Muslim Minority of Thrace
Pomaks, along with Turks and Muslim Roma living in Thrace, are officially recognized as a religious Muslim minority, in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and formally enjoy the corresponding rights, though they have been treated as Turkish and not Pomak speakers by the authorities. So, there is no teaching of their language, despite the Treaty of Lausanne’s guarantee of education in the Muslims’ own language; this deficiency is admitted even by the official Hellenic authorities (COMS, 1994). Likewise, there is no teaching in Pomak, but it is sometimes used by teachers to explain some things orally to kindergarten and primary school pupils. If required, Pomak may be used in courts and interpreters will be provided, as this is guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne: nevertheless, Pomaks use Turkish in such occasions.
Assessing the number of Turks and Pomacs in Hellas is problematic. The census of 1928 recorded 191,254 Turks while the 1951 census recorded 179,895 Turks of whom virtually all were either Muslim by religion, 92,219, or Orthodox, 86,838. While some live on the Hellenic islands neighbouring Turkey, most live in Western Thrace. The Pomaks, Muslim Slavs, or a small number of Muslim Hellenics, tend to live also in Western Thrace in villages in the southern Rhodope and due to the official reticence to give figures for ethnic minorities, only for religious ones, it is hard to separate them from the Turks; however, the villages near the Bulgarian border in all three provinces of Western Thrace are predominantly Pomak with the exception of some like Mikron Dereion which have a mixed population of ethnic Turks, Pomaks and Hellenic Orthodox, or others which have a sedentary Muslim Gypsy population. Many Pomaks also live in Komotini and Xantini and some also live in Dhidhimotikhon.
Official Hellenic sources tend to claim that the Turks are Pomaks or Muslim Hellenics while, conversely the Turks claim the Pomaks as Turks. Estimates from the Information Office at the Hellenic Embassy in London based on the 1981 census figures give a total of 110,000 people belonging to religious minorities of whom some 60,000 are Turkish-speaking Muslims; 30,000 Pomaks; and 20,000 Athingani (descendants of Christian heretics expelled from Asia Minor during Byzantine rule) or Roma Gypsies. However, Turkish Muslim sources from Western Thrace claim a total of 100,000 to 120,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims in Western Thrace and most observers estimate between 100,000 and 120,000 Muslims out of a total population for Western Thrace of some 360,000 recorded in the census of 1971. Of the other minorities there are small populations of Gagauz, Christian Turkish-speaking people, for example around the city of Alexandroupolis, and Sarakatsani, Hellenic speaking transhumants, especially in the village of Palladion. Fieldwork by F. De Jong in 1979, to whom much of the above is indebted, notes that there are no longer any Circassians in Western Thrace.
Education
In the vital field of education the Hellenic authorities have steadily increased teaching in Hellenic at the expense of Turkish. From the 1960s onwards religious teachers from the Arab world have progressively been reduced while the employment of teachers from Turkey to Turkish schools in Western Thrace has been stopped. Since 1968 only graduates from a special academy in Thessaloniki [Selanik] can be qualified to teach in Turkish schools. This academy takes much of its intake from Greek secondary schools and, its critics claim, relies on an outdated religious curriculum deliberately to create an incompetent Hellenized education system in Western Thrace isolated from the mainstream of modern Turkish culture. The situation has deteriorated with the authorities introducing an entrance exam for the two Turkish secondary minority schools in Komotini and Xanthi – there are some 300 Turkish primary schools – and a directorate from the government in March 1984 stipulating that graduate examinations from Turkish secondary and high schools have to be in Hellenic.The implementation of this law in 1985 with, in some cases, merely a few months’ notice was extremely hard on the unfortunate students. The result of these measures has been a dramatic decline in secondary school students in Turkish schools from 227 in Xanthi and 305 in Komotini in 1983-4, to 85 and 42, respectively, in 1986-7. Greek history books portray Turks in crude stereotypes and while Turkish pupils are allowed some books from Turkey, there have been inexplicable delays resulting in long outdated textbooks having to be used.
The authorities have also prohibited the use of the adjective “Turkish” in titles denoting associations etc. and the Turkish Teachers Association in Western Thrace was closed by order of Komotini court on 20 March 1986, a decision upheld by the Athens High Court on 28 July 1987.
POMAKS
Pomaks are those whose mother tongue is Pomakika (name in Greek -Πομάκοι)/ 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.
Pomaks live in the three departments of Western Thrace: they are the main component of the Muslim (in fact today Turkish) minority in Xanthi. There have not been any official statistics since 1951 (and the preceding statistical data are not very trustworthy). The best estimate for the Pomaks today is a figure around 30,000. The Greek state gives an estimate of 35,000 (COMS, 1994); so do authors ‘acceptable’ to the Greek state: Hidiroglou (1991:45) and Notaras (1994:47). The 30,000 estimate is based on a Hellenic Helsinki Monitor/Minority Rights Group-Greece detailed estimation, on the basis of the census data and the synthesis of the minority communities as provided by both the Greek authorities and local minority sources. It is also the estimate of Nakratzas (1988:131) and De Jong (1994). Seyppel (1989:42) gives an estimate of 20,000-30,000.
The historical origins of the Pomaks or Achrjani (as they also used to call themselves) are obscure (De Jong (1980:95); moreover, very little is known about their evolution, even as recently as in the XIX century. This ignorance therefore provides a fertile ground for another controversy in the Balkans. As Bulgarians, Hellenics and Turks all claim that Pomaks are a component of their respective nations or simply want to assimilate them (Sarides, 1987), they provide different ‘national histories’ (or perhaps ‘national fictions’) which usually ‘devaluate or ignore “disturbing” facts’ (Seyppel, 1989:43 & 48).
