Exchange in brief

The wars between 1912 and 1922 caused great suffering in the Balkans, the Aegean Islands and Anatolia. After the Balkan War, hundreds of thousands of Muslims fled their homelands in fear and panic following the Ottoman army that was defeated in the war and took refuge in Anatolia. A similar tragedy befell the Greek Orthodox who left Anatolia with the Greek army that was defeated in the War of Independence in 1922. In a short period of one month, hundreds of thousands of Greek Orthodox took refuge in Greece. This situation caused great hardship and chaos in Greece. The population of Greece suddenly increased by a quarter.

When the Lausanne Peace Conference convened, the issue of refugees and prisoners was first discussed. In line with the proposal of Lord Curzon, the representative of the United Kingdom, and the report of Nansen, an official of the League of Nations; the Exchange Agreement was signed, which foresaw the forced migration of Muslims settled in Greece and Greek Orthodox Christians settled in Turkey. According to this agreement; all Muslims settled in Greece, except for the Greek Orthodox Christians in Istanbul and the Muslims in Western Thrace, were sent to Türkiye, and all Greek Orthodox Christians settled in Türkiye were sent to Greece. By including those who had left their homeland after October 18, 1912 in the scope of the exchange agreement, a solution was found to the refugee problem.

With this agreement, which included FORCED MIGRATION, around two million people were uprooted from their homes and forced to live in new settlement areas. This mass and forced migration in our history is simply called exchange, and these people are called exchangees.

Rationale for the Establishment of the Lausanne Exchangees Foundation

When we look at the process experienced by the masses who migrated through the population exchange in Greece and Türkiye, we see that those who migrated from Türkiye to Greece carried out various activities to preserve their cultural, artistic and folkloric values, organized themselves by establishing associations and foundations, and established cultural and artistic centers, research institutes and museums.

It is seen that those who migrated from Greece to Türkiye did not enter into a widespread and effective organization. Until the foundation was established, no one, except a few academics, really focused on this issue. However, those who migrated carried their knowledge, culture, art and folkloric values with them. We believe that it is an important duty to seriously and scientifically investigate the values that have had a significant impact on the formation of our current culture and our recent history.

We also believe that the cultural assets that should be considered the historical richness of both countries and the common heritage of humanity have not been sufficiently protected. In order to protect these cultural assets, which are “Human Heritage”, efforts are needed to ensure that both nations and international cultural institutions are sensitive.

Today, it is known how important the rapprochement of peoples is for world peace. We believe that the objective conditions for the friendship between the peoples of Turkey and Greece, which was experienced after the Gulf earthquake on August 17, 1999 and the Athens earthquake on September 7, 1999, to become permanent and increasingly an example to other peoples, can be created by strengthening the communication between the exchangees of both countries, and for this reason, we believe that the exchangees in Türkiye should be organized as soon as possible.

Considering these facts, we, a group of exchangees, children and grandchildren of exchangees, came together. The work we started as an initiative in November 1999 gained legal personality with the registration of the foundation deed prepared on November 30, 2000 and approved by the notary on April 25, 2001.

The registration of our foundation was finalized by publication in the Official Gazette on May 25, 2001 .

We believe that with your contribution and support, we will become stronger and do permanent work.