Everything about Pomaks totally explained
The
Pomaks (
Bulgarian: Помаци,
Pomatsi;
Greek: Πομάκοι,
Pomaki; Turkish:
Pomaklar) or
Muslim Bulgarians (българи мюсюлмани,
bălgari mjusjulmani), also known locally as
Ahryani, are an Islamized
Slavic population of the
Rhodope region, as well as some villages around
Teteven in the central
Balkan Mountains region. Their origins are obscure, but they're generally believed to be Bulgarians who converted to Islam during the period of
Ottoman rule in the
Balkans. The term can also be occasionally used to refer to the
Torbesh - Slavonic muslims in Macedonia. Pomaks are settled mainly in
Bulgaria, but relevant presences exist also in
Greece,
Turkey and the
Republic of Macedonia.
Etymologies
The origin of the term "Pomak" is uncertain. For the Bulgarian scholars the term could derive either from the
Bulgarian word
pomagach (помагач), meaning "helper" (the most commonly accepted interpretation), referring to their role as auxiliary units of the Ottoman army; or from
pomohamedancheni (помохамеданчени), which means "Islamized". As for Ahryani, a name the Pomaks once used for themselves, this should come from the
Old Church Slavonic Agarjani, meaning "infidels", but it might actually derive from the para-religious Muslim brethren of the
Ahi, very diffuse in the
Rhodopes in the Ottoman period, as supposed by the Bulgarian scholar A. Ishirkov. Other versions still derive it from
po măka (по мъка), that's "by pain", referring to an alleged
forced conversion to Islam; or
poturnyak, literally "one made a Turk". None of these etymologies appear to be trustworthy.
Some
Greek scholars claim that Pomak comes from the
Greek pomax, meaning "drinker" an opinion which is based on the habbit of ancient Thracians to drink a lot. It is also believed that Ahryani would derive from the name of a supposedly
Thracian tribe, the
Agrianoi.
Conversion to Islam
Little is known for certain of the conversion of the Pomaks to
Islam; what appears certain is that it was gradual and took place in different periods. The first contacts of Islam with the Balkan nations is reported to have occurred in the 7th and 8th centuries, though it isn't known for certain whether any Pomaks converted to Islam at that time. A first important wave of conversions took place when, in the second half of the
14th century, the Ottomans conquered Bulgaria; many landholders are reported to have converted as a means to keep the possession of their lands. Other conversions took place under the
Sultan Selim II (
1512–
20), but most important was the
17th century, when the
Rhodopes passed to the Muslim faith. Pomak presence further gained strength through the
18th century, while the last waves of conversions in the
Balkans took place in the early
19th century.
These conversions were often believed until the early
20th century to have been made under compulsion, a belief that modern historians have discredited observing that Ottoman authorities rarely took measures to promote Islamization, and believe the Pomaks' conversion to have been voluntary. Official Bulgarian historiography instead has long claimed their conversion to have been forced against their fiercest resistance; this was seen as a mean to salvage the idea that all Bulgarians had been united in opposing the "Turkish yoke". This way the perfect "Bulgarianness" (
bălgarshtina) of the Pomaks could be preserved, coining the official ethonym "Bulgarian Mohammedans" (
bălgaromohamedani). An example of this sort of positions was expressed in
1989 by the nationalist historian Andrey Pechilkov: "After adopting Islam under the most terrible and harshest circumstances they (for example the Bulgarian Muslims) — people whose mind is full of tragedy, but who are hard as stones - did keep their beautiful Bulgarian language, their old Slavic traditions, their pure national character, despite brutal pressure and persecution throughout centuries."
