POMAKS-the people on the

crossroads
Mina Petrova
Bulgaria
population
There are about 750,000 Pomaks in total : around 100,000 in Albania; around 40,000 to 45,000 in Greece
and Macedonia; and between 250,000 and 300,000 in Bulgaria and around 300,000 in Turkey. Nobody
knows the exact number of Pomaks on the peninsula, so these are just approximate numbers.

The Pomaks in Bulgaria are referred to as Bulgarian Muslims (- blgari-mjusjulmani),
or under the ethnographic names Ahryani, Torbeshi, etc. They mainly inhabit the Rhodope Mountains in
Smolyan Province, Kardzhali Province, Pazardzhik Province and Blagoevgrad Province. There are
Pomaks in other parts of Bulgaria as well. There are a few Pomak villages in Burgas Province, Lovech
Province, Veliko Tarnovo Province and Ruse Province.

The Macedonian Muslims, or Torbe, are occasionally also referred to as Pomaks, especially in historical
context. They are a minority religious group in the Republic of Macedonia, although not all adopt a
Macedonian national identity and are linguistically distinct from the larger Muslim ethnic groups in the
Republic of Macedonia, Albanians and Turks.

Slavic-speaking Muslims, sometimes referred to as "Pomaks", live also in the Albanian region of Golo
Brdo. However these people are also referred to as "Torbe". They speak the Drimkol-Golo Brdo dialect of
the Macedonian language. Part of this people still self identify as Bulgarians.



The Gorani occasionally are also referred to as Pomaks in historical context. They are people who inhabit the
Gora region, located between Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. The general view is that they should be treated
as a distinct minority group. Part of these people are already albanised. By the end of 20th century in Yugoslavia
they have declared themselves to be Muslims by nationality.

Today the Pomaks (Greek: ) in Greece inhabit the prefectures of Xanthi, Rhodope and Evros.Until
Greco-Turkish War (19191922) and Population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 Pomaks
inhabited a part of the regions of Moglena, Kostur and some other parts of Macedonia, Greece. The Pomaks of
Thrace were exempted from those exchanges and, together with Muslim Turks and Roma, were granted by the
Lausanne Treaty (1923) the right to primary education in Turkish and Greek. Some Pomaks still transmit their
dialect (called pomatsko in Greece) to their children and also speak Turkish and Greek, but a large part of them
no longer transmit it, having adopted Turkish or Greek as a first language.


Historically, the Pomaks have been living only in the Eastern Thrace part of modern Turkey as a continuum of the
Pomak people in the Western Thrace. The rest of the Pomak population living in Anatolian part is a result of the
different migration waves since the Balkan Wars. Today, the native Pomaks of Eastern Thrace is mostly mixed with
emigrants from the Western Thrace and Turks living in the region. In Anatolia, the major Pomak populations are
concentrated mostly around the cities such as Eskisehir, Bursa, Izmit where they have been originally resettled upon
their arrival. There are 324.000 Pomaks in Turkey.Their primary language is Turkish but some families are speaking
also Bulgarian and Greek.
etymology
Aside from pomaks as they usually are called, there is a huge variety of other names, depending on the region of
residence. Since the 1990s, the Muslims of Slavic origin in Bosnia and Herzegovina have officially been termed
Bosniaks. In different parts of the Balkans you will also find Ahtari, Apovtsi, Babechani, Dilsazi, Marvatsi, Torbeshi
and Chchentsi (not to be confused with the people of Chechnya).

There are several theories about the etymology of pomak, but the most popular are:

Pomak derived from pomagach-bulgarian verb pomagam-to help. According to that theory pomaks were a kind
of Ottoman local support, they helped the Ottomans during the conquering of the Balkans. Later they took part in
the administration at least on a local level. Another association stands says that after Ottoman settlement they
endeavoured to find two types of the former population, whom later were given some privileges. One of the groups
was consisting of the Turks-earlier settlers and the other one of eretics who did not practice Orthodox or Catholic
Christianity, but different varieties. Usually these people had special status among the rest servile population.

The second, very different one says the root was pomachen, or tortured, because Pomaks were victims of the
official Ottoman policy of Islamisation and chose to live as Muslims rather than die as martyrs. But this theory is
concerned mainly about the religious aspect.

