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Pomaks Помаци Πομάκοι Pomaklar
Pomaks in the early 20th century
Total population
c. 1 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Turkey
350,000[1]- 600,000[2]
Bulgaria
107,777 (2021 Census)[3] 67,350 Muslim Bulgarians (2011 census)[4] up to 250,000[1]
Greece
50,000 in Western Thrace[1]
Languages
Bulgarian (native), Greek (by those resident in Greece) and Turkish (by those resident in Turkey)[a][5][6][7][8]
Religion
Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Other South Slavic Muslims
Pomaks (Bulgarian: Помаци, romanized: Pomatsi; Greek: Πομάκοι, romanized: Pomáki; Turkish: Pomaklar) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting Bulgaria, northwestern Turkey, and northeastern Greece.[9] The c. 220,000 strong[10] ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government.[11] The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania.[12][13]
Most Pomaks today live in Turkey where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.[14][15][16][17]
Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language.[18] The community in Greece is commonly fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, especially in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their first language as a result of education and family links with the Turkish people.[19][20]
They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims,[21] considered derogatory.[clarification needed] However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades.[clarification needed] Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian,[22][23] Pomak,[24][25][26] ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.[27]
^ abcdCarl Skutsch (7 November 2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. pp. 974–. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.
^"Türkiye'deki Kürtlerin sayısı!" (in Turkish). 6 June 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
^Carl Waldman; Catherine Mason (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. pp. 607–. ISBN 978-1-4381-2918-1. living in the Rhodope Mountains in Thrace in southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and northwestern Turkey.
^Thomas M. Wilson; Hastings Donnan (2005). Culture and Power at the Edges of the State: National Support and Subversion in European Border Regions. LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 158–159. ISBN 978-3-8258-7569-5. The name ... refers to about 220,000 people in Bulgaria ... Pomaks inhabit borderlands ... between Bulgaria and Greece
^Hugh Poulton; Suha Taji-Farouki (January 1997). Muslim Identity and the Balkan State. Hurst. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-1-85065-276-2. The Pomaks, known officially in Bulgaria as Bulgarian Muhammadans or Bulgarian Muslims, are an ethno-confessional minority at present numbering about 220,000 people.
^Kristen Ghodsee (27 July 2009). Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria. Princeton University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-4008-3135-7. [better source needed]
^P. H. Liotta (1 January 2001). Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. Lexington Books. pp. 246–. ISBN 978-0-7391-0212-1.
^Myuhtar-May, Fatme (2014). Identity, nationalism, and cultural heritage under siege : five narratives of Pomak heritage - from forced renaming to weddings /. Balkan studies library. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-27207-1.
^Haksöz, Cengiz (2018). "Migration in the Southern Balkans. From Ottoman Territory to Globalized Nation States". Südosteuropa. 66 (4): 603–605. doi:10.1515/soeu-2018-0047. ISSN 2364-933X. S2CID 187892002.
^"Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria - [PDF Document]". cupdf.com. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
^Apostolov, Mario (1996). "The Pomaks: A Religious Minority in the Balkans". Nationalities Papers. 24 (4): 727–742. doi:10.1080/00905999608408481. ISSN 0090-5992. S2CID 153397474.
^Turan, Ömer (2007). "Pomaks, Their Past and Present". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 19 (1): 69–83. doi:10.1080/13602009908716425.
^[1] Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine THE POMAKS, Report – Greek Helsinki Monitor
^"Turks and Pomaks". Minority Rights Group. 19 June 2015. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015.
^Cite error: The named reference pomaks1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"СТРУКТУРА НА НАСЕЛЕНИЕТО ПО ВЕРОИЗПОВЕДАНИЕ" [STRUCTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS POPULATION]. nsi.bg (in Bulgarian). Archived from the original on 25 December 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
^Muslim identity and the Balkan State; Hugh Poulton, Suha Taji-Farouki; 1997, p. 102
^"Interview With Mr. Damjan Iskrenov* and Mr. Shikir Bujukov* from the Village of Kochan – Pomaks from Chech, Western Rodop Mountains (Pirin Part of Macedonia), R. of Bulgaria" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016.
