Talk:Thessaloniki

To-do list

To-do

Turn the list in the "Museums" section into prose, possibly merging it with the "Landmarks" section Sports clubs of Thessaloniki (at least Aris, PAOK and Iraklis who have a legacy) More on the modern life of the city Sister cities (so far Leipzig and Köln) A location map of the city itself, not the prefecture Possibly more photos A separate article on the port of Thessaloniki (technical characteristics, freight movement, economical significance etc) Further collaborate on the economy of the city Other civic buildings of significance e.g. Court Houses, Opera Houses, etc History of Eptapyrgio

Feel free to either expand this list, or reduce it by doing some of the work. Etz Haim

The Great fire of old Salonika

The great fire of Thessaloniki took place at 1917, begun from a French army camp that was fighting against the Axis powers in the Balkan front at that time and destroyed the most of the city. Although the new design for the city was a modern one, it did not go as planned, mostly because the arrival of the 1922 catastrophe from Turkey changed the priorities of the Greek state from creating a modern city, to accomodating a large number of people within it. Eventually, the arrival of those mostly Greek people along with the expulsion of the Muslim Turks to Turkey and the retreat of the Jews to their homeland and their extinction by the Nazis resulted to the homogenization of Thessalonika.

The Slavic Macedonians

The Slavs arrived in Macedonia around the 6th century B.C. as subjects of stronger tribes like the Avars, Bulgarians and others. The original Macedonians were a Greek speaking people, who were displaced from the most of the northern parts of Macedonia and fled to Thrace. The Slavs took their place and managed to Slavicize their former Avar and Bulgarian rulers quite soon, due to their numerical supremacy. The Avar state was dissolved, but the Slavic Bulgarians have a successful presence in the Balkans ever since. Despite their numerous efforts they did never managed to conquer Thessalonika - The Slavs did so for a few years under Dusan - and thus the city remained Greek until the Ottoman conquest, when the Greek element was forced to abandon the city for the hinterlands or even further away, while Suleiman the Magnificent transferred the persecuted Jews from the hands of the Spanish to the city of Thessalonika, where they flourished until the WWII. The Slavs did never manage to dominate the city from where the two apostles of Christianity, and the ablest Byzantine diplomats ever, begun their journey to Christianize the Slavs, and also created their early Glagolitic alphabet.

The Balkan wars and the WWI had a devastating effect upon the civilians of all Macedonia, but those who suffered the most were the non-Greek element which was practically forced either to learn to live like Greek people, or forced to move out of Greece. At the same time, the ethnic Greeks living in Bulgarian, "Yugoslavian", Albanian or Ottoman/Turkish lands were facing the same terms in their respective countries. The citizens of Thessalonika did not suffer that much because the large Jewish community was not considered an enemy of the Greek state, while the significant Muslim Turkish population was later exchanged due to the Lausanne treaty (see bellow) and the small Slavic community in Thessalonika fled to Bulgarian Black sea coastline, in the lands that once belonged to Greeks who took the opposite route. Many of those fleeing from all sides left for the new world instead.

At 1922, the defeat of the Greek army by the Turks resulted to the expulsion of nearly all of the Christian inhabitants of Turkey (or Asia Minor). Finally, the newfound Turkish state and the Greek state agreed upon the peace terms of the Lausanne treaty. This treaty imposed the exchange of populations by "voluntary"immigration, but the most of the Muslims living in Greek territories and Christians living in Turkish territories were forced to immigrate because of it. Thessaloniki that had a large Jewish population did not witness that much of a transformation as did the rest of Macedonia. Nevertheless, the citys' borders were expanded very fast in order to accomodate the refugees, and soon enough, the Jews begun immigrating to their fatherland, a process that was accelerated during WWII when the Jewish population of the city was nearly extinguished by the Nazis.

Miscellaneous

• Could someone please help turn the list in the "Museums" section into prose, possibly merging it with the "Landmarks" section above? I doubt that there are going to be any separate articles for the items in this list any soon, unless of course User:Jengod who has contributed it has something in his mind. -- Etz Haim 14:15, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pictures

