July 1 marks the anniversary of the day Turkey banned the teaching of the Greek language on the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, (now Gokceada and Bozcaada in Turkish) both formerly Greek since ancient times.
Yet, after the rise of Turkish nationalism and the persecution of Greeks in the mid-1950s, on 1 July 1964, the then Turkish government prohibited the teaching of Greek on the two islands.
The two Aegean islands were Greek since ancient times, as Imbros belonged to the Athenian Alliance and on Tenedos there was a temple of Apollo. However, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the two Aegean islands were claimed by the Ottomans and the Venetians, mainly because of their strategic position, both being very close to the entrance of the Dardanelles Strait that leads to the Marmara Sea.
At the time of World War I, on Imbros there were 8,000 Greeks and on Tenedos near 3,000. Until 1920 they belonged to the Ottoman Empire. After Turkey and Germany lost the war, the 1920 Treaty of Sevres saw the two islands granted to Greece, an event that was greeted with enthusiasm by their inhabitants.
