The Academy of Kydonies (Ayvalik): Upon the Origins of Greek Nationalism in Western Anatolia
Çiğdem Kılıçoğlu CihangirIn the 18th century, the Enlightenment, which arose and grew in Western Europe, spread out in a short time and made way for political, economical and social changes firstly in the whole of Europe and then in the world. While the new type of thought system, based upon mentality and science of the Enlightenment, spread across various communities through cultural and commercial lines, the Greeks under Ottoman rule were the first and the most effected by the recent ideas in comparison with other communities in the empire. The commercial and cultural links which the Greeks established with Europe especially by means of their collaterals, who settled much earlier in Western Europe, facilitated the transferring of the Enlightenment movement both towards the Greek mainland and the western shores of Anatolia, which had been a frequent destination for European commerce. The ideas of the Enlightenment spread to the Greeks through education. The modernist Greek colleges, which were founded in this period and rejected the conventional educational method, began to transmit the secular and liberal ideas of the Enlightenment to the Greek world. One of these modernist colleges was founded at the beginning of the 19th century in Ayvalık, which almost wholly consisted of Orthodox Greeks and was a major commercial centre after İzmir in Western Anatolia. This educational institution, named Academy of Kydonies (Academy of Ayvalık), was established and survived with the support of the Greek community in Ayvalık. The college, by carrying the ideas of the Enlightenment left a mark not only on the Greeks of Ayvalık but also on the whole Greek world, also took an initiative role in sprouting nationalist ideas among the Greeks and undertook the mission of building an ethnical identity. For those reasons, Ayvalık, as a commercial and a cultural centre of the Greeks of Anatolia, and the Academy of Kydonies played a significant part in the process of building the Greek nation. In this study, which was written using Greek resources, the contribution of the educational institutions to the establishment process of Greek national identity was analyzed in the context of the Academy of Kydonies and the impact of the Academy’s mission and ideas over the rise and spread of Greek nationalism in Western Anatolia was discussed.
Ayvalık Akademisi ya da Batı Anadolu’da Yunan Ulusçuluğunun Kökenleri Üzerine
Çiğdem Kılıçoğlu Cihangir18. yüzyılda Batı Avrupa’da doğan ve gelişen aydınlanma hareketi, kısa süre içinde yayılım göstererek önce bütün Avrupa’yı, daha sonra dünyayı etkisi altında bırakacak siyasal, ekonomik ve toplumsal değişimlere yol açtı. Aydınlanmanın akla ve bilime dayanan yeni tarz düşünce sistemi, kültürel ve ticari kanallarla çeşitli toplumlara sirayet ederken, Osmanlı egemenliği altındaki Rumlar, imparatorluktaki diğer unsurlara göre bu yeni düşüncelerden ilk ve en çok etkilenen kesim oldu. Rumların, özellikle Batı Avrupa’ya yerleşmiş soydaşları aracılığıyla Avrupa’yla kurdukları ticari ve kültürel bağlar, aydınlanma hareketinin gerek Yunan anakarasına gerekse Avrupa ticaretinin uğrak noktalarından biri olan Batı Anadolu kıyılarına taşınmasına olanak tanıdı. Aydınlanmacı fikirlerin Rumlar arasında yayılması ise eğitim yoluyla gerçekleşti. Bu dönemde kurulan ve aydınlanma olgusundan etkilenerek geleneksel eğitim anlayışını reddeden yenilikçi Rum/Yunan okulları, seküler ve liberal fikirleri Rum/Yunan dünyasında yaymaya başladılar. Söz konusu yenilikçi okullardan birisi, 19. yüzyıla girerken, nüfusunun hemen hepsi Ortodoks Rumlardan oluşan ve Batı Anadolu’nun İzmir’den sonra önemli bir ticaret merkezi konumunda olan Ayvalık’ta açıldı. Ayvalık Akademisi olarak adlandırılan bu eğitim kurumu, Ayvalık Rum cemaatinin destekleriyle kuruldu ve ayakta kaldı. Okul, aydınlanmacı fikirlerin taşıyıcılığını yaparak yalnızca Ayvalık Rumları arasında değil, bütün Yunan dünyasında iz bırakacak nitelikte faaliyetlerde bulundu, 19. yüzyıla damgasını vuran ulusçu ideolojinin Rumlar arasında filizlenmesine ön ayak oldu ve Rumlara etnik kimlik kazandırma misyonu üstlendi. Bu nedenle, bir ticaret merkezi olduğu kadar kültürel bir merkez niteliği de taşıyan Ayvalık’ın ve burada kurulan Akademi’nin, Yunanların uluslaşma sürecinde ayrı bir yeri oldu. Yunanca kaynaklar ışığında hazırlanan bu çalışmada, Yunanların ulusal kimliklerinin inşasına eğitim kurumlarının katkısı, Ayvalık Akademisi özelinde ele alınmış; Akademi’nin taşıdığı misyon ve yaydığı fikirlerin, Batı Anadolu’da Yunan ulusçuluğunun doğuşuna ve gelişimine olan etkisi tartışılmıştır.
