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Urums (/ʊəˈruːm/, /ʊˈruːm/; Greek: Ουρούμ, Urúm; Turkish and Crimean Tatar: Urum, IPA: [uˈɾum]) are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.[2]

History

[edit]

There are two main theories covering how the Urums may have originated. One hypothesis is that the Urums arose as a result of some Crimean Greeks converting to using the Crimean Tatar language. Another theory is that the Urums arose as a result of the adoption of Christianity by a group of Crimean Tatars.[3] Some also speculate that the Urums from Crimea/Ukraine and Georgia have the same origins from Anatolia, with some even going as far to say that the two Urum groups speak the same language; however, the latter is not supported with the available linguistic data.[4]

Etymology

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The term Urum is derived from the Arabic word روم (rūm), meaning Roman and subsequently Byzantine and Greek, with a prothetic u in some Turkic languages. In Ottoman Turkish under the Ottoman Empire, Rum denoted Orthodox Christians living in the Empire; in modern Turkish, Rum denotes Greeks living in Turkey and Cyprus. The word "Urum" involves a prothetic u- that generally appears in Turkic language loanwords initially starting with a r-.[4] The common use of the term Urum appears to have led to some confusion, as most Turkish-speaking Greeks were called Urum.

The term is used by the following sub-ethnic groups of Greeks as a way of ethnic self-identification:

North Azovian Urums

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A group of Urums from Donetsk Oblast.

The Greeks of Crimea (and later of the adjacent Azovian region; present-day Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine) were represented by two groups: the Hellenic-speaking Romaioi, whose dialect is known as Rumeíka, a.k.a. Mariupol Greek, and the Turkic-speaking Urums (also called Graeco-Tatars).[3] Both groups populated the region over the course of many centuries, and consist of both the descendants of the ancient (4th century BC – 4th century AD) Greek and Byzantine Christian Greek colonizers of the northern shores of the Black Sea and interior of southern Russia and Ukraine, and also of Pontic Greeks who fled as refugees or economic migrants from northeastern Anatolia between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War. Some Greek settlers of the Crimea region gradually adopted the Crimean Tatar language as a mother tongue.

In 1777, after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire, Empress Catherine the Great ordered all Greeks from the peninsula to settle in the North Azov region around Mariupol, and they have been known as the North Azovian Greeks (приазовские греки / priazovskie greki) henceforth. Some linguists believe that the dialect spoken by the North Azovian Urums differs from the common Crimean Tatar language on a more than just dialectical level and therefore constitutes a separate language unit within the Kypchak language sub-group (see Urum language).

Urums practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity.[5] Throughout history, they represented an isolated cultural group and rarely settled in towns populated by the Romaioi, despite sharing Greek heritage with them.[6] Unlike Greek, Urum has never been a language of secondary education in Ukraine. Turkologist Nikolai Baskakov estimated that by 1969, 60,000 people spoke Urum as a native language. According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census of 2001, only 112 of the Donetsk Oblast's 77,516 Greeks listed languages other than Greek, Ukrainian and Russian as their mother tongue.[7]

A group of Urums from Crimea waving Greek flags.

Tsalka Urums

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Tsalka Urums are sometimes referred to as the Trialeti Greeks or the Transcaucasian Turcophone Greeks, Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks, or Τσαλκαλίδες (Tsalkalides), a name that refers to the Georgian town of Tsalka, where Urums once made up the largest ethnic community.

Between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801 there had been several waves of Pontic Greeks who left the eastern Black Sea coastline and the highlands of the Pontic Alps, and then settled as refugees or economic migrants in Georgia and the South Caucasus. The largest and most recent waves came in the late 18th and especially the early 19th century, when the South Caucasus experienced mass migrations of Greeks from the Ottoman Empire, mainly from the region of Pontus, as well as the vilayets of Sivas and Erzurum in northeastern Anatolia. This wave of Pontic emigrants is particularly associated with the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War, when many Pontic Greeks collaborated with or welcomed the Russian army that had occupied the region and then, to escape likely Turkish reprisals, followed it with their families when it withdrew back into Russian territory.

