Chypre et la Crète. Similitudes et contrastes d'évolution des deux îles principales de la Méditerranée orientale

Cyprus and Crete Cyprus (9.251 sq. km., about 800 000 inhabitants in 1992-1993) and Crete (8.336 sq. km., 540 000 inhabitants in 1991), the two main islands in eastern Mediterranean, present many similarities in their historical and demographical evolution. Both were parts of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, and experienced the grow of a Moslem community beside the main Greek element. In Crete, however, the so-called « Turcocretans » were reduced to an urban minority by a succession of uprisings, which led to annexation by Greece in 1912, and the last of them exchanged against Greek refugees coming from Turkey in 1923. On the contrary, Cyprus, a former British Crown colony, achieved independence in 1960 as a bi-national state. However, troubles between the communities (1963-1964) and invasion by the Turkish army in 1974 brought to a de facto partition of the island into two separate entities. The main purpose of this paper is to compare the pattern of geographical distribution and evolution of Greek and Turkish communities, as well as to analyse recent mass migration and urbanization processes.Kolodny Émile. Chypre et la Crète. Similitudes et contrastes d'évolution des deux îles principales de la Méditerranée orientale. In: Chypre hier et aujourd’hui entre Orient et Occident. Actes du colloque tenu à Nicosie, 1994, Université de Chypre et Université Lumière Lyon 2. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 1996. pp. 29-52. (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient méditerranéen, 25