Greek Myth of the Day:
"Cyprus is Greek"
25 April 2019
Mustafa Niyazi
MPhil International Relations
Founder & Chief Editor of Cyprus Profile
There’s a common myth floating around that Turkish Cypriots are not actually Turkish but Greek, or to be precise, Greek Cypriots that married into Turkish families, and that this - together with the observation that the Greeks have had a presence on the island for centuries - also somehow legitimises the greater argument that Cyprus itself was once Greek, rather Cyprus was historically a Greek island.
Unfortunately, no matter how unsubstantiated and historically inaccurate and flawed such claims are, they are still often believed. However, if one were to look beyond the veils of the pro-Greek line, they would find a great number of discrepancies, including the overwhelming presence of selective memories and historical negationism.
Furthermore, before we continue, it must first be understood that this study should also serve to demonstrate how the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots have their separate versions of the island’s history, and their narratives are often totally contradictory, but when it comes down to the basics, there are sometimes not such great differences between the two versions, rather, it is more a question of how that history is presented.
It must also be understood that the question is also who sticks to verity and who has won the propaganda war. The latter is definitely not the Turks or the Turkish Cypriots. Over the centuries, Greeks, Greek Cypriots and pro-Hellenic historians and authors have been in the overwhelming majority, and have also had an important impact on the shaping of opinions often based on the pursuance of anti-Turkish policies. And just as it was in 1922 after the Anatolian Disaster, in more recent times, especially after the Cyprus Disaster in 1974, we have often seen an amateurish, clumsy, arrogant and perplexed attitude from varying governments around the world, frequently amounting almost to naivety.
As a result the history of Cyprus as a “Greek island” is “well known” due to the prevailing pro-Greek attitudes. Many of the accounts people give to legitimise such discourse is interpretively true, but there is another side of the coin, which to a great extent has been suppressed in historical literature. My intention is not to attack the Greeks or defend the Turks, but to try to balance the picture. For some people, the title of this study might be provocative. But I can very well support it, based on varying sources.
As we will soon begin to see, the answer to many of this century’s questions on Cyprus lie in one word - Turkification - and so that is where this study will start.
Chapter One - Turkification: History & Genetics
Turkification (Türkleştirme), or Turkicisation as it’s otherwise known, is a cultural shift where populations or states adopt a historical Turkic culture, such as in the Ottoman Empire.(1)
Diverse peoples were affected by Turkification including Anatolian, Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern peoples of multiple ethnic origins, such as Albanians, Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians, Georgians, Greeks, Jews, Romani, Slavs, Kurds living in Anatolia, as well as Lazs from all the regions of the Ottoman Empire.(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)
An early form of Turkification occurred in the time of the Seljuk Empire among the local population of Anatolia, involving intermarriages, religious conversion, and a linguistic shift, among other things, which today is reflected in the naturally interethnic genetic makeup of the modern Turkish people.(4)
Another form of Turkification also understandably occurred in Cyprus, and this is perhaps reflected no-more strongly by anything other than the irrevocable presence of Turkish assets and heritage on the island, which have albeit been mostly damaged, looted, destroyed, or occupied pursuant to erasing any trace of their existence from the island, but, also by the naturally interethnic genetic makeup of the modern Cypriot people and how starkly it resembles & shares common similarities with the genetic makeup of the modern Turkish people,(8)(9) as well as the widespread adoption of Ottoman Turkish ideas and customs.
In case you’re confused about what that means, I’ll put it in a way most people should be able to understand:
Cyprus has throughout its history been mixed owing to millennia of ethnic diversity which pre-dates any Greek presence on the island,(10) any Greek presence on the island thereafter was ALWAYS that of a minority,(11) and Eteocypriot, the native Cypriot language, a pre-Indo-European language that predated Greek was the dominant language until it gradually became extinct 10th-4th century BC.(12)(13)(14)(15)
One.
Two:
Only a minority of Cypriots actually married into Turkish families or converted to Islam during Ottoman Rule,(16) and those who did abandoned Greek and Christianity in the course of integration.(17)
Three:
If you marry an African lady and you have children together, and your children grow up as Africans and they also marry Africans, have children, and their children do the same thing... if that cycle keeps repeating and repeating, their culture, customs, genetic makeup etc becomes more and more African... similarly, if a Greek marries into a Turkish family and they have children who also get married to Turks and that cycle keeps repeating and repeating, they would gradually become more and more Turkish.
