Pontic Greek culture

People marching down a street, carrying banner
Members of a Pontian cultural group march during a parade in Greece.
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Pontic Greek culture includes the traditional music, dance, architecture, clothing, artwork, and religious practices of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks (Pontic: Romaioi). Pontians are an ethnic group indigenous to the Pontos in modern-day Turkey.[1][2][3][4][5] They have lived in the area for thousands of years, since the 8th century BCE.[6] The majority were displaced in the early 20th century CE after the Greek genocide and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey;[7] most Pontians today live in the diaspora. Small pockets of Muslim Pontian communities remain in Turkey. Although Pontians speak many different languages, the Pontic Greek language, Romeika, is especially important to their culture. Most religious Pontian Greeks practice Greek Orthodoxy, but a minority adhere to Sunni Islam or other Christian denominations. Folk dances such as the serra, traditional music instruments such as the Pontic lyra, religious celebrations, traditional clothing, and the land itself remain important to Pontian diaspora communities.

Although their culture has been heavily influenced by Greek culture, Turkish culture, and the cultures of various minorities in Turkey such as Armenians and Lazes, Pontian culture contains unique aspects. The dominant culture of the countries where Pontians live has continued to shape Pontian culture since the formation of the diaspora. For example, many Pontians in Greece only speak Greek instead of Romeika, while Soviet Greeks[a] have adopted Russian and Ukrainian dishes into their cooking. Pontian cultural societies around the world aim to preserve and transmit Pontian traditions, especially folk dances.

  1. ^ Michailidis 2016, p. 62.
  2. ^ Zografou & Pipyrou 2016, p. 267.
  3. ^ Mackridge 1991, p. 336.
  4. ^ Travis, Hannibal (2009). "The Cultural and Intellectual Property Interests of the Indigenous Peoples of Turkey and Iraq". Texas Wesleyan Law Review. 15: 601. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1549804. S2CID 153304089. The U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires states to provide an effective remedy to indigenous peoples deprived of their cultural, religious, or intellectual property (IP) without their free, prior and informed consent. The Declaration could prove to be an important safeguard for the indigenous peoples of Iraq and Turkey, the victims for centuries of massacres, assaults on their religious and cultural sites, theft and deterioration of their lands and cultural objects, and forced assimilation. These peoples, among them the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Yezidis of Turkey and Turkish-occupied Cyprus, and the Armenians, Assyrians, Yezidis, and Mandaeans of Iraq, have lost more than two-thirds of their peak populations, most of their cultural and religious sites, and thousands of priceless artifacts and specimens of visual art.
  5. ^ Travis, Hannibal (2009). "The Cultural and Intellectual Property Interests of the Indigenous Peoples of Turkey and Iraq". Texas Wesleyan Law Review. 15: 637. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1549804. S2CID 153304089. Prior to their conquests by Turkic peoples, the ancient Greeks were one of several indigenous peoples living in Anatolia, modern Asian Turkey.
  6. ^ Thomopoulos, Elaine (2012). The History of Greece. ABC-CLIO. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-313-37511-8. The Pontians are believed to be descendants of Greeks who in the eighth century BC had moved from the Ionian cities located in the islands and shores of the Aegean Sea, in what is now Turkey, to the area of the Black Sea called Pontos (pontos is an ancient Greek word for "sea".)
  7. ^ Liddle 2016, p. 54.


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