At the dawn of the 19th century, the Eastern Mediterranean formed the core of the Ottoman Empire. Following decades of political processes and transitions, uprisings, revolutions, and in some cases the active intervention of colonial powers, the region by the mid-20th century came to consist of the countries we recognize today: Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey.

Both, along the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean and in its broader hinterland, populations who often identified ethnically as “Greeks” or “Romaioi” and predominantly religiously as “Greek Orthodox Christians” lived—and in some cases, still live. However, there were also Greek Catholics and Protestants, as well as Greek Jews and Muslims. Their professional activities ranged from industrialists and large-scale merchants to office clerks, craftsmen, and unskilled laborers, with the majority of these Greeks belonging to middle and lower social classes.