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Contents 1 Greece 1.1 Euromosaic 1.2 M. Apostolov 1.3 The OE of the Islamic World 1.4 Poulton - Greece 1.5 Pomaks of Xanthi - D. Michail 1.6 GHM - 99 1.7 Voss - draft paper 1.8 Clogg - Minorities in Greece 1.9 HRI 2 Bulgaria 3 varia

[edit] Greece

[edit] Euromosaic

Les installations historiques de Pomaks en Grèce se trouvent dans les départements de Xanthi et du Rhodope. Celles du département de l'Evros sont postérieures. Dans le département de Xanthi, la plupart des villages que l'on rencontrait au début du siècle sont habités. Pratiquement toute la région située au nord de la ville de Xanthi et, à l'ouest, jusqu'aux villages de Théotokos et de Stamatio est aujourd'hui encore exclusivement peuplée de Pomaks. Toutefois, bon nombre d'entre eux sont aujourd'hui installés dans la ville de Xanthi et dans des villages le plus souvent avoisinants. Jadis, ils s'étaient déplacés massivement de la zone orientale montagneuse du département vers les plaines de l'est. Dans le département du Rhodope, quantité de villages qui, il y a encore une ou deux décennies, constituaient des lieux d'implantation de Pomaks, sont aujourd'hui inhabités de fait ou officiellement, un phénomène qui est particulièrement marqué dans l'ouest du département. Historiquement, les Pomaks occupaient la zone qui s'étendait au nord, depuis le pied de la chaîne du Rhodope, avec toutefois deux zones turcophones importantes, au centre et à l'ouest du département. La majorité des migrants s'est installée -comme cela avait déjà été le cas à une époque antérieure-à Komotini et dans les villages turcs, à l'orée de la plaine. Les Pomaks peu nombreux du département de l'Evros sont concentrés à l'extrémité sud-ouest de la sous-préfecture de Didymotiho et sont issus de migrations des habitants de la région s'étendant autour des villages de la région de Kehros.

• Un nombre relativement restreint de Pomaks est installé dans le bassin de l'Attique, ainsi que dans deux ou trois villes de Grèce méridionale, où ils conservent leur langue.

• Les Pomaks de Grèce avaient des relations développées avec l'Hinterland qui appartient aujourd'hui à la Bulgarie et la fermeture des frontières en 1920 porta un rude coup à leur mode d'organisation sociale et économique. A la fin de la guerre civile en Grèce, en 1949, puis dans les années 1950, on enregistre une forte migration vers les villages de la plaine et les villes. C'est également à cette époque que l'on voit apparaître à l'échelle des villages les premières tendances massives à l'abandon de la langue.

• La partie grecque allègue quant à elle que les Pomaks seraient des descendants d'antiques tribus thraces, et les rattache à Alexandre le Grand ou avance d'autres théories du même ordre. Aujourd'hui encore, des études anthropologiques et biologiques et des traces de grec ancien "découvertes" dans leur langue sont utilisées à l'appui de ces thèses.

• En Grèce, la culture populaire des Pomaks se trouve dans une situation difficile et perd peu à peu du terrain, au profit du modèle turc qui s'est imposé dans toute la minorité.

• La pauvreté mais aussi le banditisme ont mis à mal les zones d'implantation de Pomaks en Thrace occidentale, et ce jusqu'à la fin de la guerre civile en Grèce. Jusqu'en novembre 1995, tous les villages de Pomaks se trouvaient dans une "zone surveillée", s'étendant dans un rayon de 30 kilomètres à partir des frontières gréco-bulgares. Ce qui se traduisait pour les intéressés, par un contrôle des déplacements et pour les non-résidents, par une stricte limitation des entrées. Bien que les contrôles se soient assouplis ces dernières années, la législation alors en vigueur a joué un rôle déterminant dans le déclin des communautés.

• Aujourd'hui, les Pomaks constituent le groupe musulman le plus attaché à la religion musulmane.

• La langue figure sous la rubrique pomak dans le recensement de 1951, encore que le nombre de ses locuteurs soit passablement sous-estimé

De très rares échantillons de la culture populaire des Pomaks font leur apparition dans la région. Ces deux ou trois dernières années, on assiste à un effort de la part d'acteurs officiels ou semi-officiels pour valoriser tel ou tel d'entre eux. Mais il est clair que l'orientation consiste à diviser les groupes de population de la minorité.

