A LETTER TO THE MOTHERLAND

One of the least known events of Modern Greek History is the persecution of the Greeks in the Soviet Union, which began in 1937 and ended in 1949. After the Asia Minor disaster, thousands of refugees from the northern shores of Asia Minor poured into Russia. The refusal of the Greek government after 1928 to allow these refuges to come to Greece (even though they were covered by the Treaty of Lausanne, forced them to remain in the Soviet Union. The Greeks living in the Soviet Union participated in all the phases of the soviet experiment, while at the same time they established a network of Greek schools, theater groups, and publishing houses, published numerous Greek periodicals and formed Autonomous Greek regions within the framework of the Soviet administrative system. However, they also suffered the consequences of Stalinism. Approximately 44 to 50 thousand Greeks were executed or died from exposure as a result of their persecution, while over 200,000 were exiled to Siberia, the Urals and Central Asia.