Cuman-Kipchak confederation in Eurasia circa 1200

The Cumans (Turkish: kuman / plural kumanlar^[1] Hungarian: kun / plural kunok;^[2] Greek: Κο(υ)μάνοι, Ko(u)manoi;,,^[3] Romanian: cuman / plural cumani, Polish: Połowcy, Plauci (Kumanowie), Russian: Половцы - Polovtsi, Ukrainian: Половці, Bulgarian: Кумани, Czech: Plavci, Georgian: ყივჩაყი, ყიფჩაღი, German: Falones, Phalagi, Valvi, Valewen, Valani) were a Turkic^[2][4][5][6] nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), they decided to seek asylum in Hungary,^[7] and subsequently to Bulgaria. Other researchers state that the Cumans were welcomed to Hungary before the Mongol invasion.^[8] Cumans had also settled in Bulgaria before the Mongol invasion.

Related to the Pecheneg,^[9] they inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea and along the Volga River known as Cumania; where the Cuman-Kipchaks meddled in the politics of the Caucasus and Khwarezm.^[10] They eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea, influencing the politics of Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldavia, Georgia and Wallachia. Cuman and Kipchak tribes joined politically to create a confederation known as the Cuman-Kipchak confederation.^[11] The Cuman language is attested in some medieval documents and is the best-known of the early Turkic languages.^[12] The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual which was written to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cuman people.

Kingdom of Hungary (13th century)

Cuman/Kipchak statue, 12th c., Lugansk

Map of Europe in 1190.

The Cumans were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. The basic instrument of Cuman political success was military force, which dominated each of the warring Balkan factions. Groups of the Cumans settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. Arguments have been brought forward which argue that the name of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids, and Shishmanids), and the founding Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids) are of Cuman origin.^[11][13] But, in the cases of the Basarab and Asenid dynasties, medieval documents refer to them as Vlach (Romanian) dynasties^[14][15][16] They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary, and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite.

The Cumans were called Folban and Vallani/Valwe by Germans, Kun (Qoun) by the Hungarians, and Polovtsy/Polovec by the Russians - all meaning "blond". It is difficult to know which group past historians were referring to when they used the name Kipchak, as they could refer to the Cumans only, the Kipchaks only, or to both together. The two nations joined and lived together (and possibly exchanged weaponry, culture and fused languages). This confederation and their living together may have made it difficult at times for historians to write exclusively about either nation. Some of the clans of the Cuman-Kipchaks were the Terteroba, Burdjogli, Toksoba, Etioba/Ietioba, Kay, Itogli, Kochoba (meaning Ram Clan), Urosoba, El'Borili, Kangarogli, Andjogli, Durut, Djartan, Karabirkli, Kotan/Hotan, Kulabaogli; Olelric, Altunopa and the Olberli.

The field of Igor Svyatoslavich's battle with the Cuman–Kipchaks by Viktor Vasnetsov

Etymology[link]

A variety of sources from different countries (such as Germany, Hungary and the historic Rus) explain that the different names for the Cumans may all refer to the meaning 'blond', 'sallow' and 'yellow', in reference to the color of the Cumans' hair.^[17] The Ukrainian word 'Polovtsy' (Пóловці) means "blond", since the old Ukrainian word "polovo" means "straw". "Kuman" means "pale yellow" in Turkic.

O. Suleymenov said their name referred to "men of the field, steppe" from the Ukrainian word pole (open ground, field), not to be confused with polyane (cf. Greek polis - city),In Slavic languages the word 'polyane' lit.means'open ground,field'. . O. Suleymenov suggested that polovtsy came from a word for "blue-eyed", since the Serbo-Croatian word plav means "blue"^[18]

Referring to O. Suleymenov's contribution in the preceding paragraph, Fred Hirschler, a native speaker of Serbo-Croatian and Wikipedia contributor, adds that the Serbo-Croatian word "plav" has two meanings: 1. blue; 2. blond. The second definition was probably borrowed from the Ukrainian word "polovo" meaning "straw", mentioned in the first paragraph under Etymology. Other than being homophonous, the two definitions are not related.

History[link]

The Cumans originally lived east of the Yellow River, in China.^[19] The Cumans entered the grassland of Eastern Europe in the 11th century, from where they continued to assault the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and Rus - they became their arch enemies.

The vast territory of this Cuman-Kipchak realm, consisting of loosely connected tribal units who were the military dominating force, was never politically united by a strong central power. Cumania was neither a state nor an empire, but different groups under independent rulers, or khans, who acted on their own initiative, meddling in the political life of the surrounding states: the Russian principalities, Bulgaria, Byzantium and the Wallachian states in the Balkans, Armenia and Georgia (see Kipchaks in Georgia-but here we do not know if it was just Kipchaks, just Cumans, or Kipchaks and Cumans, discussed earlier) in the Caucasus, and Khwarezm, having reached as far as to create a powerful caste of warriors, the Mamluks and the Mamluk Sultanate.

The Cumans first encountered the Rus in 1055; this resulted in a peace agreement. In 1061, the Cumans invaded and devastated the Rus Pereiaslav principality^[20]

Asia in 1200 AD, showing the Cumans and their neighbors.

In 1068, at the Alta River the Cumans defeated the armies of the three sons of Yaroslav the Wise—Iziaslav Yaroslavych, Sviatoslav II Yaroslavych, and Vsevolod Yaroslavych. After the Cuman victory, they repeatedly invaded Ukraine, devastating the land, and took captives who became either slaves or were sold at slave markets in the south. the Most vulnerable regions were the principalities of Pereiasla, Novhorod-Siverskyi and Chernihiv.^[20] The Cumans were active in commerce with Central Asia and Venice.^[21]

In the Balkans, we find the Cumans in contact with all of the statal entities of that time, fighting with the Kingdom of Hungary, allied with the Bulgarians and Vlachs against the Byzantine Empire, and involved into the politics of the fresh Vlach statal entities. A notable Cuman leader in Europe, Thocomer, ( Toq-tämir- meaning‘hardened steel’) was possibly the first one to unite the Romanian (Vlach) states from the west and the east of the Olt River. Tihomir's son Basarab^[22] ("Father king"^[13] in the Cuman language) is considered the first ruler of the united and independent kingdom of Wallachia. This interpretation corresponds with the general view of the situation of the Romanian lands in the 11th century, with the natives living in collections of village communities united in various small confederacies, with powerful chiefs competing to create small kingdoms. Some of these Romanian chiefs paid tribute to the various militarily dominant nomadic tribes that surrounded them.

Hungarian King Ladislaus I of Hungary (left) fighting with a Cuman Warrior (right)

Ladislaus I of Hungary defeated the Cumans after they attacked the Kingdom of Hungary in 1089.

In 1091 the Pechenegs, a semi-nomadic Turkic people of the prairies of southwestern Eurasia, were decisively defeated as an independent force at the Battle of Levounion by the combined forces of a Byzantine army under Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and a Cuman army under Togortok and Bunaq. Attacked again in 1094 by the Cumans, many Pechenegs were again slain. The remnants of the Pechenegs fled to Hungary, as the Cumans themselves would do a few decades later: fearing the Mongol invasion, in 1229, they asked asylum from Béla IV of Hungary.

In alliance with the Bulgarians and Vlachs^[23][24] during the Vlach-Bulgar Rebellion by brothers Asen and Peter of Tarnovo, the Cumans are believed to have played a significant role in the rebellion's final victory over Byzantium and the restoration of Bulgaria's independence (1185).^[25] Istvan Vassary states that without the active participation of the Cumans, the Vlakho-Bulgarian rebels could never have gained the upper hand over the Byzantines and ultimately without the Cumans’ military support, the process of Bulgarian restoration could never have been realised ^[11] The Cuman participation in the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185 and thereafter brought about basic changes in the political and ethnic sphere of Bulgaria and the Balkans ^[11] The Cumans were allies with Bulgaria's emperor Kaloyan, who was also descended from the Cumans, in the Bulgarian-Latin Wars.

Although the Cumans initially had managed to defeat the Great Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Kievan Rus in the 12th century (at the Battle of the Stugna River) later they were defeated by the combined forces of Russian principalities led by Monomakh and forced out of the Rus borders to Caucasus. Many Cumans at that time resettled into Georgia where they achieved prominent positions and helped Georgians to stop the advance of Seljuk Turks. After the death of warlike Monomakh in 1125 Cumans returned to the steppe along the Rus borders.

Like most other peoples of medieval Eastern Europe, they put up resistance against the relentlessly advancing Mongols, led by Jebe and Subutai. The Mongols crossed the Caucasus mountains in pursuit of Muhammad II, the shah of Khwarazm, and met and defeated the Cumans in Subcaucasia in 1220. The Cuman khans Danylo Kobiakovych and Yurii Konchakovych died in battle, while the other Cumans, commanded by Koten, managed to get aid from the Rus’ princes^[20] As the Mongols were approaching Russia, Khan Koten fled to the court of his son-in-law, Prince Mstislav the Bold of Galich. He warned Mstislav: "Today the Mongols have taken our land and tomorrow they will take yours". However, the Cumans were ignored for almost a year as the Rus had suffered from Cuman raids for decades. But when news reached Kiev that the Mongols were marching along the Dniester River, the Rus responded. Mstislav gathered an alliance of the Kievan Rus' princes including Mstislav III of Kiev and Prince Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal, who promised support, together with Khan Koten's Cumans. The Rus princes then began mustering their armies and going towards the rendezvous point. The army of the alliance of the Rus and Cumans numbered around 80,000. The battle took place near Kalka River (Battle of Kalka River). Due to confusion from mistakes from the Rus and Cumans, the battle was lost - the Cumans and Rus were defeated (1223). The Cumans were finally crushed in 1238.