Dans le département de Xanthi, il est rare désormais d'entendre des chansons et dans le département du Rhodope, prennent place des rituels populaires en pomak qui risquent fort d'être les derniers spécimens du genre. Quant aux fêtes populaires à caractère religieux des Pomaks Bektasi-Kizilbas, qui sont organisées dans les zones frontalières des départements du Rhodope et de l'Evros, elles n'ont que peu de rapport avec le maintien de la langue.

Ni disques ni cassettes de chansons en pomak ne sont disponibles dans le commerce. Deux livres ayant trait aux Pomaks comportaient quelques rudiments linguistiques et quelques dialogues.

Ces deux dernières années, ont été publiés en Grèce un lexique pomak-grec et grec-pomak, ainsi qu'une grammaire, établis d'après l'idiome parlé dans le département de Xanthi. Cette tentative non-scientifique, qui s'est accompagnée d'une entreprise analogue sous le label de l'armée grecque, ainsi que le climat qui prévaut plus généralement, augurent plutôt mal de l'éventualité d'un enseignement de la langue des Pomaks en Grèce. Ces tentatives ont suscité une vive opposition dans les milieux influents de la minorité et chez les Pomaks. Notons qu'il ont également déclenché la réaction de la Bulgarie Il semblerait que la nouvelle politique de l'Etat grec face à la langue ait des conséquences plutôt négatives sur le maintien de celle-ci, dans la mesure où elle enclenche des réflexes qui vont dans le sens d'un abandon le plus rapide possible.

A l'école, c'est le turc et le grec qui sont enseignés aux locuteurs de la langue pomaque. L'identité nationale de la communauté, de sa plus grande partie du moins, est l'identité turque. Ce qui induit le comportement des locuteurs vis- à- vis de leur langue, mais également du grec.

Habituellement, on avance à propos des Pomaks le chiffre de trente mille, chiffre qui semble s'appliquer également aux locuteurs. Il serait hasardeux de prétendre procéder à une estimation, du moins en ce qui concerne le nombre de locuteurs -compétents et terminaux- du pomak. Peut-être une étude plus approfondie ferait-elle apparaître que la majorité d'entre eux réside désormais en dehors des installations historiques.

Aujourd'hui, le pomak est la langue du cercle familial dans les villages du département de Xanthi. Les enfants apprennent le turc davantage par l'école et par la télévision qu'à la maison. Depuis quelques années cependant, on a vu s'imposer l'usage du turc pour s'adresser aux enfants dans la bourgade d'Ehinos, une pratique qui s'étend progressivement. L'approche de chaque famille, qui est fonction de son degré d'intégration à la nation turque et de son statut socio-économique, détermine le choix de la langue qui sera parlée aux enfants, ou plus généralement à la maison. Dans nombre de villages de la plaine où la présence des Pomaks est numériquement faible, la langue reste celle du milieu familial, y compris dans les foyers qui y ont émigré plusieurs décennies auparavant. La même constatation s'applique grosso modo à la ville de Xanthi, encore que, ces dernières années, on assiste à un net recul du pomak au bénéfice du turc. La plupart des enfants dont les parents sont nés dans les villages de montagne sont à même, après avoir atteint l'âge de vingt ans, d'utiliser la langue. Les denses populations pomaques installées dans le département ont eu un impact positif sur la langue. La langue est parlée en public, y compris dans la ville de Xanthi, et la plupart du temps, le locuteur n'en a pas "honte".

Dans le département du Rhodope, les choses sont radicalement différentes. En dehors des agglomérations du Kehros, quelque 11 à 12 villages situés dans la partie la plus orientale du département conservent un tout petit nombre habitants. Mais ici, le turc avait "pénétré", nettement plus tôt. Ainsi par exemple, dans le village de Kato Vyrsini, on ne dénombre qu'un faible nombre de locuteurs compétents dans la tranche d'âge des moins de 35 ans. D'une façon générale, nous pourrions dire qu'à Komotini et dans les villages qui accueillent traditionnellement des Pomaks, la première génération après la migration est essentiellement constituée de locuteurs terminaux. L'abandon de la langue dans le département du Rhodope est beaucoup plus rapide, étant donné d'une part que l'attitude des locuteurs est régie par le sentiment d'auto-dépréciation nourri à l'égard de leur langue et d'autre part, que celle-ci fait l'objet d'un régime d'interdiction peu banal, puisque les parents et les enseignants musulmans n'hésitent pas à châtier les enfants lorsqu'ils la pratiquent. N'oublions pas non plus la très forte présence turcophone dans le département.