Many Pontian Greeks spoke Turkish either as Greek-Turkish bilinguals, or as a mother tongue due to linguistic assimilation processes that isolated groups of the Anatolian Greeks were exposed to.

According to Andrei Popov, throughout the 19th century hundreds of Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox families from Erzurum, Gümüşhane and Artvin moved to Southern Russia and settled on the Tsalka Plateau, in present-day Georgia.[8] During the Soviet era they populated over 20 villages in Georgia's Tsalka, Dmanisi, Tetritsqaro, Marneuli, and Akhaltsikhe regions. In 1926, there were 24,000 Greeks living in Tiflis and the neighbouring area with 20,000 of them being Turcophone.[9]

Tsalka language, the dialect spoken by the Tsalka Urums, is similar to that of the Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks, an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, which hails from the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin. The Turkish Meskhetian-Ahiska dialect has also borrowed from other languages (including Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek) which the Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks have been in contact with during the Russian and Soviet rule.[10] However some linguists, like Nikolai Baskakov, classify it as a separate Oghuz language due to differences in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.[11] Present-day Tsalka language is also thought by some to be phonetically closer to Azeri than to the literary Turkish, which leads them to believe that it is rather a dialect of Azeri.[12] Late Soviet censuses also showed Azeri as the mother tongue of the Tsalka Urums, however this may have been done simply due to the Soviets' somewhat unfavourable attitude towards Turkish culture. No secondary education in Urum Turkish has been available; its speakers attended schools where subjects were taught in Azeri and later in Russian.[13]

The Tsalka Urums themselves call their language bizim dilja (turk. 'our language') or moussourmanja (turk. 'Muslims' language). Nowadays, the majority speaks Russian. Also starting from the 1960s, there has been a modest cultural revival among the Turcophone Greeks. Historian Airat Aklaev's research showed that 36% of them considered Greek their mother tongue despite not speaking it; 96% expressed a desire to learn Greek.[14]

A documentation project on the language of Caucasus Urum people compiled a basic lexicon, a sample of translations for the study of grammar, and a text collection. The website of the project contains further information about the language and the language community.[15]

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, serious migration did take place, so Greeks are no longer the largest ethnic group in Tsalka. Between 1989 and 2002, their population declined from 35,000 to 3,000. Many emigrated to Greece, particularly Thessaloniki and other parts of Greek Macedonia in Northern Greece, and also to the relatively near the North Caucasus region of Krasnodar Krai and other parts of Southern Russia (particularly the cities of Krasnodar, Abinsk, Sochi, and Gelendzhik).

Religion

[edit]

By religion, the majority of Urums are Greek Orthodox Christians. Urums tend to practice their religion in Greek, Georgian or Russian Orthodox churches. Despite there not being any liturgical practices in the Urum language, 60% (18/30 respondents) of native Urum speakers reported that they use Urum in praying. 23% of Urum vocabulary in the field of religion or belief are said to be loanwords - much less than the average across world languages, being estimated to be 43%.[4] According to legend common among the Urums of Georgia, long before they left Turkey, the Orthodox Greeks were forced to make a choice between their language and faith. Being devout Christians, they chose to keep their Orthodox faith and thus relinquished their language. However, most historians consider this to be a myth.[16]

Language

[edit]
Main articles: Urum language and Tsalka language

The language of the North Azov Urums is a Turkic language belonging to the West Kipchak branch.[17] It has been written with the Greek alphabet, and between 1927 and 1937 it was written with Yañalif, and it was taught in some schools.[18] After Yañalif's replacement by the Cyrillic script in 1940, the Urum language was to only be written in Cyrillic.[19] Urum is considered by some to be a dialect of Crimean Tatar.[18]

Much of Urum's religious vocabulary is descended from words of Turkic origin, for example, Allah for ‘God’ or cänäm for ‘hell’ (compare Turkish allah, cehennem). However, Russian loanwords are restricted to narrow Christian terms, e.g., gimn meaning ‘hymn’, derived from Russian gimn (Гимн) and episkop meaning ‘bishop’, derived from Russian episkop (Епископ).[4]

