Pomaks

Not to be confused with Pomors.

Pomaks
Помаци
Πομάκοι
Pomaklar
Pomaks in the early 20th century
Total population
c. 1 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Turkey350,000[1]- 600,000[2]
 Bulgaria107,777 (2021 Census)[3] 67,350 Muslim Bulgarians (2011 census)[4]
up to 250,000[1]
 Greece50,000 in Western Thrace[1]
Languages
Bulgarian (native), Greek (by those resident in Greece) and Turkish (by those resident in Turkey)[a][5][6][7][8]
Religion
Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Other South Slavic Muslims

Pomaks (Bulgarian: Помаци, romanized: Pomatsi; Greek: Πομάκοι, romanized: Pomáki; Turkish: Pomaklar) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting Bulgaria, northwestern Turkey, and northeastern Greece.[9] The c. 220,000 strong[10] ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government.[11] The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania.[12][13]

Most Pomaks today live in Turkey, where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.[14][15][16][17]

Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language.[18] The community in Greece is commonly fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, especially in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their first language as a result of education and family links with the Turkish people.[19][20]

They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims,[21] considered derogatory.[clarification needed] However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades.[clarification needed] Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian,[22][23] Pomak,[24][25][26] ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.[27]

  1. ^ a b c d Carl Skutsch (7 November 2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. pp. 974–. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.
  2. ^ "Türkiye'deki Kürtlerin sayısı!" (in Turkish). 6 June 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  3. ^ https://m.novinite.com/articles/217761/71.5+are+the+Christians+in+Bulgaria [bare URL]
  4. ^ 2011 Bulgarian census, p.29 Archived 27 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine (in Bulgarian)
  5. ^ "Ethnologue, Languages of Greece.Bulgarian".
  6. ^ "Ethnologue: Languages of the World Fourteenth Edition.Bulgarian". Archived from the original on 16 January 2009. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  7. ^ "Pomak | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  8. ^ "Social Construction of Identities: Pomaks in Bulgaria, Ali Eminov, JEMIE 6 (2007) 2 © 2007 by European Centre for Minority Issues" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
  9. ^ Carl Waldman; Catherine Mason (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. pp. 607–. ISBN 978-1-4381-2918-1. living in the Rhodope Mountains in Thrace in southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and northwestern Turkey.
  10. ^ Thomas M. Wilson; Hastings Donnan (2005). Culture and Power at the Edges of the State: National Support and Subversion in European Border Regions. LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 158–159. ISBN 978-3-8258-7569-5. The name ... refers to about 220,000 people in Bulgaria ... Pomaks inhabit borderlands ... between Bulgaria and Greece
  11. ^ Hugh Poulton; Suha Taji-Farouki (January 1997). Muslim Identity and the Balkan State. Hurst. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-1-85065-276-2. The Pomaks, known officially in Bulgaria as Bulgarian Muhammadans or Bulgarian Muslims, are an ethno-confessional minority at present numbering about 220,000 people.
  12. ^ Kristen Ghodsee (27 July 2009). Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria. Princeton University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-4008-3135-7.
  13. ^ P. H. Liotta (1 January 2001). Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. Lexington Books. pp. 246–. ISBN 978-0-7391-0212-1.
  14. ^ Myuhtar-May, Fatme (2014). Identity, nationalism, and cultural heritage under siege : five narratives of Pomak heritage - from forced renaming to weddings /. Balkan studies library. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-27207-1.
  15. ^ Haksöz, Cengiz (2018). "Migration in the Southern Balkans. From Ottoman Territory to Globalized Nation States". Südosteuropa. 66 (4): 603–605. doi:10.1515/soeu-2018-0047. ISSN 2364-933X. S2CID 187892002.
  16. ^ "Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria - [PDF Document]". cupdf.com. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  17. ^ Apostolov, Mario (1996). "The Pomaks: A Religious Minority in the Balkans". Nationalities Papers. 24 (4): 727–742. doi:10.1080/00905999608408481. ISSN 0090-5992. S2CID 153397474.
  18. ^ Turan, Ömer (2007). "Pomaks, Their Past and Present". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 19 (1): 69–83. doi:10.1080/13602009908716425.
  19. ^ [1] Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine THE POMAKS, Report – Greek Helsinki Monitor
  20. ^ "Turks and Pomaks". Minority Rights Group. 19 June 2015. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference pomaks1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ "СТРУКТУРА НА НАСЕЛЕНИЕТО ПО ВЕРОИЗПОВЕДАНИЕ" [STRUCTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POPULATION]. nsi.bg (in Bulgarian). Archived from the original on 25 December 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  23. ^ Muslim identity and the Balkan State; Hugh Poulton, Suha Taji-Farouki; 1997, p. 102
  24. ^ "Interview With Mr. Damjan Iskrenov* and Mr. Shikir Bujukov* from the Village of Kochan – Pomaks from Chech, Western Rodop Mountains (Pirin Part of Macedonia), R. of Bulgaria" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016.
  25. ^ "READING ROOM 3: Raw deal for the Pomaks".
  26. ^ "Помаците искат да бъдат признати като етнос | Dnes.bg". www.dnes.bg.
  27. ^ Histories and Identities: Nation-state and Minority Discourses. The Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks. Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Graz


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