Greek diaspora

Map of Greek territories and colonies during the Archaic period (800–480 BC)

In Archaic Greece, the trading and colonizing activities of Greeks from the Balkans and Asia Minor propagated Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins. Greek city-states were established in Sicily, southern Italy, Magna Graecia, northern Libya, eastern Spain, the south of France, and the Black Sea coast, and the Greeks founded over 400 colonies in these areas.[4] Alexander the Great's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire marked the beginning of the Hellenistic period, which was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia and Africa; the Greek ruling classes established their presence in Egypt, West Asia, and Northwest India.[5]

Many Greeks migrated to the new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as geographically dispersed as Uzbekistan[6] and Kuwait.[7] Seleucia, Antioch and Alexandria were among the largest cities in the world during Hellenistic and Roman times.[8] Greeks spread across the Roman Empire, and in the eastern territories the Greek language (rather than Latin) became the lingua franca. The Roman Empire was Christianized in the fourth century AD, and during the late Byzantine period the Greek Orthodox form of Christianity became a hallmark of Greek identity.[9]

San Giorgio dei Greci, Venice.

In the seventh century, Emperor Heraclius adopted Medieval Greek as the official language of the Byzantine Empire. Greeks continued to live around the Levant, Mediterranean and Black Sea, maintaining their identity among local populations as traders, officials, and settlers. Soon afterwards, the Arab-Islamic Caliphate seized the Levant, Egypt, North Africa and Sicily from the Byzantine Greeks during the Byzantine–Arab Wars. The Greek populations generally remained in these areas of the Caliphate and helped translate ancient Greek works into Arabic, thus contributing to early Islamic philosophy and science (which, in turn, contributed to Byzantine science).

After the Byzantine–Ottoman Wars, which resulted in the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Ottoman conquest of Greek lands, many Greeks fled Constantinople (now Istanbul) and found refuge in Italy. They brought ancient Greek writings that had been lost in the West, contributing to the Renaissance. Most of these Greeks settled in Venice, Florence, and Rome.

Street in Cargèse (Karyes), Corsica (founded by Maniot refugees), with a Greek church in the background

Between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the second Russo-Turkish War in 1828–29, thousands of Pontic Greeks migrated (or fled) from the Pontic Alps and eastern Anatolia to Georgia and other southern regions of the Russian Empire, and (later) the Russian province of Kars in the South Caucasus. Many Pontic Greeks fled their homelands in Pontus and northeastern Anatolia and settled in these areas to avoid Ottoman reprisals after supporting the Russian invasions of eastern Anatolia in the Russo-Turkish Wars from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Others resettled in search of new opportunities in trade, mining, farming, the church, the military, and the bureaucracy of the Russian Empire.[10]

One of Vienna's two Greek Orthodox churches

Greeks spread through many provinces of the Ottoman Empire and took major roles in its economic life, particularly the Phanariots (wealthy Greek merchants who claimed noble Byzantine descent during the second half of the 16th century). The Phanariots helped administer the Ottoman Empire's Balkan domains in the 18th century; some settled in present-day Romania, influencing its political and cultural life. Other Greeks settled outside the southern Balkans, moving north in service to the Orthodox Church or as a result of population transfers and massacres by Ottoman authorities after Greek rebellions against Ottoman rule or suspected Greek collaboration with Russia in the Russo-Turkish wars fought between 1774 and 1878. Greek Macedonia was most affected by the population upheavals, where the large, indigenous Ottoman Muslim population (often including those of Greek-convert descent) could form local militias to harass and exact revenge on the Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox population; this often forced the inhabitants of rural districts, particularly in the more vulnerable lowland areas, to abandon their homes.

