Reflections Of The Population Exchange In Thrace On The Paşaili Newspaper

Abstract

The Turkish-Greek Population Exchange, which took place in 1923- 1924, has been the subject of many studies both on a general scale and on a local scale. Especially as the number of local studies has increased, many unknowns of the exchange have disappeared and its panorama has expanded. One of the most important sources of local studies is undoubtedly local periodicals. From the columns of these periodicals, which are based on regional developments, it is possible to trace many issues that were not reflected in the national press or official correspondence/records of the period. This is also the case for the Thrace region, which is analysed in this article. The aim of this article is to examine the functioning of the exchange in Thrace through the newspaper Paşaili, which was the only periodical published in Thrace at the time of the exchange and whose copies are accessible. In the existing literature, the studies on the exchange in Thrace are those that focus on a specific province, such as Edirne or Tekirdağ. The issue of exchange in Thrace has not yet been addressed as a whole. This study, which we have built on a specific source -Paşaili newspaper-, the importance of which has been mentioned in the previous lines, will not examine the exchange in Thrace, which is a broad subject that could be the subject of a book or a thesis, from end to end, and the scope of the article will be limited to the aspects of the exchange in Thrace reflected in Paşaili newspaper. However, although the scope of the study is limited to the information reflected in the Paşaili newspaper, it will serve as a preamble for researchers who will focus on this subject in the future.

In this study, the document analysis method, which is one of the data collection methods of the qualitative research method, was followed. Paşaili newspaper contains a lot of information about the population exchange in Thrace that is not reflected in archival documents, national press, or printed works. From this newspaper, which can be described as a first-hand witness of the exchange, the places where the immigrants brought to Thrace came from, the number of immigrants, what they were engaged in, their general health status and the diseases they contracted, in which cities/towns/villages of Thrace they were settled in, the problems they encountered during the journey and after resettlement, the material and in-kind aids provided to the settlers settled in Thrace, and many other issues have been satisfactorily covered, and evaluations have been made on the issue of exchange in Thrace in line with this information.

There is no study that would require the approval of the Ethical Committee in this article.

This paper was checked for plagiarism. (https://intihal.net/)

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