HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Why Are We Here

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More than 100 years have passed since the Lausanne Treaty. Lausanne is often treated by modern republics of Turkey and Greece as the acknowledgment of their sovereignty. The historical build-up to Lausanne involves the Greco-Turkish War (1919 – 1922), WWI (1914 – 1918), and the Balkan Wars (1912 – 1913). Although it is almost impossible to give an exact number, estimates suggest that during the Greco-Turkish War at least 3 million people, during WWI at least 10 million people, and during the Balkan Wars, at least 900.000 people, were displaced within a geography that constitutes the Balkans, the Levant, Caucasus, Crimea, and North Africa. In the end, “The Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations” (a.k.a. “Population Exchange”) that was signed under the Lausanne Treaty in 1923 forced roughly 2 million people to be displaced between Turkey and Greece. These numbers were astonishingly large for its era: roughly within 10 years, the world witnessed at least 15 million people moving from one place to another. 

Roughly 100 years later, a similar era of mass migration took place in the same geography, where Turkey and Greece were again at the heart of the events. Poverty, exploitation, instability, conflict, and ecological devastation are driving people from their land. As of June 2024, 122 million people have been forced to flee their homes according to UNHCR. About 3 million people tried to seek safety in Europe between 2015 and 2025, using similar migration routes of the past through Turkey and Greece. Yet again the world is in shock due to the astonishing numbers.

Meanwhile, in both countries, the political narrative regarding migration seems to disregard this heritage completely. Albeit the fact that a significant portion of both nations consisted of migrants arriving to the host nations around 100 years ago, the development of the nation-state identities of these countries prioritized homogenization and through assimilation policies did their best to erase that memory. In both countries, similar stories exist regarding the Population Exchange: even though ethnic kinship existed between the host and migrant communities, “refugees” of that era faced exclusion and discrimination by the host communities. Orthodox Greeks and Armenians of Asia Minor were considered as “Turkish Seed” by the Hellenic identity, while Muslim Turks and Pomaks were called “Greek Seed” or “Infidels” by the Turkic identity, mostly independent from who they were but simply from where they came from. This transformed many elements of the culture of both countries through music, memory, traditions, and literature, as well as reproduced people’s lives in urban cities. Exchanged populations were forced to settle into the emptied neighborhoods and villages of their counterparts, trying to partake in a new identity without letting go of their past.

In the early phases of the massive mobilization of people on the move, often marked by 2015 for Europe as the so-called “migration crisis”, the memory of “being a refugee of the past” was summoned by both states. Turkey was portraying a benevolent face towards migrants, often representing itself as “the helping hand towards its Muslim siblings”, whereas Greece called for understanding and empathy to its citizens by reminding them “that they were all refugees in the past”. 10 years later, neither of these narratives succeeded: “The crisis”, which by definition should have a short period, became a structural question over time where no real alternative was proposed or administered by both governments, leaving its place to a xeno-racist discourse that declared people on the move as objects of hate. The tragedy that found the refugees of the Population Exchange 100 years ago perpetually repeats itself in various forms today through camps, detention centers, forced deportations, pushbacks, and de facto illegality. The memory of the refugees of the past and the present has been taken hostage by both states, leaving no space to dig out the history in pursuit of truth and justice.

Yet, against the weight of these events, migrants are becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. In the rush of our urban lives, the presence of the migrants as “the other” is becoming more present yet invisible at the same time. In Izmir, once the flourishing Greek neighborhood of Basmane which witnessed massive depopulation between 1922 and 1923, today hosts thousands of migrants from all over the world. In Athens, housing projects such as Prosfigika, which was designed to host the exchanged Greeks of Asia Minor a hundred years ago, are hosting migrants today yet again. It is very evident that these are not mere coincidences, however, one begs the question: What relationship do they possess with each other? What can we learn from the memory of the Population Exchange and project that experience to work on a better future today? Through which practices do migrants reproduce the cities that we live in today and how did they do it in the past? Can life itself become a form of resistance through cultural reproduction tools for migrants such as music, food, and coexistence, wherein their name almost became synonymous with hatred and exclusion today?

“Skala / İskele Collective” aims to pursue these questions by following the trail of diversity and richness of migration 100 years ago and today. It draws inspiration from commonalities between Turkey and Greece as its name suggests: Skala in Greek and İskele in Turkish have similar meanings with various uses. From “the promenade” to “the pier”, from “the wharf” to “the musical scale”, and from “the scaffolding” to “the stairs”: both words refer to pluralistic and diverse elements of our urban livelihoods. The project aims to amplify the “everyday-resistance” practices of displaced communities in their host countries by simply “partaking in urban space”. Through a transnational perspective, it plans to conduct episodes with specific themes, connecting the heritage and culture of several cities such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Lesvos, Ayvalik, and Izmir in various languages, and the role that migrants played / are playing in that heritage and culture.

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