The Tsalka Urum language belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language and displays substantial similarities with the Turkish dialects of Anatolia (e.g. in vocal harmony), but also with Russian (e.g. in the use of subordinate clauses).[4]

See also

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References

[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Urums

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from Grokipedia
Urums are an ethnic subgroup of who speak Urum, a Kipchak Turkic closely related to Crimean Tatar, while preserving their Orthodox Christian faith and self-identification as Greeks. Descended from ancient Greek settlers in the Black Sea and Crimean regions, they underwent linguistic assimilation to Turkic under the influence of the , adopting the language of their Tatar neighbors without abandoning their ethnoreligious heritage. Primarily residing in rural villages along the northern in southeastern , such as in , their communities number around 70,000, though fluent Urum speakers have dwindled to approximately 4,000 due to shifts toward Russian. In the late 18th century, under , Urums were resettled from to the Azov steppe to counterbalance the Tatar population and secure Russian borders, establishing enduring villages there. Smaller groups, known as Tsalka Urums, migrated to the in Georgia during the , speaking a variant of Urum influenced by local Turkic dialects. Throughout the Soviet era, they faced cultural pressures but maintained distinct traditions, including Greek naming practices and Orthodox rituals conducted in Turkish-derived vernacular. Today, the community grapples with language endangerment, assimilation, and the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in their Donbass heartland, which has disrupted preservation efforts and prompted to .

Origins and Etymology

Early Historical Roots

The Urum emerged in the 15th to 17th centuries among Greek Orthodox communities residing in and along the northern littoral, where populations of Byzantine Greek descent and Pontic migrants—displaced after the Ottoman capture of Trebizond in 1461—adopted Crimean Tatar, a Kipchak-branch Turkic , as their primary while upholding Eastern Orthodox religious observances. These groups, concentrated in coastal trading hubs like Caffa () and , maintained liturgical Greek and ecclesiastical ties to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, conducting services in Orthodox churches that persisted under restrictive tolerances granted by the , a Ottoman established after 1475. This linguistic assimilation, distinct from religious conversion, stemmed from structural pressures under Muslim hegemony: symbiotic trade networks linking Greek merchants to Tatar nomads and Ottoman intermediaries necessitated proficiency in local dialects for economic viability; interethnic marriages, often between Greek women and Tatar men, accelerated vernacular transmission within households; and calculated cultural accommodation enabled survival amid periodic khanal raids and Ottoman oversight, averting the full Islamization seen in parallel Anatolian Greek communities. Empirical traces in fiscal and diplomatic archives underscore this duality, with Ottoman defters from the Kefe (Caffa) eyalet registering "Rum" or "Urum" households as jizya-paying Christians employing Tatar nomenclature and idioms in contracts, while Russian envoys' chronicles from the 16th century described them as "Greek-Tatars" or Christian "Urumlar" differentiated from Muslim Tatars by faith alone. Such records, cross-verified in later ethnolinguistic surveys, affirm the retention of endogamous Orthodox networks amid Turkicization, yielding a stable confessional minority by the late 17th century.

