Founding family · Karabağlar tribe
Korean War + longest-serving muhtar
The Özşahines family produced two of Mesudiye's most documented modern figures: Korean War veteran Ömer Özşahines (one of 234 Turkish prisoners from a 21,000-man brigade) and Cengiz Özşahines, the longest-serving muhtar in village history (1999-2019, 20 years). The surname itself preserves the Rumeli "-es" patronymic — a Balkan-Turkish trace surviving 300 years of migration.
The Özşahines family is a long-established muhacir (migrant) sülale in Mesudiye village. Counted among the members of the Karabağlar oymak who came from Bulgaria to Anatolia with the 1906–1907 migration, the family is registered in the population registers of both İslihisar and Mesudiye villages.
“Özşahines” is made up of three components.
Öz — Turkish for “genuine, true, pure, real.” It was added in the period of the 1934 Surname Law in order to emphasise that the family came from a true lineage.
Şahin — of Persian origin: شاهین (şâhîn), “the sultan of the birds.” A symbol of courage and of a piercing gaze.
-es — a patronymic suffix found in the Turkish dialects of Rumeli. A hybrid form that arose through contact with the Slavic and Greek languages. “Şahines” is the Rumeli-dialect equivalent of “the sons of Şahin”.
In some sources it is also written as “Özşahinéz” — this phonetic variation confirms that the suffix comes from a living Balkan Turkish tradition.
The family is registered in the village population registers of both Mesudiye (founded 1907) and İslihisar (founded 1880).
İslihisar was founded about 25 years before Mesudiye by Deliorman Turks who came from the Silistre, Osman-Pazarı and Şumnu regions. The geographical closeness of the two villages and their shared identity as migrants of Bulgarian origin explain this dual registration.
Korean War veteran (gazi)
15 February 1929, İslihisar — 25 February 2003, Mesudiye
Son of Salih · mother: Saliha
The family's best-known historical figure. In 1949, while doing his military service, he was sent to the Korean War. He was taken captive in the war and held as a prisoner of war for about 3 years.
He was one of only 234 men taken prisoner out of the 21,000–23,000 soldiers sent from Turkey to Korea.
Days of captivity
“When he was taken prisoner, the names of the captives were read out on the radio. After he was released he returned to his village.”
After he was released he returned to Mesudiye village and spent the rest of his life there. Bearing the title “gazi” (war veteran), he died at the age of 74.
That he was born in İslihisar and lived in Mesudiye gives concrete form to the family's role as a bridge between the two migrant communities.
Muhtar for 20 years (1999–2019)
He is the longest-serving muhtar in the village's history. Serving for 20 uninterrupted years, he surpassed the terms of all the other muhtars (for comparison: the second-longest term is 7 years).
Professional farmer · the youngest son of Ömer Özşahines
1973, Mesudiye
Sezgin, the youngest son of Ömer Özşahines, is the pioneer of modern farming and livestock practices in the village. By bringing the first drip irrigation system to the village, he began a new era in agricultural productivity. He also became the first person to separate newborn calves from their mothers and raise them outside, feeding the calves with a bottle.
The Özşahines surname appears in the list of muhtars only in 1999 — which shows that the family's political influence emerged relatively late but in an extremely lasting form. The family is one of Mesudiye's 54 registered surnames and, as a member of the Karabağlar oymak, has ties of kinship with all the other families of the village.