Yeniköy () is a village in the

Sarıkamış District Sarıkamış District is a district of the Kars Province of Turkey. Its seat is the town of Sarıkamış .Kars Province Kars Province (; Azerbaijani: Qars Rayonu; ; ) is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its closed border with Armenia. Its area is 10,193 km2, and its population is 274,829 (2022). The pr ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. It was founded in 1878 by Pontic Greek settlers who abandoned the region in 1919. As of 2022 the village had a population of 441 people.

History

Yeniköy was founded in 1878 by

Pontic Greek Pontic Greek (, ; or ''Romeika'') is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety ...

Crypto-Christian Crypto-Christianity is the secret adherence to Christianity, while publicly professing to be another faith; people who practice crypto-Christianity are referred to as "crypto-Christians". In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted ...

settlers from

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

Chaldia Chaldia (, ''Khaldia'') was a historical region located in the mountainous interior of the eastern Black Sea, northeast Anatolia (modern Turkey). Its name was derived from a people called the ''Chaldoi'' (or '' Chalybes'') that inhabited the reg ...

and

Nicopolis Nicopolis () or Actia Nicopolis was the capital city of the Roman province of Epirus (Roman province), Epirus. Its site, near Preveza, Greece, still contains impressive ruins. The city was founded in 29 BC by Octavian in commemoration of his ...

shortly after the

Kars Province Kars Province (; Azerbaijani: Qars Rayonu; ; ) is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its closed border with Armenia. Its area is 10,193 km2, and its population is 274,829 (2022). The pr ...

was incorporated into the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in the aftermath of the

Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, Romania, Principality of Serbia, Serbia, and Principality of ...

. After founding the village its residents began practicing Orthodox Christianity openly once again, building a stone church in 1884. A school was also established at some point. In 1913, Yeniköy had a total population of 1029, by 1918 it had grown to approximately 1600 people. Most of the population was engaged in animal husbandry and farming. On 3 March 1918, the

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

signed the

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...

with the Ottoman Empire, returning the Kars region to the Ottomans. In September 1919, fearing that their village will be affected by the

Turkish–Armenian War The Turkish–Armenian War (), known in Turkey as the Eastern Front () of the Turkish War of Independence, was a conflict between the First Republic of Armenia and the Turkish National Movement following the collapse of the Treaty of Sèvres i ...

, Yeniköy's residents abandoned their village for

Kars Kars ( or ; ; ) is a city in northeast Turkey. It is the seat of Kars Province and Kars District.� ...

. The men of the village attempted to return to their village to harvest their crops by were prevented from doing so by Armenian military personnel. Yeniköy's residents eventually fled further to

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ), historically Batum or Batoum, is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second-largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast ...

. Greek refugees lived in camps in squalid conditions, suffering hunger and

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

. The Greek government began organizing evacuations in May 1919, and Yeniköy residents were eventually brought to

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

. High mortality caused by outbreaks of

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

caused the refugees to request the Greek government to allocate them housing in a mountainous area. Between 1921 and 1922 they were gradually resettled in the village of

Notia Nótia (, formerly Νώτια; or ; ) is a village in the Exaplatanos municipal unit of the Pella regional unit, Macedonia, Greece. Notia was once the largest Megleno-Romanian village, whose population underwent mass conversion to Islam in t ...

. Yeniköy is currently belongs to the

. As of 2022 the village had a population of 441 people.

Footnotes

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yenikoy, Sarıkamış Villages in Sarıkamış District