| Born in Bulgaria | 372,000 [1] |
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| Languages | |
| Turkish · Bulgarian | |
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| Islam | |
The Bulgarian Turks in Turkey represent a community of Bulgarian Turks, who immigrated over the years from Bulgaria to Turkey. They are notable in Turkey for being descendants of Balkan Turks who had to escape persecution. [2] [3] and moreover, part of them continue to be dual citizens of Bulgaria and Turkey, which makes them a natural bridge between both countries.
Bulgarian Turks are descendants of Asian settlers who came across the narrows of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria. [4] [5] It has also been suggested that some Turks living today in Bulgaria may be direct ethnic descendants of earlier medieval Pecheneg, Oğuz, and Cuman Turkic tribes. [6] [7] [8] The Turkish community became an ethnic minority when the Principality of Bulgaria was established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.
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Pomaks are Pomak-speaking muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government. The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania.
This article includes information on the demographic history of Kosovo.
The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Christians coalition led by the Russian Empire and composed of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. Fought in the Balkans and in the Caucasus, it originated in emerging 19th century Balkan nationalism. Additional factors included the Russian goals of recovering territorial losses endured during the Crimean War of 1853–56, re-establishing itself in the Black Sea and supporting the political movement attempting to free Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire.
Islam in Bulgaria is a minority religion and the second largest religion in the country after Christianity. According to the 2011 Census, the total number of Muslims in Bulgaria stood at 577,139, corresponding to 7.8% of the population. According to a 2017 estimate, Muslims make up 15% of the population. Ethnically, Muslims in Bulgaria are Turks, Bulgarians and Roma, living mainly in parts of northeastern Bulgaria and in the Rhodope Mountains.
The Turkish people, or simply the Turks, are the world's largest Turkic ethnic group; they are native to East Thrace and Anatolia and speak various dialects of the Turkish language and form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still live across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. The ethnic Turks can therefore be distinguished by a number of cultural and regional variants, but do not function as separate ethnic groups. In particular, the culture of the Anatolian Turks in Asia Minor underlies the Turkish nationalist ideology. Other Turkish groups include the Rumelian Turks historically in the Balkans, today mostly living in Turkey; Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus, Meskhetian Turks originally based in Meskheti, Georgia; and ethnic Turkish people across the Middle East, where they are also called "Turkmen" or "Turkoman" in the Levant. Consequently, the Turks form the largest minority group in Bulgaria, the second largest minority group in Iraq, Libya, North Macedonia, and Syria, and the third largest minority group in Kosovo. They also form substantial communities in the Western Thrace region of Greece, the Dobruja region of Romania, the Akkar region in Lebanon, as well as minority groups in other post-Ottoman Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. Due to mass migrations from the 19th century onward, these Turkish communities have all contributed to the formation of a Turkish diaspora outside the former Ottoman lands. Thus, the Turks also form the largest ethnic minority group in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. There are also Turkish communities in other parts of Europe as well as in North America, Australia, and the Post-Soviet states.
The Macedonian Muslims, also known as Muslim Macedonians or Torbeši, and in some sources grouped together with Pomaks, are a minority religious group within the community of ethnic Macedonians who are Sunni Muslims. They have been culturally distinct from the majority Orthodox Christian Macedonian community for centuries, and are ethnically and linguistically distinct from the larger Muslim ethnic groups in the greater region of Macedonia: the Albanians, Turks and Romanis. However, some Torbeši also still maintain a strong affiliation with Turkish identity and with Macedonian Turks. The regions inhabited by these Macedonian-speaking Muslims are Debarska Župa, Poreče, Dolni Drimkol, Reka, and Golo Brdo.
Bulgarian Turks are a Turkish ethnic group from Bulgaria. In 2011, there were 588,318 Bulgarians of Turkish descent, roughly 8.8% of the population, making them the country's largest ethnic minority. Bulgarian Turks also comprise the largest single population of Turks in the Balkans. They primarily live in the southern province of Kardzhali and the northeastern provinces of Shumen, Silistra, Razgrad and Targovishte. There is also a diaspora outside Bulgaria in countries such as Turkey, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Romania, the most significant of which are the Bulgarian Turks in Turkey.
Muhacir or Muhajir are the estimated 10 million Ottoman Muslim citizens, and their descendants born after the onset of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, mostly Turks but also Albanians, Bosniaks, Greek Muslims, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Pomaks, Serb Muslims, and Muslim Roma who emigrated to East Thrace and Anatolia from the late 18th century until the end of the 20th century, mainly to escape ongoing persecution in their homelands. Today, between a third and a quarter of Turkey's population of 85 million have ancestry from these Muhacirs.
