Traditional Clothings of Greek Orthodox Women Immigrants Who Immigrated from Turkey to Greece at the “1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange”

With immigrations, while communities are reaching to the new places where they have lived before, they carried their cultural values to their new settlements creating a new interaction process. In this interaction process, reshaping of cultural values of the immigrants and the local communities appear. The situation in question directly shows that immigrations effect clothing insights of the communites and it additionally emerges as an cultural indicator of the clothing that immigrant communities have. In this research, clothing features of Greek Orthodox women immigrants who immigrated from Turkey to Greece in the period of “1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange” which are being exibited at the “National Historical Museum” in Athens are aimed to be examined. Clothings of the Greek Orthodox women immigrants who lived in “Giresun (Kerasounta)”, “Nevşehir (Neapolis)” and “Kırklareli-Kavaklı (Saranta Eklesies-Kavakli)” regions before the “1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange” which is a very important immigration, were discussed in terms of form, ornamentation and dressing styles with the systematic requirements of the field. Graphical drawings are provided considering formal features of the clothing parts that formed clothing integrity and their properties are described with the use of related literature and the informations provided from reference people. This study is of importance that that it contains Greek Orthodox refugees’s clothings that are found in the clothing collection archive at the “National Historical Museum” in Greece reflecting the cultural identities, providing information and documentation on the clothing features of the “1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange”. Furthermore it is also of importance in contributing the transfer of the documented material culture to future generations and creating a source for the persons and institutions researching this issue.

Keywords

Immigration, Culture, Clothing, Women, Turk, Greek Orthodox, National Historical Museum