Pontic Greeks, Romeika & the Black Sea: Language, Music, Genocide and Survival | Nikos Michailidis

I'm especially glad to have this conversation because Pontic Greek identity is often discussed through memory and trauma, but your work allows us to approach it also through language, sound, lived experience, and cultural continuity.

I would like to begin with Romeyka because language is often one of the deepest markers of historical continuity, especially in regions where identity has become layered, pressured, or contested.

What does the survival of Romeyka in the Black Sea region tell us about the deeper layers of Pontic Greek identity, especially when language, religion, and national belonging do not always fit neatly together?

So let me first clarify that when we say-- when we're talking about Romeyka, this is a term that is being used by the people who currently live in the area of Trapezunta, Trabzon, in the northeast side of Turkey, in the Black Sea coast of Turkey.

And it is a term that they use to describe their own Pontic Greek dialect.

So when we're talking about Romeyka, we're, we're talking about Pontic Greek dialect, which is a dialect of the Greek language that has survived orally, and this is an amazing miracle, I would say.

It has survived for centuries since antiquity.

Many linguists are telling us, specialists who have been studying this dialect are telling us that it is a Greek dialect that has preserved many, many elements from classical antiquity, from Hellenistic times, and from medieval Byzantine times.

So it is a unique treasure, not only for Pontian Greeks, but also for Greeks in general, and I would say for the linguists and for the world.

And particularly, if we are to speak about the population that currently lives in northeastern Turkey and they speak this dialect as their native language, these people are the descendants of Islamised Greek communities.

The people who today in Turkey speak Romeyka or Pontic Greek, their ancestors converted to Islam about 300, 400 years ago.

And despite their conversion to Islam, they maintained this language as their main tool of communication.

And I, I want to add that this, uh, dialect is currently reviving.

It, it is becoming the focus of interest among many young people in Turkey through music, through literature, through oral narratives, et cetera, et cetera.

It is a good proof that even though a group might convert to a different religion, it might change some of the fundamental characteristics of its own identity, that is religion.

Religion plays a very significant role in the identity of various groups.

Despite the fact of conversion, this language managed to survive and to create a, a second layer of hidden Greek identity among those who speak it in contemporary Turkey.

Because it is interesting, during my research there, I encountered many people and I interviewed many people who were speaking this dialect, but they were not very well aware of what its roots are, where it came from.

They didn't have particular knowledge about that.

And the more they started to search and the more they started to realize that this dialect is part of the broader Greek language family, of course, this was a kind of cultural shock for them because they used to believe until a few decades ago that they are the only ones who speak this dialect in Turkey, an isolated group that they inherited from their ancestors.

Depending on the political affiliation of each of my interviewees, you would listen to different stories about the origins of this dialect.

If someone was a strict Turkish nationalist, he would tell you that if you would ask them, "Where did the language come from?" He would tell you, "We, we learned it from our neighbors, the Romans, the Pontic Greeks, and that's how we maintained it." But if you talk to people who are more educated in Turkey from that region and they are more politically moderate, they will accept that this is a dialect of the Greek language and that they...

our ancestors used to speak the dialect and then they became Muslims, but we continue to maintain this dialect and they are very, very proud of that.

So it is a sign of, uh, resilience and continuity for the Greek people of the Black Sea of Pontus who managed to culturally at least survive to a certain degree under very, very difficult circumstances under the Ottoman Empire and of course later on during the Kemalist nationalist dictatorship.

Calling the Pontic Greek dialect in the Trabzon region today as Romeyka is rather correct because I heard stories from my uncle, for instance, that my great-grandmother would say, uh, "She's Roman.