Dans le département de l'Evros, les locuteurs compétents que l'on rencontre dans le nombre très limité de villages sont généralement âgés de plus de 35 ans.

Dans le département du Rhodope, la langue est parlée seulement au village et pratiquement jamais entre locuteurs de villages différents. En revanche, dans le département de Xanthi, le pomak est parlé dans les cas où les locuteurs proviennent de différents villages, fussent-ils éloignés les uns des autres.

La plupart des slavophones âgés de plus de quarante ans du département de Xanthi ne sont pas des locuteurs compétents du turc, surtout dans le cas des femmes. En revanche, dans le département du Rhodope, la grande majorité de la population de tous âges connaît le turc. C'est exactement le contraire qui se produit avec le grec dans l'un et l'autre de ces départements. On rencontre un assez grand nombre de femmes monolingues dans le département de Xanthi et quelques rares cas dans le département du Rhodope. (http://www.uoc.es/euromosaic/web/document/bulgar/fr/i1/i1.html euromosaic)

[edit] M. Apostolov

Pomaks are estimated to number 36,000 in Greece to improve the country's security after taking over Western Thrace in the 1920s, Athens has tried to restrict the links between Pomaks and their fellow Bulgarian-speakers and co-religionists in Turkey.Secondly, Greek authorities have twice used the religious difference between the Christian Bulgarians and the Pomaks in order to claim territories nominally belonging to Bulgaria. In the first instance, the government of Venizelos actually succeeded in getting Western Thrace during the Paris conference in1919, using a statement of a deputation of Pomaks. At the next Paris peace conference of 1947, Greece demanded another "border reform" in the Pomak areas of Bulgaria, this time to no consequence. In this sense, a major thesis of the Greek authors is that the Pomaks were enslaved by the Bulgarians.

During the Greek and Turkish population exchange in the 1920s, Athens"ethnically purified" Southern Macedonia and part of Western Thrace. In violation of the Lausanne conventions, 52 it expelled the non-Turkish Pomaks from Greek Macedonia to Turkey. The protests Albanian government in the League of Nations for a time spared of the Muslim Albanians from expulsion from Greece, 53 but the defeated Bulgaria did nothing to stop the expulsion of the Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks. The Muslim minority in Western Thrace, Pomaks included, was exempted from the population exchange and allowed to stay. 54 According to Greek sources, 34,978 Pomaks(compared to a total of 72,800 in 1916), or 33.5 percent of the "Muslim minority," still live in Greece, 55 23,000 in the mountain areas above Xanthi, 10,000 in the district of Rodopi; and 2,000 inthe villages of Didimotikon. The Greek constitution of 1975, amended in 1985,guarantees full protection of life, honor and freedom (Article 5, Paragraph 2)to all persons living in Greece, regardless of their nationality, race,language, religion and political creed. 56 Yet, due to the Pomaks' non-Greek identity, Athens has consistently limited their trans-border contacts and, by virtue of the 1938 law No. 1366, their right to construct or transfer houses. This decree refers to foreign nationals, but the authorities use it against Pomaks who are Greek citizens. 57

Although Bulgaria has a 494 kilometer-long border with Greece, 58 there are only two ways to cross it: the motor way between Sofia and Athens at Kulata/Promahon, and at Ormenion near the border with TurkeyTwo major roads, the Makes pass and the Goats-Drama road, as well as a number of smaller ones, have been closed for decades. Theunderlying reason for these closures is to eliminate contacts between Pomaks and Turks from both sides of the Greek-Bulgarian border. Much of Western Thraceis a restricted area due to Greek national security considerations. Large portions of land have been expropriated from Pomaks and Turks, and their movement is confined within 30 kilometers of their homes. 58 The Greek authorities publish data showing high rates of illiteracy among Pomaks, while the study of their mother tongue is banned. In a document submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on December13, 1993, the Greek government admitted that there exists no teaching of Islam(not to speak of secular education) in the mother tongue of the Pomaks because this language has no written form 60 - thus intentionally ignoring the fact that the Pomaks are Bulgarian-speakers. All traces of Bulgarian presence in Western Thrace are to disappear. Construing artificial theories about the Pomaks in fact constitutes denial of their ethnic identity

