Muhajir (Turkey)

Muhajir (Turkey)

Muhacir, Macırlar, or Muhajir, is a term used to refer to Ottoman Muslim citizens (including Turks, Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, and Pomaks) who emigrated to Anatolia from the late 18th century until the end of the 20th century. Some five to seven million Muslim migrants from hostile regions arrived in Anatolia from 1783 to 1914; the influx of migration during the late 19th century and early 20th century was due to the loss of almost all Ottoman territory during the Balkan War of 1912-13 and World War I. These Muhacirs, or refugees, saw the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently the Republic of Turkey, as a protective "motherland". 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 Aegean islands, the island of Cyprus, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (Hatay), the Middle East, and the Soviet Union continued to arrive in Turkey, most of which settled in urban north-western Anatolia. By the the 1930s migration accelerated as another two million Muslims settled in Turkey. The bulk of these immigrants were the Balkan Turks who faced harassment and discrimination in their homelands. 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 of immigrants to nearly ten million people. Today, between a third and a quarter of Turkey's population are the descendants of these Muhacirs.