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Muhacir
Muhacir is a term referring to Ottoman Muslim citizens and their descendants born after the onset of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Muhacirs overwhelmingly self-identified as Muslims and their numbers are estimated in the millions. The refugees from Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia had primarily Anatolian Turkish background. Other backgrounds included Albanians, Bosniaks, Chechens, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Pomaks, Macedonian Muslims, Greek Muslims, Serb Muslims, Georgian Muslims, Ossetian Muslims and Muslim Roma.
They immigrated to modern-day Turkey, mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries to escape the persecution of Ottoman Muslims by Christians in territories formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Further migration from Bulgaria occurred from 1940 to 1990. Up to a third of the modern-day population of Turkey may have ancestry from these Turkish and other Muslim migrants.
Approximately 5-7 million Muslim migrants arrived in Ottoman Anatolia and modern Turkey from 1783 to 2016 from the Balkans (Bulgaria, 1.15-1.5 million; Greece, 1.2 million; Romania, 400,000; Yugoslavia, 800,000; Russia, 500,000; the Caucasus, 900,000, of whom two-thirds remained, the rest going to Syria, Jordan and Cyprus; and Syria, 500,000, mostly as a result of the Syrian Civil War in 2011). Of these, 4 million came by 1924; 1.3 million, post-1934 to 1945; and more than 1.2 million, before the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The influx of Muhacir migration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was caused by the loss of almost all Ottoman territory in Europe during the Balkan War of 1912-13 and the First World War. These refugees viewed the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently the Republic of Turkey, as a protective "motherland". Many Muhacirs escaped to Anatolia as a result of the widespread persecution of Ottoman Muslims by Christians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
Thereafter, with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, a large influx of Turks, as well as other Muslims, from the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Aegean islands, Cyprus, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (İskenderun), the Middle East, and the Soviet Union continued to arrive in the region, settling mostly in urban north-western Anatolia. During the Circassian genocide, 800,000–1,500,000 Muslim Circassians were systematically mass-murdered, ethnically cleansed, and expelled from Circassia in the aftermath of the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864).[clarification needed] In 1923, more than half a million ethnic Muslims of various nationalities arrived from Greece as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey—an exchange based not on ethnicity but religious affiliation.[citation needed]
After 1925, Turkey continued to accept Turkic-speaking Muslims as immigrants and did not discourage the immigration of members of non-Turkic minorities. More than 90 percent of all immigrants arrived from Balkan countries. From 1934 to 1945, 229,870 refugees and immigrants came to Turkey.
From the 1930s to 2016, migration added two million Muslims in Turkey. The majority of these were Balkan Turks who faced harassment and discrimination. New waves of Turks and other Muslims expelled from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia between 1951 and 1953 were followed to Turkey by another exodus from Bulgaria in 1983–89, bringing the total immigration figures to nearly 10 million people.
More recently, Meskhetian Turks have immigrated to Turkey from former Soviet Union states (particularly Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014); and many Iraqi Turkmen and Syrian Turkmen took refuge in Turkey due to the Iraq War (2003–2011) and the Syrian Civil War (2011–2024). Although more than 3.7 million Syrians migrated to Turkey since the Syrian Civil War, the classification of Syrian refugees as Muhacirs has been described as controversial and politically charged.
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Muhacir AI simulator
(@Muhacir_simulator)
Muhacir
Muhacir is a term referring to Ottoman Muslim citizens and their descendants born after the onset of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Muhacirs overwhelmingly self-identified as Muslims and their numbers are estimated in the millions. The refugees from Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia had primarily Anatolian Turkish background. Other backgrounds included Albanians, Bosniaks, Chechens, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Pomaks, Macedonian Muslims, Greek Muslims, Serb Muslims, Georgian Muslims, Ossetian Muslims and Muslim Roma.
They immigrated to modern-day Turkey, mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries to escape the persecution of Ottoman Muslims by Christians in territories formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Further migration from Bulgaria occurred from 1940 to 1990. Up to a third of the modern-day population of Turkey may have ancestry from these Turkish and other Muslim migrants.
Approximately 5-7 million Muslim migrants arrived in Ottoman Anatolia and modern Turkey from 1783 to 2016 from the Balkans (Bulgaria, 1.15-1.5 million; Greece, 1.2 million; Romania, 400,000; Yugoslavia, 800,000; Russia, 500,000; the Caucasus, 900,000, of whom two-thirds remained, the rest going to Syria, Jordan and Cyprus; and Syria, 500,000, mostly as a result of the Syrian Civil War in 2011). Of these, 4 million came by 1924; 1.3 million, post-1934 to 1945; and more than 1.2 million, before the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The influx of Muhacir migration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was caused by the loss of almost all Ottoman territory in Europe during the Balkan War of 1912-13 and the First World War. These refugees viewed the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently the Republic of Turkey, as a protective "motherland". Many Muhacirs escaped to Anatolia as a result of the widespread persecution of Ottoman Muslims by Christians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
Thereafter, with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, a large influx of Turks, as well as other Muslims, from the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Aegean islands, Cyprus, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (İskenderun), the Middle East, and the Soviet Union continued to arrive in the region, settling mostly in urban north-western Anatolia. During the Circassian genocide, 800,000–1,500,000 Muslim Circassians were systematically mass-murdered, ethnically cleansed, and expelled from Circassia in the aftermath of the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864).[clarification needed] In 1923, more than half a million ethnic Muslims of various nationalities arrived from Greece as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey—an exchange based not on ethnicity but religious affiliation.[citation needed]
After 1925, Turkey continued to accept Turkic-speaking Muslims as immigrants and did not discourage the immigration of members of non-Turkic minorities. More than 90 percent of all immigrants arrived from Balkan countries. From 1934 to 1945, 229,870 refugees and immigrants came to Turkey.
From the 1930s to 2016, migration added two million Muslims in Turkey. The majority of these were Balkan Turks who faced harassment and discrimination. New waves of Turks and other Muslims expelled from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia between 1951 and 1953 were followed to Turkey by another exodus from Bulgaria in 1983–89, bringing the total immigration figures to nearly 10 million people.
More recently, Meskhetian Turks have immigrated to Turkey from former Soviet Union states (particularly Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014); and many Iraqi Turkmen and Syrian Turkmen took refuge in Turkey due to the Iraq War (2003–2011) and the Syrian Civil War (2011–2024). Although more than 3.7 million Syrians migrated to Turkey since the Syrian Civil War, the classification of Syrian refugees as Muhacirs has been described as controversial and politically charged.