Karamanlı
The Karamanlıs or Karamans ( Turkish Karamanlılar or Karamaniyanlar , Greek Καραμανλήδες Karamanlides ) are a Turkic-speaking , Christian-Orthodox ethnic group in Greece and Turkey , which was originally located in Anatolia . In German, the terms Karamaner or Karamanliden are also used.
Language and ethnicity
The Karamanlı mostly spoke an Ottoman-influenced Turkish with Greek loanwords and a great number of Old Turkish words, some of which are rarely used in today's Turkish. The Ottoman travel writer Evliya Çelebi reported in the 17th century that the Greeks of Antalya could not speak Greek and only spoke Turkish. The name of this dialect of the Karamanlı is Karamanlıca (“Karamanisch”) or Karamanlı Türkçesi (“Karamaner Turkish”). The Karamanlıca , which was initially only spoken , was recorded in writing over time, for which the Greek alphabet was used. Examples of this can be found in the literature listed below on the Karamanlı tombstones that have survived in Turkey and are decorated with idioms and poems . It remains unclear whether the Karamanlı were Turkish Greeks who retained their faith or Turks who converted to Christianity. During the population exchange between Greece and Turkey , around 60,000 Karamanlı had to forcibly relocate to Greece because they belonged to Orthodox Christianity. A small number of Karamanlı still live in Turkey today. The Karamanlıca dialect is threatened with extinction in both Greece and Turkey.
Origin of name
Your name Karamanlı is originally the name for the inhabitants of the city and province of the same name Karaman in today's Turkey . The Greek word for Karamanlı (Karamaner) is Karamanlis . For example, the ancestors of Konstantinos Karamanlis also lived in Karaman and this origin still shapes their name.
The Karamanlı should not be confused with the inhabitants of the historical Karaman principality or with the almost exclusively Muslim inhabitants of the Karaman province today .
Settlement areas
The Karamanlı , who used to live in the Turkish cities of Karaman , Aksaray , Ankara , Göreme , Ihlara , Istanbul , Kahramanmaraş , Kayseri , Konya , Nevşehir , Niğde , Sivas , Tokat and Ürgüp and their surroundings are now mostly based in Greece. Only a small number still live in Turkey.
Origin and history
script : «Ya göglerde (göklerde) olan Pederimiz; ismin azizlensin. Padişahlığın gelsin; iradetin gögdeki (gökteki) gibi yerde dahi olsun. Gündelik etmeğimizi (ekmeğimizi) ver bize bugün; ve bize borçlarımızı bağışla, nice ki biz dahi bize borçlu olanlara bağışlarız. Ve bizi iğvaye (iğvaya) salma; illâ fenakârdan kurtar; zira saltanat, ve kuvvet, ve izzet, ebedan (ebediyen) senindir. Amine »
The Karamanlı are claimed from two sides according to ancestry:
- From the Turkish point of view, the Karamanlı are predominantly regarded as Oghuz of Turkish origin who converted to Christianity due to their proximity to the Byzantines and originally, like the Seljuks , mastered the Persian language in addition to Turkish. The Karamanlı , who still live in Turkey today, support this theory of descent, as they feel they are descendants of the Seljuks. After 1000 AD, during the Byzantine Empire , the ancestors of the Karamanlı immigrated to their new homeland, Anatolia . Here, under the influence of the Greeks, they adopted the Christian faith. They were accepted by the Muslim Turks and respected in their practice of faith. The Greeks had their autonomy in the Ottoman Empire , which guaranteed them cultural and religious freedom. The Karamanlı also made use of this freedom of belief.
- From the Greek point of view, the Karamanlı are considered to be Greeks who have been Turkishized but who have retained their Greek Orthodox faith.
It is true that before the Seljuk invasion of Anatolia in the Balkans, the Byzantines had defeated and subjugated the Turkish-speaking peoples (Uzen and Pechenegs) who came from the southern Russian steppes and who were related to the Oghuz followers of the Seljuks. These were then incorporated into the army after Christianization. It was a Byzantine practice to reward such soldiers by allocating land. On the other hand, the population of Anatolia, including Cappadocia, was not of genuine Greek origin, but was Hellenized in a process that lasted several centuries, during which the indigenous Anatolian idioms only became extinct in the late Roman period. From the time of the Persian Empire and until it was incorporated into the Roman Empire, Inner Anatolia, in which rulers of Persian descent ruled in larger areas, was subject to Iranian cultural influence, which was also effective with the Seljuks. The population of the peripheral provinces of the Byzantine Empire was often in opposition to the metropolitan elite; all circumstances that favored the alienation of Greek and Byzantine imperial culture and, ultimately, the abandonment of the Greek and the adoption of the Turkish language.
After Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans in 1453, many people were resettled there, including many Karamanlı . In 1551 the traveler Nicolas de Nicolay saw that the Karamanlı in Yedikule lived together in their own neighborhood and earned their livelihood by trading - especially the jewelery trade - and with business administration and handicrafts.
Their shops and businesses were located near the Grand Bazaar, Kapalı Çarşı . Nicolay also reports that Karamanlı women, like Greek women, seldom took to the streets except to go to church and hammam. At home they were busy with household chores and embroidery, which they sold in Kapalı Çarşı or other bazaars . Some Karamanlı women were able to contribute a little to their livelihood by selling eggs, chicken, cheese and vegetables on the streets.
