“Thessaloniki 1922: Monuments and Refugees”, anniversary exhibition at the Rotunda in September
The Rotunda will host an exhibition, organized by the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Thessaloniki, “Thessaloniki 1922: Monuments and Refugees” from September 9 to the end of December 2022, as part of the commemorative events of the Ministry of Culture and Sports for the 100th anniversary of Asia Minor Disaster.
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The exhibition focuses, on the one hand, on the use of religious monuments as a temporary shelter for refugees, on the other hand, on the transport and rescue, by the refugee families, of many heirlooms, mainly portable icons, from their regions of origin, such as Eastern Thrace, Constantinople and Asia Minor . , with the presentation, for the first time in an exhibition, of 36 images and religious texts.
H. is developed in two sections
In the first, entitled “The refugees in the monuments of Thessaloniki”, through rich pictorial material, postcards and newspaper clippings, the image of the city is captured during the critical decade 1912-1922, during which, the monuments of the city, after . the liberation, the place of settlement of many refugees, either from the Balkan countries (1912-1917), or burned after the fire of 1917, or the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1919-1922), which is also the peak of this period.
The second part presents the Asia Minor Campaign
and in particular, the removal of the refugees from Eastern Thrace, as well as the refugee’s journey to Thessaloniki.
The section concludes with the installation in the city, and in particular in the area of the acropolis, where a series of structures and houses were built in contact with the Byzantine fortification walls of the city, but also in temples, and especially in the temple of Achieropoiitou.
Many refugees settled in the Upper Town, building shacks in contact with the castles, while many found refuge in the center of the city, in the churches, centered on the church of Panagia Achiropoiitou, in schools, mosques and shopping arcades.
At the same time, other refugees developed in Kalamaria, Toumba and Agia Fotini, others headed to the outskirts, and settled in camps, or established settlements, in memory of their homelands (Kordelio, Menemeni, Xirokrini, Nea Efkarpia, Nea Efkarpia, Nea Efkarpia, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness, New Fruitfulness , New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia, New Efkarpia. New Magnesia, Sykies, Neapoli, Saranda Churches).
As early as 1915, when thousands of French and British soldiers disembarked at the port of Thessaloniki, Achieropoiitos, – the only Byzantine church in the city that had not been consecrated until then, as its interior, appropriately designed as a museum, was to house . the Central Byzantine Museum— turns into a refugee camp for displaced populations of the war zones.
The temple welcomes the homeless
After the end of the great war, the temple welcomed the Thessalonians who were left homeless by the fire of 1917, and then, in 1922, refugees of the Asia Minor disaster. Achieropoiitos was the accommodation of the last wave of refugees in 1922 for four years, as in 1926, after actions of the Metropolis and the Archaeological Service, the refugees were removed, with the aim of restoring and consecrating the temple.
The supervisory material of the unit is granted for use by the History Center of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the Museum of Photography, ELIA-MET and the private Archives of I. Mittou, P. Eleftheriou and G. Konstantinidis.
In the second section, “Refugee Heirlooms”, are presented heirlooms that the refugees brought with them, which they either handed over to Temples or kept as objects of memory, as well as pictures and antiquities from private collections. At the same time, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Thessaloniki cooperated with the Holy Metropolises of Thessaloniki, Krini and Kalamaria, Neapolis and Stavroupolis, which provided for the exhibition icons and hexapteryga, which are preserved in churches under their jurisdiction.