The city that forgot itself
92 comments
·March 11, 2025jhbadger
TMWNN
>places like Thessaloniki/Salonika in Greece and Trieste in Italy -- places which were on the border between two (or more) cultures and which lost a lot of their multicultural status due to the war
"European borders aren't drawn along ethnic lines, the ethnic lines are drawn along the borders." —/u/sora_mui, two days ago <https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1j86d8i/the_balkani...>
mikhailfranco
It is contemporarily relevant to look at the euphemistic 'exchange of populations' during and after the Greco-Turkish War. Today it would be called 'ethnic cleansing'. In Anatolia itself, it took the form of genocide. The Turks had recently executed the Armenian and Assyrian (Sayfo) genocides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Gr...
Most vividly, it was covered by journalist Ernest Hemingway for the Toronto Star:
A Silent, Ghastly Procession Wends Its Way from Thrace (20 Oct 1922)
Refugee Procession is Scene of Horror (14 Nov 1922)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Quai_at_Smyrna
Some telling quotes here:
https://www.neomagazine.com/2022/04/on-the-quay-at-smyrna-er...
You can find these works in many collections of his journalism and short stories (e.g. "Byline"). I am very glad his early work is now coming out of copyright (and the journalism in Canada too? - if someone has links to his original articles, please post them).
Here is an out-of-copyright paragraph of "In Our Time", which recollects the refugee columns passing through Thrace, to and from Salonika, in 1922:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61085/pg61085-images.ht...
There are similar scenes in our world today. Not being played out today, but really happening.
imsurajkadam
Why dont they use the simple english to understand?
noduerme
English is a very beautiful language. There are many ways to say something similar, but each have slightly different meanings. In this case, the writer decided to use "flowery" language, which is usually to create a detailed picture, smell, and feeling for the reader. The point is not only to convey facts but to convey a sense of place. That is the reason for the complicated language.
For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."
This means that the woman sits on a bench looking at the shrine. But "fixing" it "with her gaze" means that she is staring at it with deep meaning and (possibly) reverence.
assimpleaspossi
To me that says her gaze is fixing the shrine.
SideburnsOfDoom
Exactly, and "fixing" in this sense means "nailing to the spot", or "fastening upon, halt, stop moving, be immobile like a fixed point or fixed price".
It's a poetic expression.
dambi0
What meaning do you infer from what it says?
bmacho
> For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."
This particular example I don't think is poetic rather it is broken.
SideburnsOfDoom
> I don't think is poetic rather it is broken.
No, it is not. You are merely unfamiliar with this sentence construction.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix-a-g...
afandian
At least in British English it’s perfectly fine. A bit poetic, but not an obscure construction.
edit — NB This is a British English publication. This is an American English default site.
DeathArrow
It is not an informative article, it's a piece designed to convey emotions and sentiments so readers are more willing to embrace author's view.
nottorp
There seems to be an agenda there.
If you check wikipedia at least, the muslim-christian population exchange between Greece and Turkey wasn't quite like the article describes it.
The facts may be somewhere in the middle, but certainly not in this article.
KineticLensman
FWIW The Critic is associated with the British conservative movement so there is definitely a leaning to the political right
(This is a comment on the magazine that published TFA, not TFA itself)
nindalf
Could you describe how the muslim-christian population exchange actually happened?
What is the agenda of this piece?
Texasian
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
Not all writing needs to be as dry as a technical bulletin.
type0
Here you go: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki
xyzsparetimexyz
That's a broken sentence.
dambi0
Broken seems a bit harsh. It might not be idiomatic, it might fall foul of some grammatical standard. But you know what it means.
xyzsparetimexyz
No, I do not! It is absolutely derived of context.
null
Galatians4_16
Be glad it's not Pidgin.
While I haven't been there, I know of it from Alan Furst's novels (which I recommend) -- he writes novels set before and during WWII and likes to often set them in places like Thessaloniki/Salonika in Greece and Trieste in Italy -- places which were on the border between two (or more) cultures and which lost a lot of their multicultural status due to the war.