Ivan Bilibin's illustration to the The Lay of Igor's Campaign shows the Cumans fighting against the Rus'

During the second Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe in 1237 the Cumans were defeated again. After the defeat some Cuman tribes followed Koten to Hungary and Bulgaria, where they became part of the local population; they were integrated into the élite and became nobles and rulers. In Hungary Cumans created two regions named Cumania (Kunság in Hungarian): Greater Cumania (Nagykunság) and Little Cumania (Kiskunság), both located in the Great Hungarian Plain.

Cuman/Kipchak statue, 12th c., Lugansk

The Hungarian king, in return for their military service, invited the Cumans to settle in areas of the Great Plain between the Danube and the Theiss Rivers (today's Great Cumania and Little Cumania); this region had become almost uninhabited after the Mongol raids of 1241-1242 (Horvath 2001). The Cumanians lived there until their settlements were destroyed during the Turkish wars (16th-17th centuries) (Szakaly 2000). At the beginning of the 18th century the Cumanian territories were resettled by their Hungarian-speaking descendants of the Cumans (Meszaros 2000). In the middle of the 18th century they got their status by becoming free farmers, and no longer serfs (Lango 2000a).^[8] Here, the Cumans maintained their autonomy, language and some ethnic customs well into the modern era. According to Pálóczi's estimation originally 70-80,000 Cumans settled in Hungary.^[26] The Cumans were in every way different to the local population of Hungary - their appearance - attire and hairstyle set them apart. In Hungary, the Cumans were exempt from jurisdiction of country officials; the Cumans had their own representatives. The Cumans also participated in some of the early general assemblies of Hungary, the precusrors of its parliament. At the time of Elizabeth the Cuman, queen of Hungary, gifts of precious clothes, land and other objects were given to the Cumans with the intent to ensure Cuman support. By the fifteenth century, all the Cumans were permanently settle in Hungary, in villages whose structure corresponded to that of the local population, and were Christianized. The Cumans did not always ally to the Hungarian kings; they assassinated Laszlo IV. Both the royal and ecclesiastical authorities incorporated, rather than exclude, the Cumans. The Cumans in Hungary served as light cavalry in the royal army, as an obligation since they were granted asylum. Being very fierce and capable warriors (as noted by Istvan Vassary), the king lead them in numerous expeditions against neighbouring countries; most notably they played an important part in the battle of Rudolf of Habsburg and Ottokar II of Bohemia (1278) - king Laszlo IV and the Cumans were on Rudolf's side. Laszlo IV was particulalry fond of the Cumans, and abandoned Hungarian culture and dress for Cuman culture, dress and hairstyle (he spent a lot of time with them).^[27]

Although the Cumans were defeated by the Mongols, the cultural heritage of the Cumans that remained in the Rus steppe (those who did not move to Hungary and Bulgaria) was transferred on to the Mongols. The Mongol élite adopted a lot of the traits, customs and language from the Cumans and Kipchaks; the Cumans, Kipchaks and Mongols finally became assimilated through intermarriage and became the Golden Horde. The Cumans, together with the Turko-Mongols, adopted Islam, in the second half of the 13th and the first half of the 14th century.^[20]

Battle between the Cumans and Grand Duke Andrei Bogolyubsky

Previously, in 1229, they had asked for asylum from King Béla IV of Hungary, who in 1238 finally offered refuge to the remainder of the Cuman people under their leader Kuthen (Hungarians spelled his name Kötöny). Kuthen in turn vowed to convert his 40,000 families to Christianity. King Béla hoped to use the new subjects as auxiliary troops against the Mongols, who were already threatening Hungary. The king assigned various parts of central Hungary to the Cuman tribes. A tense situation erupted when Mongol troops burst into Hungary. The Hungarians, frustrated by their own helplessness, took revenge on the Cumans, whom they accused of being Mongol spies. After a bloody fight the Hungarians killed Kuthen and his bodygards, and the remaining Cumans fled to the Balkans, pillaging and destroying many Hungarian villages in the way. After the Mongol invasion Béla IV of Hungary recalled the Cumans to Hungary to populate settlements devastated by war. The nomads subsequently settled throughout the Great Hungarian Plain. During the following centuries the Cumans in Hungary were granted various rights, the extent of which depended on the prevailing political situation. Some of these rights survived until the end of the 19th century, although the Cumans had long since assimilated with Hungarians.

Istvan Vassary states that after the Mongol conquest: "A large-scale westward migration of the Cumans began. In the summer of 1237 the first wave of this Cuman exodus appeared in Bulgaria. The Cumans crossed the Danube, and this time Ivan Asen II could not tame them, as he had often been able to do earlier; the only possibility left for him was to let them march through Bulgaria in a southerly direction. They proceeded through Thrace as far as Hadrianoupolis and Didymotoichon, plundering and pillaging the towns and the countryside, just as before. The whole of Thrace became, as Akropolites put it, a ‘Scythian desert’".^[28]

The pontic Cumania (Latin term for Deshti-Kipchak, not the Cumania in modern day Romania and Moldova), ceased to exist in the middle of the 13th century, when the Great Mongol Invasion of Europe occurred. In 1223, Genghis Khan defeated the Cumans and their Russian allies at the Battle of Kalka River (in modern Ukraine), and the final blow came in 1241, when the Cuman confederacy ceased to exist as a political entity, with the remaining Cuman tribes being dispersed, either becoming subjects and mixing with their Tatar-Mongol conquerors as part of what was to be known as the Nogai Horde, or fleeing to the west, to the Byzantine Empire, the Second Bulgarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Hungary, where they became kings and nobles with many privileges .

Monument to the Asen dynasty (of Cuman origin) in their capital Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Was responsible for establishing the Second Bulgarian Empire. Sculptor: prof. Krum Damianov

Cumans had served as mercenaries in the armies of the Byzantine Empire from the end of the 11th century and were one of the most important elements of the Byzantine army until the mid-14th century. They served as horse-archers and those in the central army were collectively called Skythikoi. In 1241, the Byzantines settled 10,000 Cumans in Thrace and Anatolia where they became hellenized. A Greek-speaking Cuman even became Megas Domestikos (Commander-in-Chief of the Army) under the Emperor Andronikos II.^[29]

The Cumans who remained scattered in the prairie of what is now southwest Russia joined the Golden Horde khanate and their descendants became assimilated with local Tatar populations.

The Cumans who remained east and south of the Carpathian Mountains established a county named Cumania, in an area consisting parts of Moldavia and Walachia. The Hungarian kings claimed supremacy on the territory of Cumania, among the nine titles of the Hungarian kings of the Árpád and Anjou dynasties were rex Cumaniae.

The Cuman influence in Wallachia and Moldavia was very strong, according to some historians who claim that the earliest Wallachian rulers bore supposedly Cuman names^[30] (e.g. Tihomir and Bassarab). This hypothesis is though disputed (Tihomir sounding like a Slavic given name), while the toponymy of the most densely populated regions of Romanian settlement shows strong evidence of Cuman place-names.^[30] In lack of convincing archaeological evidence of a Cuman civilisation, it appears the Cumans were just a minority within the local population, but they made up part of the ruling élite in Wallachia. As in the case of Bulgaria, they were assimilated by the majority, the present-day Romanians.

Basarab I, son of the Wallachian prince Tihomir of Wallachia obtained independence from Hungary at the beginning of the 14th century. The name Basarab is considered by some authors as being of Cuman origin, and meaning "Father King".

It is generally believed by Bulgarian historians that the Bulgarian mediaеval dynasties Asen, Shishman and Terter were Cumanian.

The Caucasian mummies found in China a while ago could have been Cumans, as it is stated that the Cumans originally came from eastern China before migrating to Europe.^[11]

Codex Cumanicus[link]

The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual for the Cuman language of the Middle Ages, designed to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans. It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark, in Venice (Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX). Some parts from the The Codex Pater Noster is shown below:

Atamız kim köktesiñ. Alğışlı bolsun seniñ atıñ, kelsin seniñ xanlığıñ, bolsun seniñ tilemekiñ – neçikkim kökte, alay [da] yerde. Kündeki ötmegimizni bizge bugün bergil. Dağı yazuqlarımıznı bizge boşatqıl – neçik biz boşatırbiz bizge yaman etkenlerge. Dağı yekniñ sınamaqına bizni quurmağıl. Basa barça yamandan bizni qutxarğıl. Amen!

In English, the text is: Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have done us evil. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

In Modern Turkish, the text is: Atamız sen göktesin. Alkışlı olsun senin adın, gelsin senin hanlığın, olsun senin dileğin– nasıl ki gökte, ve yerde. Gündelik ekmeğimizi bize bugün ver. Ve de yazıklarımızdan (suçlarımızdan) bizi bağışla– nasıl biz bağışlarız bize yaman (kötülük) edenleri. Ve de şeytanın sınamasından bizi koru. Tüm yamandan (kötülükten) bizi kurtar. Amin!

