Are there many people in the Balkans (Hungary, <span title="Bosnia,Macedonia,Albania,etc)">Bosnia,Macedonia,Albania,...</span> who have ethnic Turkish descent ?

Question

Since all Eastern Europe and Balkans have been ruled by the Ottomans during several centuries, there have been obviously mixing between Turks and local populations.

But are there many people with Turkish heritage ?

And are they aware of that ?

And what are their feelings towards Turkey ?

Answer 1

So you are asking about people who don&#039;t speak Turkish as their first language but have Turkish roots? Not Turks living in the Balkans, right? If so, the answer to your question is pretty iffy. I am sure there has been many mixing between the local populations, Christian or Muslim. Since Muslim men were allowed to marry Christians, even a Balkan Christian may have Turkish roots. Also the Ottoman system, as it was the case with the rest of the world, valued religion over nationality which facilitated intermixing. Intermixing has no significance now, I am not going to stop calling myself a Turk even if I have 100 % Slavic ancestory. Vice-versa, an Albanian isn&#039;t going to stop calling himself an Albanian even if he has Turkish roots.

Therefore I wouldn&#039;t say these possible intermixings would interfere very much with the feelings felt towards a country. If you hate Turks, you&#039;ll still hate Turks even if you had a Turkish ancestor somewhere in your blood line. Similarly, if you like Turkey, no matter how pure you are, you will still love Turkey, as it is the case with many Bosnian Muslims. But with countries you have mentioned, Turks have a good relationship. You must also understand that Balkans is a small area consuming more nationalism than it can handle. I don&#039;t believe in traditional, vigorous, romantic German or Anglo-Saxon nationalism, if there is one area in Europe that deserves to be the king of nationalism, although not the inventers, it is the Balkans.

So I can&#039;t give you a healthy account of the feelings of Balkan people towards Turkey only by lingering on the issue of how many of them have Turkish origins. I&#039;ll explain it to you in a rather classical way. Following your order... Hungarians are sympathetic to Turks because some Hungarians believe they are the descendants of Huns and thus consider Turks their relatives. I wouldn&#039;t really agree to this eccentric proposal since Hungarians are genetically closer to Slavs, but there it is. ( http://www.turania.com ) Some Hungarians, may pretty well have Ottoman ancestors too. Bosnians are slavic, but their ancestors have chosen Islam as their religion which is one of the reasons why many Bosnians too, are sympathetic to Turks. We have good relations with the Macedonians, as far as I know, Turkey was the second country to officially recognize Republic of Macedonia. We&#039;ve got some Macedonians at my university too, they&#039;re nice people and of course, they have no problem with the Turks. Albanians, uhm, I haven&#039;t met a single Albanian but I guess they haven&#039;t a problem with us, in general. What I do know is that Albanian officials, in some places, put &quot;i&quot; at the end of Turkish surnames to pass Balkan Turks off as Albanians but not Turks in the official records. Kosova being independent now, I&#039;m sure our relations will improve.

p.s.

Let me explain the janissary system to you. Almost all of the Janissarries were of Slavic and Albanian origin, children in the Balkans were collected at distant time intervals, usually according to the needs of the army. It isn&#039;t that every year a million kids were collected. One of the myths about the janissary system is the claim that the janissaries were not allowed to contact their own family of origin. Absolutely wrong, they were free to see their families, though I wouldn&#039;t say they were encouraged. Even the Circassian house slaves were allowed to contact their own families. So you do the maths, did a small number of Balkan men, who were not allowed to marry until they retire affect the Turkish character more or did the Ottoman influence of hundreds of years affect the Balkanese character more?

Answer 2

No, e few only.

Answer 3

I fully agree with Greek Barbie.

Answer 4

NAKISVNDK... the Muslim minority you refer to in greece ARE TURKISH not greek. Get over yourself your obviously one of those people who think everything in the world is greek.. well guess what, it&#039;s not.  My parents are from western thrace and we are not greek, we are Turkish. We were Turkish several hundred years ago and are still Turkish.

Answer 5

to nakis bla bla: you dont know what you&#039;re talking about greece  has been neglecting the presence of Turks in western thrace since 1950&#039;s greeks always like to introduce us as &quot;greek muslims&quot; everybody knows that we were  exempted from repatriation to turkiye by the treaty of lausanne in 1923 believe it or not most thracian muslims are of turkish ancestry and speak turkish according to the lousanne records 85% of the lands of located in western thrace were belonging to turks  we&#039;re not majority here now btw many turks lost their jobs and stripped from their citizenship due to various reasons

Answer 6

I think the nations you mentionned, and also Bulgaria (and even a certain part of the population in Egypt,Tunisia and Algeria and other muslim countries) have plenty of people with turkish DNA, indeed.

