Talk:İzmir

To the Turkish anon with IPs 81.212.127.249, 81.212.126.129, 81.212.126.173 and 81.212.126.245: while your contribution to the Wikipedia is welcomed, please do not distort this article by removing historic facts. I am aware official Turkish policy is to deny the Hellenic Holocaust, but since this is an encyclopedia and not a Turkish textbook facts must be used. If you feel the text is not NPOV, feel free to edit or introduce an additional point of view. Jor 19:09, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To Darkelf: This is a topic in which "you" are trying to change historical facts, not me. Historical truths of Izmir are consistent with that I've posted so far. So, this facts are to be included on this page, not the ones of those generated by occupying nations.

If you think different, which is not consistent with the truth, this is not a place to change people's mind. Stop reading "one sided" books, and try to learn what really happened.

I'm the who have contributed the most of the text in this topic, and as a Turk, you should be able to see that I know more about this rather than you. Please stop ignoring the facts.

As I posted initially, I am well aware of the Turkish view of the aftermath of the Treaty of Sèvres. You should be aware that the Turkish view that the Greeks occupated a Turkish city and then set it on fire is a Turkish view only: historical third parties as well as the Greeks cite that this was done by the Turks as part of the ethnic cleansing commonly referred to as the Hellenic Holocaust. I will attempt another edit to try and incorporate the Turk POV more, but if you insist on removing any material which is not consistent with Turkish POV we have a problem. That is why I will request peer assistance here. Jor 19:53, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Neither Greek would say "Yes, I burned Izmir," nor a third part that wasn't cooperating with the Turks.

Here, we are not talking about the ancient city, Smyrna, but about Izmir. If you want to provide information on Smyrna, go to "Smyrna" page and tell what you have to say.

Also, this's not a place that we should judge what happened or what didn't happen. This's the job of historians. This's a topic of Izmir, a city of Republic of Turkey and of course the information resource about the city is Turkey, not Patagonia.

Guess what would an American do if an Iraqi wrote "This's the most ugly city of ever" for New York City on Wikipedia? (I'm not discussing if it's ugly or not. Just an example.) This post would be removed. Because they are dominant in Wikipedia and think that what they say is "law."

Finally, just go search for information how beautiful Izmir is or just come to see it when you have time to see and be able to write more about it. Don't blame others while sitting on your chair.

Exactly, this is not the place where we should judge what happened. Thus since history is not 100% clear, both views should be incorporated. That is what NPOV means. It is inevitable that to a Turk any indication the Turks were to blame for the fire that destroyed Smyrna is inacceptable, just like blaming the Greeks is inacceptable to the Greeks. This page is now listed as having an NPOV conflict in the hope that others may be able to establish a better version of this page. Jor 20:12, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's clear to me, but I'm not making judgement, I'm telling what actually happened. I've read tens of thousands of historical documents and tens of books about this issue. My uncle is a historian has a great "deep knowledge" of Izmir history. I've had a chance to meet and talk with the most known historians of Izmir. So, please stop posting the "changed" version of my city and begin to call it Izmir. (We are talking about Izmir, not ancient Smyrna.) Or open a new page titled "Historical Fire Blames" and start to type what you know about this.

"It's clear to me what actually happened": please read NPOV. I am not trying to make judgement here, just trying to introduce the other point of view. I am sure there are many Greeks who are also clear on "what actually happened". I will make one more attempt to incorporate both points of view. Jor 20:33, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ha ha... I see your posts in every topic about Turkey or the Turks. You must be an Armenian, or a Greek or must be financed by them to change the truths everwhere about them in Wikipedia. But you are doing wrong.

To the Anon Poster: by making ad hominem attacks, you are hurting your argument. And please add either 3 or tildes (the character "~") at the end of your posts so we know who is speaking. -- llywrch 21:28, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

~ I'm not hurting the argument. BTW, see the latest version of the page.