Linguistic and Cultural Etymology

The term "Urum" derives from the Turkic adaptation of "Rûm" or "Rum," an Arabic and Persian loanword ultimately tracing to the Byzantine Greek self-designation Rhōmaîoi (Ῥωμαῖοι), denoting Romans or Eastern Roman subjects. In Ottoman and broader Turkic contexts, "Rum" specifically referred to Orthodox Christians of the former Byzantine territories, irrespective of their spoken language, serving as an exonym for non-Muslim populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. This usage paralleled designations for other Christian communities under Islamic rule, emphasizing religious distinction over linguistic or genetic continuity. Among Turkic-speaking Orthodox groups like the Urums, "Urum" transitioned from an external label to an internalized ethnic identifier, reflecting assimilation into Turkic linguistic environments while retaining Christian affiliation. This mirrors the of central , Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians also termed "" or derivatives thereof by Ottoman authorities, who adopted the label amid prolonged bilingual contact without implying unbroken Greek ethnic descent. Similarly, the Gagauz of and represent parallel cases of Turkic-language Christian communities, where ethnonyms highlight faith-based identity amid cultural , underscoring causal patterns of linguistic shift in multi-ethnic borderlands rather than inherent Hellenic continuity. Urums exhibit a dual self-referential system, employing "Urum" for everyday ethnic discourse while invoking "Yunan" (from Persian/Turkic for "Ionian" or "Greek") in liturgical or formal religious settings to affirm ties to broader Orthodox Hellenism. This bifurcation illustrates a pragmatic cultural layering, where Turkic vernacular coexists with aspirational Greek nomenclature, adopted not as primordial self-appellation but through historical interactions in Pontic and Crimean milieus.

Historical Migrations and Settlements

18th-Century Relocation to the Azov Region

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, which established Russian protectorate over Crimea, Empress Catherine II decreed the evacuation of Christian populations from the peninsula to mitigate potential Ottoman sympathies and to bolster Russian control over the northern Azov littoral. This policy targeted Greeks, including the Turkic-speaking Urums who had adopted Crimean Tatar as their vernacular while retaining Orthodox Christian identity and Greek self-identification. By July 1778, Russian authorities relocated approximately 18,408 from Crimean settlements such as and Chersonesos to the shores of the near , granting them 13,000 square kilometers of land for agriculture and settlement. Urums, distinct from Hellenophone Rumei Greeks, formed part of this cohort, with families from Tatar-speaking enclaves contributing to the founding of over 20 villages, including those later known by Turkic-derived names like Uyuzpinar. These early resettlements continued sporadically until around 1800, following Crimea's formal annexation in 1783, as additional Greek and Turkic Orthodox groups were directed to the region to populate frontier territories. The Urums preserved their Turkish-based speech in communal and liturgical contexts, conducting Orthodox services in their vernacular rather than Greek or Slavonic, which underscored their linguistic divergence from other resettled . Russian imperial censuses from the late 18th and early 19th centuries documented Urum villages as separate entities, recording populations engaged in sedentary and fishing while noting their ethnic and linguistic peculiarities apart from Pontic Greek-speaking communities. This distinction facilitated targeted administrative oversight, with Urums allocated specific allotments averaging 60 desyatins per household to support cultivation and rearing in the environment.

19th-Century Movements to the Caucasus

In the early 1800s, groups of Turkic-speaking , known as Urums, initiated migrations from to the Tsalka district in the Russian Empire's Georgian territories, driven by Ottoman pressures and attracted by Russian invitations to settle depopulated frontier lands. These initial movements, spanning the 1800s to 1820s, involved families primarily from regions like , , and , who sought protection amid escalating tensions with Muslim populations. Russian authorities facilitated this resettlement to bolster border security and agricultural development in the Trialeti Plateau, where lands had been ravaged by prior invasions. The Treaty of Adrianople, signed on September 14, 1829, which ended the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829) and granted Russia greater influence over Ottoman Christian subjects, triggered a major influx of Urums in 1829–1830. This wave was precipitated by heightened persecution of Anatolian Greeks following the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), prompting hundreds of families to flee Ottoman harassment and resettle under Russian auspices in Kvemo Kartli. Intermixing occurred with other groups, including Armenians and later Doukhobor settlers, as communities adapted to the multi-ethnic environment, though Urums maintained distinct Orthodox practices and Turkic dialects. By the mid-19th century, these migrations resulted in the establishment of approximately 20–22 Urum-inhabited villages around Tsalka, forming a cohesive subgroup focused on subsistence farming and livestock herding. Integration challenges included linguistic barriers with Georgian and Armenian neighbors, economic hardships from harsh terrain, and administrative pressures to assimilate, yet the Urums preserved their ethnic cohesion through and communal structures.