A larger-scale movement of Greek-speaking peoples in the Ottoman period was Pontic Greeks from northeastern Anatolia to Georgia and parts of southern Russia, particularly the province of Kars Oblast in the southern Caucasus after the short-lived Russian occupation of Erzerum and the surrounding region during the 1828–29 Russo-Turkish War. An estimated one-fifth of Pontic Greeks left their homeland in the mountains of northeastern Anatolia in 1829 as refugees, following the Tsarist army as it withdrew back into Russian territory (since many had collaborated with—or fought in—the Russian army against the Muslim Ottomans to regain territory for Christian Orthodoxy). The Pontic Greek refugees who settled in Georgia and the southern Caucasus assimilated with preexisting Caucasus Greek communities. Those who settled in Ukraine and southern Russia became a sizable proportion of cities such as Mariupol, but generally assimilated with Christian Orthodox Russians and continued to serve in the Tsarist army.

Ethnic map of Asia Minor depicting the Ottoman Greeks (blue) in 1910

During and after the Greek War of Independence, Greeks of the diaspora established the fledgling state, raised funds and awareness abroad and served as senior officers in Russian armies which fought the Ottomans to help liberate Greeks under Ottoman subjugation in Macedonia, Epirus, and Thrace. Greek merchant families had contacts in other countries; during the disturbances, many set up home bases around the Mediterranean (notably Marseilles in France, Livorno, Calabria and Bari in Italy and Alexandria in Egypt), Russia (Odessa and St. Petersburg), and Britain (London and Liverpool) from where they traded (typically textiles and grain). Businesses frequently included the extended family, and they brought schools teaching Greek and the Greek Orthodox Church.[11] As markets changed, some families became shippers (financed through the local Greek community, with the aid of the Ralli or Vagliano Brothers). The diaspora expanded across the Levant, North Africa, India[12] and the US.[13] Many leaders of the Greek struggle for liberation from Ottoman Macedonia and other parts of the southern Balkans with large Greek populations still under Ottoman rule had links to the Greek trading and business families who funded the Greek liberation struggle against the Ottomans and the creation of a Greater Greece.\

The terrible devastation of the island of Chios in the 1822 massacre caused a great dispersion of the islanders, leading to the creation of a specific Chian diaspora.

After the Treaty of Constantinople, the political situation stabilised; some displaced families returned to the newly independent country to become key figures in cultural, educational and political life, especially in Athens. Financial assistance from overseas was channeled through these family ties, providing for institutions such as the National Library and sending relief after natural disasters.

During the 20th century, many Greeks left the traditional homelands for economic and political reasons; this resulted in large migrations from Greece and Cyprus to the United States, Australia, Canada, Brazil, The United Kingdom, New Zealand, Argentina, The United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Georgia, Italy, Armenia, Russia, Philippines, Chile, Mexico and South Africa, especially after World War II (1939–45), the Greek Civil War (1946–49) and the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974.[14]

Main hall of the Greek community centre in Khartoum, Sudan (2015)

After World War I, most Pontian and Anatolian Greeks living in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) were victims of Muslim Turkish intolerance for Christians in the Ottoman Empire. More than 3.5 million people, including Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, and Jews, were killed in the regimes of the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal from 1914 to 1923.[15] Greeks in Asia Minor fled to modern Greece, and the Russian Empire (later the USSR) was also a major destination.

After the Greek Civil War, many communist Greeks and their families fled to neighboring Yugoslavia, the USSR and the Soviet-dominated states of Eastern Europe (especially Czechoslovakia). Hungary founded a village (Beloiannisz) for Greek refugees, and many Greeks were resettled in the former Sudeten German region of northern Czechoslovakia around Krnov (Jägerndorf). Sweden also admitted large numbers of Greeks, and over 17,000 Greek-Swedish descendants live in the country. Although many immigrants later returned to Greece, these countries still have a number of first- and second-generation Greeks who maintain their traditions.[14]

The Arab nationalism of President Nasser of Egypt led to the expulsion of a large Greek population. With the fall of Communism in eastern Europe and the USSR, Greeks of the diaspora immigrated to modern Greece's main urban centers of Athens, Thessaloniki, and Cyprus; many came from Georgia.[14]

Pontic Greeks are Greek-speaking communities originating in the Black Sea region, particularly from the Trebizond region, the Pontic Alps, eastern Anatolia, Georgia, and the former Russian south-Caucasus Kars Oblast. After 1919–23, most of these Pontic Greek and Caucasus Greek communities resettled in Greek Macedonia or joined other Greek communities in southern Russia and Ukraine.