Cuman Prayer:

A page from Codex Cumanicus

Their language, known from a 13th-century trilingual Cumanian-Latin-Persian dictionary, was a form of Turkish and was, until the 14th century, a lingua franca over much of the Eurasian steppes (Yule and Cordier 1916)^[31]

Culture[link]

Despite their historical status, the ethnic origins of the Cumanians are uncertain, although their anthropological characteristics suggests that their geographical origin might be in Inner-Asia, South-Siberia(Paloczi Horvath 1998, 2001).^[8][32]

Robert de Clari described Cumans as nomadic warriors, who did not use houses, or farm, but rather lived in tents, and ate milk, cheese and meat. The horses had a sack for feeding attached to the bridle, and in a day and a night they can ride seven days of walking (Mansio), they go on campaign without any baggage, and when they return they take everything they can carry, they wear sheepskin and were armed with composite bows and arrows. They pray to the first animal they see in the morning.^[33][34] The Cumans, like the Bulgars, were also known to drink blood from their horse (they would cut a vein) when they ran out of water and were far from an available source. Another interesting feature of the Cumans was their elaborate masks which they used in battle - they were shaped like and worn over the face.

Cuman representation in the Radziwiłł Chronicle

A typical feature were mustaches. The traditional Cuman costume consisted of trousers and a caftan, each fastened by a belt. The men shaved the top of their head, while the rest of the hair was plaited into several braids. The Cumans also commonly wore pointed hats.^[27]

The main activity of the Cumans was animal husbandry. They raised horses, sheep, goats, camels, and cattle. In summer they moved north with their herds; in winter, south. Some of the Cumans led a semi settled life and took part in trading and farming. They mainly sold and exported animals, mostly horses, and animal products. The Cumans also played the role of middlemen in the trade between Byzantium and the East, which passed through the Cuman-controlled ports of Surozh, Oziv, and Saksyn. Several land routes between Europe and the Near East ran through Cuman territories: the Zaloznyi route, the Solianyi route, and the Varangian route. Cuman towns—Sharukan, Suhrov, and Balin—appeared in the Donets River Basin; they were inhabited, however, by other peoples besides the Cumans. Stone figures called Stone babas, which are found throughout southern Ukraine, were closely connected with the Cuman religious cult of shamanism. The Cumans tolerated all religions and Islam and Christianity spread quickly among them. As they were close to the Kyivan Rus’ principalities, the Cuman khans and important families began to Slavicize their names, for example, Yaroslav Tomzakovych, Hlib Tyriievych, Yurii Konchakovych, and Danylo Kobiakovych. Ukrainian princely families were often connected by marriage with Cuman khans; this lessened wars and conflicts. Sometimes the princes and khans waged joint campaigns; for example, in 1221 they attacked the trading town of Sudak on the Black Sea, which was held by the Seljuk Turks and which interfered with Rus’-Cuman trade.^[20]

Niketas Choniates, while descrbing a battle in the vicinity of Beroe in the late 12th century, gave an interesting description of the nomadic battle techniques of the Cumans: "They [i.e. the Cumans] fought in their habitual manner, learnt from their fathers. They would attack, shoot their arrows and begin to fight with spears. Before long they would turn their attack into flight and induce their enemy to pursue them. Then they would show their faces instead of their backs, like birds cutting through the air, and would fight face to face with their assailants and struggle even more bravely. This they would do several times, and when they gained the upper hand over the Romans [Byzantines], they would stop turning back again. Then they would draw their swords, release an appalling roar, and fall upon the Romans quicker than a thought. They would seize and massacre those who fought bravely and those who behaved cowardly alike".^[35]

Religion[link]

It is alleged that the Cumans practiced Tengrinism. Their belief system compromised animistic and shaministic elements; they celebrated the cult of ancestors and provided the dead with various objects whose lavishness paralleled the recipient's social rank. The Cumans buried the elite with their horses (like the Bulgars). Cuman divination practices used animals, especially the wolf and dog. Cumans had shamans who communicated with the spirit world - they were consulted for questions of various outcomes.^[27] The Kuman people were baptised in 1227 by Róbert Archbishop of Esztergom in a mass baptism in Moldavia on the orders of Bortz Khan, who swore allegiance to King Andrew II of Hungary.^[36]

KARAKOÇLUK/Black Mutton[link]

The Karakoçlular/Black Mutton's is an old Sunni Muslim Cuman-Turkmen clan from Azerbaijan and speaks Cuman-Turkish.^{[citation needed]} They live today in the district of Giresun-EIazığ-Sivas-Erzincan-Erzurum-Bingo-Kırklareli and more Karakoç/Black-Mutton villages are in Turkey, but also few Turks in Bulgaria are descendants of this tribe.^{[citation needed]} Persons with the Surname Karakoç are usually members of this clan.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy[link]

Cuman sculpture in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

While the Cumans were gradually absorbed into eastern European populations, their trace can still be found in placenames as widespread as the city of Kumanovo in the Northeastern part of the Republic of Macedonia; a Slavic village named Kumanichevo in the Kostur (Kastoria) district of Greece, which was changed to Lithia after Greece obtained this territory in the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, Comăneşti in Romania, a village of Kumane in Serbia, Comana in Dobrogea (also Romania) and the small village of Kumanite in Bulgaria. Debrecen in Hungary.

As the Mongols pushed westwards and devastated their state, most of the Cumans fled to the Bulgarian Empire as they were major military allies. The Bulgarian Tsar Ivan-Asen II (who was descended from Cumans) settled them in the southern parts of the country, bordering the Latin Empire and the Thessallonikan Despotate.^{[citation needed]} Those territories are in present-day Turkish Europe, Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia.^{[citation needed]} The Cumans also settled in Hungary and had their own self-government there in a territory that bore their name, Kunság, that survived until the 19th century. Two regions - Little Cumania and Greater Cumania exist in Hungary. The name of the Cumans (Kun) is still preserved in county names such as Bács-Kiskun and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok and town names such as Kiskunhalas, Kunszentmiklós. The municipality of Kuman in the Fier District, Fier County, southwestern Albania is a legacy of the Cumans. as well as Küman, a municipality in Azerbaijan.

The Cumans were organized into four tribes in Hungary: Kolbasz/Olas in upper Cumania around Karcag, and the other three in lower Cumania.

Unfortunately, the Cuman language disappeared from Hungary in the 17th or 18th century (1770?), possibly following the Turkish occupation. Their 19th century biographer, Gyárfás István, in 1870 was of the opinion that they originally spoke Hungarian, together with the Iazyges population. Despite this mistake, he has the best overview on the subject concerning details of material used.

In addition, toponyms of Cuman language origin can be found in some Romanian counties of Vaslui and Galaţi, including the names of both counties.

When some of the Cumans moved to Hungary, they brought with them their dogs - the Komondor dogs, which has become one of the national dogs of Hungary.

In the countries where the Cumans were assimilated, family surnames derived from the words for "Cuman" (such as coman or kun, "kuman") are not uncommon. Traces of the Cumans are the Bulgarian surnames Kunev or Kumanov (feminine Kuneva, Kumanova), its Macedonian variants Kunevski, Kumanovski (feminine Kumanovska), and the widespread Hungarian surname Kun. The names "Coman" in Romania and its derivatives however do not appear to have any connection to the medieval Cumans, as it was unrecorded until very recent times and the places with the highest frequency of such names has not produced any archaeological evidence of Cuman settlement.^[37]

In the Hungarian village of Csengele, on the borders of what is still called Kiskunsag, Little Cumania, an archeological excavation in 1975 revealed the ruins of a medieval church with 38 burials. Several burials had all the characteristics of a Cumanian group: richly jeweled, non-Hungarian, and definitely Cumanian-type costumes; the 12-spiked mace as a weapon; bone girdles; and associated pig bones (Horvath 1978; Kovacs 1971; Sandor 1959). In view of the cultural objects and the historical data, the archeologists concluded that the burials were indeed Cumanian and mid 13th century; hence some of the early settlers in Hungary were from that ethnic group. In 1999 the grave of a high-status Cumanian derived from the same period was discovered about 50 m from the church of Csengele; this was the first anthropologically authenticated grave of a Cumanian chieftain in Hungary (Horvath 2001), and the contents are consistent with the ethnic identity of the excavated remains from the church burials. A separated area of the chieftain grave contained a complete skeleton of a horse.^[8]