Geographic Subgroups

North Azovian Urums

The North Azovian Urums primarily reside in rural settlements along the northern coast of the in , , with historical concentrations around . These communities, descended from Crimean migrants relocated by Russian authorities in the late , have traditionally maintained an agriculture-based centered on cultivation, livestock rearing, and , reflecting their adaptation to the landscape. Soviet policies in the profoundly altered Urum social structures. The forced collectivization campaign of , which consolidated private peasant holdings into state-controlled kolkhozy (collective farms), eroded communal traditions and family-based land management among these rural groups, contributing to broader disruptions in ethnic minority practices across Ukraine's agrarian regions. and subsequent deportations further scattered populations, while efforts promoted assimilation into Slavic linguistic and cultural norms. Following Ukraine's in , the Urums gained formal recognition as an indigenous ethnic minority, enabling limited cultural revival efforts, though their numbers—estimated at part of the roughly 80,000 North Azovian per the 2001 census—remained modest relative to broader Greek subgroups. The ongoing conflict in , escalating from 2014 and intensifying with Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, has led to significant dispersal of North Azovian Urum communities. Mariupol's and occupation resulted in heavy casualties, destruction of villages, and mass displacement, with nearly all dense Urum settlements in the region under Russian control by August 2025; survivors have relocated to or abroad, fracturing familial and communal ties. Pre-2022 estimates placed the broader North Azovian Greek population, including Urums, at around 70,000, but wartime losses and exodus have reduced cohesive communities, exacerbating assimilation pressures.

Tsalka Urums

The Tsalka Urums constitute a distinct geographic subgroup of the Urum people, primarily concentrated in the Tsalka district of Georgia's region, where they established settlements following migrations from Ottoman eastern Anatolia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829. These migrants, numbering around 3,000 from areas including , , , and , arrived between 1829 and 1830, contributing to the rapid formation of Greek Orthodox communities in a region previously depopulated by local amid Russian imperial expansion. By 1830, the Tsalka area hosted 18 such villages, including Koshkas, as part of broader Russian strategies to secure the southern frontier through resettlement of loyal ethnic groups. These communities interacted closely with neighboring ethnic groups, including —who comprised a significant portion of Tsalka district's population—and smaller Doukhobor settlements in adjacent areas, fostering mixed agricultural economies centered on livestock and grain production in the highland plateau. The Urums' Orthodox Christian identity aligned them with Russian imperial interests, positioning their villages as informal buffers against potential Ottoman incursions and local unrest in the strategically vital Transcaucasian corridor. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, the Tsalka Urums experienced accelerated emigration, driven by and ethnic policies favoring return to ; this led to a sharp demographic decline from 30,811 recorded in the 1979 Georgian to 4,589 in the 2002 , with estimates falling to approximately 1,500 by 2005–2006. Many relocated to under its provisions or to , leaving behind depopulated villages and shifting local dynamics toward Armenian and Georgian majorities in Tsalka. By the early , fewer than 1,000 Tsalka Urums remained in Georgia according to regional surveys, underscoring their vulnerability to assimilation and out-migration pressures.

Language

Linguistic Classification and Features

The Urum language is classified as a member of the , within the Kipchak (or Kypchak) branch, and is frequently regarded as a variety of Crimean Tatar due to extensive shared lexical and structural elements. Its core grammar relies on agglutinative morphology, where are sequentially added to roots to indicate grammatical relations, without inflectional fusion typical of . operates as a , aligning vowels with those in the preceding root, though with deviations from Standard Turkish: certain , such as the first-person plural possessive -i, remain fixed regardless of root vowels, reflecting localized innovations. Phonological inventories include typical Turkic consonants and eight vowels, with distinguishing front/back and rounded/unrounded sets, but empirical analyses from fieldwork indicate incomplete application in loanwords and some native forms, leading to partial neutralization. Vocabulary demonstrates a predominantly Turkic , with minimal substrate from ancestral Greek beyond rare calques; comparative lexical studies highlight over 90% overlap in basic wordstock with related Kipchak varieties like Crimean Tatar, underscoring its non-mixed status despite ethnic Greek origins. Dialectal variants diverge regionally: the North Azovian form aligns closely with Crimean Tatar and but shows supra-dialectal distinctions in and , potentially warranting separate status per some analyses. In contrast, the Tsalka variant, spoken in Georgia, retains stronger ties to Anatolian in morphology and exhibits unique developments like fixed forms influenced by areal contacts, including limited Azeri elements in border , while preserving Kipchak core traits. Fieldwork-based comparisons, such as those examining and case marking, confirm these as coherent variants within a unified Turkic framework, with no significant Greek structural overlay.

