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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Cyprus
Index
Turkish Cypriot society, in the decades after World War
II,
experienced a series of trials almost cataclysmic in scope
and
intensity. Earlier, the Turkish Cypriot minority had lived
quietly
and securely under British rule. During the war, many
Cypriots left
the island for the first time to fight in His Majesty's
forces. The
burgeoning of Greek Cypriot nationalism in the 1950s at
first only
aroused misgivings in Turkish Cypriots, but within a few
years it
drew them into what they saw as a struggle for their
survival as an
independent community. In the 1960s, Turkish Cypriots
often feared
for their physical survival, and fled into fortified
enclaves
around the island. The Turkish intervention of 1974 led to
the de
facto partition of Cyprus, with Turkish Cypriots
controlling 37
percent of its territory.
The partition disrupted many lives, and more than half
of the
Turkish Cypriots had to abandon their homes and find new
places of
residence. Once in possession of their own territory, they
set
about constructing a new state and creating a functioning
economy.
Old habits and ways of life had to be discarded, for now
all
aspects of society became the responsibility of the
Turkish
Cypriots themselves. Education expanded, a new
professional class
emerged, a growing economy created new kinds of
occupations, women
left their homes to work, life in formerly isolated
villages life
was altered by the pull of the urban areas, and the
Turkish Cypriot
community entered a phase of its existence unimaginable a
generation earlier.
Data as of January 1991
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