An unpublished pamphlet by Pavlos Hidiroglu illustrating the basic Greek theories on the identity of the Pomaks describes them as Islamicized,linguistically Slavicized descendants of the ancient Thracians with a Greek admixture. Hidiroglu widely uses a survey (a medical Ph.D dissertation defended in Thesaloniki) of blood tests of 1,030 Pomak villagers conducted in the 1970s,which allegedly prove the unique character of the community and some kinshipwith the Greeks. The Bulgarian language of the population is dismissed,according to the author, because the "high" (but unclear) percentage of Greek words used by the Pomaks consists of mostly verbs. A mere comparison, however,indicates that many of the same words are used in the colloquial Bulgarian language

Like the Pomaks in Bulgaria and Macedonia, the Pomaks in Northern Greece are subjected to Turkish assimilation policies. Turkish scholarships and privileges are offered to young Pomaks from the area. Nevertheless, Greek authors speak of hostility between Turks and Pomaks in Western Thrace. Greek authors, such as Hidiroglu, A. Lyapis and Martilu Apostolidi, express a concern that if the Pomak dialect is not protected, it will be substituted by the Turkish language in a campaign orchestrated from Turkey

[edit] The OE of the Islamic World

• The Pomaks, who live in the Rhodope mountains along the Bulgarian border, form a virtual closed society, self-reliant and isolated from the outside world by both rugged terrain and strategic considerations: the Greek government has declared the area a military zone and closed it to all outside civilians.
• the Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks in the Rhodopes (about 25,000 people), [1]

[edit] Poulton - Greece

The Pomaks, Muslim Slavs, or a small number of Muslim Greeks, tend to live also in Western Thrace in villages in the southern Rhodope and due to the official reticence to give figures for ethnic minorities, only for religious ones, it is hard to separate them from the Turks; however, the villages near the Bulgarian border in all three provinces of Western Thrace are predominantly Pomak with the exception of some like Mikron Dereion which have a mixed population of ethnic Turks, Pomaks and Greek Orthodox, or others which have a sedentary Muslim Gypsy population. Many Pomaks also live in Komotini and Xantini and some also live in Dhidhimotikhon.

Official Greek sources tend to claim that the Turks are Pomaks or Muslim Greeks while, conversely the Turks claim the Pomaks as Turks. Estimates from the Information Office at the Greek Embassy in London based on the 1981 census figures give a total of 110,000 people belonging to religious minorities of whom some 60,000 are Turkish-speaking Muslims; 30,000 Pomaks

Much of Western Thrace is restricted area due to reasons of national security. These areas are the border areas with Bulgaria where many Turks and Pomaks live and in these militarized areas large portions of land has been expropriated from Pomaks and Turks. The inhabitants of these areas are severely restricted in their freedom of movement to 30kms radius of their residence. Decree 1366/1938 which forbids foreign nationals to buy land near border areas is still operational and it is claimed that this decree is used against ethnic Turks and Pomaks even though they are Greek citizens.

In the exchange of populations following the Greco-Turkish war of 1920-22 some 60,000 Greek refugees from Asia Minor were allowed, in contravention of the Treaty of Lausanne, to settle in Western Thrace, and under steady administrative and economic pressure from the Greek authorities a gradual migration of Muslims to Turkey ensued. This is particularly noticeable in the previously Muslim province of Ebros where the population now is Greek Orthodox. World War II and the civil war saw a rise in the number of such emigres and some 20,000 left for Turkey in the period 1939-51 with emigration continuing to present day.

Additionally it is alleged that the authorities are attempting to disperse the minority by moving unemployed Turks and Pomaks to other areas, where once registered they are unable to return to Western Thrace, and are pressured under pain of dismissal to change their names to Greek ones.

[edit] Pomaks of Xanthi - D. Michail

pomak area of xanthi, also called the mountain by chr. and mus., includes 59 villages, with a pop. of 15,824. Many G. call them indigineous Thracians assimilated by Turks due to proximity. They tend to endogamy, and use middlemen for treating with the admin. There lang. is Bulgarian; attempts to create a P. lang. were made, see source.