Up to the Balkan Wars
With the end of the process of conversion the Pomaks (and the Torbesh) found themselves concentrated in the
Rhodopes, but with important settlements in eastern
Macedonia and on the
Danube districts, where they could be found centered around
Lovech,
Pleven and
Oryahovo. The Pomaks in the Rhodopes appear then to have benefited from a large measure of autonomy, with an
agha, a hereditary chieftain, governing from the mountain village of
Tamrash. The agha in
1890 also had a permanent
ambassador at
Plovdiv that provided visitors with a special visa to the territory controlled by the Rhodope Pomaks. The
Czech historian
Konstantin Jireček estimated at the turn of the
19th century that Torbesh and Pomaks were no less than half a million, even if Turkish sources reduce this number to 200,000.
But the situation started changing rapidly with the rising discontent among the Christian Bulgarian population regards Ottoman rule; this eventually brought in
1876 to the
April Uprising. and the Pomaks found themselves in a difficult position, for their being Bulgarians, and as such near the rebels, and Muslims, and as such close to the
Turks. At the end, the absence of a clear distinction between faith and nationality and their being perceived by the local Christians like Turks, brought them to side with the
Bashi-bazouks in ruthlessly suppressing the revolt. Pomak auxiliaries played a leading role in the massacres of
Batak and
Perushtitsa, among the worst made during the quelling of the uprising.
The quelling of the uprising and the reaction among the
European public opinion against the Bashi-bazouks and "the free actions of the Pomaks"; reaction was especially strong in
Russia, bringing to the
Russo-Turkish War (
1877–
8), with the formation of an independent kingdom of Bulgaria. The 1876 massacres brought during the war to harsh retalions from the Christian peasants and the advancing Russian army, with many Muslims killed and a substantial part of the Pomaks emigrating to the confines of the Ottoman empire, partly forced, partly refusing to live under the rule of the "giaurs" (for example infidels). Most hit were the Danube districts, that since the
siege of Pleven, almost all Pomaks fled. Many returned in
1880, but most, finding it impossible to regain what they'd lost during the war, began to emigrate to
Anatolia. Migrations like this was in time to reduce by
1926 the number of Pomaks in Bulgaria to a third.
After the
treaty of San Stefano in
1878 ended the war, many Pomaks took part to the "Rhodope mutiny", an organized counterattack of the Ottoman armed forces and the Muslim population of the Rhodopes, led by the former British consul in
Varna and
Burgas and volunteer officer in the Ottoman army with the active support of the British embassy in
Constantinople. Much of the Rhodope region was to be included in the autonomous Ottoman province of
Eastern Rumelia, to be governed by a Christian Governor-General; to this prospective twenty Pomak villages rebelled, forming the so-called "Pomak republic". The republic ceased to exist in
1886, a year after the unification of Eastern Rumelia with the kingdom of Bulgaria; the Pomaks' main reason to revolt had ceased, since the demarcation of the southern borders of Bulgaria left these villages in Ottoman territory.
The
Unification of Bulgaria in
1885 brought to a new wave of migration among the Pomaks. As to the early behaviour of the Bulgarian government, in general it can be said that there were no attempts to assimilate the Pomaks, who were treated as indistinguishable from the larger Muslim group. This is proven by the
census kept in 1880, 1885 and 1888, all of which counted the Pomaks with Turks. It was only in the
1905 census that a separate heading for the Bulgarian Muslims was made, under the voice "Pomaks".
One of the worst moments for the Pomaks came with the start of the
Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria,
Greece,
Montenegro and
Serbia united against the Ottoman Empire in
1912. In October, almost simultaneously with the start of the war, the Bulgarian government subjected the Rhodope Pomaks to a wave of forced conversions. The action, known as
Pokrustvane (meaning both "Christianisation" and "baptism"), affected 150,000 Pomaks, in an operation directed by a special state committee; in theory voluntary baptism should have been carried out by the
Bulgarian Church, but in truth a key role was played by the local administration supported by the army and the insurgent bands, a fact that brought to bloody
pogroms against the Pomaks in many villages.
