeremy Seal, Sunday Telegraph

“[An] excellent new book...The power of Clark's book lies not in its diplomatic history, which is concise and balanced, but in his sympathy for the communities and individuals wrenched from their real homes and dumped in alien 'homelands'...Clark finds abundant space for the complex communities whose religion, language and customs no longer fitted in a world re-ordered by the dreadful simplicity of nationalist ideology.”
Daniel Howden, The Independent

“[Clark] knows Greece and Turkey deeply and at first hand, and shows admirable fair-mindedness as well as the clever manner of presentation which you have to have if these complicated matters are to be explained to a foreign readership...Bruce Clark brings up the factual baggage-train, and good for him.”
Norman Stone, Literary Review

“[A] meticulously researched and balanced account...This book is an important piece of history, for Clark has captured some of the memories of the last, nonagerian, survivors of the expulsion. His knowledge of Greek brings alive recollections that will soon go to the grave.”
Marcus Tanner, The Tablet

“[A] thoughtful and deeply moving book.”
Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman

“In this marvellous book, Bruce Clark contrives to interleaf the macro (or megalo) story with the micro one. He presents a lucid summary of the events that led to this state-sponsored deportation...Clark has a real sympathy for his subjects as well as his subject, he has a true facility in Greek dialects and he manages to evoke a genuine melancholy while avoiding the sentimental...In Bosnia and in Kosovo most recently, international statecraft has been concerned more with redressing previous cleansings than with cementing or confirming them, and the Lausanne precedent is often cited as the negative one. Bruce Clark's book furnishes ghostly and ghastly evidence that for all its difficulties this policy is probably more practical as well as more ethical. I must add that he writes in that almost invisibly good and clear English that I thought had begun to die out of our journalism.”
Christopher Hitchens, The Spectator

“Clark's book is a timely reminder not only of man's inhumanity to man, and of our duty to avoid it, but also of the fact that throughout most of modern history it was considered right and natural that war and conflict should be ended by treaty, and that unless and until someone was able and willing to reverse the situation on the ground, the treaty would normally follow the maxim 'what you have you hold' (
uti possidetis). While making explicit the price that had to be paid for peace between Greece and Turkey, Bruce Clark does not shirk from what he calls 'a truth that is awkward from a liberal, modern point of view'--the fact that the price was not wasted. He has written a book that can be read, not with pleasure, but with interest, and certainly with profit.”Andrew Mango, Times Literary Supplement

“[Clark's] fascinating and moving account of those turbulent times--with first-hand testimony from those involved--sheds new light and meaning on an enormous exercise in ethnic engineering...[An] important new book.”
Keith Richmond, The Tribune

“A compellingly educational, yet shocking read.”
Natalie Hoare, Geographical

“The story of this 'population exchange' and its ramifications is evocatively told by Bruce Clark...[He] blends the personal histories of refugees and their descendants with an astute account of the larger diplomatic forces that shaped their lives...The scars of this population exchange are still visible in Greece and Turkey today--in ruined and abandoned churches and mosques, and also in familial ties that span the Aegean...Clark warns us that ethnic resettlement, even with a transparent veneer of respectability bestowed by the international community, is a tragedy with repercussions that last long after families are transplanted and borders redrawn.”
Michael Petrou, Maclean's

“Clark's impressive work leads us through the negotiations, agreements and aftermath of the 1923 Lausanne Convention...Bruce Clark tells his history with compelling clarity and doesn't neglect the human side. The book's sympathies lie with the ordinary people of all communities, uprooted by forces beyond their control.”
Jimmy Roussounis, Ham and High

“Clark's refugees are a valuable corrective to the policymakers' fondness for organizing other people's lives, and... the tinge of nostalgia which permeates this lucid analysis offers its own message for the future.”
Mark Mazower, London Review of Books

“Clark treats brilliantly both the macrohistory of the war and diplomacy leading to the expulsions and the several local histories of those different communities uprooted in order to become Turks living in Turkey and Greeks living in Greece.”
L. Carl Brown, Foreign Affairs

“Clark presents a nicely written, journalistic narrative history of the 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange that followed WW I. He discusses in an engaging and often poignant style the deportation of the nearly two million citizens--Orthodox Christians from Turkey and Muslims from Greece--that was overseen by a recently formulated international community and implemented by the postwar Turkish and Greek governments. Clark does an excellent job of bringing readers into the story at the levels of both what he calls "high politics" and the "lives of ordinary people."”
R. A. Miller, Choice

Twice a Stranger never loses sight of the painful experience of losing homes and homelands. Clark skilfully presents many poignant firsthand accounts of the population exchange. He draws on both his own interviews with Greeks and Turks and work by local historians such as Iskender Özsoy, a journalist from the town of Tuzla on the Sea of Marmara. Özsoy regrets that his work did not start even sooner; but Clark, Özsoy, and others fortunately did not wait until it was too late altogether. Clark, for his part, has compiled a remarkable body of testimony about the heavy human cost of forced migration...Twice a Stranger is a fascinating book that should be read.”Ben Lieberman, Journal of Genocide Research

“Read Bruce Clark's excellent
Twice a Stranger on the effects of the Lausanne population exchange and the psyche of modern Greece.”Roger Cohen, New York Times online

About the Author

Bruce Clark is the religion and public policy blog editor of The Economist, and previously edited the international news section, covered religion and politics for the Foreign Department, and was International Security Editor. He has also covered international events for Financial Times, The Times, and Reuters.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; 1st PAPERBACK edition (May 15, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674032225
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674032224
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.21 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.69 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 36 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
36 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the subject fascinating and tearful. They also praise the writing quality as well-written, objective, and well-presented.

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7 customers mention "Content"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book fascinating, poignant, and objective. They also say it's a tearful awakening to the horrors of displacement.

