Saloniki to Thessaloniki

A hundred years ago, Thessaloniki was the largest, most vibrant, and most colorful city in the Ottoman Empire's Rumelian territories, second only to the capital Istanbul, at the beginning of a rapid disintegration process.

Thessaloniki, which was taken from the Venetians by Sultan Murad II in 1430 and incorporated into Ottoman lands, and then ceded to Greece in 1912 during the reign of Sultan Reşat, celebrates its 100th anniversary of joining Greece in 2012. This large and historic city of the Balkans has been known for the past century by its ancient Greek name, Thessaloniki, throughout the world.

The multinational structure of Thessaloniki, which had developed over 482 years of Ottoman rule, changed incredibly within 30 years after it came under Greek administration. Thessaloniki is one of the cities where almost three-quarters of the population structure completely changed in the 20th century. Today, it is not possible to speak of the city's Jewish, Dönme, Turkish, and Bulgarian populations, except for a handful of Jews. Thessaloniki became a city inhabited solely by Greeks, especially after World War II.

In his previous books, Orhan Türker mostly investigated how the ancient neighborhoods of Istanbul, where Greeks predominantly lived, were Turkified. This time, he tells his story in reverse.