Karamanlides: The Greek Orthodox Turkish-Speaking People Native to Anatolia

A Byzantine basilica successful Karaman, the portion wherever the Karamanlides, oregon Greeks who spoke Turkish, are from. Credit: Volker Hohfeld/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

A radical of radical autochthonal to Anatolia, the Karamanlides, are believed by galore to beryllium Turkish speaking Greeks. They utilized a dialect of Turkish successful operation with the Greek alphabet.

Starting arsenic acold backmost arsenic 1071, Turks began settling successful Anatolia, and, soon thereafter, they dominated the immense bulk of the region, excluding the Marmara Sea portion and immoderate areas surrounding the Mediterranean.

At that time, the indigenous colonisation of Anatolia spoke and wrote successful Greek and were Greek Orthodox. The Turks referred to each Orthodox Christian communities successful the Ottoman arsenic the “Roman community,” and labeled the radical “Rum,” meaning Roman, a word which is utilized to this day.

Karamanlides spoke Turkish but utilized Greek letters

Among Orthodox Christian communities, determination were immoderate groups of individuals who spoke Turkish but utilized a publication based connected the Greek alphabet. They chiefly lived successful Anatolian cities, specified arsenic Karaman, Konya, Mersin, Silifke, Niğde, Nevşehir, Kayseri, Yozgat, and Ankara.

Mentioned arsenic acold backmost arsenic the 17th period by Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, they were radical who boasted an authentic Turkish accent but utilized Greek and Latin words, arsenic well.

There are 2 theories of the origins of these communities. The first theory says that these radical known arsenic the Karamanlides are religiously converted Turkish soldiers (Turcopoles) that Byzantine emperors settled successful Anatolia. The 2nd mentation states that Karamanlides are the nonstop descendants of Byzantine Greeks.

The Karamanlides were known to person spiritual affiliations to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

It is documented that during the Ottoman era, hymns and prayers of the Karamanlides were chanted in Karamanlides Turkish astatine section churches successful the neighborhoods.

The immense bulk of the colonisation of these neighborhoods were Greek-speaking and referred to non-Muslims arsenic “foreigners (infidels, oregon giaour) with a hat.” On the different hand, the Muslim colonisation called the Karamanlı Greeks “Ellik,” meaning “foreigners of the land.”

These taste Greeks, who erstwhile lived successful ample numbers on the shores of the Marmara Sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, which separates Turkey’s Asian and European parts, saw overmuch calamity successful and astir their communities.

Population speech betwixt Greece and Turkey

From 1919 until 1922, their prosperity and peaceful mode of beingness came to a bitter extremity following the Greek Genocide astatine the hands of the Ottomans, neo-Turks, and Kemalists, erstwhile their destiny was sealed pursuing negotiations astatine Lausanne which resulted successful the speech of populations betwixt Greece and Turkey. However, the communicative does not extremity there.

The Karamanlides were an objection passim the Greek communities of Turkey. They each supported Greece during these acheronian years erstwhile astir 400,000 taste Greeks were murdered. However, the Karamanlides assemblage was mostly indifferent to some Greek and Turkish governments.

Moreover, not lone did the Karamanlides stay neutral successful the 1920s but immoderate of them adjacent demanded the constitution of a abstracted Orthodox Church from the Greek Orthodox Church. Then, successful 1922, seventy-two orthodox spiritual leaders gathered successful Kayseri with the enactment of the authorities successful Ankara and announced the instauration of the Turkish Orthodox Church.

However, pursuing the Lausanne Treaty and the colonisation exchange, astir 200,000 Karamanlides Greeks were forced to repatriate to Greece successful spite of the information that galore lone spoke Turkish.

Some of them person managed to stay successful Turkey to this time portion the immense bulk unrecorded successful Greece, followed by a notable diaspora successful Western Europe and North America.

It wasn’t an casual modulation for the Karamanlidi Greeks, arsenic they could not pass successful Greek and had galore conflicts with the section Greeks, who called them “Turkish seeds.”

Following this alienation, they went connected to found villages and neighborhoods named aft places they came from in Anatolia, adding “nea” (new) successful beforehand of them. Always considering Anatolia their homeland, the communities continued to sphere their connection and civilization without mixing with section Greeks.