"...The final chapter of the book, "The price of success", is particularly noteworthy and I would recommend it even to those who have no special..." Read more

"...An easy book to read and to enjoy the presentation of the underlying concepts in a sensitive and thought provoking manner." Read more

"This is a fascinating subject...." Read more

"Well written. Historically correct! Great research. A little hard getting started, but once into it, was hard to put down...." Read more

5 customers mention "Writing quality"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book well-written, well-presented, and objective. They also say it provides essays written by scholars.

"Highly recommended. The bibliography is superb...." Read more

"Well written. Historically correct! Great research. A little hard getting started, but once into it, was hard to put down...." Read more

"...This is a better choice to read as it provides essays written by scholars (Greek, Turkish, British and others) offering different perspectives with..." Read more

"...to apportion blame or engender outrage, the book is able to present the thought process of each side at different steps of this process...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2006
This is the best book I have read on the tragic Greek-Turkish "population exchange" of the 1920s. I found the book remarkable for several reasons: One is its organization. Chapters alternate between diplomatic history and human suffering stories, many of them based on interviews with survivors of that era. This has a powerful effect on the reader who sees how people were dying while "diplomats talked." Another is its fairness in discussing the responsibilities of each side. (The official Greek and Turkish positions place all the blame on the other side.) And finally the coverage of the suffering of the Muslims that were sent from Greece to Turkey as part of the "exchange." As the books states on p. 161 "In most cases, the fate of these migrants was not as terrible as that of the Anatolian Christians who fled either in the heat of war, or as a result of forced marches followed by forced embarkations on ships riddled with disease; but the Muslim exodus was bad enough."

I have a special interest in the history of the region because both of my parents were born in Turkey and their families ended up in Greece as part of the exchange. My mother's family had to flee with a few hours notice following the retreating Greek army so they would not be slaughtered by Turkish irregulars. My father's family were Cappadocian Turkish speaking Christians. While their departure was more orderly they found themselves strangers in their new country. About 10 years or so ago I met a young Turkish college student who had a summer job in a hotel. He spoke some Greek and I asked him how he learned it. He told me his grandparents were Greek speaking Muslims from Crete and he described the difficulties they had in adjusting in Turkey, a story that mirrored exactly that of my father's family. I also realized that his grandparents must have had fond memories of Greece to teach their grandson the language. For what it is worth, what Clark describes seems to fit exactly my personal experience and my family's oral history.

The final chapter of the book, "The price of success", is particularly noteworthy and I would recommend it even to those who have no special interest in Greece or Turkey. Clark points out that in a way the "exchange" was a success, despite its huge human cost. It allowed Greece and Turkey to become nation states that lived more or less peacefully side by side because of "good fences." But then he goes on to show that such fences are not viable and the linking of religion and ethnicity is a dangerous policy. In the case of Greece and Turkey a new conflict arose because of Cyprus and the two countries came close to war again. Finally, he shows how futile is trying to maintain ethnic and religious homogeneity in the modern era of globalization and extensive labor migration.

It sad to see today that ethnic cleansing (based on one's religion) continues whether in the former Yugoslavia or in Iraq.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2010
Highly recommended. The bibliography is superb.

As presented in this book, the history of the consequences, mostly unintended, of the Treaty of Lausanne help to explain a great deal of life in modern day Greece. Why do so many Greek songs, both modern and 'laika,' speak of leaving and yearning for a homeland? Why does every region of Greece call itself the 'real Greece'? Why do so many people in northern Greece speak a little Turkish and Russian...and curse so fluently? Where did the expression "O thanatos sou einai n zwn mou... (""Your death is my life..." apologies for the attempt at transcription) arise in the national soul? Can there really such a thing as an ethnic identity, in Greece and Turkey, as well as elsewhere?

One could read this book in search of answers to the many questions that arise on a daily basis about this infuriatingly beloved adopted homeland of mine, but I found as much food for thought in the applications of the well-intentioned actions of so many government and international political agencies today, right now, and a well-researched lesson in unintended consequences. Perhaps we can apply these concepts to the decisions we are making today in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2013
I found the first and the last chapters the most rewarding in appreciating the problems and solutions of population exchanges based on religion or any other criterion. The chapters in between present details of the exchange both from the administrative and the persons involved points of view in this forced relocation. An interesting concept in nation building, I find the concept of religious "purity" a very difficult one to overcome in building cooperation and coexistence in the future.
An easy book to read and to enjoy the presentation of the underlying concepts in a sensitive and thought provoking manner.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2012
This is a fascinating subject. I do not entirely share the author's sceptisism about the Lausanne process given the histocal context: The multi-cultural Ottoman state had died along with multiculturalism. As the author indicates the idea for "unmixing" the population was proposed by Europe which itself has ever been failing to practice multiculturalisim "miserably".

The book contains some errors. For example, there couldn't have been a "Fethiye Bey".

Judging by the way different groups of people subjected to the population exchange are described one is left with the impression that all were Greeks in actuality. According to the author there were Cretan Muslims who spoke Greek, Thracian Muslims who were actually Greek speaking crypto-Christians, Pontic Greeks, other Orthodox Christian Greeks, and finally Turkish-speaking Cappadocian Christians (Karamans) who also must have forgotten their original Greek language. There is also repeated references to Greeks and Muslims instead of Christians and Muslims or Greeks and Turks. (I am not referring to the text of the Lausanne agreement) But this kind of bias has always been present in the west. We do not see foreign TV correspondents standing in front of a church when reporting from a majority-Christian country, say, Sweeden but when they report from a secular country with a majority-Muslim population the background is almost always a mosque and the country is referred to as a "Muslim" country. This book is also a product of that mentality despite the author's effort to remain impartial.
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