A genetic study was done on Cuman burials within Hungary and it was determined that they had substantially more western Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages.^[38] In a study by Bogacsi-Szabo, Erika. et al. (2005) of the mtDNA (Mitochondrial DNA) of the Cuman nomad population that migrated into the Carpathian basin during the 13th century, six haplogroups were revealed. "One of these haplogroups belongs to the M lineage (haplogroup D) and is characteristic of Eastern Asia, but this is the second most frequent haplogroup in southern Siberia too. All the other haplogroups (H, V, U, U3, and JT) are West Eurasian, belonging to the N macrohaplogroup. Out of the eleven remains, four samples belonged to haplogroup H, two to haplogroup U, two to haplogroup V, and one each to the JT, U3, and D haplogroups. In comparison to the Cumans, modern Hungarian samples represent 15 haplogroups. All but one is a West Eurasian haplogroup [the remaining one is East Asian (haplogroup F)], but all belong to the N lineage. Four haplogroups (H, V, U*, JT), present in the ancient samples, can also be found in the modern Hungarians, but only for haplogroups H and V were identical haplotypes found. Haplogroups U3 and D occur exclusively in the ancient group, and 11 haplogroups (HV, U4, U5, K, J, J1a, T, T1, T2, W, and F) occur only in the modern Hungarian population. Haplogroup frequency in the modern Hungarian population is similar to other European populations, although haplogroup F is almost absent in continental Europe; therefore the presence of this haplogroup in the modern Hungarian population can reflect some past contribution."^[39] "The results suggested that the Cumanians, as seen in the excavation at Csengele, were far from genetic homogeneity. Nevertheless, the grave artifacts are typical of the Cumanian steppe culture; and five of the six skeletons that were complete enough for anthropometric analysis appeared Asian rather than European (Horváth 1978, 2001), including two from the mitochondrial haplogroup H, which is typically European. It is interesting that the only skeleton for which anthropological examination indicated a partly European ancestry was that of the chieftain, whose haplotype is most frequently found in the Balkans.".^[39] The study concluded that the mitochondrial motifs of Cumans from Csengele show the genetic admixtures with other populations rather than the ultimate genetic origins of the founders of Cuman culture. So the maternal lineages of a large part of the group would reflect the maternal lineage of those populations that had geographic connection with the Cumans during their migrations. Nevertheless, the Asian mitochondrial haplotype in Cu26 may still reflect the Asian origins of the Cumans of Csengele. Considering genetic distances Cumans are nearest to the Finnish, Komi and Turkish populations.^[40]

The Cumans appear in Rus culture in The Tale of Igor's Campaign and are the Rus' military enemies in Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor, which features a set of "Polovtsian Dances".

The name Cuman is still the name of several villages in different parts of Turkey, such as Kumanlar, including the Black Sea region.

Gallery[link]

• 

  "Baba" 11th c., Lugansk

• 

  "Baba" 11th c., Lugansk

• 

  "Baba" 11th c., Lugansk

• 

  "Baba" 11th c., Lugansk

• 

  "Baba" 11th c., Lugansk

• 

  Cuman, 12th c. Hermitage Museum

• 

  "Baba" at the Open Air Museum, Prelesne

• 

  Chormukhinsk Madonna, Lugansk

• 

  Cuman Stone statue "baba"

• 

  Cuman Stone statue "baba"

• 

  Ladislas IV of Hungary, 14th century

• 

  Ladislaus IV of Hungary (the Cuman)

• 

  Elizabeth the Cuman medievel seal

• 

  Kunkereszt ("Cuman cross") in Belez, periphery of Magyarcsanád, Hungary.

• 

  Cuman stone statues "babas"

• 

  Cuman stone statue in Lugansk, Ukraine

• 

  Cuman prairie art, as exhibited in Dnipropetrovsk

• 

  Cumans in Hungary

• 

  Cuman burial mound in Hungary

Famous or notable Cumans, or people of Cuman descent, in history[link]

• Qutb-ud-din Aibak - founder of the Delhi sultanate
• Khan Boniak (Maniak), chieftain during time of Sharukan. He was called "the Mangy" by Russians. He led the invasions on Kievan Rus'. In 1096 Boniak attacked Kiev, plundered the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, and burned down the prince's palace in Berestovo
• Khan Köten (or Sutoiovych), Mstyslav Mstyslavych's father-in-law, fought in the war against the Mongols (allied with the Russians); led 40000 "huts" (families) to Hungary, to escape from the Mongols, where he was later assassinated. The Cumans then emigrated to the Second Bulgarian Empire. Some of the Cumans were later called back to Hungary. He was possibly the most notable of Cumans (together with Baibars). Allegedly descended from the Cuman Terteroba clan. He ws the person who rallied the Rus (allied with the Cumans) against the Mongols
• Khan Konchak (Konchek, Kumcheg - meaning 'trousers'), a chieftain, daughter married Igor's son Prince Vladimir of Putivl; was involved in wars and raids with the Russians (Prince Igor), along the Ros River, where the Cumans attacked towns belonging to the Olgovichi (the ruling dynasty of Chernigov)
• Atraga, Dagestan, he led a tribe of 40000 to Georgia (could have been either a Kipchak or Cuman,or mixed, its uncertain)
• Sultan Baibars ("white bigcat-Siberian Tiger"/"leopard" in Turkic), Mamluke Empire,founder of the Bahri dynasty; he was one of the commanders of the forces which inflicted a devastating defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France and he led the vanguard of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260; he was possibly the most famous Cuman
• Qutuz, Sultan of Egypt (Mamluke Empire); uncertainty whether he was a Cuman or Kipchak, or mixed
• Elizabeth the Cuman
• Ladislaus IV of Hungary
• Mary of Hungary, Queen of Naples
• Anna of Hungary (1260–1281)
• Elizabeth of Sicily, Queen of Hungary (Trouble with Cumans)
• Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen of Serbia -one of the older children of King Stephen V of Hungary and his wife Elizabeth the Cuman
• John Hunyadi - He had supposedly Tatar-Cuman origin, because his ancestors had Tartar-Cuman names
• Michael IX Palaiologos (17 April 1277 – 12 October 1320), daughter of Anna - who was a daughter of Elizabeth the Cuman
• Tsar Ivan Asen I of the Second Bulgarian Empire, established the Second Bulgarian Empire, with the help of his Cuman allies. First emperor of the new empire. The Asen dynasty is of Cuman origin, as well as the Terter dynasty/clan(which Kuthen was part of) and the Shishman dynasty
• Boril of Bulgaria (Boril Kaliman), 1207–1218, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Teodor I Peter IV, 1186–1197, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Ivan Asen II of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1218–1241
• Tsar Ivan Stephen Shishman, of the Second Bulgarian Empire, son of Michael III Shishman (confusion whether the name Shishman is Cuman or Bulgarian in origin)
• Tsar Kaloyan, Second Bulgarian Empire, defeated the crusaders with the help of his Cumans, captured Baldwin
• Tsar Kaliman I of Bulgaria (Kaliman Asen) of the Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria,1257–1277
• Tsar Michael Asen I of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Michael Asen II of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Michael Asen III of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Michael Asen IV оf Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Kaliman Asen II of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Mitso Asen of the Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Ivan Asen III of the Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar George Terter I of the Second Bulgarian Empire, descended from the Cuman Terteroba clan
• Tsar George Terter II of the Second Bulgarian Empire, descended from the Cuman Terteroba clan
• TsarMichael III Shishman of the Second Bulgarian Empire (confusion whether the name Shishman is Cuman or Bulgarian in origin)
• Tsar Theodore Svetoslav of the Second Bulgarian Empire, son of George Terter I
• Tsar Ivan Alexander of the Second Bulgarian Empire, descended of the Asen, Terter and Shishman dynasties. Was Tsar during the second golden age of Bulgaria (naphew of Michael Shishman)
• Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria (b. 1350/1351, ruled 1371–1395 in Tarnovo)
• Tsar Ivan Shishman of the Second Bulgarian Empire. fourth son of Ivan Alexander
• Tsar Ivan Stratsimir of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire
• Tsar Boril of Bulgaria, Second Bulgarian Empire, descended from Cumans through the Asen dynasty of Bulgaria - of Cuman origin
• Constantine II, 1396–1422, spent most of his life in exile. Most historians do not include him in the list of the Bulgarian monarchs
• Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria (b. 1324/1325, ruled 1356–1397 in Vidin)
• Belaur of Vidin, 1336 (Shishman dynasty)
• Constantine II of Bulgaria (b. early 1370s, ruled 1397–1422 in Vidin and in exile)
• Darman and Kudelin - Bulgarians of Cuman origin
• Queen Dorothea of Bosnia
• Shishman of Vidin
• Lady Calinica
• Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia
• Thocomerius/Tihomir of Wallachia, father of Basarab. The Hungarian László Rásonyi derives the name from a well-known Cuman and Tatar name, Toq-tämir (‘hardened steel’)
• Every ruler from the Wallachian House of Dănești, which was one of the two main lineages of the Wallachian noble family House of Basarab. They were descended from Dan I of Wallachia. The other lineage of the Basarabs is the House of Drăculești
• The House of Drăculeşti were one of two major rival lines of Wallachian voivodes of the House of Basarab, the other being the Dăneşti. The following rulers of the House of Drăculeşti are of Cuman descent:
• Vlad II Dracul 1436-1442, 1443–1447; son of Mircea cel Bătrân
• Mircea II 1442; son of Vlad II
• Vlad III Drăculea, "Vlad the Impaler", 1448, 1456–1462, 1476; son of Vlad II
• Radu cel Frumos 1462-1473, 1474; son of Vlad II
• Vlad Călugărul 1481, 1482–1495; son of Vlad II
• Radu cel Mare 1495-1508; son of Vlad Călugărul
• Mihnea cel Rău 1508-1509; son of Vlad III
• Mircea III Dracul 1510; son of Mihnea cel Rău
• Vlad cel Tânăr 1510-1512; son of Vlad Călugărul
• Radu de la Afumaţi 1522-1523, 1524, 1524–1525, 1525–1529; son of Radu cel Mare
• Radu Bădica 1523-1524; son of Radu cel Mare
• Vlad Înecatul 1530-1532; son of Vlad cel Tânăr
• Vlad Vintilă de la Slatina 1532-1534, 1534–1535; son of Radu cel Mare
• Radu Paisie 1534, 1535–1545; son of Radu cel Mare
• Mircea the Shepherd 1545-1552, 1553–1554, 1558–1559; son of Radu cel Mare
• Pătraşcu cel Bun 1554-1558; son of Radu Paisie
• Petru cel Tânăr 1559-1568; son of Mircea the Shepherd
• Alexandru II Mircea 1568-1574, 1574–1577; son of Mircea III Dracul
• Vintilă 1574; son of Pătraşcu cel Bun
• Mihnea Turcitul 1577-1583, 1585–1591; son of Alexandru II Mircea
• Petru Cercel 1583-1585; son of Pătraşcu cel Bun
• Mihai Viteazul 1593-1600; possibly a son of Pătraşcu cel Bun

