Between ethnic group and nation: Mihail Çakir's history of the Gagauz

Abstract

Following the 1918 annexation of Bessarabia to Romania, the Gagauz minority remained disconnected from centers of knowledge because of linguistic and institu tional barriers. In this context, Mihail Çakir, an Orthodox priest of Gagauz origin, manifested a rare capacity of introducing the Gagauz people to Romanian- and Gagauz-speaking audiences through his multilingual work on the history and the cul ture of the Gagauz. This article embarks from Anthony Smith’s work on ethnicity and nation-building and Benedict Anderson’s work on imagined communities to explore Çakir’s two main works and their contribution to the crystallization of Gagauz ethnic identity and its eventual transformation to a national one.