Publisher's Synopsis
The war between Greece and Turkey in 1921-2 came to be known by the Greeks as the Asian Minor catastrophe. It marked the end of Hellenism in the ancient heartland of Asia Minor: with the resulting compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, over a million Greek refugees entered Greece in two years. Over half a century later, a large section of the urban refugee population who settled in Greece still claimed a separate Asia Minor identity, despite sharing with other Greeks a common culture, language and religion.;This volume based on the author's fieldwork, is an ethnographic study of Kokkinia, an urban quarter in Piraeus. It is the study of an urban refugee group which reveals that the inhabitants' sense of separate identity was consciously maintained, an aspect of continuity with their well-defined identiy as an Orthodox Christian minority in the Ottoman Empire.;The study also aims to provide insights into the phenomenon of ethnicity. Kokkinia's inhabitants had evolved a way of life, both meaningful and coherent, centred on family and neighbourhood. It shows how their religious tradition provided the foundations for the meanings embedded in everyday practice, and for the symbolic dimension which pervaded daily life. The author looks at the social lives of women, attempting to cover structural, together with cultural dimensions, social conduct, values and linguistic expressions. The work should be of interest to social anthropologists and scientists, those concerned with urban studies, refugees and aid agencies, women's studies specialists and theologians.
