In large numbers, Greeks moved to Romania, and by the thousands to the Russian Empire, where 80% of southern grain trade in the mid-19th century belonged to Greek merchants. Almost 90 thousand Greek families settled in Austria-Hungary, and a large Greek colony grew up in Paris. Rapidly developing Europe became a place for the application of numerous talents of Greeks: hundreds of Greek trading and intermediary firms operated there, whose prosperity was aided by the Greeks' excellent knowledge of local languages and customs, and their ability to get along with any people. Life made Greeks exceptionally mobile. As the magazine "Europe" notes, they adapt well to new conditions, have left a significant mark on the economy, politics, and culture of many countries, while remaining patriots of their country and adherents of Hellenism.
Despite the fact that capitalism also developed in Greece at the end of the 19th century and the first industrial enterprises appeared, there were still very few jobs, and the country became a supplier of cheap labor to the West. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the catastrophic defeat of the Greeks in the war with Kemalist Turkey in 1921-22, the situation on the labor market worsened. A mass influx of Greeks from Asia Minor into Greece began. They were fleeing the Turkish massacre (in Izmir alone, the Kemalists killed more than 30 thousand people) or were forced to leave Turkey under the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
Many of the refugees left their native Anatolian villages and cities without having time to take anything with them except icons, and found themselves in complete poverty. Of the 1.3 million migrants, only Athens took in 300 thousand. The rest settled in Macedonia and Crete – in place of the 400 thousand Muslim Turks who had left. They founded new settlements, preserving the old names with the prefix "new" – Nea Michaniona, Nea Herakleia...
The most educated immigrants and entrepreneurs settled in the cities, doing much for the development of Greek industry – the production of tobacco, cigarettes and cigars, carpets, and textiles. From Asia Minor they brought the now iconic musical instrument bouzouki and sad songs in the rebetiko style. The bouzouki conquered the hearts of Greeks and the whole world, becoming one of the symbols of Greece.
Following the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire also collapsed, and again a wave of refugees flooded Greece. These were, firstly, Russian Greeks who had closed their old firms in Mariupol, Odessa, Yeysk, Sevastopol and other cities of the South of Russia; secondly, Russian nobles, diplomats (Sheremetevs, Demidovs, Orlovs) and White officers. More than 23 thousand soldiers of Wrangel's army were stationed on the island of Lemnos under the protection of French troops. They founded a large Russian colony that made a significant contribution to Greek culture and science.
At the same time, large flows of Greek immigrants from Turkey poured into the USA, Canada, Latin America and Europe, where some of the Greeks made millions. Aristotle Onassis, starting small with women's cigarettes in Argentina, by the 60s of the 20th century became the richest shipowner on the planet; V. Sakharoff became a millionaire in Great Britain, and even earlier in Russia – Georgios Averoff, who restored the Olympic Stadium in Athens. A particularly large influx of Greek immigrants was observed in Europe, which was recovering after the Second World War. Some joined the ranks of the European proletariat, others received professional education there.
In the 1960s, dynamic development of the Greek economy began, largely facilitated by the influx of foreign, mainly European, capital and the expansion of foreign trade (as a result of the implementation of the post-war Marshall Plan). However, the small size of the production sector of the economy, low labor productivity, lack of capital investment, as well as political instability contributed to the maintenance of a fairly high level of unemployment, and emigration to more developed countries was still a forced measure for many young Greeks.
By the end of the 1970s, Greece had nevertheless become an industrial-agrarian state. The improvement in material well-being and working conditions, and after the overthrow of the junta in 1974, the development of democracy and easier access to education led to the fact that the outflow of labor from Greece almost ceased. But even in 1985, out of 9.9 million population, there were 200 thousand more women, mainly due to the emigration of able-bodied men leaving the less developed regions – Epirus, Thrace, the Peloponnese, the Aegean islands and the Ionian islands. The employment problem remained acute for young people under 30, who made up 28% of the labor force and 63% of the unemployed.
For many decades, a significant part of Greek family incomes consisted of remittances from relatives working abroad, and for the poor they were the only source of funds. Remittances from Greeks working abroad reached a record level of $1.3 billion in 1979, and due to the reduction in international labor markets and the ongoing crisis in world maritime transport, the total incomes of Greek emigrants fell to less than $700 million in 1983.
From the 15th to the 19th century, Venice was one of the main cultural centers of the Greek diaspora. Munich became the center of education for wealthy Greek youth and the training of military personnel during the reign of King Otto from the Bavarian dynasty in Greece. And from the 60s of the 19th century, Paris for a whole century became the most fashionable and attractive center for the formation of the main cadres of the Greek intelligentsia and political figures. Among them were the outstanding politician and Prime Minister E. Venizelos, General Plastiras, and K. Karamanlis.
Nowadays, more than four million Greeks live in 140 countries around the world, actively participating in the life of these states and in the development of Hellenism as a whole. The largest Greek colonies are in the USA (more than 2 million), Canada (350 thousand), as well as in Australia and New Zealand (700 thousand). The Greek diaspora can also be found in Africa: five thousand Greeks live in Egypt, four thousand in Zimbabwe, and the majority are in the Republic of South Africa (80 thousand people). One of Nelson Mandela's closest advisers was the lawyer George Bizos, a Greek by nationality.
There are also numerous Greek diasporas in European countries: more than 30 thousand Greeks live in France today, about 210 thousand Greeks and Greek Cypriots work in Great Britain, and the most hospitable country turned out to be Germany – more than 300 thousand Greeks live there.
Greeks often ask themselves: why do their compatriots achieve greater success outside Greece than at home? They succeed not only in business. Opera diva Maria Callas, while working in France, won world fame, later – director Costa-Gavras, student of the great Le Corbusier – Candilis, who distinguished himself this year with his projects for Olympic facilities, Byzantine historians – N. Svoronos and Eleni Ahrweiler, who for many years was rector of the Sorbonne, outstanding writer N. Kazantzakis, composer M. Theodorakis and many others. Greeks claim that the outstanding maestro Herbert von Karajan was also Greek. In Germany, the grandson of a hero of the Greek Revolution, Admiral Canaris, who headed the military intelligence and counterintelligence of Hitler's Germany, received his education and went down in world history.
To be continued.