The Cappadocian Greeks (; ), or simply Cappadocians, are an ethnic Greek community native to the geographical region of Cappadocia in central-eastern Anatolia; roughly the Nevşehir, Kayseri, Konya provinces and their surroundings in modern-day Turkey. There had been a continuous Greek presence in Cappadocia since antiquity, and by at least the 5th century AD the Greek language had become the lingua franca of the region.
In the late 11th century, Seljuq Turks arriving from Central Asia conquered the region after the battle of Mantzikert, beginning its gradual shift in language and religion. In 1923, following the mass killing of Christian Ottomans across Anatolia, the surviving Cappadocian communities were forced to leave their native homeland and resettle in Greece by the terms of the Greek–Turkish population exchange. Today their descendants can be found throughout Greece and the Greek diaspora worldwide.
History Early history
Before Greeks and Greek culture arrived in Asia Minor, the area was controlled by another Indo-European people, the Hittites. Mycenaean Greeks set up trading posts along the west coast around 1300 BC and soon started colonizing the coasts, spreading Hellenic culture and language.
The area known as Cappadocia today was known to the Ancient Persians as Katpatuka, a name which the Greeks altered into Καππαδοκία (Cappadocia). The word is essentially of unknown etymology, but some have argued that it means "the land of beautiful horses".
Hellenistic period
In the Hellenistic era, following the conquest of Anatolia by Alexander the Great, Greek settlers began arriving in the mountainous regions of Cappadocia at this time. This Greek population movement of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC solidified a Greek presence in Cappadocia. As a result, Greek became the lingua franca of the region's natives. It would become the sole spoken language of the region's inhabitants within three centuries and would remain so for the next one thousand years.
After the death of Alexander the Great, Eumenes of Cardia, one of the Diadochi of Alexander the Great, was appointed satrap of Cappadocia, where he set up Greek settlements and distributed cities to his associates. Eumenes left behind administrators, judges and selected garrison commanders in Cappadocia. In the following centuries the Seleucid Greek Kings founded many Greek settlements in the interior of Asia Minor, and this region would become popular for the recruitment of soldiers. Unlike other regions of Asia Minor where Greeks would settle in cities, most of the Greek settlements in Cappadocia and other interior Anatolian regions were villages. The Hellenistic Kings would make new Greek settlements in Cappadocia and other surrounding regions in order to secure their hold on this volatile region; under their rule Greek settlements would increase in the Anatolian interior.
In the centuries following Alexander the Great's death, Ariarathes, the son of a Persian satrap who formerly controlled Cappadocia, gained control of the kingdom of Cappadocia and left it to a line of his successors, who mostly bore the name of the founder of the dynasty. These kings began to intermarry with neighboring Greek Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Seleucids. During their reign Greek towns were beginning to appear in the southern regions of Cappadocia. Ariarathes V of Cappadocia who reigned from 163 to 130 BC is considered to have been the greatest of the Kings of Cappadocia. He was predominantly Greek by descent; his father Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia was half Greek Macedonian and Persian, and his mother was Antiochis, the daughter of the Seleucid Greek King Antiochus III of the Seleucid dynasty. By the 1st century BC, regions of Cappadocia had been ravaged by Armenian King Tigranes the Great, who had relocated a great number of Cilician and Cappadocian Greeks to Mesopotamia (geographically in modern Iraq, eastern Syria and south-eastern Turkey.)
Archelaus, who was a Roman client prince, was the last to rule as a king of Cappadocia. He was a Cappadocian Greek nobleman, possibly of Macedonian descent, and was the first king of Cappadocia of wholly non-Persian blood. He ruled over Cappadocia for many years before being deposed by Tiberius, who took possession of Cappadocia for Rome.
Roman and Byzantine period
The region of Cappadocia produced some notable Greek individuals in antiquity, such as Apollonius of Tyana (1st century AD) who was a Greek Neo-Pythagorean philosopher who became well known in the Roman Empire and Aretaeus of Cappadocia (81–138 AD) who was a native Greek, born in Cappadocia and is considered to have been one of the foremost surgeons in antiquity. He was the first to distinguish between diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus, and the first to provide a detailed description of an asthma attack.
By late antiquity the Cappadocian Greeks had largely converted to Christianity. They were so thoroughly devout to Christianity that by the 1st century AD, the region of Cappadocia served as a stronghold for Christian Monasticism and was of significance importance in the history of early Christianity. In the early centuries of the Common Era Cappadocia produced three prominent Greek patristic figures, known as the Cappadocian Fathers. They were Basil the Great (c. 330–79), Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330–c. 389) (later known as Saint Gregory the Theologian) and Gregory of Nyssa (died c. 394). These Cappadocian Greek fathers of the fourth century revered the ancient Greek cultural pursuit of virtue, even studying Homer and Hesiod and "stood squarely in the tradition of Greek culture".
