Agreements and Friendship between Greece and Turkey in 1930: Multifaceted Official Nationalist Discourses and Opposing Voices
Agreements and Friendship between Greece and Turkey in 1930: Multifaceted Official Nationalist Discourses and Opposing Voices

Author(s): Anna Vakali
Subject(s): Interwar Period (1920 - 1939)
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Agreements; Friendship; Greece; Turkey; Multifaceted; Official; Nationalist;
Summary/Abstract: Following ten years of animosity and war, starting with the Balkan Wars, and culminating with the Greek-Turkish War between 1919 and 1922, as well as the enforced population exchange between Greece and Turkey mainly during 1924, the “friendship era” between the two countries was established by the prime ministers Eleftherios Venizelos and İsmet İnönü with agreements signed in June and October 1930. While scholarly work often refers to 1930 as a milestone in the relations between the two countries, existing literature has mainly dealt with the motives urging the latter to change their foreign policy and follow the rapprochement of 1930. Instead, in this chapter, I will focus on the discursive strategies employed by the Greek and Turkish governments, as well as by their loyal press, in order to justify the new policy of “forgetting the past” for the sake of a “brand new world” towards the international and mainly their domestic audiences. More importantly, I will provide space for opposing, as well as for silenced voices and even contradictory elements existing within the official discourses themselves. I will thereby argue that a complete understanding of the rapprochement of 1930, as well as of the later developments in Greek-Turkish relations, includes an analysis of the different national imaginaries existing at that time, the underlying ethnic tensions, as well as the unfulfilled demands for the compensation of material losses stemming from the preceding war period.

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