The Asia Minor disaster
industry grew from 9,359 to 22,900. 27 More importantly, the total production of Greece’s carpet industry, the development of which was almost exclusively due to the Asia Minor refugees, grew from 68,000 square metres in 1925 to 195,411 in 1928. 28 This was ‘ the birth of a new industry ’ 29 which, at the time of the 1929 census, was employing 7,250 persons (mostly women and girls) in urban refugee settlements and brought £400,000 into Greece per annum. 30 In 1921, Greek industrial production overall was valued at 1,077,103 drachma; by 1929, it was valued at 7,158,095 drachma. Concurrently, Greek exports and commerce increased, with Piraeus becoming a ‘ first rank port in the Mediterranean ’ . 31 Despite this success, the global financial crisis of 1929 soon revealed the vulnerability of Greece’s economy. Unemployment rose, and many businesses founded during the 1920s became insolvent. Furthermore, during the period of economic growth in the 1920s, refugees often endured terrible conditions in factories for poor wages or participated in the informal economy as street vendors. Finally, due to the financial cost of the refugee crisis, the Greek state was obligated to contract two loans at high rates of interest: in 1924, the RSC contracted a loan of £12.4 million at an interest rate of 8.71%, and in 1927 the Greek government contracted a loan for a further £7.5 million at an interest rate of 7.05%, of which £5 million was given to the RSC. 32 These loans, along with the settlement programme as a whole, were ‘an inordinate burden on Greece’s finances’ 33 , especially when interest rates increased after the 1929 financial crisis, and certainly contributed to Greece’s bankruptcy in 1932. To conclude, the urban settlement of refugees was vital in ‘ lay[ing] the foundations of a modern productive economy ’ 34 in Greece. After the Asia Minor disaster, Greece became home to many new, highly skilled industries, and its economic recovery was accelerated throughout the 1920s. However, the disastrous consequences of the 1929 economic crisis and the burden of the external loans which funded the settlement project revealed the precarity of Greece’s economy, which was still dependent on foreign capital. First articulated in 1844 by Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis, by the 20th century the ‘ Great Idea ’ had become the Greek state’s ‘ all-consuming central mission ’ and its ‘ true raison d'être ’ . 35 The project’s proponents argued for the territorial expansion of the Greek state, with the aim of absorbing all Greek populations in the near east. While the ‘ Great Idea ’ failed in its goal of a transcontinental Greek nation, the great irony and tragedy of the Asia Minor disaster was that Greeks who had previously lived in the Ottoman Empire were now forced to migrate to Greece. Simultaneously, Greece expelled nearly all minorities within its borders. Greece’s population thus reached near -complete homogeneity, which
27 Statistikí Epetirís tis Elládos 1930 / Statistical Yearbook of Greece 1930 , op . cit ., p. 191 and Statistikí Epetirís tis Elládos 1931 / Statistical Yearbook of Greece 1931 , p. 136. 28 Statistikí Epetirís tis Elládos 1930 / Statistical Yearbook of Greece 1930 , Op . Cit ., p. 192. 29 Pentzopoulos op. cit. : p. 164. 30 Statistikí Epetirís tis Elládos 1930 / Statistical Yearbook of Greece 1930 , Op . Cit ., p. 198.
31 Pentzopoulos op. cit. : p. 166. 32 Kontogiorgi op. cit. : pp. 73-74. 33 Ibid.: p. 73-74. 34 Pentzopoulos op . cit .: p. 166. 35 Kalyvas op . cit . p. 43 and p. 44
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