Influences, Variants, and Current Usage

The has been profoundly shaped by contact with Russian, resulting in extensive lexical and syntactic borrowings due to widespread bilingualism among speakers. This influence intensified under Soviet policies promoting Russian as the , with Urum speakers integrating Russian terms for modern concepts and administrative functions. Additionally, the language retains a core substrate from Anatolian , evident in phonological patterns and morphology, though with unique innovations such as specific shifts not found in standard Turkish varieties. Greek substrate elements are minimal, limited primarily to religious terminology, reflecting the historical Turkicization of communities prior to migrations. Urum exhibits two primary variants corresponding to geographic subgroups: the North Azovian dialect, spoken in southeastern , and the Tsalka variant in Georgia's Trialeti region. The Azovian form aligns more closely with Kipchak Turkic influences from Crimean Tatar contact during earlier settlements, featuring agglutinative structures with heavier Russian admixture. In contrast, the Tsalka variant shows stronger Oghuz characteristics akin to eastern Anatolian Turkish, including patterns and lexical retentions from 19th-century migrations, though both share core Turkic grammar. These differences arose from divergent migration paths and local adstrata, with limited reported in fieldwork. Contemporary usage of Urum remains confined to domestic and contexts among older generations, with intergenerational transmission notably low; surveys indicate only sporadic use among , often limited to numerals or recitation. Post-Soviet state language policies in and Georgia have accelerated shifts to Russian or Ukrainian/Georgian, respectively, reducing Urum to a heritage tongue in mixed households. The language is classified as definitely endangered, with fewer than 2,000 fluent speakers estimated as of the , prompting community-led documentation efforts such as the comprehensive compiled by Aleksandr Garkavets in 1999–2000. Preservation initiatives include grammatical sketches and lexical compilations published in the early , though these have not reversed the dominance of majority languages in and media.

Religion

Orthodox Christian Practices

The Urums profess within the tradition, participating in core sacraments such as , , and the through the , typically that of St. . Services, including orthros (morning prayers), have incorporated elements of their Turkic , with historical records indicating Turkish as the language of worship alongside or in place of or Greek. This linguistic adaptation reflects the community's ethnolinguistic profile while preserving doctrinal fidelity to Orthodox theology, emphasizing the , , and . Canonical allegiance binds Urum parishes to the , underscoring their ethnic Greek heritage amid Turkic speech; this connection has influenced ecclesiastical oversight and resistance to jurisdictional shifts, such as those post-2018 in . Local clergy, drawn from the community, officiate these rites and are generally ordained after training in regional Orthodox seminaries, historically including those in the or Soviet era, with some pursuing studies in to maintain ties to Hellenic roots. Key annual observances include Pascha (), marked by the midnight service and breaking of the Lenten fast with lamb and dyed eggs, and Nativity (), featuring and blessings. These feasts reinforce communal bonds through processions, , and fasting periods aligned with the , observed rigorously despite regional disruptions from conflicts in the and Crimean areas.