Romani people in Bulgaria constitute Europe's densest Romani minority. The Romani people in Bulgaria may speak Bulgarian, Turkish or Romani, depending on the region.
Turks of Western Thrace are ethnic Turks who live in Western Thrace, in the province of East Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece.
Religion in Bulgaria has been dominated by Christianity since its adoption as the state religion in 865. The dominant form of the religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity within the fold of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman rule of the Balkans, Sunni Islam spread in the territories of Bulgaria, and it remains a significant minority today. The Catholic Church has roots in the country since the Middle Ages, and Protestantism arrived in the 19th century.
Muslimansko Roma or Muslimanenge Roma in Balkan Romani language, are Romani people, who adopted Sunni Islam of Hanafi madhab and Ottoman culture. Some of them are Derviş of Sufism belief, and the biggest Tariqa of Jerrahi is located at the largest Muslim Roma settlement in Europe in Šuto Orizari. Muslim Roma practice Religious male circumcision, the boys are circumcised at the age of five, because the number 5 (panč) is a sacred symbol among the romani people. Islam among Roma is historically associated with life of Roma within the Ottoman Empire, because Muslim Roma were preferred in the Ottoman Empire and Roma converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. Muslim Roma was settled in Rumelia from Anatolia and Ottoman Cyprus. Evliya Çelebi mentioned in his Seyahatnâme book, that Mehmed the Conqueror, after 1453, brought the Muslim Romani from Balat, Didim and Gümülcine to Istanbul, and that they worked as Musicians there. Correspondingly, significant cultural minorities of Muslim Roma are found in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Republic of North Macedonia, Bulgaria,, ,, Croatia, Southern Russia, Greece, Northern Cyprus, Serbia and Crimea. The majority speak Balkan Romani or Kurbetcha in lesser case Rumelian Romani, while many speak only the language from the host country's like Albanian and South Slavic languages, and deny their Romani Background. The majority of Turkish speaking Muslim Roma in Bulgaria and some in Turkey declare themselves to be Turks instead of Roma people. Genetic influence of the Ottoman occupiers on the Balkan-Roma population. In Ottoman Archives they are mentioned of Turkman Kıptileri. They spoke only Turkish and no Romani language. The Turkification of this subgroup of Romani was already completed at the time of the Ottoman Empire. Many Turkish-speaking Roma from the Balkans invoke this theory, and consider themselves as descendants of this group, however most have adopted the Turkish language over century and abandoned the Romani language in order to establish a Turkish identity to become more recognized by the non-Romani host population.
The Romani people in Turkey are Sunni muslims who speak Turkish as their first language, in their own accent, and take the Turkish culture. In Turkey, they identify themselves as Romanlar and not as Roma. They are also called Şopar in Rumelian Romani dialect, and Çingene (Gypsy) in Turkish. As Gastarbeiter some Men and Families came to Germany and Austria.
Bulgarians in Turkey form a minority of Turkey. They are Bulgarian expatriates in Turkey or Turkish citizens was born there of full or partially Bulgarian descent. People of Bulgarian ancestry include a large number from the Pomak and a very small number of Orthodox of ethnic Bulgarian origin.
This article is about the demographics of the Ottoman Empire, including population density, ethnicity, education level, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina also known as Bosnian Turks, are ethnic Turks who form the oldest ethnic minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Turkish community began to settle in the region in the 15th century under Ottoman rule, however many Turks emigrated to Turkey when Bosnia and Herzegovina came under Austro-Hungarian rule.
The Turks in Europe refers to ethnic Turks living in Europe. Generally, the Euro-Turks refers to the large Turkish diasporas living in Central and Western Europe as well as the historic Turkish minorities living in the Balkans since Ottoman rule, and the Turks living in Russia and other European Post-Soviet states. When the term "Euro-Turks" is taken in its most literal sense, Turkish people living in the European portion of Turkey are also included in the term. Even more broadly, the Turkish Cypriot community for centuries old native people living in Cyprus have also been defined under the term "Euro-Turks" since the island joined the European Union.
The official language of Bulgaria is Bulgarian, which is spoken natively by 85% of the country's population. Other major languages are Turkish (9.1%), and Romani (4.2%). There are smaller numbers of speakers of Western Armenian, Aromanian, Romanian, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz and Balkan Gagauz, Macedonian and English. Bulgarian Sign Language has an estimated 37,000 signers.
Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 26% to 31% of the population.
During the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Muslim inhabitants living in territories previously under Ottoman control, often found themselves as a persecuted minority after borders were re-drawn. These populations, who enjoyed the status of a privileged minority under Ottoman hegemony, were subject to expropriation, massacres, and even ethnic cleansing.
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