See also[link]

• Cumania
• The Cuman Tsaritsa of Bulgaria
• Kumandins - a branch of the Cumans that still exists up to this day, in Siberia
• Delhi Sultanate - Qutb ad-Din Aibeg, founder of the Delhi sultanate, was a Cuman; redeemed from slavery by Afghan shakh Mahmud Ghuri, he became his governor in Delhi and proclaimed independence after the death of his patron.
• Igor Svyatoslavich
• Kipchak
• Nomad
• Kumyks
• Crimean Tatars
• Pechenegs
• Komnenos dynasty
• Komnina (Kozani), Greece
• Turkic peoples
• Turkic languages
• Battle of the Kalka River
• Mongol invasion of Rus
• Tatar invasions
• Crimean Karaites, an ethnic group possibly with Cuman origins
• Battle of the Stugna River
• Battle of Levounion
• Köten
• List of Tatar and Mongol raids against Rus'
• Mongol invasion of Europe
• History of Romania
• Crimean Karaites, an ethnic group with possible Cuman origins
• Kunság
• Bács-Kiskun County
• Kaloyan
• Cuman language
• Crimean Tatar language - possibly similar to the Cuman language
• Baibars
• Béla IV of Hungary
• Romania in the Early Middle Ages (section Cumania: the land of the Cumans (1065–1241)))
• Stephen V of Hungary
• Foundation of Wallachia
• Battle of Adrianople (1205)
• Kunság
• Constantine Euphorbenos Katakalon
• Terter dynasty
• Basarab I of Wallachia
• Origin of the Romanians
• Anna of Hungary (1260–1281)
• Yaropolk II of Kiev
• Darman and Kudelin - Bulgarians of Cuman origin
• Elizabeth of Sicily, Queen of Hungary (Trouble with Cumans)
• Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen of Serbia -one of the older children of King Stephen V of Hungary and his wife Elizabeth the Cuman
• John Hunyadi - He had supposedly Tatar-Cuman origin, because his ancestors had Tartar-Cuman names
• Shishman of Vidin (Shishman dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire is most probably of Cuman origin)
• Roman the Great - he waged two successful campaigns against the Cumans
• Ladislaus IV of Hungary - he was also known as King Ladislas the Cuman, son of Elizabeth the Cuman
• History of Transylvania
• Asen dynasty - dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire of Cuman origin

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• (Russian) Golubovsky Peter V. (1884) Pechenegs, Torks and Cumans before the invasion of the Tatars. History of the South Russian steppes IX-XIII centuries (Печенеги, Торки и Половцы до нашествия татар. История южно-русских степей IX—XIII вв.) at Runivers.ru in DjVu format.
• (Russian) Golubovsky Peter V. (1889) Cumans in Hungary. Historical essay (Половцы в Венгрии. Исторический очерк) at Runivers.ru in DjVu format.
• István Vásáry (2005) "Cumans and Tatars", Cambridge University Press.
• Gyárfás István: A Jászkunok Története
• Györffy György: A Codex Cumanicus mai kérdései
• Györffy György: A magyarság keleti elemei
• Hunfalvy: Etnographia
• Perfecky (translator): Galician-Volhynian Chronicle

External links[link]

• Mitochondrial DNA of ancient Cumanians: culturally Asian steppe nomadic immigrants with substantially more western Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages
• Map of migration
• Cuman Royal House

The term black supremacy is a blanket term for various ideologies which hold that black people are superior to people of other races.

Contemporary organizations[link]

Nation of Islam[link]

In the 1930s the Nation of Islam emerged, coming to prominence during the 1960s, when charismatic minister Malcolm X became a spokesman for the movement. The group's founders, "Master Fard" Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, preached the Doctrine of Yakub, which held that the Original Man was an "Asiatic black man". White people, it contended, were "grafted" from black people 6,000 years ago by an ancient black scientist named Yakub.^[1]

The belief in sacrificial killing and ritualistic murder was part of the early Nation of Islam doctrine. Fard thought explicitly that it was the duty for every Muslim to offer as sacrifice four "Caucasian devils".^[2] A portion of Fard's lesson reads as follows:

Why does Fard Mohammad and any Moslem murder the devil? What is the duty of each Moslem in regard to four devils? What reward does a Moslem receive by presenting the four devils at one time? — Because he is one hundred percent wicked and will not keep and obey the laws of Islam. His ways and actions are like a snake of the grafted type. So Mohammad learned that he could not reform the devils, so they had to be murdered. All Moslems will murder the devil because they know he is a snake and also if he be allowed to live, he would sting someone else. Each Moslem is required to bring four devils, and by bringing and presenting four at one time his reward is a button to wear on the laple of his coat, also a free transportation to the Holy City of Mecca.

—Master Fard Mohammad, Lesson #1.^[3]

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan later argued that the lessons about murdering devils was only a metaphor designed to "rally NOI members to 'slay whites' psychological and social grip on them"^[4] but Fard's lessons on the murder of white people in at least one instance were taken literally and verbatim:

One afternoon in the early 1970s, when Ali K. Muslim, then Charles 41x, was guarding the temple, a man carrying a sack asked to meet a temple official. The man, thoroughly confused about Elijah Muhammad's teachings, believed that if he killed four white "devils" he would win a trip to the Holy Land. He had come to redeem his prizes. In the sack, Ali K. Muslim says, were four severed heads.^[5]

This teaching also culminated in the creation of the Death Angels, a small splinter group of the Nation of Islam. Between 1972 and 1974, the Death Angels murdered 14 white people in the San Francisco Bay area. These murders later would become known as the Zebra murders because the police used Radio Z to communicate about the case.^[6][7]

Elijah Muhammad also preached black self-reliance, black separatism, cooperative economics, strict moral and physical discipline, and opposition to black-white miscegenation. Since its founding, the NOI has gone through reorganizations and internal conflicts, but even as it moves closer to the mainstream of Islamic belief and practice, NOI leadership has not rejected formally any of Fard's doctrines. It opposes any changes in the major beliefs and programs that were instituted by Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, including the annual "Savior's Day".^[8][9][10]

Members of the NOI have been publicly criticized by the leadership for making anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic anti-white and anti-homosexual statements,^[11] and for urging the murder of such people. Farrakhan has been banned from entering the UK since 1986 because of his "racist and anti-Semitic views".^[12]

Most historians and social scientists^{[not specific enough to verify]} classify the Nation of Islam as a black nationalist, or black separatist, organization. Recently, the Southern Poverty Law Center headed by Morris Dees placed the Nation of Islam on its list of hate groups.^[13]

New Black Panther Party[link]

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP), whose formal name is the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is a U.S.-based black supremacist organization founded in Dallas, Texas in 1989.

United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors[link]

The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors was founded by Dwight York. The Nuwaubians believe in black people's superiority to white people, that white people are "devils," devoid of both heart and soul, that the color of white people is the result of leprosy and genetic inferiority, and that the ancestors of white people are the sexual partners of dogs and jackals.^[14] In 2004, York was sentenced to 135 years in prison for child molestation and racketeering-related charges.

Among the different species of Apeman you have the black-haired Lar. This is where you get the word ‘lord,’ or master from. The Lares, plural for Lar, were recognized for their intelligence. These Lares were the head monkeys or spiritual monkeys, well known. This is where the word ‘monks’ comes from. Certain beings used the species known as the Baboon (part hyena, jackal and monkey) together with Orangutans for breeding. This resulted in your Behaymaw (called the beast of the field) type of carnivorous man called Mankind, one of the many species of Caucasians.^[15][16]

White people are said in one myth to have been originally created as a race of killers to serve black people as a slave army.