Syncretic Elements and Historical Adaptations

The religious practices of the Urums demonstrate strong adherence to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, with syncretic influences from the surrounding Turkic cultural environment remaining minor and primarily linguistic in nature. While doctrinal orthodoxy prevailed, the adoption of a Turkic led to the incorporation of Turkic-origin terms into religious vocabulary, such as words for key Christian concepts, reflecting adaptation to the linguistic milieu without altering core beliefs or rituals. This linguistic shift occurred historically as Urums prioritized religious continuity over Hellenic speech during periods of Ottoman influence in , where they navigated a predominantly Muslim Turkic society by maintaining Orthodox rites amid assimilation. Ethnographic observations indicate that pre-Christian elements, potentially including faint shamanic traces in from ancient interactions, exerted negligible impact on Urums' formalized religious life, overshadowed by rigorous Orthodox institutional ties. Reports from the , including those from Russian sources amid post-relocation integrations, consistently affirmed the dominance of standard Orthodox practices, with no widespread evidence of substantive Turkic ritual blends like the invocation of localized saints' names in prayers beyond shared of figures such as St. George, common across regional Christian and Muslim communities. These adaptations thus served pragmatic survival in a Turkic-dominated context rather than deep , preserving ethnic Greek-Orthodox identity through church affiliations in Greek, Russian, or Georgian Orthodox settings.

Ethnic Identity and Cultural Practices

Self-Identification and Genetic Evidence

Urums primarily self-identify as ethnic of Byzantine origin, emphasizing their Orthodox Christian faith and historical ties to the Rum millet under Ottoman rule, where "Urum" derives from the Turkic adaptation of "Rum," denoting Greek-speaking or Hellenized rather than . This identification persists despite their adoption of , with communities in , the region, and Tsalka, Georgia, viewing linguistic shift as a result of prolonged interaction with Tatar and other Turkic groups rather than a fundamental change in . Greek authorities have recognized this self-perception by granting citizenship to many Urums, particularly those resettled from Georgia in the late , facilitating their integration into as co-ethnics despite minimal proficiency. A minority perspective, often held by neighboring non-Greek populations or skeptical observers, posits Urums as Christianized Turkic or local steppe peoples who adopted Greek identity for religious or political alignment, noting that adjacent Armenians and Georgians historically referred to them as "Turks" or "Tatars" due to language and customs. Ethnographic accounts highlight cultural continuity with Pontic Greeks, such as shared Orthodox practices and endogamy, supporting the mainstream Turkicized Greeks narrative, though this view may reflect Greek nationalist interests in bolstering diaspora claims amid geopolitical tensions in the Black Sea region. Genetic evidence reveals a complex ancestry among Urums and related Pontic groups, featuring substantial , Caucasian , and components, with Y-DNA haplogroups like I1-M253 (present in 13% of Urums) indicating Gothic or Indo-European influences from . Autosomal studies of , to which Urums are ethnolinguistically linked, show proximity to and Caucasians over Aegean , with estimates of only 10-20% Mycenaean-like ancestry amid predominant local pre-Hellenic substrates, challenging claims of unmixed Hellenic descent. Limited Turkic-specific admixture (under 10% in analogous populations) aligns with language replacement via elite dominance or prolonged contact rather than mass population turnover, underscoring that self-identification as prioritizes religious and historical narratives over genetic continuity. These findings, drawn from Y-DNA projects and broader regional analyses rather than Urums-specific genome-wide studies, suggest adaptive in multi-ethnic borderlands, where favors cultural affiliation over strict biological lineage.