Yes, you are hurting your position. Wiipedia is built on a basis of debate, compromise, & acknowledging other people's POVs. The words "You must be an Armenian, or a Greek or must be financed by them to change the truths everwhere about them in Wikipedia" suggest that you are not interested in finding a middle ground, but only pushing your own POV; further, those words suggest paranoia on your behalf. In both cases, it makes you appear less sympathetic, & alienates people who might agree with you. Consider my words, & act accordingly. -- llywrch 23:38, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

~ I wish Flockmeal had let it

It is so bad that Turkey following the principles of Kemalism is trying to erase a historic timeline of 3,000+ years by such a vandalistic way. You should be proud being a Turk for all your historic achievements, I am sure! Astavrou 19:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

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to the anon: Hi, Can you please list here, on the talk page, some Web links which contain the info you want us to include in the article? We'll have a look and we will incorporate the info in the article in an NPOV way, acceptable by everyone. Optim^·.· 21:44, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

~ http://www.izmirturizm.gov.tr/e_history_of_izmir.html

First of all, this's a goverment site and there's no copyright issue. Some information I provided come from my mind, so I am unable to give a link for that. BTW, I hope Darkelf reads my latest edit, before Floskmeal's. We were about to come to an agreement.

~ To Flockmeal: Me and Darkelf don't do vandalism. We're from the same IPs (of two differen user) and trying to solve something. I've added some new paragraphs.

POV Dispute over?

Given that there have been no more reverts can I safely assume that the history bit in this article is now sufficiently NPOV to remove the notice? Typed when the most recent edit was [1], the one edit after it was the removal of the neutrality disputed note. Jor 22:15, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Somebody reverted my changes and plugged in the claim of killing of christians by turks around symrna, about which i had provided references. maybe that person would want to discuss these changes here? any other comments are welcome of course. Ato 15:10, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Book by Marjorie Housepian Dobkin

I removed the following:

This book gives an historical account of the events of Sept. 1922 when Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk) led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir)- a predominantly Christian City as 27 Allied warships including 3 American destroyers stood by. Turkish troops proceeded to victimize the residents of this city and subsequently set fire to this historic city and totally destroyed it. A massive coverup by agreement of Western Allies followed, because of oil and trade interests in Turkey.

If there is any truth to these claims (especially predominantly Christian City and oil and trade interests in Turkey), provide sources and include them in appropiate places in the article, not in description of a book. I'd like to point out that the killings at this time is mentioned in the article, as well as the dispute about the source of the fire. AFAIK, that dispute is not resolved conculusively. at0 00:03, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Proper location for article

Should this actually be located at İzmir? Gerry Lynch 23:14, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Contextual name

Shouldn't the name of the city in its history change according to whatever name was used at the time? Compare Vyborg, which was also called variously Viborg and Viipuri before it acquired its modern Russian name.

I have a proposal. We call the city Smýrna during the ancient period, then Smýrnē during the Hellenistic period, then Smýrni during the Byzantine period, then İzmirni from the start of Ottoman rule up to the point where the contraction İzmir became official by the Turkish government, with explanations about the gradual name changes. For example, Smýrna is an Aeolic name, but Smýrnē is Ionic/Attic/Koine. From the Byzantine period, ē became i in all contexts (except for Pontus and Cappadocia, but those don't pertain to Smýrni), and İzmirni was the closest available Turkish approximation of the Greek name. - Gilgamesh 20:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Editing needed

This article has a rambly quality and needs to be edited for clarity and flow.

Also, some sections come near broaching the neutrality question, in my opinion. The "Homer" section, for instance. The article uses purple prose to describe Homer and states without equivocation that he was born in Izmir, but a quick jump to the Homer article would make it clear that many places are claimed to be his birthplace and his entire existence is tstill hotly debated. Perhaps this could be worked into a "Cases for Izmir being Homer's birthplace" section? (after adding a link to the Homer page)

It's great to have such a wealth of information about such a beautiful city (I learned much from the article), but the article deserves a higher standard of composition.

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You are welcome to try, but anyone who tries to edit any article to do with Greece and/or Turkey is asking for trouble. The Wikipedia Greek and Turkish Nationalist Parties are always ready to restart the war. Adam 13:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

 Can't we all get along? :)

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Also, the part about Tantalus doesn't belong at all in the article. Gakrivas 11:30, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge Smyrna into this article?

I added a boilerplate to merge Smyrna into this article. Both articles contain information about the ancient period of the city, and I think that either the information about the ancient city from this article should go to Smyrna, or the two should be merged.

On the other hand, maybe this is not the right time to attempt this, because there seems to be a Greek - Turkish edit war going on in that article, concerning the events of September 1922 (that part really belongs to this article, as it is not about ancient Smyrna). Gakrivas 11:28, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Festival at Metropolis

"... gave recitals and performances at various venues in the city and surrounding areas, including the ancient theatres at Ephesus and Metropolis.

I've been working on disambiguating Metropolis references. What's this referring to? Is there a place named Metropolis in Turkey? Whitejay²⁵¹ 14:09, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Metropolis is an antique Ion city near Izmir. It is actually situated near the town of Torbali and villages of Yenikoy and Ozbeykoy.