The Caucasian has not been chosen to lead the world. They lack true emotions in their creation. We never intended them to be peaceful. They were bred to be killers, with low reproduction levels and a short life span. What you call Negroid was to live 1,000 years each and the other humans 120 years. But the warrior seed of Caucasians only 60 years. They were only created to fight other invading races, to protect the God race Negroids. But they went insane, lost control when they were left unattended. They were never to taste blood. They did, and their true nature came out.… Because their reproduction levels were cut short, their sexual organs were made the smallest so that the female of their race will want to breed with Negroids to breed themselves out of existence after 6,000 years. It took 600 years to breed them, part man and part beast.^[17]

Tribu Ka[link]

Tribu Ka was founded in 2004 by Stellio Capo Chichi ("Kémi Séba"), dubbed as "the French Farrakhan",^[18] in Paris.^[19][20][21] The group identified itself as following Louis Farrakhan's ideology^[22] but their thinking was also described as a mix of antisemitic Kemetism and Guénonian Islam.^[23] After an investigation of racist incitement, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy dissolved Tribu Ka on July 26, 2006 but it reformed under the name Génération Kémi Séba.^[19][20][21] In April 2008, a Parisian court verdict judged Génération Kémi Séba was the refoundation of the dissolved group Tribu Ka.^[24] In June 2009, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux ordered the dissolution of the group Jeunesse Kémi Séba, founded to replace Génération Kémi Séba.^[25][26]

Other groups[link]

Nation of Yahweh[link]

The Nation of Yahweh is a black supremacist religious group that is an offshoot of the Black Hebrew Israelites line of thought^{[citation needed]}, and was founded by Yahweh ben Yahweh, meaning "God the Son of God" in Hebrew, formerly known as Hulon Mitchell Jr. At its height, the Nation of Yahweh controlled an $8 million empire of properties, including a Miami headquarters known as the Temple of Love and temples in 22 states.^[27] Followers of the Nation of Yahweh view black people as the only "true Jews" and believe that White Jews are the spawn of Satan.^[28]

According to the Crime Library, followers of the Nation of Yahweh formed a secret group called "The Brotherhood". To become a member of The Brotherhood, applicants had to kill a "white devil" and bring Mitchell a body part - an ear, nose or finger - as proof of the kill. Several Nation of Yahweh members were convicted of conspiracy in more than a dozen anti-white murders, among them Robert Rozier, a former pro football player and member of the secret Brotherhood, who admitted the killing of seven white people.^[29] Mitchell started a private school for his followers and held sex classes for boys and men in which he showed them movies of white women having sex with animals to dissuade them from lusting after white females.^[29]

Bobo Shanti[link]

The Bobo Shanti are a mansion within the Rastafari movement and led by the late Charles Edwards preach a form of black supremacy based on the original teachings of Leonard Howell and on the teachings of Marcus Garvey. The Bobo say they are not racist, arguing instead that the concepts of "white" and "black" are symbolic, and that a Caucasian could be morally "black", or righteous, and that a man of African descent could be morally "white", or wicked.^[30]

Black supremacist theories[link]

Many of these theories espouse an ideology of a past Black Supremacy in the world that has been lost. Some focus on claiming this supremacy by claiming they are the chosen people in one religion or another as seen in the Nation of Islam or the Black Israelites. Others even claim extra terrestrial intervention, such as the Nuwaubians or the Nation of Islam. Two trends have acquired a veneer of respectability in many places of Black Academia and Black Studies departments; the Melanin Theory, and Afrocentrism/Global Pan Africanism.

Melanin theory[link]

Some black supremacists justify supremacist assertions by assigning properties to melanin, this body of belief is known generally as "Melanin theory". The central idea of the Melanin theory is that the levels of melanin in dark skin naturally enhance intelligence and emotional, psychic and spiritual sensitivity.^[31][32] Such claims have made inroads among some African Americans within academia.^[33]

Alliances with white supremacist groups[link]

Due to some commonly held separatist ideologies, some black supremacist organizations have found limited common cause with white supremacist or extremist organizations.

In 1961 and 1962 George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party, was invited to speak by Elijah Muhammad at a Nation of Islam rally.^[34] In 1965, after breaking with the Nation of Islam and denouncing its separatist doctrine, Malcolm X told his followers that the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad had made agreements with the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan that "were not in the interests of Negros."^[35] In 1985 Louis Farrakhan invited white supremacist Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance (a neo-Nazi white power group), to attend a NOI gathering. The Washington Times reports Metzger's words of praise: "They speak out against the Jews and the oppressors in Washington. ... They are the black counterpart to us." ^[36]

See also[link]

Discrimination portal

• White supremacy
• Afrocentrism
• Antisemitism
• Melanin
• Melanin theory
• Race and intelligence
• Racism
• Supremacy

References[link]

External links[link]

• Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin (Washington Post Staff Writer - Friday, December 16, 2005; A01) Biotechnology
• Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy to Minorities (CSICOP article on melanin theory and associated pseudoscience)
• Institute for the Study of Academic Racism (ISAR): African American Racism in the Academic Community
• Annual World Melanin Conference
• TIME Magazine Teaching Reverse Racism
• Uncommon Ground: The Black African Holocaust Council and Other Links Between Black and White Extremists

v t e Racism History of racism Racial Equality Proposal · Civil rights movement · The Holocaust · Racism by country · Apartheid in South Africa Racist ideologies Aryanism · Black supremacy · Kahanism · Malay supremacy · Nazism · Neo-Nazism · White supremacy Acts of racism Crime of apartheid · Hate speech · Institutional racism · Interminority racism · Racial segregation · Racist music · Scientific racism · Slavery · State racism Racial violence Ethnic cleansing · Genocide · Hate crime · Lynching · Race war Racism against groups Anti-Arabism · Anti-Armenianism · Anti-German sentiment · Anti-Irish racism · Anti-Italianism · Anti-Japanese sentiment · Anti-Korean sentiment · Anti-Mexican sentiment · Anti-Pakistan sentiment · Anti-Polish sentiment · Antisemitism · Racial antisemitism · Anti-Turkism · Anti-Ukrainian sentiment · Antiziganism · Francophobia · Hispanophobia · Indophobia · Lusophobia · Russophobia · Sinophobia · Anti-Slavism Racist groups Heathen Front · Kach and Kahane Chai · Ku Klux Klan · National Party of South Africa · New Black Panther Party · Nation of Islam · SPLC list Anti-racist groups and movements Anti-Defamation League · Anti-Fascist Action · Anti-racism · Civil rights movement · Diversity/Multiculturalism · Fighting Discrimination/Human Rights First · National Association for the Advancement of Colored People · Searchlight · Southern Poverty Law Center

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For other uses of Turkish, see Turkish (disambiguation), and for the broader concept of Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, see Turkic peoples.

Turkish people
Türkler

60x70px 60x70px Osman I Mihrimah Sultana Suleiman the Magnificent Durru Shehvar Abdülmecid I Safiye Ali Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay Halide Edip Adıvar Mimar Kemaleddin Bey Feriha Tevfik 60x70px Namık Kemal Cahide Sonku Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Sabiha Gökçen Tevfik Fikret 60x70px Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ Elif Şafak Nuri Şahin Şebnem Ferah Orhan Pamuk
Total population
70 million[citation needed] (see also Turkish population & Turkish diaspora)
Regions with significant populations
Turkey 55,500,000-59,000,000 [1][2][3][4]  Germany 3,500,000-4,000,000 [5][6][7]  Iraq 500,000-3,000,000 [8][9][10]  Algeria 600,000-2,000,000 [11][12]  Syria 750,000-1,500,000 [13]  Bulgaria 588,000-750,000 [14][15]  France 500,000-1,000,000 [16][17]  United Kingdom 500,000a[›] [18][19][20]  United States 500,000 b[›] [21][22][23]  Netherlands 400,000-500,000 c[›] [24][25][26]  Austria 350,000-500,000 [27][28][29][30]  Northern Cyprus 300,000-500,000 d[›] [31][32]  Belgium 200,000 [33][34]  Macedonia 77,959-200,000 [35].[36][37]  Saudi Arabia 200,000 e[›] [38]  Australia 60,000-150,000 f[›] [39][40]  Greece 80,000-150,000 g[›] [41][42][43]  Kazakhstan 150,000 h[›] [44]  Russia 120,000-150,000 [45]  Switzerland 120,000 e[›] [46]  Azerbaijan 110,000 h[›] [44][47][48]  Sweden 100,000-150,000 i[›] [49][50]  Egypt 70,000-100,000 [51][52]  Denmark 70,000 [53]  Canada 50,000-100,000 [54][55][56]  Lebanon 50,000-80,000 [57][58]  Bosnia and Herzegovina 50,000 [59][59]  Kosovo 30,000-50,000 [59][60]  Kyrgyzstan 50,000 h[›] [44][61]  Romania 28,226-80,000 [62][63][64]  Italy 21,000 [65][66]  Norway 16,000 e[›] [67]
Languages
Turkish
Religion
Predominantly Islam
Related ethnic groups
Turkic peoples  · Anatolian peoples
Footnotes
^ a: According to the Home Affairs Committee this includes 300,000 Turkish Cypriots.[68] However, some estimates suggest that that the Turkish Cypriot community in the UK has reached between 350,000[69] to 400,000.[70][71] ^ b: Government immigration figures on the number of Turks in the US estimates a total of 190,000 persons;[72] however, these statistics are not fully reliable because a considerable number of Turks were born in the Balkans and USSR.[73] ^ c: A further 10,000-30,000 people from Bulgaria live in the Netherlands. The majority are Bulgarian Turks and are the fastest-growing group of immigrants in the Netherlands.[74] ^ d: This includes Turkish settlers. A further 2,000 Turkish Cypriots currently reside in the southern part of the island.[75] ^ e: This figure only includes Turkish citizens. Therefore, this also includes ethnic minorities from Turkey; however, it does not include ethnic Turks who have either been born and/or have become naturalised citizens. Furthermore, these figures do not include ethnic Turkish minorities from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Iraq, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania or any other traditional area of Turkish settlement because they are registered as citizens from the country they have immigrated from rather than their ethnic Turkish identity. ^ f: A further 40,000-60,000 Turkish Cypriots live in Australia.[76][77][78] ^ g: This figure only includes Turks of Western Thrace. A further 5,000 live in the Rhodes and Kos.[79] In addition to this, 8,297 immigrants live in Greece.[80] ^ h: These figures only includes Meskhetian Turks. ^ i: A further 30,000 Bulgarian Turks live in Sweden.[81]

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" (Turkish: singular: Türk, plural: Türkler), are a nation and ethnic group primarily living in Turkey, and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities have been established in the Balkans, the island of Cyprus, the Levant, Meskhetia, and North Africa. The Turkish minorities are the second largest ethnic groups in Bulgaria and Cyprus. In addition, due to modern migration, a Turkish diaspora has been established, particularly in Western Europe (see Turks in Europe), where large communities have been formed in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. There are also Turkish communities living in Australia, the former Soviet Union and the United States.

