turkey is a country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia turkey has a population of 82 million people and from these just a few thousand identify themselves as Greek being situated in Asia Minor also known as Anatolia the territory of present-day Turkey witnessed many transitions throughout its known history the region was populated by some different ancient populations one of them was the Greeks ancient Greek people settled on the west coast since the 20th century BC the father of history Herodotus described Anatolia as a territory divided into regions these regions were diverse in culture language and religious practices but in the next hundreds of years Greek culture and influence became stronger and stronger especially at the peak of the Byzantine Empire during the 6th to 10th centuries the Greeks were the majority in today's Anatolia but what happened to them we are happy to say that this episode is brought to you by our sponsor Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire you can use my link below to download Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire for yourself this is a truly global mobile game with millions playing around the world jump into action with your favorite characters and fight alongside friends and against foes in legendary battles against millions of players around the world experience your very own epic final fantasy adventure by building your large army and using the best strategies to win in real time action-packed battles it's important to focus on your strategy to crush your enemies and beasts in battle and to compete for the crystal against players from all over the world final fantasy 15 a new Empire is a free-to-play game available on iOS and Android support our channel while having a great time by using the link below to download Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire Greeks have been living in what is now Turkey continuously since the middle 2nd millennium BC following upheavals in mainland Greece during the Bronze Age collapse the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was heavily settled by Greeks and became known as Ionia during the era of Greek colonization from the 8th to 6th century BC numerous Greek colonies were founded on the coast of Asia Minor even though the region was populated by other ancient civilizations the Greek influence started to become bigger and bigger especially on the coasts of present-day Turkey but in the mainland as well following the conquest of Asia Minor by Alexander the Great the rest of Asia Minor was opened up to Greek settlement upon the death of Alexander Asia Minor was ruled by a number of Hellenistic kingdoms a period of peaceful hellenization followed so much so that the local Anatolian languages has been supplanted by greek by the 1st century BC Asia Minor was also one of the first places where Christianity spread by the 4th century AD the region was overwhelmingly Christian Greek speaking the presence of many Greeks the process of hellenization and the similarity of some of the native languages of Anatolia to Greek gradually caused many of these people to abandon their own languages in favor of Greek a process reinforced by romanization these Greek Christian inhabitants of Asia Minor are known as the Byzantine Greeks and they formed the bulk of the Byzantine empires Greek speaking population for 1,000 years from the 5th century until the fall of the Byzantine state in the 15th century in the northeast along the Black Sea these people eventually formed their own state known as the Empire of Trebizond which gave rise to the modern pontic greek population the Roman Empire has pillars of influence at some point Latin was more used in the West and Greek in the East after the West collapsed the East remains the core of the Roman world for the next hundreds of years Asia Minor would become the centres of the Hellenic world also mainland Greece experienced repeated barbarian invasions and went into decline the starts of the Greek collapse in the region starts with the 11th century following the Battle of Manza Curtain 1071 the Seljuk Turks swept through all of Asia Minor while the Byzantines would recover western and northern Anatolia in subsequent years Central Asia Minor was settled by Turkic peoples and never again came under Byzantine rule this led in the end to their collapse mainly due to their internal problems civil wars and other invasions because of poor management the Byzantine Empire was unable to stem the Turkic advance and by 1300 most of Asia Minor was ruled by Anatolian Bey Lakes beginning in the 11th century war between the Turks and the Byzantines led to the deaths of many in Asia Minor while others were enslaved areas in central Anatolia became deep populated and due to this reason Turkic nomads moved in a number of pastoralists of Turkic origin that migrated to Anatolia is a matter of discussion according to even saeed al maraa B there were 200,000 Turkmen Tenzin Dennis Lee and its surrounding areas 30,000 in Beaulieu and its environment and about 100,000 in Kastamonu and its environment according to a Latin source at the end of the 12th century there were 100,000 nomadic tents in the regions of Dennis Lee and is sparta during the ottoman era a period of turkey vacations started until the late 17th century a blood tax existed this was chiefly an annual practice by which the Ottoman Empire sense the military to press second or third sons of their Christian subjects in the villages of the Balkans into military training as Janissaries afterwards they were then converted to Islam jeanna series in the ottoman army were largely of Christian origin the Muslims had more privileges than the Christians in the empire as this led to many conversions to Islam and also led to integration into the Turkish ethnicity in time the late Ottoman government sought to create a core identity with a single Turkish religion language history and tradition the Ottoman Empire has an ethnically diverse population that's included Turks Arabs Albanians Bosniaks Greeks Persians Bulgarians serves Armenians and others during the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the policy of Turkey fication received several new layers and it was sought to impose Turkish in the administration this affected the known Turkish people especially the Arabs Armenians Kurds and Greeks even after those centuries under the Ottoman Empire inside Anatolia existed a large community of Greeks especially around the western coasts and in Istanbul before World War one there was an estimated 1.8 to 2 million Greeks living inside the Ottoman Empire the for World War 1 there was an estimated 1.8 to 2 million Greeks living in the Ottoman Empire from 1914 until 1923 Greeks in Thrace and Asia Minor were subjects to a campaign including massacres and internal deportations around 1.5 million Ottoman Greeks remained in the Ottoman Empire after losses of five hundred and fifty thousand during the First World War almost all 1.25 million except for those in constant Opel had fled before or were forced to go to Greece in 1923 in the population exchanges mandated by the League of Nations after the greco-turkish war 1919 to 1922 the lingual turki fication of greek armenian and Assyrian speakers in 19th century Anatolia is a result of partial turki fication that occurred earlier there are remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks who were permitted under the provisions of the convention concerning the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations to remain and live in Turkey after the 1923 population exchange many of them were in the city of Istanbul a total of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace were sent to mainland Greece and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace were sent to Turkey beginning in the 1930s the government instituted repressive policies forcing many Greeks to emigrate during the Second World War there was a tax that was supposed to be paid by all citizens of Turkey but in or daily higher rates were imposed on the country's non-muslim inhabitants continued discrimination led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city eventually reducing the Greek population to about 7,000 by 1978 and about 2,500 by 2006 thank you so much for watching if you like this video please consider subscribing and hitting that bell to be notified when a new video is uploaded also a big thank you to Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire don't forget to check them out you can use my link below to download Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire for yourself I would like to express my huge gratitude to the generous patreon supporters of this channel your help increased our productivity by a lot see you next time [Music]