After all, the Brits also have Saxon roots, that is to say ancestors coming from Germany (not to mention the Nordic origin from the Vikings invasions)

Most of the French have Roman ancestors ( that is to say Italians), or Celtic and/or Norman origin ( England).

Spaniards too have Roman ancestors and even Arab heritage (even though they refuse to admit it ), due to the fact that Spain had been ruled by Romans, and later by Arabs.

So that&#039;s not really surprising.

Some say that even Native Americans (Indians ) have common roots with the Turkic group...

Answer 7

yes.and people who say no get your facts straight.

maybe there arent a whole lot but there still is especially in BULGARIA and ofcourse other balkan countries aswell.

and they might have adapted to some stuff there but they still know they are turkish and dont hide it and they do speak turkish,with an accent.most of my family is still there but they do speak turkish and there are like turkish towns.they kind of all adapted together the bulgarians and the turks grew up together.and macedonia same thing there is a turkish show eleveda rumeli and it shows the past of turks living there.there isnt a whole lot of mixing and marrying with eachother such as bulgarian and turkish.

Answer 8

Turks are genetically Caucasian, North Persian, central Asian and but besides religious strivance europan cousine may stress them, along with snowy complexion, melting bones, layering body, except mc donalds quick menu.. instead f green salad with olive oil,

chill manti with dairy.

Thats me but here is also almost %50 greek-afro- romaic(gypsy) descents who described as also turk by islam (the staring men are commonly from this population).

Answer 9

I just want to support the last paragraph &quot;Totally Blunt&quot; has answered and I want to add that I was one of those kids taught that Turkish soldiers raped (and/or killed) women of families that did not accept the new arab religion.

Heritage, there is no Turkish heritage, at least in Kosovo and Albania that I am aware of, but there is Islamic heritage.

Aware, yes they are.

I can share my feelings if you want? My GGGgrand father accepted this arab religion and his brother did not who remained a Catholic. I feel that my GGGGrand father was a weak man, actually not man enough to stick to his own 1700 year old religion. I admire the character his brother had. I admire everything about my Catholic side of the family.

My GGGGrand father later changed his mind and to showed in the way he named his children. First and second child after the change, had arab names, after them all other kids had Albanian names.

Today, Turkey is a great democratic country. I have been there many times, and I can see that Turkey is hard working nation. Every time I went there I could see improvement in infrastructure and the quality of life. Some times the uneducated class tends get in argument about history and they are too emotional about it.

Answer 10

Maybe a little, although back in those days, mixing between a Christian and a Muslim was pretty hard (even in today&#039;s times)

Generally speaking, the chances of a Balkan Muslim having some Turkish ancestry to him would be higher, due to the easier intermixing caused of the same religion. Although the percentages would have been low, since most Muslims in the Balkans were converted through Islam and not through intermixing.

Jannisaries (taking a young kid and raising it as a Muslim Turkish soldier) in the Balkans were also common, so to answer you question, i think more Turks have Balkan ancestry to them than the other way around.

According to wikipedia, appr. 400,000 janissaries occurred in the Balkans from 1514 to 1680.

Answer 11

i think yes and i take for example the muslim minority in greece(trace) that they think that are turks because they are muslims. but this is not the truth because they are greeks....

Answer 12

well i do and i am Albanian...i mean common they ruled for hundred of years don&#039;t you think they hmmhmm some of us lol ....but a lot of people are not aware of it and i wouldn&#039;t either if my mom didn&#039;t have a Turkish last name even tho she was born in Albania and so had her dad and grandfather and great grandfather...right now i do not really have any resentment towards Turkey because the current population of turkey is not the same as the one that invaded my country

Answer 13

&quot;Turkish&quot; in Ottoman times meant someone who accepted Islam and spoke Turkish. &quot;Turkish&quot; today means someone who is a citizen of the Republic of Turkey.

Many people in the Balkans converted to Islam during Ottoman times and obtained a different identity than their Christian neighbors. Serbs and Bosnians speak the same language but Serbs didn&#039;t have any scruples about massacring Bosnians.

Having said that, I believe the Turkic influence on the Balkans isn&#039;t so very wide, but the Ottoman influence is. Contrary to popular belief (instigated by state founding myths in the region), the Ottoman Empire was a benign one as opposed to European administrations. They DID conquer, but after that they let local cultures live and prosper. The convert Muslims did so with their free will, not by force. Such that, when Martin Luther was spreading his reform, he had to say, &quot;Even if your local lords are tyrans and the Turks promise you a benign administration, you have to choose your cruel lords, because otherwise you will go to h**l.&quot; Or words to that effect.

Balkan nations turn a blind eye to this and teach their children how Turks oppressed them for centuries.

Answer 14

You&#039;d have to ask them in their section if they have one :)