Introduction

Abstract

In the aftermath of the First World War (WWI) and a compulsory exchange of population, a sizeable and specific minority of Muslims were left within Greece, as a legacy of the old Ottoman Empire. Located near the northeast corner of Greece (Western Thrace), they found themselves in a rapidly changing society – ‘foreigners’ in a re-defined homeland. The region as a whole, however, had experienced repeated changes of authority and borders as a result of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Bulgarian and Greek nationalisms. As such, it had been the land in-between conflicting irredentist aspirations. The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, alongside the Greco-Turkish population exchange, provided (through the principle of reciprocity)¹ guarantees for the ‘Muslims’ of Western Thrace, recognising that they had a distinct identity and may be vulnerable to new threats. In the inter-war period, they represented about a third of the population of their region. With the onset of the Second World War (WWII), the Balkans were once again plunged into instability, which continued after the ‘peace’ with the arrival of Tito in Yugoslavia and the eruption of the Greek civil war. These separate events sustained not only an instability of authority, but also generally re-awakened ambiguities of identity, the assertion of rights, and new disputes about states and borders.