Burning of Smyrna 1922 (now Izmir)

Hundreds of thousands of refugees

The bell tower of the former Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Fotini (Saint Photini) in Smyrna/Izmir (abt. 1875) destroyed in 1922.

Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story "On the Quai at Smyrna" in the aftermath of the burning of Smyrna (now Izmir) in September 1922.

Thousands of homeless refugees surged back and forth on the blistering quay – panic stricken to the point of insanity.¹

The destruction by fire of the cosmopolitan seaside city Smyrna, Anatolia (now Izmir, Turkey) was the climax to a series of political and military misadventures begotten by the Great Powers. ²  The burning of Smyrna (now Izmir) began four days after the Turkish military captured the city on 9 September, ending the Greco-Turkish War,³ Estimated Greek and Armenian deaths resulting from the fire range from 10,000 to 125,000.

There were hundreds of thousands of refugees.⁴

There are different accounts and eyewitness reports about who was responsible for the fire; most sources and scholars attribute it to Turkish soldiers setting fire to Greek and Armenian homes and businesses, while pro-Turkish sources hold that the Greeks and Armenians started the fire to tarnish the Turks' reputation.

The Orthodox Metropolitan/Cathedral of Agia Fotini (Saint Photini) was destroyed. Although there was a library near the burnt out area⁵ I could find no record of it after 1922.

1. Naimark, Norman M. 2002. Fires of hatred: ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, p. 50.

2. Stewart, Matthew. “It Was All a Pleasant Business: The Historical Context of ‘On the Quai at Smyrna.’” The Hemingway Review 23, no. 1 (2003): 58–71.

3. Clark, Bruce (2006). Twice A Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey. Harvard University Press.

4. Milton, Giles. 2010. Paradise Lost Smyrna 1922. Basic Books; I. N. DUNCAN WALLACE (2003) EVACUATION OF SMYRNA (IZMIR) TURKEY, 1922, Asian Affairs, 34:1, 54-57;Neyzi, Leyla. (2008). "Remembering Smyrna/Izmir: shared history, shared trauma." History and Memory: Studies in Representation of the Past, vol. 20, no. 2, 2008, p. 106

5. Chester GJ. THE GREEK LIBRARY AT SMYRNA. The Academy, 1869-1902, 0269-333X. 1880(409):178.