Pomaks

Pomaks
Помаци
Pomaklar
Πομάκοι

Pomak women from the village of Mugla - 1934
Total population
1,000,000 est.
Regions with significant populations
Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey
Languages
Bulgarian Turkish Greek
Religion
Sunni Islam, also Bektashism

Pomaks (Bulgarian: Помаци, Greek: Πομάκοι, Turkish: Pomaklar) are a Bulgarian speaking, Muslim population group native to some parts of Bulgaria, specifically southern Bulgaria, and the adjacent parts of Greece and Turkey. Members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities, Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, Pomak^[1][2][3] or Muslim.^[4] Historically they are usually considered descendants of native Bulgarians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans,^[5] although some alternative narratives of their historical identity have been proposed^[6] and, according to some authors, their precise origins remain unknown.^[7] Pomaks speak dialects of the Bulgarian language as their mother tongue^{[8][9][10][11]}, they are fluent in Turkish in Greece and Turkey and they also speak Greek in Greece.^[12][13]

Population

Bulgaria

Ethnographic map of European Turkey from the late 19th. century, showing the regions largely populated by Pomaks in brown.

A mosque in Madan in the Rhodopes, a region largely populated by Pomaks

The Pomaks in Bulgaria are referred to as Bulgarian Muslims (българи-мюсюлмани bălgari-mjusjulmani), or under the ethnographic names Ahryani, Torbeshi, etc. They mainly inhabit the Rhodope Mountains in Smolyan Province, Kardzhali Province, Pazardzhik Province and Blagoevgrad Province. There are Pomaks in other parts of Bulgaria as well. There are a few Pomak villages in Burgas Province, Lovech Province, Veliko Tarnovo Province and Ruse Province.^[14] According to the 2001 census there are 131 531 Muslim Bulgarians in Bulgaria.^[15]Since the start of the 20th century the Pomaks in Bulgaria were the subject of state-supported assimilation which included the change of their Turkish-Arabic names to ethnic Bulgarian ones and conversions from Islam to Eastern Orthodoxy. The Bulgarian state redefined the Pomaks as ancestral Bulgarians who therefore needed to be repatriated back to the Bulgarian national domain. These attempts were met with stiff resistance by the Pomaks.^[16]

Republic of Macedonia

The Macedonian Muslims, or Torbeš, are occasionally also referred to as Pomaks, especially in historical context^{[17][18][19][20]}. They are a minority religious group in the Republic of Macedonia, although not all espouse a Macedonian national identity and are linguistically distinct from the larger Muslim ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia, Albanians and Turks.

Albania

Slavic-speaking Muslims, sometimes referred to as "Pomaks", live also in the Albanian region of Golo Brdo. However these people are also referred to as "Torbeš". They speak the Drimkol-Golo Brdo dialect of the Macedonian language. Part of this people still self identify as Bulgarians.^[21]

Kosovo

The Gorani occasionally are also referred to as Pomaks in historical context.^[22][23] They are people who inhabit the Gora region, located between Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. The general view is that they should be treated as a distinct minority group.^[24][25] Part of these people are already albanised.^[26] By the last censusses at the end of 20th century in Yugoslavia they have decleared themselves to be Muslims by nationality.^[27]

Greece

Today the Pomaks (Greek: Πομάκοι) in Greece inhabit the prefectures of Xanthi, Rhodope and Evros.^[14] Until Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 Pomaks inhabited a part of the regions of Moglena^[28], Kostur^[29] and some other parts of Macedonia, Greece. The Pomaks of Thrace were exempted from those exchanges and, together with Muslim Turks and Roma, were granted by the Lausanne Treaty (1923) the right to primary education in Turkish and Greek. Some Pomaks still transmit their dialect (called pomatsko in Greece) to their children and also speak Turkish and Greek, but a large part of them no longer transmit it, having adopted Turkish or Greek as a first language.^[30]

Turkey

Today the Pomaks are present in Turkey, in both Eastern Thrace and in Anatolia where they are referred to as Pomaklar and their language as Pomakça.There are 300.000 Pomaks in Turkey.

Alternative origin theories

A specific DNA mutation which emerged about 2,000 years ago on a rare haplotype is characteristic of the Pomaks. Its frequency increased as a consequence of high genetic drift within this population. This indicates that the Pomaks are an isolated population with limited contacts with their neighbours. The DNA tree line of Pomaks suggests the hypothesis that Pomaks are descendants of ancient Thracian tribes.^[31][32]

According some historians some of the Pomaks in the Rhodope Mountains are successors of the Cumans that converted to Islam in the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century after establishing contact with missionaries from North Africa and the Middle East.^[33] This theory is further backed by the fact that in the 9th century many Muslims moved from Bulgaria to Hungary and were ordered expelled by Pope Nicholas I in 866, yet enjoyed many freedoms and were even allowed to serve in the military and in border guard units during the 11th and 12th century. Many researchers are of the opinion that these were Cumans or Pechenegs.^[34]

Another view, especially popular among the Pomaks themselves,^[35] is that they are descendants of Thraco-Slavs or pre-Islamic Arab migrants to the Balkans who were converted to Islam by Arab missionaries. This theory is supported by comments of 9th century Christian missionaries in the area about occasional distribution of religious literature by some Islamic missionaries.^[36] There are also reports of Muslims migrating from medieval Bulgaria to Hungary, and there is evidence of Arab raids into the peninsula from the 7th century on.^[37]

This section requires expansion.

Further reading

• Georgieva, Bozhidara (June 2009). "Who are the Pomaks?". Vagabond (33). http://www.vagabond.bg/index.php?page=live&sub=19&open_news=1489. 
• Raichevsky, Stoyan (in English). Mohammedan Bulgarians. Pencheva, Maya (translator). Sofia: Natl Museum of Bulgaria. ISBN 978-954-930-841-9. 
• Арденски, Владимир (2000) (in Bulgarian). Капки от корена. София: ИК „Ваньо Недков“. ISBN 978-954-8176-55-2. 
• Арденски, Владимир (2005) (in Bulgarian). Загаснали огнища. София: ИК „Ваньо Недков“. ISBN 978-954-8176-96-5. 
• Груев, Михаил; Кальонски, Алексей (in Bulgarian). Възродителният процес. Мюсюлманските общности и комунистическият режим. София: Институт за изследване на близкото минало; Фондация „Отворено общество“; Сиела. ISBN 978-954-280-291-4. 
• Ghodsee, Kristen (21 January 2009). "Identity Shift". Transitions Online. ISSN 1214-1615. http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=305&NrSection=3&NrArticle=20319. 
• Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. "The Human Rights of Muslims in Bulgaria in Law and Politics since 1878", Sofia, November 2003
• Ghodsee, Kristen (in English). Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13955-5. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9068.html. 

References