Some Greek researchers claim that Pomak is a derivative of pomax, or a drinker, a term that the ancient Hellenes
applied to the wine-loving Thracians.

The most extravagant theory states that Pomak comes from polyak, or Pole. The Slavic-speaking Muslims
appeared in the 17th Century, when refugees from the area of Podolia settled in the Rhodope, after their native
land was conquered by the Ottomans. There, for some reason, they adopted Islam.


origin
While there is no substantial controversy surrounding the roots of the Turks or the Romas, the debate
about the origins and true identity of Pomaks is never ending due to conflicting security and national
interests of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece.

In Bulgaria, the Pomak population is referred to as both Bulgarian Mohammedans, Bulgarian Speaking
Muslims or Pomaks. The name Bulgarian Mohammedans is used in the official and legal terminology.
This name is meant to reflect the Bulgarian historical thesis that the Pomaks used to be Slavic Christians
that were subject to forced Islamization in the past.

In Greece there is not much historical data relating to origins of the Pomaks beyond the historical thesis of
the coutry which argues that Pomaks are a decedent of Thracian tribes. Most of the existing sources point
to the 12th century for Islamization of this group when there were mass conversions. Yet, unlike Bulgaria,
majority of the Greek sources point to voluntary nature of the conversions.

According to the Turkish historical thesis, these people are descendants of the Turkic tribes who have
migrated to region from Central Asia. The argument is that Pomaks are direct descendants of the Kuman
Tribe who came along the Pecenek Turks into the Balkan Peninsula in 11th century. After the defeat
against Byzantium, Peceneks have been scattered and assimilated and disappeared. Yet, some of the
Kuman Turks were left in the area and converted to Islam by missionaries from Middle East and West
Africa in 12th century. Thus, Pomaks had established a Muslim existence in the Southern Balkans before
the latters conquest by the Ottomans. So, Pomaks are the oldest Turkish population in Europe.

language
Pomaks are those whose mother tongue is Pomakika (name in Greek Pomakci (name in
their language); most linguists call that language Pomak and, sometimes, Bulgarian. The
Pomak language belongs to the linguistic family of the Southern Slavic languages, and,
within them, to the linguistic group of Bulgaro-Macedonian. There is no information on
Pomak dialects. Although there is no written tradition, the appropriate alphabet to write the
language is the Cyrillic. It is generally believed that Pomak is one of the various Bulgaro-
Macedonian dialects which existed in the Southern Balkans before the emergence of
modern nation-states and their corresponding literary languages.
A Bulgarian researcher Tsvetkova mentions Paul Lucas, a celebrated French traveler of
18th century, who describes Slavic speaking Muslims in the Rhodope Mountains in 1706
in his notes. Crossing the mountains from Plovdiv to Drama, he writes about the
communities he encounters:

And when we had covered a distance of seven miles in those
same mountains and along very arduous paths, we passed through the
village called Pashmakli. It is populated by Turks only, but they do not
speak their language. Their dialect is, rather, distorted Slavonic mixed
with Greek and Bulgarian (Tsvetkova, 1963).
religion
The Pomaks are virtually all Muslim, and their religion makes
up an integral part of their ethnic identity. Yet, among most
Pomaks there is an absence of traditional Islamic practices.
Their language even lacks many religious words vital to the
Islamic faith and traditions. Muslim saints are practically
unknown to the Pomaks, while the feast days of various
Christian saints continue to be observed. Weddings and other
ceremonial occasions often combine Muslim and Christian
traditions. Fasting during Ramadan (the ninth month of the
Islamic year) and other Muslim rituals were once observed.
However, today, these customs have largely disappeared. The
relative isolation of the Pomaks from other Muslims has allowed
the mixing of beliefs to continue unhindered for centuries.
history
Pomaks started to become Muslim gradually
after the Ottoman occupation (14th century) to
the end of the 18th century. But according to
Ottoman registers from the 15th and 16th
century 3/4 of the population of Western Thrace
has been of Muslim faith. Further more the
documents show that not only Islam has been
spread in the area at that time, but that the
Pomaks have even participated in Ottoman
military operation voluntarily as is the case with
the village of Shahin (Echinos). The mass turn
to Islam in the Central Rhodope Mountains
happened between the 16th and the 17th
century and that fact still appear in the
memories of the Pomak communities. A lot of
people prefered to die instead of becoming
muslim and they used to jump in a precipice.
Precipices of Pomak sacrifice are mentioned in
many Pomak towns and villages . But according
to recent investigations the theory of forced
conversion to Islam, supported mainly by some
Bulgarian scientists from the era of communism
is not historically objective and most of the
evidences being faked or misinterpreted.

