Pomaks | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Pomaks (Pomatsi; Pomáki; Pomaklar) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government. The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania. Most Pomaks today live in Turkey where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria. Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language. 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. They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims, considered derogatory. However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades. Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian, Pomak, ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other. The name "Pomak" first appeared in the Bulgarian Christian-heretical language surroundings of North Bulgaria (the regions of Lovech, Teteven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina). According to one theory, it comes from the expression "по-ямак" ("more than a Yemek", "more important than a Yamak", similar to "пó юнак", i.e. "more than a hero"). It has also been argued that the name comes from the dialectal words "помáкан, омáкан, омáчен, помáчен" (pomákan, omákan, omáchen, pomáchen), meaning "tormented, tortured". Their precise origin has been interpreted differently by Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish historians, but it is generally considered they are descendants of native Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians, and Paulicians who also previously converted to Orthodoxy and Catholic faith, who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (33)

Bulgarians

Bulgarians (Bǎlgari, ˈbɤɫɡɐri) are a nation and Eastern South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighboring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, while in North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Albania and Greece they exist as historical communities. Bulgars Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars.

Pomaks

Population exchange between Greece and Turkey

The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey (I Antallagí, Mübâdele, Mübadele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. It involved at least 1.6 million people (1,221,489 Greek Orthodox from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, the Pontic Alps and the Caucasus, and 355,000–400,000 Muslims from Greece), most of whom were forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands.