The Migration of Migrations

From the 14th century onwards, the Ottoman State applied a systematic settlement policy in order to Turkify permanently the lands of Rumelia that it had conquered. Yörük and Turkmen communities from Anatolia — sometimes voluntarily, most often by way of deportation — were settled in Thrace, in Macedonia, in Dobruja and in Deliorman.

Archaeological excavations carried out in the region of Hacıoğlu-Pazarcık (today's Dobrich) have revealed that there was no settlement whatsoever between AD 600 and 1500. The region came to life again in the 16th century through Ottoman settlement policy. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, settlement there began for the first time in this century, with the Yörüks.

Studies of the dialects of the Turks in the regions of Hacıoğlu-Pazarcık, Silistra, Şumnu, Razgrad and Eskicuma establish their origin with certainty. According to research on the dialects of Bulgarian Turkish, the Turks of this region belong predominantly to the Avşar tribe of the Oğuz.

Geography of origin

Maraş, Adana, Antep, Halep, Malatya, the southern districts of Sivas, Mersin, Niğde and Kırşehir — that is, the Turkmen geography of Central and Southern Anatolia.

The Celâli rebellions, which shook Anatolia from the beginning of the 16th century onwards, became the fundamental driving force of this migration. An intense Turkmen migration (sürgün-iskân, deportation-settlement) took place from Tokat, Yozgat, Sivas, Kırşehir, Maraş, Adana, the Taurus mountains and the area around Mersin–Karaman to Deliorman and Dobruja. The Ottomans applied this policy deliberately, both to reduce the demographic pressure in the rebellious regions and to repopulate Rumelia.

According to academic sources, a part of the Turkmens settled in Rumelia came directly from the lands of the Karaman Beylik. This adds a deep irony to the story of Mesudiye: the descendants of the people who left Karaman for Dobruja returned to Karaman once again 400 years later.

When these Anatolian Turkmens came to Deliorman and Dobruja, they did not find an empty land. A Turkmen community had been living in the region since the 13th century — one that had come together with Sarı Saltuk Baba. There were also remnants of the Kıpçak and Peçenek Turks. The newly arrived Avşar Turkmens mixed with these older communities. For this reason the Turkish of Deliorman-Dobruja developed a distinctive dialect bearing traces both of the Oğuz (Avşar) speech and of the Kıpçak idiom.

Traces in the dialect of Mesudiye

“macır” — the local pronunciation of the word muhacir.

“dızmana” and “tutmanik”, “ekşimik” — words of Dobruja origin.

the “-es/-ez” suffix (e.g. Özşahines) — a patronymic suffix of the Rumelian Turkish dialects.

Mesudiye's migration story thus emerges not as a one-way line but as a cycle:

c. 1500s — Ottoman sürgün-iskân — Karaman/Central Anatolia → Dobruja/Deliorman

1500–1878 — settled life (~300–400 years) — Çayır village (Hitovo), Hacıoğlu-Pazarcık

1878 — 93 Harbi (the 1877–1878 Ottoman-Russian War), the autonomous Principality of Bulgaria — pressure and loss of land began

1907 — muhacir migration — Çayır → Köstence → Istanbul → Konya → Karaman

If it is confirmed that the Karabağlar oymak came out of the lands of the Karaman Beylik — and the linguistic and historical evidence strongly supports this — then these people literally returned home. Without being aware of it, they came back to the lands their ancestors had left hundreds of years before.

For this cycle to be fully documented, there are still questions that need to be answered:

Is the Karabağlar oymak connected with the Bozulus Turkmens? “Karabağlar” does not appear directly in the Bozulus lists, but oymaks with similar names (Karallar, Durallar) do exist, and a part of the Bozulus was settled in Rumelia after 1699.

What is the founding date of Çayır village? A detailed examination of the 16th-century tahrir defterleri (tax registers) of the sancak of Silistra is required.

Which oymak in Anatolia do the family nicknames and the damga (brand mark) records correspond to? This information can only be obtained by comparing oral history with the archives.

Archival sources

The answers to these questions lie hidden in the tahrir defterleri and avârız defterleri of the sancak of Silistra in the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, and in the population records of the Konya vilayet.