Etymology[link]

Although Turkic languages may have been spoken as early as 600 BC,^[82] the name "Turk" first appeared in Chinese sources and derives from the term "Tujue" (T’u-chue), meaning "strong" or "powerful", which was used in the 6th century C.E. to refer to the Göktürks.^[83][84]

History[link]

Origins[link]

The homeland of the Turkic peoples is assumed to have been somewhere in the vicinity of Altai in Central Asia.^[85] The first nomadic empire founded in present day Mongolia was Xiongnu, sometimes identified as a candidate for the locus of proto-Turkic.^[86][87] The Turkic languages spread from its homeland over much of Central Asia and the Eurasian steppe during the Turkic migrations of the 6th to 11th centuries.^[88]

The Turkic migration reached the territory of what is now Turkey, by the 11th century. The Turkomen, Oghuz Turks who had been converted to Islam, were the main component of Turkic migration into Anatolia.^{[citation needed]} The process was accelerated after the Battle of Manzikert victory of Seljuk Turks against the Byzantines. Anatolia would be called Turchia in the West as early as the 12th century.^[89] The Mongols invaded Transoxiana, Iran, Azerbaijan and Anatolia; this caused Turkomens to move further to Western Anatolia.^[90] In the case of the migrations, the Turkic peoples assimilated some of the Indo-European peoples encountered; Tocharian as well as the numerous Iranian speakers across the Asiatic steppe were switched to the Turkic language, and ultimately Greek, the majority language of Anatolia, declined in favour of Turkish.^[91]

The question of to what extent a gene flow from Central Asia, via Persia, to Anatolia has contributed to the current gene pool of the Turkish people, and the role of the 11th century invasion by Seljuk Turks, has been the subject of several genetic studies. A 2010 publication by Prof. Inci Togan and co-workers based on mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA estimated a 13% Central Asian genetic contribution to Anatolia.^[92] A 2011 study reveals the impossibility of long-term, and continuing genetic contacts between Anatolia and Siberia, and confirms the presence of significant mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome divergence between this regions, with minimal admixture. The research confirms also the lack of mass migration with correlative archeological, historical, and linguistic data, and suggests that it was irregular punctuated migration events that engendered large-scale shifts in language and culture among Anatolia's diverse autochthonous inhabitants.^[93] According to 2012 study the Turkish genetic structure is unique and the ancestry of the Turks is 38% European, 35% Middle Eastern, 18% South Asian and 9% Central Asian.^[94]

Seljuk era[link]

The victory of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert over the Byzantine Empire in 1071 allowed Turcoman tribesmen from Central Asia to push westward and settle in Anatolia.

The Seljuk Turks were a nomadic people from Central Asia who had converted to Sunni Islam and flourished as military mercenaries for the Abbasid caliphate, where they were known for their ability as mounted archers.^[95] Moving gradually into Persia and Armenia as the Abbasids weakened, by the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks grew in number and were able to occupy the eastern province of the Abbasid Empire. In 1055 the Seljuk Empire captured Baghdad and in the course of the early 11th century the Turks made their first incursions into the edges of Anatolia.^[95] The victory of the Turks at the Battle of Manzikert, north of Lake Van, over the Byzantine Empire in 1071 opened the gates of Anatolia to the Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan.^[96] The Turkish language and Islam were introduced and gradually spread over the region and the slow transition from a predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking Anatolia to a predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking one was underway.^[96] In dire straits, the Byzantine Empire turned to the West for help setting in motion the pleas that led to the Crusades.^[97] Between 1096 and 1099 the First Crusade commenced, with the Crusaders taking Iznik, then crossing Anatolia and retaking Jerusalem. Driven from Iznik, the Seljuk Turks established the Sultanate of Rum from their new capital at Konya in 1097.^[96] The Muslim Turks lived alongside their Christian subjects relatively peacefully as they had been freed from the burden of heavy Byzantine taxes. Furthermore, many Christians converted to Islam to save themselves from further taxation.^[96] Moreover, other Turcoman tribes who had also swept into Anatolia at the same time as the Seljuk Turks retained their nomadic ways. These tribes were more numerous than the Seljuk Turks, and rejecting the sedentary lifestyle, adhered to an impregnated Islam with animism and shamanism from their central Asian steppeland origins, which then mixed with new Christian influences.^[96] From this popular and syncretist Islam, with its mystical and revolutionary aspects, sects such as the Alevis and Bektashis emerged. By 1243, at the Battle of Köse Dağ, the Mongols, who unlike the Turks were not Muslims,^[98] were victorious over the Seljuk Turks and became the new rulers of Anatolia, and in 1256, the second Mongol invasion of Anatolia caused widespread distruction. As the Mongols occupied more lands in Asia Minor, the Turks moved further to western Anatolia and settled in the Seljuk-Byzantine frontier.^[99] Particularly after 1277, political stability within the Seljuk territories rapidly disintegrated, leading to the strengthening of Turcoman principalities in the western and southern parts of Anatolia called the "beyliks".^[100]

Beyliks era[link]

When the Mongols defeated the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, Turcoman principalities (beyliks) emerged as autonomous fiefdoms.

Once the Seljuk Turks were defeated by the Mongol's conquest of Anatolia, the Turks became the vassal of the Ilkhans who established their own empire in the vast area stretching from present-day Afghanistan to Turkey.^[99] As the Mongols occupied more lands in Asia Minor, the Turks moved further to western Anatolia and settled in the Seljuk-Byzantine frontier. By the last decades of the 13th century, the Ilkhans and their Seljuk vassals lost control over much of Anatolia to these Turkoman peoples.^[99] A number of Turkish lords managed to establish themselves as rulers of various principalities, known as "Beyliks" or emirates. Amongst these beyliks, along the Aegean coast, from north to south, stretched the beyliks of Karasi, Saruhan, Aydin, Menteşe and Teke. Inland from Teke was Hamid and east of Karasi was the beylik of Germiyan. To the north-west of Anatolia, around Söğüt, was the small and, at this stage, insignificant, Ottoman beylik which was hemmed in to the east by other more substantial powers like Karaman, based on Iconium, which ruled from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Although the Ottomans were only a small principality among the numerous Turkish beyliks, and thus posed the smallest threat to the Byzantine authority, their location in north-western Anatolia, in the former Byzantine province of Bithynia, became a fortunate position for their future conquests. The Latins, who had conquered the city of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, established a Latin Empire (1204–61), divided the former Byzantine territories in the Balkans and the Aegean among themselves, and forced the Byzantine Emperors into exile at Nicaea (present-day Iznik). From 1261 onwards, the Byzantines were largely preoccupied with regaining their control in the Balkans.^[99] Toward the end of the 13th century, as Mongol power began to decline, the Turcoman chiefs assumed greater independence.^[101]

Ottoman era[link]

The Ottoman Empire was a Turkish empire which lasted from 1299 to 1922.

