Karamanlides

The Karamanlides (Greek: Καραμανλήδες; Turkish: Karamanlılar), or simply Karamanlis are an Orthodox, Turkish-speaking people native to the Karaman and Cappadocia regions of Anatolia. Today, a majority of the population live within Greece, though there is a notable diaspora in Western Europe and North America.

Etymology

Karamanlides were Greek-Orthodox Christians in Central Anatolia who had spoke Turkish as their primary language. The term is geographical, derived from the 13th century Beylik of Karaman. This was the first Turkish kingdom to use Turkish as its official language and originally the term would only refer to the inhabitants of the town of Karaman or from the region of Karaman. After the Christians in the area were exchanged with Muslim population of Greece in 1923, the title became a label for local Muslim inhabitants.

Language

An inscription in Karamanli Turkish on the entrance of the former Greek Orthodox church of Agia Eleni in Sille, near Konya.

Historically, the Karamanlides spoke Karamanli Turkish. Its vocabulary drew overwhelmingly from Turkic words with many Greek loan words. The language should not be confused with Cappadocian Greek, which was spoken in the same region during the same timeframe, but is derived from the Greek language. While the official Ottoman Turkish was written in the Arabic script, the Karamanlides used the Greek alphabet for writing its form of Turkish. Such texts are called Karamanlidika (Καραμανλήδικα / Καραμανλήδεια γραφή) or Karamanli Turkish today. Karamanli Turkish had its own literary tradition and produced numerous published works in print in the 19th century, some of them published by Evangelinos Misailidis, by the Anatoli or Misailidis publishing house (Misailidis 1986, p. 134).

Karamanli writers and speakers were expelled from Turkey as part of the Greek-Turkish population exchange of 1923. Some speakers preserved their language in the diaspora. The writing form stopped being used immediately after the Turkish state adopted the Latin alphabet.

A fragment of a manuscript written in Karamanli was also found in the Cairo Geniza.^[1]

Origins

Academic disputes over the origins of the Karamanlides have led to the formation of two major theories.

According to the first theory the Karamanlides descended from (religiously converted) Turkish soldiers (Turcopoles) that Byzantine emperors settled in Anatolia.^[2]

The range of the ancestral homeland of the Karamanlides.

The second theory states that Karamanlides are the direct descendants of Byzantine Greeks. Despite their linguistic Turkification, they maintained their Greek Orthodox faith. Linguists were able to travel through Karamanli-speaking regions of Cappadocia and document the few remaining Greek words that mostly elderly residents could remember.^[3] Hence the process of Turkification was documented. It also has a precedent with the Copts in Egypt, who eventually abandoned the Coptic language for Arabic as their first language but remained Christians.

It seems that, although with notable exceptions, the Karamanlides did not manifest the Greek national identity of the time, preferring instead to call themselves Rum, "Christians", or "Christians of Anatolia".^[4]

According to the third theory held by the Turkish author Necip Asım and Bulgarian authors the Karamanlides may be descendants of exiled Slavic-speaking Bulgarians after the conquest of the First Bulgarian Empire by the Byzantine Empire, who were concentrated around the mountain with the survived name Bulgar Dagh.^[5][6] This event was mentioned by the Armenian historian Aristakes Lastivertsi in 1072, who described the event as a disaster and horror for the places where Bulgarians passed. The territory was conquered by the Seljuk Turks first during the Battle of Manzikert. The author Necip Asım provided more than 150 historical accounts(written as late as 1517) literally speaking of Bulgarian Asker, Eller, Beylers, Beys, their rulers Yahsha Khan, Aydin Bey, Vizier Assen and Queen Catherine, who were Christian allies or vassals of the Karamanids or Seljuks.^[7]

Many Karamanlides were forced to leave their homes during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Early estimates placed the number of Orthodox Christians expelled from central and southern Anatolia at around 100,000.^[8] However, the Karamanlides were numbered at around 400,000 at the time of the exchange.^[9]

The former premier of Greece, named Karamanlis, has his roots in Karaman.

Culture

The distinct culture that developed among the Karamanlides blended elements of Orthodox Christianity with an Ottoman-Turkish flavor that characterized their willingness to accept and immerse themselves in foreign customs. From the 14th to the 19th centuries, they enjoyed an explosion in literary refinement. Karamanli authors were especially productive in philosophy, religious writings, novels, and historical texts. Lyrical poetry in the late 19th century describes their indifference to both Greek and Turkish governments, and the confusion they felt as a Turkish-speaking people with a Greek ethos.

References