Authors consider Pomaks to be the descendants of ancient Thracian tribes which were in turn Hellenized, Latinized, Slavized, Christianized and finally Islamized. Those of them who stayed in the mountains succeeded in remaining ‘pure’ descendants of these ancient tribes and they have many Hellenic, if not Homeric, words in their vocabulary. Greeks even use anthropometric and ‘blood-group’ research to prove that Pomaks are very different from Turks and are similar to Greeks (Seyppel, 1989:42; Sarides, 1987 and references therein; Hidiroglou, 1991 and references therein). For Hellenics, Pomak is a derivative of the Ancient Greek word ‘Pomax’ (‘drinker’) which reflects the Thracians’ known habit of drinking; and Achrjani is a derivative of the ancient Thracian tribe of ‘Agrianoi’ (Seyppel, 1989:48).
Current situation of the minority and the language
Through the end of 1995, most Pomaks lived in a military “restricted zone”, access to which required a special permission, hardly ever granted to foreigners and therefore to foreign scholars (Seyppel, 1989:44). The zone was abolished in November 1995. The inhabitants of the villages within the zone have had special identity cards which restrict their freedom of movement within the limits of the department (within 30 km from their village through 1992): to travel or resettle further away, they too need a permit from the authorities, although this provision appears not to be strictly enforced (Dimitras, 1991:78; & 1994:21-2). These special measures were not abolished in November 1995.
Pomaks identify themselves with the Turks and, in the presence of outsiders, would even change the language of communication among themselves from Pomak into Turkish (Seyppel, 1989:47; Frangopoulos, 1990:90; Dimitras, 1991:77). Most Pomaks have today a double identity: an ethnic Pomak and a national Turkish one (see Dede, 1994:13). This assimilation into the Turkish nation was certainly helped by the Hellenic state’s decision, in 1951, to introduce Turkish-language education for Pomaks in an effort to distance them from Bulgarians. But, it is believed that the main reason for the Muslim minority’s homogenization has been the Pomaks’ feeling that through their identification with Turks they would no longer be a minority into a minority, or have no one to defend their rights.
Some Pomaks go as far as denying the existence of an ethnic Pomak identity, deny the existence of a separate ethnic identity besides their Hellenic national identity. Moreover, they hear with incredulity that their language can be written, believing that such efforts are aiming at distancing them from Turks (Frangopoulos, 1988:4).
So, there is no distinct Pomak leadership today: the community’s leaders form part of the Turkish minority leadership and defend Pomak interests as Turkish interests (Sarides, 1987). Pomaks, Turks and Muslim Roma in Thrace face many problems of discrimination from Hellenic authorities and a growing hostility from Hellenic public opinion (Helsinki Watch, 1990; Dimitras, 1991 & 1994). The persistent refusal of Hellenic authorities to respond to the minority’s demands led to a radicalization of the minority’s attitude, reflected also in the emergence since 1985 of independent minority candidates who have been receiving the majority of Muslim votes. Pomaks are also resenting the new effort of Hellenic authorities, evident since 1994, to attempt to dissociate them from the Turks and to give -at least to the most cooperating among- them some privileges, like access to higher education institutions or to officer rank during their military service: when Pomak leaders protest and remind that they have a Turkish national or ethnic identity, they become the object of violent, often insulting, attacks by Hellenic media (like Kathimerini) and political leaders (like the Parliament’s Speaker Apostolos Kaklamanis).
In education, the Pomak language has never been included in the educational curricula of the modern Hellenic state, but it is used as a means of communication among pupils at schools and, at the kindergartenand elementary level, sometimes by teachers. Otherwise, Pomaks attend the same schools with Turks and Muslim Roma in Thrace. According to Hellenic authorities, in 1994, for the whole Muslim (indeed Turkish) community, there were 231 Muslim elementary schools with 8,591 pupils and two minority secondary schools plus two Muslim seminars with 511 students: the secondary schools are obviously insufficient for the needs of the community, which is thus discouraged to send the children beyond primary school, although, according to Hellenic law, education is mandatory through the third year of secondary school. Many Pomak families, just like many Turkish families, therefore choose to send their children to schools in Turkey. Moreover, there is hardly any use of the language towards the authorities and in public services: in theory, Pomaks are allowed to address them in their language, through interpreters, but, as most speak Hellenic, they hardly ever opt to do it.
Today, most Pomaks are fluent in Turkish (the language of their education and the dominant language within the broad Muslim community), understand some Arabic (the language of the Koran) and can also speak Hellenic (a language they use to communicate with Hellenic s and Hellenic authorities). In the mountain villages, most speak Pomak at home; their language does not seem to be severely threatened with extinction and its use is not systematically discouraged by Greek authorities; nevertheless, as Pomaks identify with Turks, there is a tendency among the latter to discourage the use of Pomak, so as to achieve a better homogenization (i.e. Turkification) of the Muslim minority. Moreover, it appears that there is a slow decline in the use of the language among younger generations (De Jong, 1994).
Finally, although Pomaks live on the other side of the Hellenic-Bulgarian frontier too, there are very few transfrontier contacts: in fact, since the beginning of the Cold War, border crossings to Bulgaria have been closed in the two departments with significant Pomak populations (Xanthi and Rodopi), as Hellenic authorities wanted to avoid Bulgarian infiltration of the Pomaks of Hellas . In late 1995, Hellas and Bulgaria agreed to reopen these crossings. Their closing was one reason why most Pomak villages had since then been included in restricted military zones, with special permits been required to enter in or leave from these zones, even through 1994.