The United States has the largest ethnically-Greek population outside Greece. According to the US Department of State, the Greek-American community numbers about three million and the vast majority are third- or fourth-generation immigrants.[22] According to the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has a membership of 2,800,000 in the US and Canada who are still Greek Orthodox;[23] however, many Greeks in both countries have adopted other religions or become secular. The 2010 census recorded about 1,300,000 Greek Americans, although members of the community dispute its accuracy.

Most Greek Canadians live in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The 2016 census[24] reported that 271,405 Canadians were Greek by ancestry and 62,715 people were born in Greece. According to Greeks around the Globe,[25] the Greek Canadian population totals about 450,000.

Greek immigration to Chile began during the 16th century from the island of Crete. Cretan Greeks settled in the Antofagasta Region in the mid-16th century and spread to other locations, such as the Greek colony in Santiago and the cities of San Diego, Valparaíso, Talcahuano, Puerto Mont, and Punta Arenas.

Australia has one of the world's largest Greek communities. Greek immigration to Australia began during the 20th century, increasing significantly in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the 2016 census, there were 422,234 Greeks and Greek Cypriots (by ancestry) living in Australia and 110,669 Greeks born in Greece or Cyprus. According to Greeks around the Globe,[26] Greek Australians number about 700,000.

About 50,000 Greeks immigrated to Brazil from Greece and Cyprus, with 20,000 in the city of Sao Paulo. Brazil has a sizable community of Antiochean Greeks (known as Melkites), Orthodox, and Catholics. According to the Catholic Church,[27] the Eparchy of Nossa Senhora do Paraíso em São Paulo (Melkite Greek), the Eparchia Dominae Nostrae Paradisis S. Pauli Graecorum Melkitarum had a 2016 membership of 446,600. The World Council of Churches estimates that the Greek church of Antioch has a membership of 2,500,000 in Latin America, almost all of whom live in Brazil.[28]

From 1884 to 1933, about 130,000 people immigrated from Lebanon to Brazil. Approximately 65 percent were Catholics (primarily Greek Melkites and Maronites), 20 percent were Greek Orthodox Melkites, and 15 percent were Druzes and other Muslims. The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Lebanese government estimate that 7,000,000 people in Brazil have Lebanese ancestry. According to the Brazilian government, about 4,000,000 Brazilians have Syrian ancestry (primarily Christians: Greek Orthodox or former Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Melkites, and minorities of Maronites and Assyriacs). About 20 percent of Lebanese Brazilians are Greek Orthodox. Approximately 2,500,000 Greek Orthodox Melkites and 446,600 Greek Catholic Melkites live in Brazil, for a total 2,946,600 Antiochean Greeks. However, adherents of Greek Orthodox Churches are not necessarily ethnic Greeks. Probably the majority of Melkites, Maronites, and some Greek Orthodox are ethnic Syrians and Lebanese.

About 250 Non-Jewish Greeks immigrated to Israel for the service of the Greek-Orthodox church in the country between 1850 and 1920, mostly residing in Jerusalem and Nazareth City. About 1,500-2,500 Ethnic Greeks Today, few were able to obtain Greek Citizenship largely due to the refusal of recognition from Greece. [29]

Greeks started to immigrate to Mexico in the late 1800s from mainland and especially the Greek islands and Cyprus. While there was an individual immigration to Mexico, the Mexican government looked to start olive production in the Pacific Coast so thousands were taken to the state of Sinaloa where the Greeks found fortunes in the tomato production instead. Today there are tens of thousands of Greek-Mexicans living primarily in Culiacán, Veracruz, and Mexico City as well as surrounding areas and other cities.