Hey Etz why did you remove the pictures gallery from the page, they are maybe personal page but they don't have any advertising on it and it does imporve the article by bringing a gallery of pictures from the place. Chmouel 17:43, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See the page history? I wasn't the one who removed the link to User:Acarvin's photo gallery, but the one who restored it, to be removed again later by someone else... I actually used to like the gallery link here, but it seems other people don't think the same.-- Etz Haim 20:00, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh sorry about that Haim, i got confuse in the history. But the question remain to User:Acarvin. Chmouel 11:35, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, Acarvin was the original contributor and the one who took the pictuers with his camera... Take another look at the history. :) Cheers -- Etz Haim 14:56, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Damn you right, sorry about the confusion... Chmouel 21:59, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

population of Thessaloniki

Just curious: what was the population of Thessaloniki in the 18th century (around 1760)? I couldn't find it on google. Bogdan | Talk 21:52, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Symbols

I believe, like many people in Thessaloniki, that the old turkish jail (White Tower) should not be the symbol of a beautiful city like this. The same for Galerius Ark. What symbolizes a former turkish jail except pain and misery of Thessaloniki people during othomanic rule? What symbolizes the ark except "the glory of Galerius who beat Persia". It is a shame for the citizens of Thessaloniki to have this two buildings as symbols. Even Thermaikos Gulf cannot be a symbol because is one of the dirtiest gulfs around the globe. What about neoclassical houses? Few remained after 1917 fire and even fewer were fixed (usually with owners money and not municipalitys care). So neither these can be symbols. So I start this conversation as a little "crusade" to find a good symbol for Thessaloniki to replace this "White Tower" which I must remind was called "Tower of Blood" once upon a time. I want a symbol that expresses city history, its people fights, freedom and democracy. (Yes, I am fully aware of mr. Skambardonis opinions in "Panselinos" about the White Tower -- για ελληνόφωνους: "Τούρκικη Μπουγάτσα" and "Τούρκικη Παπαριά") User:Quantis | Talk

Well, regardless of what one might desire, the White Tower is considered a symbol of Thessaloniki, not least by the residents of said city themselves. The Arch of Galerius, to my understanding, is less known or cared about by the inhabitants. Other symbols that come to mind include the Rotunda, although it's often oddly overlooked despite its impressive size, and several of the old churches, such as Thessaloniki's version of the Hagia Sophia. --Delirium June 28, 2005 21:27 (UTC)

Greek Propaganda

This entry isn't history, it's propaganda. The city of Salonika was burned and destroyed to build "Thessaloniki". The old language isn't even taught at the local university, and this apparent disgust at the White Tower as a Turkish jail obscures the fact that there were hardly any Greeks in the city while it was under Turkish rule.

Listen to this nonsense -- "the retreat of the Jews to their homeland" from the description of the fire. Retreated? The Jewish quarters were burned and the foreign rulers forbade their reconstrction. And to which "homeland"? Salonika was their homeland.

Salonika was a largely Jewish, Ladino-speaking city that was deliberately destroyed by Greek nationalists the first chance they got.

Letter from the Jewish Communities in Greece, January 8, 1993. +MATIA ☎ 22:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

note on Byzantine era

During the Byzantine era Thessaloniki was considered to be the second city (Συμβασιλεύουσα) of the empire (after Constantinople). Only in Constantinople and Thessaloniki were cut coins for the empire. And the city was always called Thessaloniki by the inhabitants. +MATIA ☎ 22:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Etymology

The name does appear to be from Ancient Macedonian language, but are there any theories regarding its meaning ? bogdan | ^Talk 14:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki#Ancient_times +MATIA ☎ 15:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Remove exchange pictures from article

The pictures in this article should be removed, the whole history of Solun/Thessaloniki is not being talked about, i ahve proofs of macedonians living there for thousands of years, greeks kicked out all macedonians from solun and turkish christians came from turkey there now, proofs Desecration of Macedonian graves at St. George's church = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/gorno_pozharsko2.jpg Another picture of the grave desecration = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/gorno_pozharsko4.jpg

The following four pictures are from Sveti Atanas Church in Zhelevo, Aegean Macedonia. The original Macedonian inscriptions were wiped out and replaced with Greek writing. Entrance to church = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/svatanas1.jpg Close up of first picture where the Macedonian writing is still visible = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/svatanas2.jpg Another example of Macedonian writing that was wiped out = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/svatanas3.jpg Inside the church - icons were erased = http://www.mhrmi.org/images/svatanas4.jpg These pictures need to be added now, I have plenty more for anyone needs user:Intranetman