^"READING ROOM 3: Raw deal for the Pomaks".
^"Помаците искат да бъдат признати като етнос | Dnes.bg". www.dnes.bg.
^Histories and Identities: Nation-state and Minority Discourses. The Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks. Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Graz
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the Greek Pomaks. Its frequency increased as a consequence of high genetic drift within this population. This indicates that the Greek Pomaks are an isolated...
refer to some of the Rup dialects of the Bulgarian language spoken by the Pomaks of Western Thrace in Greece and Eastern Thrace in Turkey. These dialects...
000 Pomaks in European Turkey speak Bulgarian as mother tongue. It is very hard to estimate the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks who live...
and 56,191 Pomaks for the Blagoevgrad Province, it is highly likely that the vast majority of the Turks in the province are actually Pomaks. A similar...
these, about a quarter are of Turkish origin, while another quarter are Pomaks who mainly inhabit the mountainous parts of the region. The rest are Muslim...
republika), was a short-lived self-governing administrative structure of the Pomaks, living in the Tamrash region of the Rhodope Mountains. It existed from...
000 Pomaks in European Turkey speak Bulgarian as their mother tongue. It is very hard to estimate the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks who...
for use in Pomak schools. Recently, news have begun to be broadcast in the native language of the Pomaks. Most Pomaks are fluent in their Pomak dialects...
ethnic groups include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Georgians, Laz, Pomaks, and Roma. Turkey is also home to a Muslim community of Megleno-Romanians...
The region is home to Greece's main Muslim minority, made up mainly of Pomaks and Western Thrace Turks, whose presence dates to the Ottoman period. Unlike...
War and in a short period after it. On the other hand, Bulgarian Turks, Pomaks and Muslim Roma from Northern Thrace in Bulgaria, were expelled and settled...
ethnic Greek Muslims, Pomaks and Roma Muslims as well. The "Panhellenic Pomak Association" and the "Cultural Association of Pomaks of Xanthi", have stated...
approximately 0.95% of the population, consists of speakers of Turkish, Bulgarian (Pomaks) and Romani. Romani is spoken by Christian Roma in other parts of the country...
representing the interests of Muslims, especially Turks and to a lesser extent Pomaks (Muslim Bulgarians), the party also receives the largest share of Romani...
descent, brother of Daniel Sinani. Veldin Hodža, Croatian footballer. Torbeši Pomaks Gorals "Program političke stranke GIG". Do Nato intervencije na Srbiju,...
Justinian the Great Mythology Orpheus Zagreus Sabazios Zalmoxis Bendis Ares Hermes Apellon Asclepius Legacy Thracian Bulgarian Pomaks Archaeology v t e...
ancestors of the modern Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians and the Muslim Pomaks. The movement may have also been an influence on medieval European Christian...
Active Krajina (Bosnian: Pokret za Modernu i Aktivnu Krajinu; abbreviated POMAK) is a political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina founded by Šuhret Fazlić...
mother tongue. It is very hard to estimate the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks who live in Turkey, as they have blended into the Turkish...
substantial number of Bulgarians converted to Islam, forming the community of the Pomaks or Muslim Bulgarians. In the 16th and the 17th centuries Roman Catholic...
in Turkey, Amuca tribe, Albanians in Turkey, Bosniaks in Turkey, Gajal, Pomaks in Turkey, Megleno-Romanians, Vallahades, Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Circassians...
Pomaks in Western Thrace in Greece. These dialects are native also in Bulgaria, and are classified as part of the Smolyan subdialect. Not all Pomaks speak...
used this area to encapsulate and monitor a non-Greek ethnic minority, the Pomaks, a Muslim and Bulgarian-speaking minority which was regarded as hostile...
and Muslim peoples from the Balkans (Balkan Turks, Albanians, Bosniaks, Pomaks), Caucasus (Abkhazians, Ajarians, Circassians, Chechens), Crimea (Crimean...