Parallel Universes

Abstract

The changing fortunes of the military conflict between the government forces and the DSE exposed the Muslim community of Western Thrace to two very different kinds of authority. In the big towns and (most of) the lowland villages, the pre-war state apparatus began to return gradually from March 1945 onwards, ending the de facto dominance that EAM had in the area since the withdrawal of the Bulgarian forces the previous autumn. In the Rhodope Mountains, however, the Greek state maintained only a nominal presence and this did not last very long as the outbreak of the civil war brought many of these areas under the control of the Communist forces. Indeed, by mid-1947, the two warring parties had largely consolidated their power in their respective areas of control. Yet, the delineation of the battle lines was far from tidy Mopping-up operations by government forces in the mountains and DSE incursions into the lowlands produced a volatile security situation where military authority varied over time and geographically. Such volatility, along with the mounting ideological polarisation of the conflict, had profound implications for the way in which both the Communists and the Greek state sought to organise their educational and welfare policies towards the Muslim communities. In this context of having to negotiate an increasingly precarious militarisation at home, many Western Thracian Muslims sought a better fortune by escaping to Turkey. For those who remained, the experience of the civil war (and more generally of the 1940s) would transform the way in which they perceived their own self-interest and their relation with the Greek state.