[edit] GHM - 99

The state has recently revised downwards its estimate of the Muslim minority, based on the 1991 census, to 98,000 from a previous estimate of 120,000; it also claims that “50% of the minority are of Turkish origin, 35% are Pomaks (an indigenous population that speaks a Slavic dialect and espoused Islam during Ottoman rule) and 15% are Roma” (http://www.mfa.gr/foreign/musminen.htm). Our own estimates, based on the same census, are slightly lower, while the breakdown is also slightly different. There are 90,000 Muslims, of whom some 50,000 have Turkish as a mother tongue, 30,000 Pomak and 10,000 Romanes. Nevertheless, the very large majority of all Muslims, including Pomaks and Roma, have today a Turkish national identity. Greek authorities were promoting a Turkish identity in the early 1950s: they banned the use of the attribute Muslim and imposed instead the attribute Turkish as well as Turkish-language education to all Muslims. This policy contributed significantly to the assimilation of most Pomaks and Gypsies by the Turkish dominant element in the Muslim minority.

It is indicative that, when in the 1990s, Greek authorities attempted to acknowledge the multi-ethnic character of the minority and to promote the Pomak identity, promising substantial rewards to those who would assume such identity, they were met with the hostility of most Pomaks who felt, correctly, that it was an effort of “divide and rule.”

Conversely, Greek authorities often tend to impose a Pomak identity on members of the “Muslim minority” that live in traditional Pomak villages, while denying them the right to choose to be treated as Turks. In the mid-1990s, there have been reported, among other things, some incidents of elected commune presidents or mere residents of Pomak villages insisting on their Turkish identity in the presence of visiting state dignitaries who called them Pomaks and considered the Pomaks’ attitude disrespectful if not provocative. In the late 1990s, state dignitaries tend to visit only the handful of Pomak villages whose population is willing to call themselves Pomak

It must also be mentioned that in Thrace and in the remote mountainous area in Xanthi where the Pomaks live, in particular, the State has set up and is financing the operation of Greek speaking secondary education schools (Gymnasiums) in which the teaching of the lesson of religion in the Turkish language and the teaching of the Koran in Arabic have been introduced.

[edit] Voss - draft paper

25,000 pomaks. Pomaks in R and X are radically different. Till 1995 north Xanti military zone; small income here based on tobacco farming, small rural exodus. By contrast villages north of K. were not closed, and so are almost deserted by rural exodus, with just the very northeast of the R. P. inhabited be pomak-speaking villages. In general the pref. has seen rural exodus, turkification, language shift. The de-bulgarisation was a target of the Greek policy (education). Attempts to revert this policy in the 90s by promoting the Pomak language have been counterproductive. The education from the 50s started the de-b. trend. Till liberalisation in 1995 P. elites have studied in Turkey, making them strongly Turkish. As a rule, the weaker the social position, the stronger his P. The stronghold of Turkish Pomak movement in Xanthi is Echinos, while northern Xanthi, especially when with many pilgrims, the opposite.

[edit] Clogg - Minorities in Greece

• According to a theory promoted in Greece, the P. are ancient Thracians that turned Slavs and then converted to Islam. There number is 30,000. (p. 83)
• While the Muslim Thracians increase 3% yearly, it is stagnant since 1923; 250,000 have left for Turkey. Pop. shift in minority; P. were 1/10 of minority in the 20s, now at least 1/4. (p. 86)
• In 1954 Greece officially Turkified the Greek muslim minority, officially calling it by PM order "Turkish minority". The Pomaks were included in this Turkification. Policy to the P. has been moved by foreign policy considerations; they were seen as more dangerous than Turks, as Bulgaria was till Cyprus the supreme enemy. To neutralize a potential fifth column, the solution adopted was turkification. This policy, supported by Turkey, was successful: as independent Ahmet Faikoglu said in January 1991 "the Pomaks are pure-blooded Turks. The minority is Turkish and its religion is muslim". The same word Pomak is resented as an insult.
• In the 70s, and more still the 80s, a revisionist strategy was assumed, one aim of which was to divide the minority and to alienate the Pomaks from the T., so to weaken the minority and a united front led by Ankara. This P. strategy started in 1974, but gained power in 1982. This can be seen in the semi-academic lit. pubblished by the 80s; an emphasis is placed in distingishing P. from T.; for example Mylonas (1990) quoted the results of medical tests made on 508 P, which proved that there was no difference with them and Greeks.