Under its founder, Osman I, the Ottoman beylik expanded along the Sakarya River and westward towards the Sea of Marmara. Thus, the population of western Asia Minor had largely become Turkish-speaking and Muslim in religion.^[99] It was under his son, Orhan I, who had attacked and conquered the important urban center of Bursa in 1326, proclaiming it as the Ottoman capital, that the Ottoman Empire developed considerably. In 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and established a foothold on the Gallipoli Peninsula while at the same time pushing east and taking Ankara.^[102][103] Many Turks from Anatolia began to settle in the region abandoned by the inhabitants who had fled Thrace before the Ottoman invasion.^[104] However, the Byzantines were not the only ones to suffer from the Ottoman advancement for, in the mid-1330s, Orhan annexed the Turkish beylik of Karasi. This advancement was maintained by Orhan's son Murad I who more than tripled the territories under his direct rule, reaching some 100,000 square miles, evenly distributed in Europe and Asia Minor.^[105]

Gains in Anatolia were matched by those in Europe; once the Ottoman forces took Edirne (Adrianople), which became the capital of the Ottoman empire in 1365, they opened their way into Bulgaria and Macedonia in 1371 at the Battle of Maritsa.^[106] With the conquests of Thrace, Macedonia, and Bulgaria, significant numbers of Turkish emigrants settled in these regions.^[104] This form of Ottoman-Turkish colonization became a very effective method to consolidate their position and power in the Balkans. The colonizers consisted of soldiers, nomads, farmers, artisans and merchants, dervishes, preachers and other religious functionaries, and administrative personnel.^[107] While Ottoman attacks were launched into the kingdom of Bosnia and Serbia, Niš falling in 1385, further south, Ottoman forces were active in Greece, taking Thessaloniki in 1397. Under Murad's son, Bayezid I, the Ottoman state continued to expand. In Anatolia, the beyliks of Menteşe and Aydin fell to the Ottomans in 1389-90. In Europe, Bayzeid ultimately took Serbia and Ottoman forces moved into Bulgaria and Wallachia. This advancement resulted in a large crusading force which, in 1396, met the Ottoman forces in the Battle of Nicopolis, and was soundly defeated, thus effectively ending the era of Christian crusading to the east.^[106]

Half a century later, in 1453, Ottoman armies, under Sultan Mehmed II, conquered Constantinople.^[105] Mehmed reconstructed and repopulated the city, renaming it "Istanbul", and making it the new Ottoman capital.^[108] After the Fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire entered a long period of conquest and expansion with its borders eventually going deep into Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.^[109] Selim I dramatically expanded the empire’s eastern and southern frontiers in the Battle of Chaldiran. He established Ottoman rule in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria and gained recognition as the guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.^[110] His successor, Suleiman the Magnificent, further expanded the conquests after capturing Belgrade in 1521 and using its territorial base to conquer Hungary, and other Central European territories, after his victory in the Battle of Mohács. Meanwhile, to the east, he pushed the frontiers of his empire by attacking Iran in 1535 and occupying Iraq and the Persian cities of Tabriz and Hamedan.^[111] Furthermore, the exploits of the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa included the conquest of Tunis and Algeria.^[105] Following Suleiman's death, Ottoman victories continued, albeit less frequently than before. The island of Cyprus was conquered, in 1571, bolstering Ottoman dominance over the sea routes of the eastern Mediterranean.^[112] However, after its defeat at the Battle of Vienna, in 1683, the Ottoman Empire started to stagnate. The army’s retreat was met by ambushes and further defeats, ending in the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, which granted Austria the provinces of Hungary and Transylvania, and marked the first time in history that the Ottoman Empire actually relinquished territory.^[113]

By the 19th century, the empire began to decline when ethno-nationalist uprisings occurred across the empire. Thus, the last quarter of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century saw some 7-9 million Turkish-Muslim refugees from the lost territories of the Caucasus, Crimea, Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace.^[114] When World War I broke out, the Turks scored some success with Mustafa Kemal Pasha's legendary defence of Gallipoli at the Battle of the Dardanelles in 1915. However, in 1918, the Turks, represented by the Committee of Union and Progress, agreed to an armistice with England and France. The Treaty of Sèvres was signed in 1920 by the government of Mehmet VI which dismantled the Ottoman Empire. The Turks, under Mustafa Kemal, refused to accept the conditions of the treaty and fought for the Turkish War of Independence, resulting in the abolition of the Sultanate; thus, the 623-year old Ottoman Empire had come to an end.^[115]

Modern era[link]

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk led the Turkish national movement in the Turkish War of Independence. The Turkish identity became the unifying force when, in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed and the newly founded Republic of Turkey was formally established. Atatürk then embarked upon a program of political, economic, and cultural reforms, seeking to transform the Turkish homeland into a modern, westernized and secular nation-state.

Once Mustafa Kemal Atatürk led the Turkish War of Independence against the Allied Forces which were occupying the former Ottoman Empire, Atatürk united the Turkish-Muslim majority and successfully led them from 1919-22 in throwing the occupying forces out of what was considered to be the Turkish homeland.^[116] The Turkish identity became the unifying force when, in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed and the newly founded Republic of Turkey was formally established. Atatürk's 15-year rule was marked by a series of radical reforms in order to transform Turkey into a secular, modern republic.^[117] Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, 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 arrived in Turkey.^[118] The bulk of these immigrants were the Balkan Turks who faced harassment and discrimination in their homelands.^[118] Nonetheless, there were still remnants of a Turkish population in many of these countries, which the Turks had previously ruled, because the Turkish government wanted to preserve the Turkish communities in these regions so that the Turkish character of these neighbouring territories could be maintained.^[119]

Traditional areas of Turkish settlement[link]

Turkey[link]

Ethnic Turks make up between 70% to 90% of Turkey's population.^[4][120]

Balkans[link]

Cyprus[link]

The Turkish Cypriots are the ethnic Turks whose Ottoman Turkish forbears colonised the island of Cyprus in 1571. About 30,000 Turkish soldiers were given land once they settled in Cyprus, which bequeathed a significant Turkish community. In 1960, a census was conducted by the new Republic's government which revealed that the Turkish Cypriots formed 18.2% of the islands population.^[136] However, once inter-communal fighting and ethnic tensions between 1963 and 1974 occurred between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots, known as the "Cyprus conflict", the Greek Cypriot government conducted a census in 1973, albeit without the Turkish Cypriot populace. A year later, in 1974, the Cypriot government’s Department of Statistics and Research estimated the Turkish Cypriot population to be 118,000 (or 18.4%).^[137] A coup d'état in Cyprus on 15 July 1974 by Greek and Greek Cypriots favouring union with Greece (also known as "Enosis") was followed by military intervention by Turkey whose troops established Turkish Cypriot control over the northern part of the island.^[138] Hence, census's conducted by the Republic of Cyprus have excluded the Turkish Cypriot population which had been settled in the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.^[137] Between 1975 and 1981, Turkey encouraged its own citizens to settle in Northern Cyprus; a 2010 report by the International Crisis Group suggests that out of the 300,000 residents living in Northern Cyprus perhaps half were either born in Turkey or are children of such settlers.^[31]

Levant[link]

Meskhetia[link]

The Meskhetian Turks are the ethnic Turks formerly inhabiting the Meskheti region of Georgia, along the border with Turkey. The Turkish presence in Meskhetia began with the Ottoman invasion of 1578,^[151] although Turkic tribes had settled in the region as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries.^[151] Today, the Meskhetian Turks are widely dispersed throughout the former Soviet Union (as well as in Turkey and the United States) due to forced deportations during World War II. At the time, the Soviet Union was preparing to launch a pressure campaign against Turkey and Joseph Stalin wanted to clear the strategic Turkish population in Meskheti who were likely to be hostile to Soviet intentions.^[152] In 1944, the Meskhetian Turks were accused of smuggling, banditry and espionage in collaboration with their kin across the Turkish border;^[153] nationalistic policies at the time encouraged the slogan: "Georgia for Georgians" and that the Meskhetian Turks should be sent to Turkey "where they belong".^[154][155] Approximately 115,000 Meskhetian Turks were deported to Central Asia and only a few hundred have been able to return to Georgia ever since.^[154]

North Africa[link]

Modern diaspora[link]

Europe[link]

Current estimates suggests that there is approximately 9 million Turks living in Europe, excluding those who live in Turkey.^[159] Modern immigration of Turks to Western Europe began with Turkish Cypriots migrating to the United Kingdom in the early 1920s when the British Empire annexed Cyprus in 1914 and the residents of Cyprus became subjects of the Crown. However, Turkish Cypriot migration increased significantly in the 1940s and 1950s due to the Cyprus conflict. Conversely, in 1944, Turks who were forcefully deported from Meskheti in Georgia during the Second World War, known as the Meskhetian Turks, settled in Eastern Europe (especially in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine). By the early 1960s, migration to Western and Northern Europe increased significantly from Turkey when Turkish "guest workers" arrived under a "Labour Export Agreement" with Germany in 1961, followed by a similar agreement with the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria in 1964; France in 1965; and Sweden in 1967.^{[160][161][162]} More recently, Bulgarian Turks, Romanian Turks, and Western Thrace Turks have also migrated to Western Europe.

North America[link]

Compared to Turkish immigration to Europe, migration to North America has been relatively small. According to the 2000 United States Census and the 2006 Canadian Census, 117,575 Americans^[163] and 43,700 Canadians^[164] claimed Turkish descent. However, the actual number of Turks in both countries is considerably larger, as a significant number of ethnic Turks have migrated to North America not just from Turkey but also from the Balkans (such as Bulgaria and Macedonia), Cyprus, and the former Soviet Union.^[73] Hence, the Turkish American community is currently estimated to number about 500,000^[23][21] whilst the Turkish Canadian community is believed to number between 50,000-100,000.^[55][56] The largest concentration of Turkish Americans are in New York City, and Rochester, New York; Washington, D.C.; and Detroit, Michigan. The majority of Turkish Canadians live in Ontario, mostly in Toronto, and there is also a sizable Turkish community in Montreal. With regards to the 2010 United States Census, the U.S government was determined to get an accurate count of the American population by reaching segments, such as the Turkish community, that are considered "hard to count", a good portion of which falls under the category of foreign-born immigrants.^[22] The Assembly of Turkish American Associations and the US Census Bureau formed a partnership to spearhead a national campaign to count people of Turkish origin with an organisation entitled "Census 2010 SayTurk" (which has a double meaning in Turkish, "Say" means "to count" and "to respect") to identify the estimated 500,000 Turks now living in the United States.^[22]