That’s not rocket science. It’s common sense.
Now, without explaining too much more about why that theory is flawed, I’ll fast forward the rest of it and go straight to the punchline.
If anything, if we wanted to conclude the reasons for the stark similarities between the haplotypes many people on Cyprus naturally share, it would not be their “Greek” or “native Cypriot” ancestry, but: 1) the already interethnic genetic makeup of native Cypriots, with Anatolian & Near/Middle Eastern origins, coupled with 2) the introduction of Turks & other Ottoman subjects to the island with their own naturally interethnic genetic makeup, also with a degree of Anatolian & Near/Middle Eastern orientation, and 3) the Turkification of Cyprus.
Now you might also be one of those who believe “the majority of Turkish Cypriots have no Turkish blood in them”, “settlers from Anatolia didn’t leave an impact”...
So let’s do a little case study for robustness:
What does it mean when a Greek Cypriot takes a DNA test and it returns: 50% Middle East, 41% Turkey & the Caucasus, and 9% Italy? With “Greece, Turkey & Albania” as “additional communities”?
How about if a Turkish Cypriot has: 49% Turkey & the Caucasus, 31% Middle East, 10% Italy, 6% Greece and the Balkans (Greece, Turkey and Albania), 3% Iran/Persia, 1% Senegal?
What if another Turkish Cypriot has: 37% Middle East, 37% Turkey & the Caucasus, +2 Other Regions?
Or what if another Greek Cypriot has: 38% Turkey & the Caucasus, 34% Middle East, 28% Italy, with “Greece, Turkey & Albania” as “additional communities”?
Or another Greek Cypriot has: 46% Turkey & the Caucasus, 29% Middle East, and 25% Italy? With “Greece, Turkey and Albania” as “Migrations”?
Or another Greek Cypriot has: Greece, Albania & the Caucasus (the scatter graph shows “Turkey & the Caucasus”, with parts of Turkey highlighted as dark as Greece - but the person declared it as “Caucasus” - maybe she’s another one of those people in the South who are allergic to the word “Turkish”)?
Is there a problem here? Why do these DNA tests keep repeating that word “Turkish”? And why are these tests so reminiscent of the modern Turkish genetic make-up?
First of all, before we go any further we should also use this opportunity to debunk three further myths surrounding Cyprus and the identity of Greek Cypriots: 1) everyone needs an identity, and ALL the Christians on Cyprus, Greek or not, got that when the Church told them they were ALL Greek. They were just Christians until then. 2) Christianity too like many things was not brought over to Cyprus by Greeks, as many of them believe. It was St. Barnabas and St. Andrew, or Andreas to the Modern Greeks... and 3) and this is the coup de grâce, looking back very quickly at the genetics debate & keeping in mind the above two points, the Greek genetic contribution on Cyprus today is no more than 15-20% at most.(11)
And let’s be frank here: Turkish Cypriots are the successors of the Turkmen nomads, not ancient Greeks,(18) the Turkish genetic contribution on Cyprus is roughly 30-50%,(19) and the island widely adopted Ottoman Turkish ideas and customs, and to a lesser extent, their language and religion.
So if you really want to go there, by your very own logic of genetic analysis, intermarriages, and identity politics, we should be saying Cyprus is actually much more Turkish if anything, the Greek genetic footprint is very reminiscent of their position as a minority, which is supported by history/archaeology and by genetics studies, and the Greeks are actually mostly just interethnic Christians who believe they are Greek, and they have been taking advantage of the kindness and openness of innocent Turkish Cypriots to try and fool them and the rest of the world otherwise.
That’s just ONE.
TWO:
You’re probably also going to argue:
“Cyprus was historically a Greek island... Mycenaean Greeks were undoubtedly inhabiting Cyprus from the late stage of the Bronze Age, while the island's Greek name is already attested from the 15th century BC in the Linear B script” (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)
And here’s the caveat:
There is mention of Greeks settling the island etc from that period (late-Bronze Age, 14th-15th century BC), yes, and of their knowledge of the existence of Cyprus from that same period... but that’s all that means... settling the island... and knowledge of its existence... not dominance... not ownership... there is nothing anywhere to demonstrate any form of legal continuity between Cyprus (before, during or after the presence of those late-Bronze Age settlers), and any Greek state, in any part of Cyprus’ or any other country’s history.