[edit] HRI

• In 1922 the Muslim minority in Thrace numbered 86,000 people. According to the latest general census (1991) it numbers approximately 98,000 to a total of 338,000 inhabitants of Thrace, i.e. 29% of the population. The minority is composed of three ethnic groups : 50% of the minority are of Turkish origin, 35% are Pomaks (an indigenous population that speaks a Slavic dialect and espoused Islam during Ottoman rule) and 15% are Roma. Each of these groups has its own spoken language and traditions. It was for this reason that the drafters of the Lausanne Treaty defined it as a religious minority.

• It must also be mentioned that in Thrace and in the remote mountainous area in Xanthi where the Pomaks live, in particular, the State has set up and is financing the operation of Greek speaking secondary education schools (Gymnasiums) in which the teaching of the lesson of religion in the Turkish language and the teaching of the Koran in Arabic have been introduced. Furthermore the State finances the commuting to the schools of those students for whom the distances are too prohibiting. During the academic year 1997-98, 60.000.000 Drs (195.000 USD) were spent for the moving of students to and from the Glafki Lyceum and the Sminthi, Echinos, Glafki and Thermae Gymnasiums of the Xanthi Prefecture.

census 1951: 18,671 Pomaks

[edit] Bulgaria

• on the census 1992, Pop. estimates 143,000, others using the same census 220,000, and others 268,000. Don't know Turkish, have almost no intelligentsia, live Rezlog and Rhodope. Bulgarian statistics say that only 15% of P. are non-believers. Some P. tend to identify themselves as Turks; on the opposite some, through help from Arab countries, (Libya, S. Arabia, Pakistan). Others still identify as Bulgarians to the point of converting. (A. Popovic [2])

[edit] varia

• Enc. Islam, 1965: 27,226 (almost certainly an undercount); 30% population muslim bulgaria; but many, finding it impossible to regain what they had lost during the war, began to emigrate to Anatolia; the Pomak population appears to have been reduced to a third from 1893 to 1926. (article Muhajir, S. Ansari)

• In 1990, the administration should continue to protest the treatment of the ethnic Turks, but should also focus on human rights abuses against Bulgaria's Pomak minority. Although fewer in number than the Turks, the Pomaks are subjected to similar human rights abuses. Bulgarian Muslims, the Pomaks are generally denied the right to practice their religion or to use their Islamicized names. They are frequently harassed and persecuted by police and security forces. As of this writing, Pomaks who have requested passports have been denied them, even though under Bulgaria's new passport law any citizen (with certain well-defined exceptions) who applies for a passport has the right to obtain one. The administration should press the Bulgarian authorities to ensure that Pomak passport applications are processed in the same manner as applications from other citizens.[3] (Human Rights Watch, 1989)

• There are estimated to be between 200 and 300 thousands Bulgarian Pomaks. They live predominantly in the mountain areas in South and

Southwest Bulgaria (bordering Greece) in a hermetic, conservative and patriarchal social climate, which emphasizes the conservation of family values and instinctive kindness. Their political behaviour is very specific. Traditionally, they support the political party in power as a resulting of a concealed psychological complex of inferiority. In 1991, Kamen Burov from the village Jeltousha attempted to establish political entity claiming to defend the Pomaks' political interests - the Democratic Party of labour (DPL). He failed because in the 1994 parliamentary elections, DPL won only 0,1% of the popular vote. The Bulgarian Pomaks remained a monolithic community religiously, psychologically, and regionally. They demonstrate strict loyalty to the Bulgarian State. Currently, they again massively support the ruling National Movement Simeon II. (interview with Vladimir Chukov)[4]

• The census lacks information about the Pomaks, but a comparison of the data on ethnicity with religious affiliation shows that their numbers (census 12/1992) are likely about 310,000 (3.6 percent).