Brutal force and intimidation were applied to convert the people. Active part in the violence took the members of extremist political formations, such as the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO), whose regiments were sent in
Drama region to forcefully Christianise the Pomaks. Muslims were also intimidated into conversion through promises to have their relatives released. But even worse was that the Pomak population was abandoned at the mercy of the army. Together with it, ordinary citizens participated to the
Pokrustvane campaign as well. While the authorities were intent with Bulgarianising the Pomaks, they ignored their most essential needs—to feed, dress, and shelter them. As a result of the plundering and burning their homes during the
Pokrustvane operation, the converts were left bare, starving and destitute.
Following the Bulgarian defeat in the war, for both external (the peace negotiations with the Ottoman Empire on the status of
Western Thrace) and internal (the upcoming parliamentary elections) reasons the government decided in autumn
1913 to reverse the policy of forced conversion and permitted the Pomaks to resume their former names, a thing they promptly did. The unsuccess of the policy of forced conversion had already been glimpsed a few months before, when the short-lived
Republic of Gumuljina was created in Western Thrace with the retreat of both Bulgarian and Ottoman forces; the Pomaks in the area had taken advantage of the situation to reconvert to Islam.
Greece
In
World War I,
Bulgaria sided with the
Central Powers, while
Greece allied itself with the
Triple Entente. The latter's victory brought in
1919 to the
treaty of Neuilly, under which Bulgaria ceded
Western Thrace to Greece. Pomaks there have received status as part of the wider
Muslim minority.
Turkey
Today the Pomaks are present in
Turkey in both
Eastern Thrace, where they've long been present, and in
Anatolia, where they've started migrating since the independence of Bulgaria in 1878, but were not previously present. Major waves of Pomaks arrived from the
Rhodopes in
1912,
1950–
51 and
1989. Since their settlement in Anatolia they've mostly lost their language, and, together with the local Pomaks in Eastern Thrace, were assimilated to the
Turks.
This doesn't mean that the Pomaks have become completely indistinct from the rest of the Turks; and it appears they're politically well-organized. This is has partly expressed itself through associations of emigrants, like the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Rhodope Turks, a relatively well known if small organization founded by Pomaks before the
1980s; it later merged itself with a similar association of Danubian Turks to form the
Culture and Solidarity Association of Rodope-Denube Turks. It is also claimed that
Kurdish immigrants settling in Eastern Thrace have brought the Pomaks and Bulgarian Turks living there to become more conscious of their identities.
More important still are the links that connect the Pomak villages in the Rhodopes with their twin villages in Anatolia; the Pomaks who leave Bulgaria often direct themselves to villages inhabited by his kin and friends, that can offer him security. These twin villages are often united by direct lines run by private bus companies.
Differently from Bulgaria, where the Pomaks are reluctant to leave their mountain villages, in Turkey the Pomaks have largely settled in urban areas, notwithstanding past attempts by the authorities to settle them in Anatolian villages. In Yulian Konstantinov's view, this different behaviour should be seen in the light of shifting perceptions of security and insecurity: while Bulgaria is perceived as "insecure", Turkey is instead felt "secure" by the Pomaks.
Coming to the number of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims in Turkey, it's claimed by
Ethnologue that they're 300,000 at present. The last linguistic
census held in Turkey since
1965 recorded 27,226 people whose mother language was Bulgarian; but this number is almost certainly an undercount.
Regards the Pomaks, its history and identity has been subjected to reinterpretation by the Turks, following the models of appropriation and reinterpretation created among Bulgarians and Greeks. In this view, the Pomaks are really "mountain Turks", descendant of the
Turkic peoples that entered the
Balkans in the
Middle Ages, such as the
Avars,
Bulgars, and, especially, the
Cumans. As for the language, it's claimed that it's a
Turkish dialect, very close to Anotolian vernacular dialects, in which 65% of the words are Turkish and only 25% Slavic. Regarding their conversion, it's held that the Cumans living in the Rhodopes came into contact with Muslim
missionaries from
North Africa and the
Middle East and converted to Islam before the arrival of the Ottomans. Works supporting these arguments, while clearly on the outside margins of scholarship, are widely used as political propaganda.
Further Information
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