Origin of the name "Izmir"

Not sure how true this is, but a Turkish friend of mine says that the Turkish form "Izmir" isn't actually a contraction of "I Smyrni", but that the initial vowel is inserted to fit into the Turkish phonological system - the "sm" or "zm" combination is not possible at the beginning of a word in Turkish, according to him, so an initial vowel is inserted to make it possible to pronounce. I think that it would also be an idea to mention that the "z" in "Izmir" reflects Greek pronunciation, if not spelling.

Though not a turkish speaker myself I can verify that this is a plausible theory. Turkish cypriots when speaking greek would add an i in front of certain words starting with z or s. Mavros 00:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

merge with Smyrna

Opinions? Tedernst 04:40, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I am writing the page in Turkish on Smyrna, I and also made some contributions to the already existent İzmir page, and I am approaching the Smyrna page in the sense of the description of the archaeological sites (there are more than one) as well as their discovery and excavation. Anything on historical events should belong to the 'İzmir' page, starting from the beginning, since it is the history of the city. That holds with the general pattern in the Turkish wikipedia. There is a page on Foça, and there is one on the archaeological site of Phokaia (with a description of the temple etc.). Turks (I am Turkish, by the way) would say 'Smyrna excavations' or 'Phokaia excavations' etc. İzmir is the name of the city for about 700 years now, and it is its name today. If article headings for place names and the articles for their history had to be based on what they used to be called at a given period in the past, a lot of new pages would need to be opened for virtually the entire Greek geography.

As for the great fire of İzmir in 1922, the general pattern in history is that it is usually the fleeing armies who burn cities, not the victorious ones. And in the ten days between the Greek rout in Afyon on the 30th of August, 1922 and the final retrieval of İzmir by the Turkish Army on the 9th of September, there has been terrible precedents of cities other than İzmir in Western Anatolia that have been put to flames by the Greek army (Uşak, Alaşehir -a town with a great Greek and Christian past, that one, ancient Philadelphia-, Turgutlu -about 1/8 left intact-, and Manisa)

--Cretanforever 08:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Whether to merge or not

Smyrna and Izmir are essentially two very different cities that have absolutely nothing to do with eachother, other than the geographic location. Smyrna should always have a separate article. --Eupator 13:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Smyrna was renamed Izmir when the Turks took it in 1922. It was very different in 1923 than it had been in 1921, but it had the same buildings, the same farms, etc. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 01:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Aydinoglu Turks took İzmir in 1320, the Genoese took back the lower castle (called St. Peter) in 1344, Turks held the upper castle (Kadifekale, Mount Pagos), Tamerlane came and destroyed St. Peter castle in 1403, chased the Genoese and gave the whole city to Aydinoglu Turks, and the Ottoman (Osmanli-Osmanoglu) took it together with the entire Aydinoglu principality in 1420. Apart from the brief interval between 1919 and 1922, the city has been a Turkish land since, and named İzmir. It wasn't renamed under the present Republic of Turkey, but before. I notice that approach in many Greek minds. As if the present names of Turkish cities were recent inventions. They are not. The Ottoman administrators (and the Turkish population) did not pronounce the names Smyrna or Constantinople, they said İzmir and İstanbul (and else). These were their official names.

İzmir's Greek population increased due to migrations from the islands and the Peloponnese (which, at that time, were Ottoman too, sorry!, I meant Turkish:) when it became an international trade center as of the beginning of the 18th century. In 1717, there were only two Orthodox chuches in the city (compared to 19 mosques and 18 synagogues) (source: Ανάγνωστοπούλου Σ. 1997). In 1912, 58.5 % of the city's population was Greek, 33 % Turkish.

I tried to draw comparisons with other cities that were founded by one people and brought to our day by another. There is a brief article on Nieuw Amsterdam, but New York City is (naturally) treated under the article with that heading. There is no article for Nouvelle-Orleans, that city's whole history is recounted under 'New Orleans'. --Cretanforever 19:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I really do not agree in the proposed merging. Basic historic knowledge suffice here! Astavrou 19:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge - think of the cities in Poland which were majority German (and ruled by Germans) for hundreds of years until 1945 and then the Germans fled and the cities became 100% Polish. They only have one article, eg Wroclaw. The cultural, linguistic and ethnic transformation was total but that is irrelevant. It's the same city, just with different people living there. Jameswilson 03:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)