Pomaks are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting Bulgaria, northwestern Turkey, and northeastern Greece. The strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by the government. The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia and Albania. Most Pomaks today live in Turkey, where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect, whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language. The community in Greece is commonly fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, especially in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their first language as a result of education and family links with the Turkish people. THE POMAKS, Report – Greek Helsinki Monitor
They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims, considered derogatory. However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades. Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian,Muslim identity and the Balkan State; Hugh Poulton, Suha Taji-Farouki; 1997, p. 102 Pomak, ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.Histories and Identities: Nation-state and Minority Discourses. The Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks . Ulf Brunnbauer, University of Graz
Etymology The name "Pomak" first appeared in the Bulgarian Christian-heretical language surroundings of Northern Bulgaria (the regions of Loveč, Teteven, Lukovit, Bjala Slatina). An older etymology relates it to the dialectical words помáкан, помáчен (pomákan, pomáčen), meaning "tormented, tortured." This etymology has been contested, for having historically dubious sources. Other etymologies relate it to помъкна се (pomákna se), meaning "to haul", помамя (pomamya), meaning "to cheat", помагам (pomagam), meaning "to help" (historically, the Ottomans), or *по-мохамед-ов-ак (pomohamedovak), meaning somebody who has converted to Muhammad or Islam.
Origins Their precise origin has been interpreted differently by Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish historians,Fred de Jong, "The Muslim Minority in Western Thrace", in Georgina Ashworth (ed.), Muslim Minorities in the Eighties, Sunbury, Quartermaine House Ltd., 1980, p.95Vemund Aarbakke, The Muslim Minority of Greek Thrace, University of Bergen, Bergen, 2000, pp.5 and 12 (pp. 27 and 34 in the pdf file). Olga Demetriou, "Prioritizing 'ethnicities': The uncertainty of Pomak-ness in the urban Greek Rhodoppe", in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, January 2004, pp.106–107 (pp. 12–13 in the pdf file). but it is generally considered they are descendants of native Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians, and Paulicians who also previously converted to Orthodoxy and Catholicism, who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans.Любен Каравелов. Мемоари. Павликяни и семейният бит на българите. (Lyuben Karavelov. Memoirs. Paulicians and the family life of the Bulgarians). http://www.znam.bg/com/action/showBook?bookID=979&elementID=935883124§ionID=5 Information through Ottoman and Catholic missionaries reports supports this theory.Archimandrite Nikodemos Anagnostopoulos, Orthodoxy and Islam: Theology and Muslim–Christian Relations in Modern Greece and Turkey, Culture and Civilization in the Middle East, Taylor & Francis, 2017, , p. 128.
Genetic studies A specific DNA mutation, HbO, which emerged about 2,000 years ago on a rare haplotype is characteristic of the Greek Pomaks. Its frequency increased as a consequence of high genetic drift within this population. This indicates that the Greek Pomaks are an isolated population with limited contacts with their neighbours. A 2014 study also confirmed high homozygosity and according to MDS analysis the Greek Pomaks cluster among European populations, near the general Greek population.
History Pomaks are today usually considered descendants of native Orthodox Bulgarians and Paulicians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans. They started to become Muslim gradually, from the Ottoman occupation (early 15th century) to the end of the 18th century. Subsequently, these people became part of the Muslim community of the millet system. At that time people were bound to their millets by their religious affiliations (or their confessional communities), rather than their ethnic origins, according to the millet concept.Ortaylı, İlber. "Son İmparatorluk Osmanlı (The Last Empire: Ottoman Empire)", İstanbul, Timaş Yayınları (Timaş Press), 2006. pp. 87–89. .
A monk Pachomios Roussanos (1508–1553), who visited the mountain area of Xanthi, mentioned that around 1550 only six or nine villages had turned to Islam. Furthermore the documents show that not only had Islam spread to the area at that time, but that the Pomaks had participated in Ottoman military operations voluntarily as is the case with the village of Shahin (Echinos).
In North Central Bulgaria (the regions of Lovech, Teteven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina) the Ottoman authorities requested in 1689, after the Chiprovtsi Uprising, for military reasons Bulgarian Paulicians (heterodox Christian sect) to convert to one of the officially recognized religions in the Ottoman Empire. One part of them became the Bulgarian-Christians by converting to Ottoman recognized Christian denominations, either the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church or the Catholic Church, while the other part converted to Islam and began to be called Pomaks. So, in North Central Bulgaria Pomaks became those of Bulgarian Christian heretics, for which it was unacceptable or impossible to convert to the Eastern Orthodox Christian because of dogmatic, economic, family or other reasons.