Besides forced converting there were an
economic motives for the population to do this
voluntarily. The sultans imposed an extra tax on
their non-Muslim subjects and so it was not in
their interest to reduce their takings from this
hara, the main source of income for their
treasury.

Rather, it was the lower tax rates for Muslims
that persuaded the people living in the poorer
areas of the empire, such as the Rhodope, to
give up Christianity, especially bearing in mind
that the Patriarch in Constantinople also taxed
them highly. At the beginning of the Ottoman
invasion, mediaeval Balkan aristocrats had
another reason to embrace Muhammad. The
Ottoman Empire guaranteed social prosperity
only to Muslims.
Patriotically-minded historians love to dwell on the killing of between 1,750 and 5,000
Bulgarians (estimates vary) in Batak during the suppression of the April Uprising of 1876.
However, the massacre was not committed by the Ottoman army but by loosely organised
paramilitary groups from the nearby Pomak villages. In other words, ethnic Bulgar killed
ethnic Bulgar.
Two years later, the Bulgaria got Independenceand the conflict with the Pomaks
intensified. Unwilling to recognize the authority of the governor of the autonomous province
of Eastern Rumelia and helped by S. G. B. St. Clair, a British officer of Polish descent, the
Pomaks from the area of Kardzhali rebelled. Their Republic of Tamrash survived until
1886, when it was ceded to the Ottoman Empire.
This act inspired others to follow. The Republic of Gumuljina was established in 1913 as a
reaction to the annexation of Aegean Thrace by Bulgaria in the Balkan Wars. There were
armed bands of Pomaks in the Rhodope Mountains from 1942 until 1945, fighting for
independence from Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian authorities were not inactive either. Each uprising was followed by the forced
resettlement of the rebels. One of the largest of these happened at the end of the 1940s.
As a result of the activities of Pomak fighters in the Rhodope, several communities were
deported to northeastern Bulgaria.


In 1881, 19121913 and 1942, three large scale
campaigns were conducted to make Pomaks do
the opposite of what their predecessors had
done: they were forced to convert to
Christianity. The Communists brought in a
change of tactics. They began changing Pomak
names for Bulgarian ones. Their policy reached
its culmination with the so-called Revival
Process, but it actually started in 1956, when it
was decided that Pomaks "had to realize their
Bulgarian nationality."
Pomaks responded with self-isolation and the
creation of their own legends about the
hardships they had suffered. In 2000, a man
from a Pomak hamlet in the Rhodope recounted
that during the Revival Process dozens of men
who did not want to change their names were
taken away and executed. No historian has
documented such a case.
lifestyle
The Pomak economy is based on agriculture.
Their major crops include rye, barley, corn, flax,
potatoes, tobacco, and hemp (a fibrous plant
useful for making ropes or cords). Raising
animals such as cows, goats, and sheep is also
very important. Pomak women are renowned
for their excellent weaving abilities. Many
Pomaks also earn their income as migrant
workers. The Pomak diet primarily consists of
bread, potatoes, and beans. They also enjoy
yogurt, various cheeses, and lamb and goat
meat.
The Pomak farmers live in rural villages that are
surrounded by their fields and pastures. Most of
the people live in two-story dwellings. The upper
floor is used as living quarters, while the lower
floor serves as a stable for the animals. The
houses were traditionally constructed of stone,
wood, and clay, with sloping slate roofs.
Recently, however, some Pomaks have begun
to build homes out of brick or cinder block, with
ceramic tile roofs.
Traditionally, Pomak marriages are
arranged between the families of the
prospective bride and groom. The
wedding occurs when the couple
reaches their mid- to late teens. Before
marriage, the bride prepares her own
dowry, which consists of household
items and clothing. Although Islamic law
allows a man to have as many as four
wives, polygamy was never frequent
among the Pomaks, and is currently
prohibited by Greek law.