Urums

The ethnic group of Urum ( urumisch Ουρούμ / Urum ) forms a small Turkic minority of Greek descent.

Etymology

The name Urum is a derivative of the Turkish word rum and means Greek.

The German Turkish Studies, the term Greco - Tatars and from popular literature Urumler is known. For a long time the Urum were also counted among the mountain Tatars due to their Turkic language and referred to as such.

Distribution area

Today's main settlement area forms the south of Georgia ( Samtskhe - Javakheti Northern, where they migrated in the 19th century and located near the Meskhetian settlements settled ) and the eastern part of present-day Turkey ( Trabzon, Giresun, Erzurum and Kars ). The Urum are to be found as a minority in Ukraine, the Crimea, Greece and the wider Balkan Peninsula.

Ethnicity and Religion

The approximately 13,000 Urum are by origin ethnic Greeks. The ancestors of Urum came in the 18th century in the Caucasus and were mainly settled by the Georgian king in Abkhazia. They eventually took the Tatar language, which today still has strong influences of the Greek language.

The Urum are one of the few Turkic peoples who have not accepted Islam but have remained to the present day Greek Orthodox Christians. So they will still be listed as " Greeks " and not as a Turkic people also censuses in Georgia because of their Greek Orthodox faith. This also corresponds to their own conception of Urum who continue to view themselves as Greeks and not as Turks or Tartars, though they speak a Turkic language today. So give the Urum their children also predominantly Greek names. In extreme cases, although not rare, the children are named after Greek place names such as Makedon, Ellada, etc..

History

Around the year 1780 around 9,600 Greeks were brought from Anatolia to Georgia. There they were as Christians replace the meantime converted to Islam Circassians and Abkhazians, who were in turn migrated to the Ottoman Empire. But these Anatolian Greeks were already linguistically heavily influenced by " Osmanentum "; partly they have already spoken alongside Greek and Turkish.

In the new settlement areas of the Urum came with the Crimean Tatars and other Turkic peoples in adjacent contact and language were strongly influenced by them. The Urum now finally took Tatar as their native language, omitting to give up their old faith. There was particular, the influence of Krimtürkischen to the language of Urum. Today, this variant of the Tatar considered as the closest relatives of the urumischen language.

After the subjugation of the Khanate of the Crimea and the subsequent suppression of the Caucasian Turkic peoples by the Russian administration authorities withdrew 1821-1825 large parts of the Urum in southern Georgia and eastern Anatolia.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a massive emigration of Urum began to Greece.