I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what it is that you're trying to express in some of the above. I think that you are saying that Thessaloniki was Slavic, and that those images would contribute to the article by demonstrating that. Please see Wikipedia's rules about No Original Research. If it were true that you have discovered previously unknown evidence, you would have to get it published in a respected historical journal, and then we could cite it here. I'd suggest that you avoid using the term "Aegean Macedonia", however, as it is likely to make people suspicious of your motivations. Jkelly 16:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

listen Jkelly i respect your opinion about this things, but however i think i know more from this subject than you only because my family is come from solun and i know all of the history from this city ok,the city was mostly macedonian throughout last 1000 years,even more, here is some thing big about this= From the close of the 6th century the territory of Macedonia, like the other Byzantine dominions in the Balkans, was exposed to continual settlement by the trans-Danubian Slav tribes. From that time onwards the city of Salonica became an object of Slavonic and combined Slavonic and Avar sieges and attacks. As a result of large-scale and intensive Slav colonization, in the 30's of the 7th century the whole territory of Macedonia, with the exception of Salonica, was settled by Slavs (1). Influenced by its Slavonic surroundings even Salonica underwent considerable Slavonic influence so that in the 9th century, in the Life of St. Methodius. it is written that "all the citizens of Salonica speak a pure Slavonic"

I have plenty more infomations,plenty,for more informations go here http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/ here=http://www.unitedmacedonians.org/macedonia/stefov30.html

and about you saying not to call aegean macedonia that is what it is called ok, that is the name from this piece of macedonia which we call it Solun( Egejska Makedonija)aegegan macedonia, here is a map for you http://www.mymacedonia.net/aegean/images/mapAM.gif

The ethnic Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria do not wish anything more than the recognition of their fundamental human and national rights: the right to speak their own language; to assemble for peaceful purposes; and, the right to call themselves Macedonian without fear of persecution or discrimination.

more proofs:http://www.mymacedonia.net/aegean/aegean.htm,this wikipedia page needs to have all opinions not just greeks ok NPOV remember, somebody please edit the page properly, have a nice life user:Intranetman

NPOV yes, pro-RoM no. +MATIA ☎ 12:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Where is the history of Thessaloniki during the Ottoman period???

I did not see any information about the Ottoman times of the city...Somebody is trying to ignore that period on purpose?? I do not see any good in hiding truth from the whole world... Selanik was an Ottoman city by 1912...please hear my voice and change this article with the correct one... unsigned by Calledman at 11:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If you read the talk page, you'll understand that this is not the only historical era that is missing. +MATIA ☎ 12:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

You are right Matia...When I went to Athens,I could not see any Ottoman buildings....Can someone explain to me why people destroy historical places and buildings on purpose???

Hm. If you mean that Ottoman buildings were destroyed on purpose to "hide" the history then you have misunderstood something. Thessaloniki has a lot of Ottoman monuments (and Byzantine, and Roman, etc) but Thessaloniki has suffered to great disasters: the fire of 1917 and the earthquake of 1978. Many monuments, including the church of Saint Demetrius, was totaly (or almost totaly) destroyed by the fire, because woods were a large proportion of the construction material. Athens is a different case. From 1870 to 1930, a lot buildings and monuments were destroyed in the process of building a new and big capital city. I don't know about Ottoman buildings, but I can verify that many Byzantine churches were ruinated, often in order to make way for a broad road. One example is the Kapnikarea church at Ermou street - for about 10 years (around 1875 if I remember correctly) there was an order to take the church down, however the very strong protests of the locals saved that church. ps you can sign your comments with ~~~~ at the end of your comment. +MATIA ☎ 09:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Population

Hi Matia, you changed the population figure. I got mine (363,987) from the 2001 census. That's the population of the city and municipality of Thessaloniki. I don't know where you got yours (809,457) from, but I think it's for the whole metropolitan area, including several suburbs. The best solution IMO is to put the lower figure in the infobox, and put the higher figure somewhere in the text (in fact it's already there, with the reference to metropolitan area). Markussep 22:28, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

User:195.66.108.65 changed the population of the metropolitan area from 800,000 to 1,500,000. Is that true? The population of the whole prefecture, that probably contains the metropolitan area of Thessaloniki and more, is only 1,099,598. The world gazetteer gives 946,638 for the metropolitan area in 2005. What is right, could someone comment? Markussep 10:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the 1.500.000 is true because the population of Attica region in this site is 5.000.000 even if the real population is 3.700.000! And It hasn't been noticed by anyone. So please if you want to correct Thessaloniki's population you have to correct Attica's population first.

Well Done.

A much much better article since the last time I visited it. There is a lot of work to be done though. Well done again; Salonica deserves a very good article. Astavrou 07:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)