The memory of ordinary, everyday intercultural or interreligious relationships, in brief 

Thessaloniki, also long known as Salonika, or Salonica, was for centuries a heterogenous mix of Christians, Jews and Muslims. The population spoke Greek, Turkish, Ladino, Bulgarian, French, English, and a wide range of Slavic and other languages. Although conflict repeatedly pitted members of the city’s community’s against each other, the communities met in many ways, recalled eloquently in Mark Mazower’s book Salonica. Most people lived in more or less religiously-mixed neighbourhoods – as a result, many spoke up to four or five languages (equally many others spoke less), they mixed languages in playing children’s games together in the streets, and in shopping for food. Though there were political pressures which led to the division of the population along three religious-ethnic lines, each sector of the population was richly diverse, embracing religious minorities (such as the Donme, and the Anabaptists) and a diversity of linguistic and ethnic identities. They met at work, through trade guilds, through politics (particularly in the Communist party), through scouting, and in the very popular cafes and at dance halls, at both of which multicultural bands played the music of a variety of national cultures. Jewish women worked as wet nurses at the Christian Agios Stylianos orphanage. Religious leaders met on significant occasions, the acts of religious piety of Muslims (such as the ziyara piligrimages at the tombs of saints and families) influenced Jews and Christians. Mazower notes that in earlier times respect for the dead was in many respects ecumenical: the Ottoman authorities recognised the sanctity and power of the blood of Christian martyrs; St Dimitrios’ tomb was guarded by a Mevlevi dervish who advised Christian pilgrims on the use of its holy soil; it was once not strange for Jews, Christians and Muslims to learn their spiritual practices from each other, and it is said that the cult of St Dimitrios drew Jews and Muslims as well as Christians, anxious that their personal prayer needs be answered. For a long time the Sabbath observance of the large Jewish community called a halt to much of the business week of the other communities. Even in the 1930s, Christian and Jewish religious leaders and members of the economic and social elite indicated their solidarity in different ways, and Mazower notes that for the majority of the population ‘coexistence and increasing interaction were facts of life’. Three examples of the difference friendships across communities could make when it counted are given by Mark Mazower. A Greek priest intervened when the Islamic cemetery run by the Mevlevi Sufi order was destroyed before 1924, and the priest, close to members of the order, helped to rescue the bones of sheikhs and move them to Istanbul. A Turkish bey at the same time sought help to be allowed to stay in Salonica (while other Muslims were ‘exchanged’ and sent to Turkey)  from a former Greek band leader he had helped to hide from the Ottoman authorities during the earlier Macedonian Struggle. The band leader wrote in his memoirs that he tried to get an exemption for his friend from the city authorities, only to find he had already left for Turkey. When the Nazis came for the Jewish population after 1941, a sizeable proportion of the younger Jews were able to escape with the help of Christian friends.

The context in which these relationships made a difference at the time

Interethnic relationships can be viewed in terms of need and equally in terms of meaning-making. In Salonika/Thessaloniki, everyday multicultural encounters were for centuries an obvious feature of life in the city, and the city’s pluralism contributed in many ways to its identity, to the political and social meanings associated with its neighbourhoods and with the city as a whole. Interethnic relations in Thessaloniki can easily be told in terms of conflict, sharpened by political and economic turmoil and poverty. Yet the city was a major port, and its trade and industry depended on relationships. Interethnic and interreligious solidarities made a difference for poor and wealthy alike. When tragedy struck, residents could choose to build back through joint efforts – as after the 1917 fire, a committee to catalyse reconstruction work drew the religious leaders and leading citizens of all three main confessions. Thessaloniki was repeatedly struck by fire, by war, by political change – it saw huge population movements, and the city was transformed time and again by urban redevelopment projects which replaced old neighbourhoods – such as the Ottoman mahalas – with new. When the city prospered, residents also struck up fresh relationships through new work, social or political and leisure opportunities – not least when the traditional constraints on women were progressively lifted in the 20th century. 

What has happened since, which makes the memory valuable 

Repeated political revolutions have impacted – usually immediately – on intercultural relations in the city. Turkish Muslims were transported, Jews were murdered, the many national identities of Thessaloniki’s residents have been replaced with a single Hellenic national narrative. The multicultural history of the city, and the interreligious solidarities of its residents, are viewed with sentiment and with pride – they are also promoted to tourists and international partners. Yet the differences of narrative and identity are also, as shown in Mazower’s account, ignored or repressed, in favour of narrow accounts which suggest a single Greek identity and fate must play the definitive role in telling its history. Mazower sees the social and religious diversity of the past – particularly of Jews, of Muslims, and of the city’s Slavic population – are like ghosts, as the expelled were once very frankly believed to be ghosts which haunted properties taken over by Orthodox refugees who fled to the city from Turkey. The separation between populations means these memories are valuable family possessions for Salonicans living across the world. They are also a resource for a different telling of history that accords with the needs of Greeks, Turks, Jews and others for realistic models of cooperation, solidarity and shared space.

How might the memory be used in bringing people together in practice now? 

The Memory Bank team is keen to help share stories for groups and audiences who can make use of them. Thessaloniki is not the only present-day Greek city which demonstrates how the three Abrahamic faiths once interacted, as part of the cosmopolitan realities of this city of Greeks, Jews, Turks and many others – and yet it is one of the richest resources for educational and peacebuilding work across these divides. It is not difficult to find general references to the multicultural and multi religious past of the city – but there is a great need for concrete examples which show how friendships and other relationships mattered. Memory work in the nation states of South-East Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean is often studied for its failings, for the failure to overcome conflict narratives and misrepresentations of the other. Thessaloniki provides a wealth of opportunities for work on recovering meaningful relationships, which should be of interest to readers around the world.

Additional context/Some additional reading

Mark Mazower, Salonica: City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, 2004. 

Nicholas P. Stavroulakis, Jews and Dervishes, 1993.

‘The strange cult of St Demetrius in Thessaloniki’, https://www.malathronas.com/165/the-cult-of-st-demetrius-in-thessaloniki/