One.
And two:
”Cyprus was settled by humans in the (Stone Age)”... and “the first undisputed settlement occurred in the 9th (or perhaps 10th) millennium BC from Anatolia (Asia Minor) and the Levant (the Near/Middle East, roughly Modern Day Syria-Palestine and Egypt)”... all long before the Greeks went there (in the late-Bronze age, which is roughly 7-8 millennia later, to be precise).
And from the very first Greek settlers of the late-Bronze Age, it need be reiterated that the Greeks were ALWAYS a minority sharing the island with whoever else was there and/or actually owned it, and nothing represents this fact anymore today than the Greek genetic contribution on Cyprus,(11) if not the Turks of the island who to this day continue to deny the island to anybody who ignores their existence.
Furthermore, although it is common for Greeks and Greek Cypriots to flirt with the idea that Cyprus was once Hellenised, there’s an underlying flaw here which is commonly missed or selectively ignored: the fundamental basis of any such argument derives from the theory that Greeks settled the island, thus marking the immediate widespread adoption of Greek ideas or customs,(25) however, 1) the adoption of Greek ideas and customs took time & only saw dominance during the Ptolemaic period, and 2) simply settling and living in lands not owned/controlled/dominated by you doesn’t make them yours or signify they have been shaped in your character.
And just to clarify, Cyprus has been: • Hittite (late-Bronze Age, and ONLY by association as a client/tributary state)(26), • Assyrian (721–705 BC), • Egyptian (570–526/525 BC), • Persian (545 BC), • Ptolemaic (the FIRST and ONLY time it saw any dominance of hellenic culture, chiefly in the form of stronger economic ties with Athens and Alexandria), • Roman, • Byzantine, • Arab & Byzantine, • English (under Richard the Lionheart, around 1191-1192, during which the Latin Church was established, and the Orthodox Cypriot Church experienced a series of religious persecutions), • Knights Templar, • French (Lusignans - Kingdom of Cyprus, the first time “Greek” was recognised as a [second] language), • Mameluke (who made it a tributary state, 1426), • Venetian (1489), • Ottoman (1571-1878, who were welcomed as liberators esp. by the Orthodox Church of Cyprus)(27)(28), • British (1914, where we saw the latest attempts of hellenization i.e. Greece pumping people into the island to change the demographics etc to suit their favour and prepare the island for Enosis)... in that order... and there were the independent Ancient City Kingdoms dotted about here and there too from roughly 11th-8th century BC, but they were limited to their respective cities and their immediate areas, NOT Cyprus as a whole, and again, were independent and had no legal continuity with any other city, kingdom or state, let alone a Greek one... and one must reiterate here: from the first late-Bronze Age settlers to each of these periods, the Greeks were ALWAYS a minority and were ALWAYS sharing the island with whoever else was there and/or owned it...
So in summation:
1) Cyprus has throughout its history been mixed owing to millennia of ethnic diversity which pre-dates any Greek presence on the island.
2) any Greek presence on the island thereafter was ALWAYS that of a minority.
3) they ALWAYS shared the island with whoever else was there and/or owned it.
4) in no part of any country’s history did Cyprus ever have any legal continuity with a Greek state.
5) the FIRST and ONLY time it saw any dominance of hellenic culture was during the Ptolemaic period, and even then it was only in the form of stronger economic ties with Athens and Alexandria, and again it must be reiterated that it did not fall under the dominance or control of the Greek settlers, and no legal continuity was established between the island and the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
6) the island was the subject of Turkification, and saw the widespread adoption of Turkish ideas and customs, and to a lesser extent their language and religion, and it was widely shaped in the Ottoman Empire’s character.
You do the math yourself...
But what’s more alarming is that this rhetoric of “Cyprus is Greek” is less reminiscent of “the truth” or “history” and very strongly reminiscent of common Greek Cypriot discourse, which is based on denialism strategies and historical negationism,(29) and is designed to legitimise human rights violations against Turkish Cypriots and the suspension of their rights(30) etc i.e. by saying Cyprus is Greek and viewing the Turks as an outsider and a source of pollution etc i.e. justifying their killing.(31)
O kadar.
