Browsing by Subject "Homeland"

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An analysis of the destiny of Ahiska Turks following their deportation to the Soviet Union and Türkiye's policies for reintegration into their homeland, Türkiye
(Bilkent University, 2024) Aliyev, Bilal; Karamatov, Yusufbek; Myrzagerey, Ansar; Tolegenov, Nurmukhammed
The study analyzes the history and destiny of the Ahiska Turks, a Muslim Turkic-speaking nation historically living on the territory of Meskhetia in present-day Georgia. The primary subject of the study is the period after their deportation to the USSR in 1944 and the reintegration policy pursued by the Turkish government to return them to their homeland, Türkiye. The analysis covers three key periods: before the deportation, the period in the Soviet Union, and after its collapse, including all the events leading to the return of Ahiska Turks to their historical homeland. The purpose of the study is to understand why the Turkish government did not attempt to return the Ahiska Turks to their homeland during the Soviet Union and only started to implement this policy in the 1990s.
Open Access
The evolution of a concept: “vatan” from hometown to shared place
(2024-07) İşler, Özlem Elif
This thesis examines the perceptual transformation of the concept of homeland in the Ottoman Empire from the early modern period to the early twentieth century. This study seeks answers to the questions of how the concept of homeland was transformed from a place where one was born and raised in the early modern Ottoman Empire to a place to die for by gaining a sacred and powerful meaning in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also argues that this political, social and spatial transformation of the concept of homeland cannot be explained only by the emergence of nationalism and Turkist policies. This thesis argues that the idea of the homeland came to the forefront as a shared living place, and shared homeland (vaṭan-ı ʿumūmî) in the nineteenth century and strengthened as a place where all the historically integrated constituents of the Ottoman Empire (ittiḥād-ı ʿanâṣır) could live and struggle together. This study demonstrates that one of the most important reasons for the strengthening of the emphasis on the shared homeland was the migration towards the remaining borders of the Ottoman Empire, Anatolia, as a result of the great territorial losses that began at the end late nineteenth century and continued at the beginning of the twentieth century.