In the new age, which is known as the Enlightenment since it means liberation from the darkness of the Middle Ages in Europe, the emergence of a mind, science and human-oriented system of thought affected many parts of the world, including the Ottoman Empire, a part of which was in Europe. It opened a way to a multidimensional transformation from economy to culture, from intellectual life to social structure in the Ottoman Empire. The community that was most affected by the Enlightenment movement was, in the first place, the Greek community within the multi-ethnic, multi-religional and multi-cultural boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. The reason for this was because the Greeks living under Ottoman rule were the first community who established commercial and cultural links with Europe. For this reason, they encountered the European Enlightenment earlier than the other Orthodox Balkan communities, and thus paved the way for the formation of a new cultural movement under the leadership of the Greeks especially in the Balkan territories and on the western shores of the Ottoman Empire.
This cultural movement is referred to as the Modern Greek Enlightenment (Νεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός) in western literature. The Greek Enlightenment, which can be described as a part of the Age of Enlightenment and which, in consequence, had an impact on the whole of the Greek world, falls within a time period starting from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. In this period, with the influence of the French Revolution, Western mentality and secular knowledge began to spread over to the East by means of wealthy European-Greek merchants and intellectuals. The Greek intellectuals embarked on a cultural struggle by heading towards the field of education based on the necessity of transforming society for ‘better’ conditions and for concepts such as freedom, liberalism and nationalism, in which they hoped to find a response in the Greek world. As a result, new Greek schools adopting a Western-style and offering higher education (not as high as that of the universities, but more like secondary/high schools) were established. In these new schools, established in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, an innovative educational approach was adopted instead of the tradionalist movement represented by the Patriarchate.
The new Greek schools, which were the reflection of the Greek Enlightenment to the Greek educational world, were of particular importance for the Greek national movement in terms of spreading Greek nationalism, the realization of national awakening among the Greek communities and instilling national consciousness in them. One of these innovative schools was established at the turn of the 19th century in Ayvalık which was a small town in the early 18th century, but which had seen significant development since the middle of the same century. The reason for this was that, during this period, Ayvalık had a status that could be regarded as semi-autonomous especially for Greeks, and this situation made the region a centre of attraction both commercially and culturally.
This Greek school of Ayvalık, which was called the Academy of Kydonies (Academy of Ayvalık), bearing traces of the Enlightenment, was among the leading institutions of Greek education. Although the Academy was like a secondary/high school, its qualified teachers and the quality of its courses made the school reach a level of higher education akin to that of a university. This was because the Greek community of the Ottoman Empire did not yet have a university at that time. The fact that foreign travellers also described the Academy as a college, shows that the school was really perceived as a ‘college’ in that period.
The Academy, whose main goal was to spread and improve education among Greeks, succeeded in making its mark on the whole Greek world in a very short time with the teaching methods it followed and with the courses it taught. The ideas which spread from the Academy through courses and other activities not only effected the educational movements of the period, but also led to the flourishing of nationalist ideology and the development of ethnic awareness among Greeks in Western Anatolia, especially in Ayvalık, and even in the whole Greek world. More importantly, the nationalist thought emanating from this school was one of the driving forces of the Greek rebellion - or the Greek independence movement. Despite its short life, the school, which pioneered the spread of Hellenism among Anatolian Greeks with its enlightenment and revolutionary ideas and activities, became one of the centers of Greek nationalism in Anatolia. Being the first practitioner of modern Hellenism in Anatolia in a cultural context, the school formed a basis for the national awakening of the Ottoman Greeks.
Furthermore, the nationalist ideas spread by the Academy were welcomed by the Ottoman administration because they caused the multiethnic structure of the empire to deteriorate, as it was the reaction of the Patriarchate which opposed the enlightenment movement with the thought that its central position would be weakened. Therefore, the school, which faced reactions from the Patriarchate from time to time, also faced the interventions of the Ottoman administration. As a result, the outbreak of the Greek rebellion paved the way for the end of the school, which was the bearer of Greek nationalist ideology.
Although we do not claim to reveal everything about the Academy of Ayvalık, this study, by way of introduction, aims to fill a gap in the Turkish literature regarding the school which had an important role in the spread of Greek nationalist ideology among Anatolian Greeks.