Bibliography & Further Reading
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkification
(2) at its height the Ottoman Empire stretched from the gates of Vienna all the way to Central Asia, the Levant, and the Horn of Africa. See the history of the Ottoman Empire. Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
(3) Lambton, Ann; Lewis, Bernard, eds. (1977). "3". The Cambridge history of Islam (Reprint. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 231. ISBN 0521291356. See: https://books.google.com/books?id=4AuJvd2Tyt8C
(4) Davison, Roderic H. (2013). Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774-1923: The Impact of the West. University of Texas Press. p. 3. ISBN 0292758944. See: https://books.google.com/.../Essays_in_Ottoman_and...
(5) Bayazit Yunusbayev et al., "The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia." PLoS Genetics 11:4 (April 21, 2015): e1005068.
(6) Alkan, Can; Kavak, Pinar; Somel, Mehmet; Gokcumen, Omer; Ugurlu, Serkan; Saygi, Ceren; Dal, Elif; Bugra, Kuyas; Güngör, Tunga; Sahinalp, S Cenk; Özören, Nesrin; Bekpen, Cemalettin (7 November 2014). "Whole genome sequencing of Turkish genomes reveals functional private alleles and impact of genetic interactions with Europe, Asia and Africa". BMC Genomics. 15 (1). doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-963. PMC 4236450. PMID 25376095. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4236450
(7) Heraclides, Alexandros; Bashiardes, Evy; Fernández-Domínguez, Eva; Bertoncini, Stefania; Chimonas, Marios; Christofi, Vasilis; King, Jonathan; Budowle, Bruce; Manoli, Panayiotis; Cariolou, Marios A. (16 June 2017). "Y-chromosomal analysis of Greek Cypriots reveals a primarily common pre-Ottoman paternal ancestry with Turkish Cypriots". PLOS ONE. 12 (6): e0179474. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0179474. PMC 5473566. PMID 28622394 – via PLoS Journals. See: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179474
( the Turks are a race with a naturally interethnic genetic makeup, which carries as much from Central Asia etc as it picked up from Anatolia and the Near/Middle East. The genetic makeup of modern day Cypriots almost mirrors that of the modern Turkish people.
(9) note how various ethnolinguistic groups found in areas previously within the Ottoman Empire or reminiscent of modern Turkish genealogical origins (the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and/or South Asia) demonstrate differing rates of particular Y-DNA haplogroups
(10) Cyprus has throughout its history had a mixed interethnic genetic makeup owing to millennia of mixing and ethnic diversity. Also see: penultimate paragraph. Also see: Schule, William (July 1993). "Mammals, Vegetation and the Initial Human Settlement of the Mediterranean Islands: A Palaeoecological Approach". Journal of Biogeography. 2: 407. doi:10.2307/2845588. JSTOR 2845588.
(11) as also reflected by the current Greek genetic contribution on Cyprus; according to studies based on the examination of more than 600 males from all over Cyprus (North and South), “the Greek genetic contribution is not more than 15-20% at the most.” See: https://www.cyprusalive.com/.../poioi-einai-oi-prwtoi.... Also note: 1) there are studies that show Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots share the same pre-Ottoman paternal origins, but that should not be taken out of context and confused with “Greek” origins anymore than it could be confused with “Latin” origins. 2) Greek Cypriots have commonalities with Turks, but this doesn’t explain anything about how big a footprint/contribution the Turks have made. http://cyprus-mail.com/.../02/our-dna-looks-east-not-west/ 3) Cypriots show signs of Iranian, Italian, Sicilian, Armenian, Syrian, Georgian, Saudi and Palestinian markers... but no mention of Turkish markers is made, but obviously they’re there. http://cyprus-mail.com/.../cypriot-dna-evident-in-over-a.../. Note: I could not find the study this article was based on to verify this data. 4) this study on Y-chromosomes discussed common pre-Ottoman links between Turkish/Greek Cypriots, but nothing is mentioned of commonalities between the genetic makeup of the modern Cypriot people and the modern Turkish people, and nothing is mentioned about the % of modern Turkish DNA in the genetic makeup of either Greek or Turkish Cypriots. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179474. Note: there are many studies comparing Greek Cypriots with Turkish Cypriots, comparing Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots with Greeks, but my research thus far has found nothing comparing Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots with Turks. 5) this study purports to show 73.5% Y-DNA similarity with Greece and 72% with Turkey, but it is unclear where the data for this map came from or what it was based on etc. https://www.eupedia.com/.../36081-Y-DNA-Similarity-Maps
(12) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eteocypriot_language
(13) Gordon, Cyrus (1982), Forgotten Scripts: Their Ongoing Discovery and Decipherment: Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: Basic Books, Inc. ISBN 0-465-02484-X.