• The name changing policy was used against the Pomaks in the Rhodope Mountains during the period from 1968 to 1973. The forced Bulgarization applied in 1973 provoked one of the first organized civil protests against the Communist regime. The Muslims of the western Rhodope Mountains strongly resisted the official government policy of imposing Bulgarian names and forbidding Muslim religious practices. The rebellious inhabitants of Kornitza village proclaimed a separate republic and for one month blocked access to the area, refusing to change their names or their religion. Police and military units eventually quashed the Kornitza Republic. During the unrest, seven villagers were killed and many others were sent to prison or expelled from the region. These events were not made public. (M. Assenova, "Islam in Bulgaria")[5]

• Dutch scientist Fred de Jong, well known for his works on Western Thrace, identifies the Pomaks as "a people whose ethnic origins are not known precisely; they usually speak a dialect of Bulgarian language, and Turkish as a second language; they are a Turkified Muslim people". They are devout muslims, [6]

• The first surprise came with the religious orientations of the studied groups. 2% of the Turkish minority say they are Christians; 1% - Catholics, 18% - atheists. From the Pomak ethnocultural group 4.5% say they are Christians, and 31% - atheists. These figures destroy the established stereotype, according to which the Bulgarian Turks and the Pomaks are always Moslems.

The Turkish and Pomak population lives main1y in the countryside (69% and 64% respectively) and the population is poorly educated (61% of the Turks are with primary education, only 2% have higher education). In respect to their political organization, over 24% of the Turkish ethnic respondents and nearly 20% of Pomaks are supporters of the MRF. 87% of Turks and 74% of Pomaks approve of its activity. They opt "that this organization protects the interests of a great part of the Bulgarian people". Only 3% of Turks and 11% of Pomaks do not approve of this organization, because "it favors outside interests". This attitude shows a tendency towards ethnopolitical homogenization.

Under certain conditions this tendency could stimulate confrontational attitudes in these two groups. These conclusion are indirectly confirmed by two other factors: the attitude of these groups towards the activity of their organization and their participation in nationwide po1itical organizations like the BSP and the UDF. More than 64% of Turks are not members of any organization and only 12% are members of nationwide organizations. With the Pomaks, the situation is different - 29% are members, and 51% are not. Gypsies are the least organized, 80% of them participating in no political organization.(CSD)

ciaonet - Apostolov link fondamentale per la storia dei Pomaci anni 20, 30, 40, ecc.

• attrice Rita Wilson è mezza pomaca

• In spite of the fact that the Pomaks and Torbeài are occasionally included among the Turks and in spite of the fact that they sometimes call themselves Turks, they are nevertheless the

purest stratum of the old Bulgarian or Serbian population purest stratum of the old Bulgarian or Serbian population, as the case may be, who have preserved their Slav type and Slav language (especially archaic words) very well, sometimes even better—as a result of their being cut off from the Christians and their isolation in outlying districts—than their Christian kinsmen, who have been constantly exposed to admixture from other ethnic elements. They have a certain feeling of aversion for the Turks, whose language they do not understand. It is only in the towns that we find that in course of time some of these Slavs have adopted the Turkish language. What bound them to the Ottomans was not language, but principally a common religion, with its prescriptions and customs (e.g. the veiling of women), which along with Turkish rule naturally imposed upon them many Arabic and Turkish words. In spite of this, there have survived among them many | [VIII:321b] pre-Islamic customs and reminiscences of Christianity (observation of certain Christian festivals, etc.).

• As regards the

distribution distribution of these Muslim Slavs according to countries countries, the following statistics may be quoted. In what used to be the principality of | [VIII:321a] Bulgaria Bulgaria Jire´ek estimated (1891) their number at most 28,000 souls, and before the Balkan War there were within the old frontiers of Bulgaria (according to official statistics of 1910) 21,143 (0.49% of the population). In the lands acquired in the Balkan War in Southern Bulgaria there were, however, many more Pomaks, mainly in the regions of the rivers Arda, Mesta and Struma, so that the official census of 1920 makes their number 88,399 (1.82% of the whole population). A somewhat higher figure was given by the Annuaire du Monde Musulman for 1929 (305), namely 16,000 Pomaks in Bulgaria proper and 75,337 in Thrace, i.e. 91,337 in all. The 1926 census gave 102,351 Bulgarian-speaking Muslims in Bulgaria, i.e. 1.87% of the population, while the number of Muslims in Bulgaria without distinguishing their languages was then 789,296 or 14.41% of the population. Of these 102,351 Bulgarian-speaking Muslims only 5,799 lived in the towns and the remaining 96,552 in the villages. Literate Pomaks in the whole of Bulgaria in 1926 numbered only 6,659 in 1926 (of whom 5,534 were men).

The number of Pomaks (in reality of Muslim Slavs) in Macedonia was, according to S. Verkovi´ (1889; see Bibl.) 144,051 men.