The mass turn to Islam in the Central Rhodope Mountains happened between the 16th and the 17th century. According to the Codes of Bishop of Philippoupolis and the Czech historian and slavicist Konstantin Josef Jireček in the middle of the 17th century, some Bulgarian provosts agreed to become Muslim en masse. They visited the Ottoman local administrator to announce their decision, but he sent them to the Greek bishop of Philippoupolis Gabriel (1636–1672). The bishop could not change their mind. According to the verbal tradition of the Greeks of Philippoupolis, a large ceremony of mass circumcision took place in front of the old mosque of the city, near the Government House. After that, the villagers became Muslim, too. According to the verbal tradition of the Bulgarians, Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (1656–1661) threatened the Bulgarians of Chepino Valley that he would execute them if they didn't turn to Islam. In 1656, Ottoman military troops entered the Chepino valley and arrested the local Bulgarian provosts, in order to transfer them in the local Ottoman administrator. There, they converted to Islam. Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü, after the mass Islamization, destroyed 218 churches and 336 chapels in these areas. A lot of Bulgarians preferred to die instead of becoming Muslim.M. G. Varvounis Folk tales of Pomaks in Thrace, Athens 1996 According to recent investigations the theory of forced conversion to Islam, supported by some scientists, has no solid grounds with all or most evidence being faked or misinterpreted. At the same time, the sincerity of the convert is a subject to suspicion and interrogation. Some authors for example, explain the mass conversions that occurred in the 17th century with the tenfold increase of the Jizya tax. Muslim communities prospered under the Ottoman Empire, as the Sultan was also the Caliph. Ottoman law did not recognize such notions as ethnicity or citizenship; thus, a Muslim of any ethnic background enjoyed precisely the same rights and privileges.
Meanwhile, the perception of the millet concept was altered during the 19th century and rise of nationalism within the Ottoman Empire begun. After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Pomaks in the Vacha valley, apprehensive of retribution for their role in the bloody suppression of the April Uprising two years earlier, rebelled against Eastern Rumelia and established an autonomous state, called Republic of Tamrash. In 1886 the Ottoman government accepted the Bulgarian rule over Eastern Rumelia and that was the end of the free Pomak state. During the Balkan Wars, at 16 August 1913, an Islamic revolt begun in the Eastern Rhodopes and Western Thrace. On 1 September 1913, the "Provisional Government of Western Thrace" (Garbi Trakya Hukumet i Muvakkatesi) was established in Komotini. The Ottoman administration didn't support the rebels and finally under the neutrality of Greek and Ottoman governments, Bulgaria took over the lands on 30 October 1913. The rebels requested support by the Greek state and put Greek major in Alexandroupoli.in Turkish: Biyiklioglou Tevfik, "Trakya' da millî mücadele" Ankara 1956in German: Peter Soustal, "Thrakien (Thrake, Rodope und Haimimontos)" Wienn 1991in Greek: General Administration of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, "Thrace" Komotini 1994in Turkish: Aydinli Ahmet, "Bati Trakya faciasinin icyuzu" Istanbul 1972 Bulgaria, after a brief period of control over the area, passed the sovereignty of Western Thrace at the end of World War I. The Provisional Government was revived between 1919 and 1920 under French protectorate (France had annexed the region from Bulgaria in 1918) before Greece took over in June 1920.
After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, the religious millet system disappeared and the members of the Pomak groups today declare a variety of ethnic identities, depending predominantly on the country they live in.
Language
There is no specific Pomak dialect of the Bulgarian language. Within Bulgaria, the Pomaks speak almost the same dialects as those spoken by the Christian Bulgarians with which they live side by side and Pomaks living in different regions speak different dialects.Bulgarian dialectology; Stoyan Stoykov; 4th edition, 2002; p.128 In Bulgaria there is a trend for dialects to give way to the standard Bulgarian language and this is also affecting the dialects spoken by the Pomaks and their usage is now rare in urban areas and among younger people. As part of the wider Pomak community, the Torbeshi and Gorani in North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo speak Macedonian or Torlakian dialects (incl. the Gora dialect),Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Jorgen S. Nielsen, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibasic, BRILL, 2009, , p. 221.The Albanian Question: Reshaping The Balkans, James Pettifer, Miranda Vickers, I.B.Tauris, 2007, , p. XV.Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: L-R, James Minahan, , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p. 1517.Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States Religion and Global Politics, Vjekoslav Perica, Oxford University Press, 2004, , p. 75.Culture and Learning in Islam Different Aspects of Islamic Culture, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, UNESCO, 2003, , pp. 96–98.Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, , p. 208. which are sometimes also considered to be part of the "wider Bulgarian dialect continuum".Who are the Macedonians?, Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, , p. 116.When languages collide: perspectives on language conflict, language competition, and language coexistence, Brian D. Joseph, Ohio State University Press, 2003, p. 281, .Albania: from anarchy to a Balkan identity, Miranda Vickers, James Pettifer, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1997, , p. 205.