The Karamanlı belonged to the ecumenical patriarchate . Over time they also moved to other parts of the city such as Fener, Cibali, Tahtakale, Kumkapı , where many rum already lived. They had their shops in the Istanbul districts of Eminönü and Galata , see also: Districts of Istanbul .
During the First World War and the Wars of Liberation , they fought together with Muslims against the occupiers. Mustafa Kemal began mobilizing the resistance on May 19, 1919. Through several battles he managed to prevent the occupation and division as provided for in the Treaty of Sevres. After the victory of Turkey on July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was able to revise the provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres and thus prevent the loss of large parts of today's national territory. With the treaty, Turkey's borders were recognized under international law. At the same time, the "population exchange" with Greece was directed into regulated channels.
As a result of this population exchange, the Karamanlı lost their old homeland and were forcibly relocated to a country whose language and culture they did not know. The endeavors of many Turks to keep their friends and neighbors in Anatolia failed. After the forced relocation of Christians from Turkey , the Karamanlı tragedy continued. A great pressure to assimilate, integration problems , the conversion to the other culture, the broken contact with the old homeland, learning the Greek language and a ban on Turkish and thus also the dialect of the Karamanlı in public between 1936 and 1941 were just a few problems.
One result of this is that the Karamanlı living in Greece today no longer speak their original Turkish language. The sense of togetherness remained largely intact: After the exchange of peoples, the Karamanlı contributed a lot through charity organizations to the establishment and development of their villages and towns of origin.
Areas of origin and typical professions of the Karamanlı
- Kurdonos / Niğde village : soap dealer
- Aravan: Kuruyemişçi: Dealer in nuts, almonds, pistachios, dried fruits, sunflower seeds, Leblebi (roasted chickpeas) etc. like
- Uluağaç: intermediary
- Niğde: cheese and grain seller
- Fertek: wine seller
- Sinasos village / Ürgüp / Nevşehir : caviar and fish sellers
- Kayseri : Jerky meat and sausage seller
Personal names and culture
According to Ottoman tax records, the Karamanlı wore in the 17th and 18th centuries. Century, when names derived from Arabic such as Hasan, Hüseyin, Ahmed etc. were widespread among the Turkish population of Anatolia, only names of Turkish origin such as Aslan, Kaplan, Tursun, Sefer, Mehmet, Karaca, Kaya, Ayvaz, Karagöz.
Their culture was shaped by Turkish with Christian-Orthodox influences.
Between the 15th and 18th centuries, the Karamanlı wrote handwritten Orthodox literature. From 1718 the books of the Karamanlı were printed, in the 19th century over 500 works, mostly novels, religious writings and history books.
The publications in Greek script mainly cover the period from 1584 to 1923. A catalog of works was recorded and published in the four volumes of the Karamanlidika .
An example of the independent literature of the Karamanlı is the poem "Kayseria Mitropolitleri ve Malumat-i Mütenevvia" (1896). It describes their culture, which is characterized by their Christian Orthodox religion, Greek script and Turkish ethnicity, as well as their Ottoman identity.
Example of poetry
This poem draws attention to the fact that only their Greek script connects them with the Anatolian Greeks and that everything else is regulated in the Turkish language and culture.
(Turkish)
Rum isek de Rumca bilmez, Türkçe söyleriz;
Ne Türkçe yazar okuruz, ne de Rumca söyleriz;
Öyle bir mahlut-i hatt tarikatımız (karışık yazı biçimimiz) vardır;
Hurufumuz Yunanice, Türkçe meram eyleriz "
(German)
Even if we are Greek, we don't speak Greek but Turkish;
We can neither write nor read Turkish nor speak Greek
We have written language that is difficult to understand;
Our letters are Greek, but we express our wishes (pray) in Turkish.
Sources and literature
- Robert Anhegger: Hurufumuz Yunanca. A contribution to the knowledge of Karaman-Turkish literature. In: Anatolica 7, 1979/80, pp. 157-202.
- Robert Anhegger: Supplements to Hurufumuz Yunanca. In: Anatolica 10, 1983, pp. 149-164.
- Yonca Anzerlioğlu: Karamanlı Ortodoks Turkler . Phoenix Yayınevi 2003 ISBN 975-6565-55-1 .
- Yakup Aygil: Turanlı Hıristiyanlar . Ant Yayınları 2003 İstanbul ISBN 975-10-2028-X .
- Mustafa Ekincilikli: Türk Ortodoksları . Ankara 1998 ISBN 975-7351-29-6 .
- Mehmet Eröz Hıristiyanlaşan Türkler . Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, Ankara 1983.
- Harun Güngör, Mustafa Argunşah & Ötüken Neşriyat: Gagauzlar . İstanbul, 1998 ISBN 975-437-270-5 .
- L. Ligeti: Bilinmeyen İç Asya I & II . Translated by Sadrettin Karatay, Eğitim Bakanlığı Yayınları. Bilim ve Kültür Eserleri Dizisi, İstanbul 1997 ISBN 975-11-0118-2 .
- Hale Soysü: Kavimler Kapısı: Lazlar, Yahudiler, Sudanlılar, Asurlular, Ermeniler, Hemşinliler Çeçen-İnguşlar, Pomaklar, Gagauzlar, Karamanlılar . Kaynak Yayınları, İstanbul 1992 ISBN 975-343-028-0 .
- Temel Britannica - Article Karaman , ISBN 975-7760-51-X .