Greek Minorca in modern times

[Gorro Rubio]

I was reading Abulafia’s The Boundless Sea and he mentions that there was a plan to people Minorca with Greek settlers during the British domination of the island in the 18th century. After some research, it looks like that was indeed the case, though he exaggerates a bit its scope.

Assuming it had been carried through and the island had passed to Spain later on (as it did OTL), would that have changed the dynamics of the Western Mediterranean substantially, or not really?

 

[Gary Oswald]

The Greeks in Corsica might be a relevant comparison.

In that the legacy of Greek settlement was the Corsicans kept trying to kill them and then they fled to Algeria.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Does seem most likely that the Greeks mostly have to leave as the Spanish will think they're too loyal to Britain - in which case the big impact is from wherever the Greeks flee too - unless they manage to hold on until Spain and Britain go "we're chums now" against the French. If they do stick around, is there emigration to the new independent Kingdom of Greece after?

 

[Indicus]

There’s another model in this, the Genoese of Gibraltar. The Genoese made up a large enough minority that Italian was used for Gibraltarian government decrees until 1830, but they were eventually subsumed into the wider Gibraltar culture, though not without leaving an impact in culture and local speech.

The Greeks would probably be subsumed into wider Minorcan society much more slowly due to the language being more different and there being a religious difference, but I think it might be similar in some ways.

 

[Gary Oswald]

There’s another model in this, the Genoese of Gibraltar. The Genoese made up a large enough minority that Italian was used for Gibraltarian government decrees until 1830, but they were eventually subsumed into the wider Gibraltar culture, though not without leaving an impact in culture and local speech.

The Greeks would probably be subsumed into wider Minorcan society much more slowly due to the language being more different and there being a religious difference, but I think it might be similar in some ways.

If Minorca remains British, I can agree that's likely.

If it returns to the Spanish, I think there's going to be distrust against a group seen as loyal to the british. One of the reasons the greeks in Corsica were so unpopular was that they were bought there by the genoans and remained loyal to genoa while the rets of Corsica spent a century trying to kick them out. This won't be quite as bad as that but given that the jews from north africa settled in Minorca by the british were kicked out by the Spanish upon the reconquest (I think so anyway @iainbhx and @Ciclavex almost certainly know more) then I'd expect the same to be true of the greeks.

There is, however a third option, as I have discussed before, the british had serious plans to sell Minorca to Russia prior to the Spanish invasion. In which case the Russians would probably be delighted at having an orthodox greek minority already there.

 

[iainbhx]

There is a whole group of crypto Jews in the Balearics who are very interesting in themselves - they got a brief mention in Azure.

 

[Gary Oswald]

T. M. Benady in his article 'The role of Jews in the British colonies of the Western Mediterranean' claims that both times Minorca was captured from the British (by the French in 1756 and the Spanish in 1781) all British orientated civilians were expelled (to Gibraltar in 1756 and Marseille in 1781).

The second time in 1781, he quotes Cecil Roth saying that 500 Jewish and Greek settlers were expelled, of which Benady estimates 100 were Jewish and 400 were Greek.

So if we do get more Greek immigration, say 1000 rather than 400, that probably just means two boats to Marseille rather than one. Unless a) the British don't lose it to the Spanish or b) the Greeks turn on the British in some way that means the Spanish trust them.

 

[Charles EP M.]

There is, however a third option, as I have discussed before, the british had serious plans to sell Minorca to Russia prior to the Spanish invasion. In which case the Russians would probably be delighted at having an orthodox greek minority already there.

All the recurring "what happens if Alaska stays Russian and the revolution happens" timelines and we've had "what if this island in the Med is Russian when the revolution happens" right there unused!

 

[Alex Richards]

All the recurring "what happens if Alaska stays Russian and the revolution happens" timelines and we've had "what if this island in the Med is Russian when the revolution happens" right there unused!

There's got to be mileage in a British protectorate formed of a bunch of random exilic states on islands in the Mediterranean.

 

[Gorro Rubio]

There is a whole group of crypto Jews in the Balearics who are very interesting in themselves - they got a brief mention in Azure.

The Xuetas, indeed. They were still discriminated until the 70s, and in fact some reverted and made Aaliyah.

The thing with converted Sephardim is that apart from Majorca (which was an island and thus harder to move around) they had mingled enough by the 18th century to lose their separate identity, even though you still had to prove your limpieza de sangre to apply for any public post till 1838 (records forgery was your friend). I have some remote Jewish ancestry myself from what I found studying the family tree, as does pretty much every Spaniard due to the high number of Jews there were in the late Middle Ages and converted.

 

[Roger II]

The Xuetas, indeed. They were still discriminated until the 70s, and in fact some reverted and made Aaliyah.

The thing with converted Sephardim is that apart from Majorca (which was an island and thus harder to move around) they had mingled enough by the 18th century to lose their separate identity, even though you still had to prove your limpieza de sangre to apply for any public post till 1838 (records forgery was your friend). I have some remote Jewish ancestry myself from what I found studying the family tree, as does pretty much every Spaniard due to the high number of Jews there were in the late Middle Ages and converted.

I think there were/are still some bnei anusim families in the Spanish Americas, some of whom have reverted-you hear about Brazilians who found out they were Jewish because their grandmother would light two candles every Friday in a cupboard or something like that. And on the flip side, a lot of Sephardim who left the Iberian penninsula spoke late medieval Spanish and Portugese until well into the 19th and 20th century although Ladino is now a endangered language without the insular core community of speakers Yiddish has.