ABSTRACT
The Greeks of Turkey have typically been studied either through the lens of ethnicity and nationalism as a community with a relatively unambiguous national or ethnic identity, or as a community that transcends or represents an exception to national distinctions. This chapter argues that neither perspective takes full measure of the heterogeneity or complexity of national belonging and identity, nor of the ways in which the latter is adaptable to particular individuals in different local contexts. My interviewees from the expatriated community variably self-define as both Romio í (i.e., broadly speaking, as descendants of the Eastern Roman Empire) and as Hellenes. For some, especially those with particular grievances towards the Greek state, a Romaic identity separates the expatriates from the Hellenic residents of Greece, a discursive position that has prompted others within the community, fearful of opening up a chasm between the Greeks of Turkey and the Greeks of Greece, to eschew the label Romio í and emphasise their Hellenic selves. For many expatriated Greeks of Istanbul, however, a Romaic self-identification – associated with the cosmopolitanism and urbanism of Istanbul and rooted in the Byzantine legacy – serves as a means to simultaneously differentiate themselves from the inhabitants of Greece and affirm that they themselves are particularly Greek. Interviewees from the agriculturalist Greek community of Imbros are generally less inclined to characterise themselves as cosmopolitan Romio í, but nonetheless likewise mobilise their local identity and history to demonstrate the authenticity, specificity, and venerability of their Hellenic credentials through tales of their island’s colonisation by Ancient Athenians, and the preservation of its Hellenic traditions in spite of repeated occupations and the absence of protection from the Greek state. In both cases, expatriate interviewees seek to authenticate their Hellenic identity and, consequently, establish their legitimacy as residents of Greece, by emphasising rather than downplaying the particularities of their own localities. These narratives of ‘inclusive particularity’ indicate that national belonging may be constructed through attachment to the local rather than simply in opposition to it, thereby providing us with a model of national identity that allows for its malleability for a diverse range of people operating in distinctive local contexts, whilst also accounting for its durability and its capacity to sustain claims of commonality on a national level.