As regards the number of Serbian-speaking Muslims in Southern Serbia, they were estimated by H. Vasiljeviµ (Muslimani ..., 11 ff.), whose calculations were, however, to some extent based on the situation before the Balkan War, at 100,000 souls; in 1935 the figure was put at 60,000 and the number of Serbo-Croat-speaking Muslims in the whole of the former Yugoslavia at about 900,000 (exact figures could not be given because the statistics according to religions had not been published).

For Thrace, the figure of 75,337 Muslim Bulgars has already been given from the Annuaire; in Western Thrace there were, according to the inter-Allied census (of March 1920) (cf. La question de la Thrace, ed. by the Comité suprême des réfugiés de Thrace, Sofia 1927).

As for the Pomaks of Greek Western Thrace (the southern part of the Rhodope Mountains) at this time, we possess a piece of evidence (rapid and incomplete, it is true, but completely first-hand) from the Orthodox Bulgarian Patriarch Kiril, who visited these regions in 1943-4: Kiril, patriarch b¨lgarski, B¨lgaromohamedanski seliàta v Juìni Rodopi (Ksantijsko i Gjumjurdìinsko) toponimno, etnografsko i istori´esko izsledvane, Sofia 1960. This contains much information on the daily life of this people (especially on the ethnographic level), but also on the general atmosphere in these isolated mountain villages. The local Pomaks were often hostile to their visitor; they spoke Bulgarian and knew no Turkish whatsoever; their womenfolk were only very rarely veiled; polygamy was unknown; divorce was very rare; but the villages adjacent to the plain were, more and more, becoming slowly Turkicised. On the religious and cultural level should be noted the survival of certain Christian customs, the fact that the dead were buried in the direction of Mecca and the existence of mosques in the villages (but only one tekke is mentioned, in the district of -ahin, whilst the medreses were all in ruins).

• It is very difficult to supply accurate information regarding the Muslim community constituted by the Bulgarophone Pomaks of Greece (some 25,000 persons) living in the mountains of the Rhodopes, along the Bulgarian frontier.

This is an exclusively village-based and very introvert community, inhabiting mountainous territory (which is also a military zone) to which access is forbidden to Greeks and to foreigners alike (and which cannot be entered without special authorisation, difficult to obtain). The cultural level of this population seems to be fairly modest (although there exists a madrasa at Echinos), and (as in the case of the Pomaks of Bulgaria) no written testimony relating to them is available. Those of them who have come to settle in the towns of eastern Thrace seem to have been gradually assimilated into the Turkish milieu. ([muslim -enc. islam])

• Empire's Edge Scott Malcolm, passing at Velingrad (large P. minority), observed "the women wearing knit leggings under knee-skirts or dresses, over these a sweater or jacket and brightly colored scarf" These Pomak outfits were forbidden under Zhivkov.(1995)

• • POULTON - 1997 - Previous border-related benefits to enc. settlem.; higher pays, easy loans for hose building, lower taxation, higher edu. quotas have vanished. The P are those suffering most from the 89 reforms; they had managed to preserve their identity till 89, facing the dilemma of endangering identity by engaging in programmes like small-scale trading and trader-tourism or face bleak conditions. Many, especially the young, opt for reform, even to the point to converting. Other emigrate to Turkey. Massive waves of emigration followed the Balk. Wars., and later in 1950-51. The last mass wave was June-July 89, just before the fall of Zivkov in Nov. 300,000 T. and P. left, 100,000 returning in Sep. Ma mentre 50 facile trovare sistemazione, 89 cresce ostilità pop. e riluttanza a spendere su loro. Per questo pomaci tendono a dirigeresi a villaggi creati da compaesani; linee costanti di autobus fra essi. Vi è stato anche in B. fra i P un rafforzarsi della religiosità, un costruirsi di moschee, un riprendere di nomi turchi (generando tensioni crist-islam) e l'apprendimento del turco a scuola. bbbb I pomaci avrebbero sviluppato una "identità clandestina". Verso la metà dei 90 la situazione identitaria è critica. Nel 1994 la loro disoccupazione era superiore al 38% dei Roma. I pomaci sono stati duramente colpiti dal collasso dell'economia dei Rodopi, basata sulla coltura del tabacco.I turchi preferivano vendere la terra ai pomaci partendo. ----- (W. Hopken) il MRF prese nel 1991 metà del voto dei pomaci.

• • POULTON -