By the fifth century the last of the Indo-European native languages of Anatolia ceased to be spoken, replaced by Koine Greek. At the same time the Greek communities of central Anatolia were becoming actively involved in affairs of the Eastern Roman Empire and some Greek Cappadocians such as Maurice Tiberius (r. 582–602) and Heraclius would even serve as Emperors.
The region became a key Byzantine military district after the advent of Islam and the subsequent Muslim conquest of Syria led to the establishment of a militarized frontier zone (cf kleisoura and thughur) on the border of Cappadocia. This lasted from the mid-7th to the 10th century during the Arab–Byzantine wars, immortalized in Digenis Akritas, the Medieval Greek heroic epic set in this frontier region. During this period, Cappadocia became crucial to the empire and produced numerous Byzantine generals, most notably the Phokas and Maleinos clans (see Nikephoros Phokas and his nephew John Tzimiskes), warlords (see Karbeas of Tephrike), and intrigue, most importantly the Paulician heresy. Because they were living in such a volatile region, the Cappadocian Greeks created elaborate underground cities in the volcanic formations of eastern Cappadocia and would take refuge in them during times of danger. The Cappadocian Greeks hid in these rock-cut underground towns from many raiders over the next millennium, from 9th century Arab invaders to 11th century Turkish conquerors to 15th century Mongols. As late as the 20th century the local Cappadocian Greeks were still using the underground cities as refuges (Greek: καταφύγια) from periodic waves of Ottoman persecution. The most famous of these ancient underground cities are at the Cappadocian Greek villages of Anaku-Inegi (Ανακού) and Malakopi-Melagob (Μαλακοπή). The Greeks were removed from these villages in 1923, and they are now known as Derinkuyu and Kaymakli. These underground cities have chambers extending to depths of over 80 meters.
In the Middle Ages Cappadocia had hundreds of settlements and Byzantine rock-cut churches were carved out of the volcanic formations of eastern Cappadocia and decorated with painted icons, Greek writing and decorations. Over 700 of these Churches have been discovered and date from the period between the 6th century to the 13th century, many of these monasteries and churches continued to be used until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey 1920s.
The Greek inhabitants of these districts of Cappadocia were called Troglodytes. In the 10th century Leo the Deacon recorded a journey to Cappadocia by Nikephoros Phokas, in his writings he mentions that its inhabitants were called Troglodytes, as they “went underground in holes, clefts and labyrinths, as it were in dens and burrows”.
Byzantines re-established control of Cappadocia between the 7th and 11th centuries. During this period churches were carved into cliffs and rock faces in the Göreme and Soğanlı region. In the Middle Ages the Cappadocian Greeks would bury their religious figures in and around monasteries. In recent years mummified bodies have been found in abandoned Greek monasteries of Cappadocia, and many, including bodies of mummified babies, are on display in the Nigde Archaeological Museum. A well-preserved mummified corpse of a young Christian woman is popular with tourists; the blonde haired mummy is believed to be a nun and dates from the Byzantine era, from the 6th to the 11th century. It was discovered in a sixth-century Greek chapel in the Ihlara Valley of Cappadocia.
During the tenth century the Byzantine Empire had pushed east into formerly Arab-ruled lands, including most of Armenia, and had resettled thousands of Armenians into various regions of Cappadocia. This population shift intensified ethnic tensions between the Cappadocian Greeks and the Armenian newcomers in Cappadocia, and left Armenia largely devoid of native defenders.
Seljuk period In 1071 AD the Byzantine Empire suffered a considerable defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia. This defeat would open the interior of Anatolia to invasion by Central Asian Seljuq Turks who would overrun most of Byzantine Asia Minor. This began the transformation of Asia Minor from an entirely Christian and overwhelmingly Greek-populated region to a primarily Muslim and Turkish center. Several Armenian royal families, which included Gagik of Ani and Adom and Abu Sahl of Vaspurakan, sought vengeance on the local Greek Orthodox population after persecutions of the Armenians and Syriac Monophysites by the Byzantines. They used the opportunity provided by the Seljuq conquest to target the Greeks, they tortured and then assassinated the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Kayseri and pillaged wealthy Greek owned estates. The local Greek landowners eventually killed the Armenian royal Gagik.