(14) Jones, Tom B., Notes on the Eteocypriot inscriptions, American Journal of Philology, LXXI 1950, c. 401–407
(15) Steele, Philippa M. (2013), A linguistic History of Ancient Cyprus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-04286-5.
(16) these people are sometimes referred to as "neo-Muslims" by historians. See: Peter Alford Andrews, Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey, Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-89500-297-6 See also: Savile, Albany Robert, Cyprus, 1878, p. 130
(17) Peter Alford Andrews, Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey, Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-89500-297-6
(18) “... the Turkish Cypriots are successors of the Turkmen nomads...” See: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/.../who-are-the-turkish... Also note: “most Turkish Cypriots were originally Alevis or Bektashis who converted to Sunni Islam mostly out of convenience, while in private continuing to live older traditions including pagan cultural elements...”, and “... because of the relatively remote conditions of the island they have been able to maintain their past culture, language and religious characteristics. Not least among these characteristics is the respected place of women in society, which contrasts markedly with the more heavily Arab-influenced patriarchal conservatism of Anatolia.”
(19) based on a study of {error} Greek Cypriots and {error} Turkish Cypriots. See: {error} This also reflects peoples’ Turkish roots, influences and genetic affinities etc.
(20) Through the Mycenaean Greek Linear B 𐀓𐀠𐀪𐀍, ku-pi-ri-jo, meaning "Cypriot" and corresponding to the later Greek form Κύπριος, Kyprios.
(21) Strange, John (1980). Caphtor : Keftiu : a new investigation. Leiden: Brill. p. 167. ISBN 978-90-04-06256-6.
(22) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cyprus
(23) http://smea.isma.cnr.it/.../Jasink_The-role-of-Cyprus-and...
(24) https://www.tandfonline.com/.../10.1080/09518969908569756...
(25) Andreas G Orphanides, "Late Bronze Age Socio-Economic and Political Organization, and the Hellenization of Cyprus", Athens Journal of History, volume 3, number 1, 2017, pp. 7–20
(26) it was a tributary/client state of the Hittite Empire (late-Bronze Age), but that didn’t equate to dominance, ownership or rule by the Hittites... just association; it was "left alone with little intervention in Cypriot affairs", and was actually governed by the ruling kings of Ugarit. See: Thomas, Carol G. & Conant, C.: The Trojan War, pages 121-122. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 0-313-32526-X, 9780313325267 Also note: this is also comparable to the tributary system of Ancient China, whereby independent nations such as the Korean Kingdoms or Japan would be considered a part of a Greater China simply by association.
(27) the Archbishop, who headed the Orthodox Church, was recognized as the sole representative of the Greek Cypriot population from the 1670s onwards. See: "Kıbrıs (Osmanlı Dönemi)". İslam Ansiklopedisi. 25. Türk Diyanet Vakfı. 2002. pp. 374–380
(28) events in 1785 greatly increased the influence of the Orthodox clergy as they became tax collectors. See: Gazioğlu, p. 98.
(29) Demetriou, Olga (2014). "'Struck by the Turks': reflections on Armenian refugeehood in Cyprus". Patterns of Prejudice. 48 (2): 167–181. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2014.905369.
(30) Kovras, Iosif (2014). Truth Recovery and Transitional Justice: Deferring Human Rights Issues. Routledge. p. 51. ISBN 978-1136186851. Also see: (1)
(31) Cassia, Paul Sant (2005). Bodies of evidence burial, memory and the recovery of missing persons in Cyprus. Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781571816467. “... In modern Greek Cypriot culture there is a double connection of dogs and carrion. Extreme right-wing Greek nationalists in Cyprus referred to Turkish Cypriots whom they killed as shillii (dogs) – the implication being that, like dogs, they could be killed with impunity... It is well known that taxonomic violence defined in ethnic terms (or what is now called ethnic cleansing) is accompanied, indeed justified, by attempts to render the other as an outsider and a source of pollution... TURKS = shillii/polluting, therefore legitimated killing: metaphorical likeness...”