The Memory of Population Exchange (1923-24): The Relation of Memory and Identity in Islamized Greeks

In this study, within the scope of the "Treaty and Protocol on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations" signed between Turkey and Greece on January 30, 1923, the untold stories of the Greek families who were requested to migrate from Anatolia but somehow did not participate in the exchange and were converted to Islam over time, and how these stories affected them are discussed with the help of the concepts of identity and memory. In this context, how the stories are remembered, how they are transmitted, what kind of effects of the transmitted / remembered stories have on the identities of the people and the possibility of ethnic revival constitute the questions that are tried to be answered in the context of the study. In the study, family stories from different cities are shared as narrated by the interviewer and the relationship between identity and memory is discussed with a focus on communicative memory, narrative identity, identity strategies and ethnic revitalization. In the context of the interviews and analysis, it is revealed that the transmission continues within the framework of the impact of memory on identity, stories change identities and strategies, awareness increases, and this awareness strengthens the possibility of ethnic revival.