Strategic Silence: The Greek Left's Avoidance of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe During the Refugee Crisis, 2015–2019

Author

• Harry CourtsFollow

Date of Creation

Spring 5-19-2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Other

First Advisor

Özge Savaş

Abstract

This thesis examines why the Greek political left, and specifically the SYRIZA government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during the time period from 2015 to 2019, made near-absent reference to the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe when addressing the refugee crisis of those years. The Catastrophe, in which approximately 1.3 million Orthodox Greeks were displaced from Anatolia, is the foundational trauma of modern Greek nationhood and a living presence in Greek political culture. When hundreds of thousands of Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi refugees arrived on Greek shores from 2015, the historical parallel was widely noted. That SYRIZA rarely drew it requires explanation. Drawing on collective memory theory, nationalism studies, and critical discourse analysis, this thesis develops one overarching argument and three interrelated supporting hypotheses. The overarching argument is that the omission reflects a deliberate strategic choice to frame refugee rights in universalist humanitarian terms rather than in the particular Greek national historical experience. Three further hypotheses explain why universalism required avoiding the Catastrophe specifically: ideological discomfort arising from the Catastrophe's inextricable connection to the Megali Idea's expansionist nationalism; institutional entrenchment of Catastrophe commemoration within conservative and religious organisations the left regards as ideologically incompatible; and diplomatic sensitivity in the context of Greek-Turkish cooperation essential to managing the crisis. Through systematic analysis of Avgi, the official speeches of Tsipras, and Kathimerini as a comparative baseline, the thesis demonstrates that the omission was not ignorance but strategic distance from a historical memory the left regards as ideologically contaminated. The findings contribute to broader understandings of how political parties navigate the tension between universalist commitments and particular national histories, and of the conditions under which foundational national traumas become politically unavailable rather than politically usable.

Comments

Reader: Jeremy Jones

Recommended Citation

Courts, Harry, "Strategic Silence: The Greek Left's Avoidance of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe During the Refugee Crisis, 2015–2019" (2026). College Honors Program. 832.
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/honors/832