Remembrance Day for the Thracian Genocide: The Black Easter of 1914
By Marina Siskos. April 6 marks the Remembrance Day for the genocide of Thracian people. For Thrace, Easter of 1914 was the Black Easter. Implications of injustice, massive destruction and extermination of the Thracians extends to the present as the genocide affects the formation of identity and consciousness of their descendants. Collective memory moulds identity: mentality, discourse, self-perception and all its dimensions, material and non-material culture, literature and mythologies, directly or indirectly refer to the past and the suffering, the need for remembrance and the what should have been. Systematic atrocity: Backdrop of the Genocide of Ottoman minorities The turn of the 19th century heralds the collapse of the “multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman Empire,” manifested among a host of factors, such as the weakening of its once robust army, by the emergence of national independence movements, in tandem with opposing, imperialist European powers (Hoffman, 2022). The mov...