Traditions, Folklore, and Assimilation Pressures

Urums wedding customs feature communal feasts with traditional games and dances such as Kaytarma, Yarım Ava, Agir Ava, , and Bogdanka, alongside nights accompanied by songs bearing similarities to those in . Birth practices emphasize family joy, with newborns ritually salted—a custom paralleled in Anatolian traditions—and the appointment of godparents (kirvelik), who hold esteemed roles in the . Funerary rites include professional wailers, shared meals for the deceased, and rituals on designated days, reflecting a synthesis of Orthodox Christian solemnity and communal steppe-influenced mourning. These everyday practices underscore strong familial interdependence, where women serve as primary custodians of customs, and new members integrate by adhering to established norms. Soviet-era Russification policies systematically promoted adoption, leading to a marked decline in Urum and related dialects among North Azovian communities, with younger generations largely shifting away from native speech by the late . This linguistic erosion compounded cultural dilution through intermarriage with and , particularly in urban centers like , where mixed unions accelerated identity blending. Post-1991 economic upheavals spurred significant outmigration, notably from Tsalka in Georgia, where Urums—once dominant in local villages—emigrated en masse amid post-Soviet instability, further straining communal cohesion. Recent conflicts, including the 2022 , have displaced thousands from Azovian settlements, destroying cultural infrastructure and exacerbating assimilation risks through forced relocation and loss of heritage sites. In response, Ukrainian Urums have formed cultural associations such as the NGO “Nadazov Greeks: Urums and Rumei,” which develops Urum-language textbooks and organizes exhibitions like “Nadazov Greeks: Paths of Identity” (held August-September 2025 in ) to revive traditions and advocate for indigenous status. These initiatives counter assimilation by fostering and public awareness, though challenges persist in occupied regions housing many Nadazov settlements. In Georgia, post-Soviet ethnic identity efforts among Tsalka Urums address tensions between Orthodox faith, Turkic mentality, and local integration, albeit with less formalized institutional support.

Demographics and Contemporary Status

Population Estimates and Distribution

The Urums, a Turkic-speaking subgroup of ethnic , are concentrated in southeastern 's , particularly villages around such as and Mangush, and in Georgia's Tsalka District within . In , the 2001 All-Ukrainian Census enumerated 91,548 individuals identifying as ethnic nationwide, with over 77,000 in alone; the majority in the Azov region are Urums, estimated at 70,000–80,000 based on linguistic and settlement patterns. Subsequent Russian military actions since 2014 have displaced thousands from these areas, further reducing local numbers, though precise post-2022 figures remain unavailable due to ongoing conflict. In Georgia, the Urum population—predominantly in Tsalka and surrounding rural municipalities—has undergone sharp decline from approximately 35,000 in the to 15,166 ethnic (mostly Urums) in the and 5,544 by the 2014 census. This contraction stems from high emigration rates, including economic migration to urban centers like , which has eroded traditional rural enclaves, and repatriation to ancestral homelands. Smaller Urum diasporas persist globally, including communities in formed through under Greek nationality laws from the to , numbering in the low thousands, and residual groups in Russia's following 19th- and 20th-century resettlements. Overall, total Urum population estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000, though self-identification as distinct from broader and complicate enumeration. Rural-to-urban migration patterns in both primary regions have intensified assimilation pressures, with younger generations increasingly concentrated in cities like and prior to recent disruptions.
Census YearUkraine (Ethnic Greeks, incl. Urums)Georgia (Ethnic Greeks, mostly Urums)
1989~98,500~35,000
2001/200291,54815,166
2014N/A (post-census disruptions)5,544

Preservation Efforts and Modern Challenges

Preservation initiatives for the include the compilation of lexicographic resources, such as the Urum-Ukrainian developed by linguist Oleksandr Garkavets, which documents core vocabulary to aid documentation and teaching. Cultural festivals, including the annual Mega Yurty event celebrating Greek heritage, and traditional panair holidays dedicated to church patrons, serve to reinforce community identity and oral transmission among speakers. In , Urum is offered as an optional elective in some public schools, though not as part of the standard curriculum, providing limited exposure to younger generations. The Urum faces acute endangerment, with classifying it as a where children no longer acquire it as a norm, leading to rapid shift toward dominant languages like Russian and Ukrainian. Intergenerational transmission is severely compromised, as most fluent speakers are adults over 50, while child speakers are rare, restricting usage to familial and ceremonial domains. Geopolitical instability exacerbates these risks; in , Russian occupation since 2014 has disrupted communities through displacement and cultural suppression, while the ongoing in southeastern , including bombardments in areas like with historical Urum populations, has scattered families and halted local gatherings. Linguists assess Urum's vitality as critically low, with projections indicating potential within decades absent intensified intervention, as accelerates in isolated villages. Efforts like narrative collections via the offer digital archiving but struggle against assimilation pressures and demographic decline. Without broader institutional support, including mandatory education and state recognition, the language's survival remains precarious.

References

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