Unending Migration of a Deported Community from Caucasia: The Case of MeskhetianTurks in Çanakkale

27060

Meskhetian Turkish community is a stateless minority deported by Stalin from Meskheti-Javakheti to the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1944. They were affected negatively by the Gorbachev’s liberal policies of glasnost’ and perestroika. Today, roughly 350.000 to 400.000 Meskhetian Turks live in nine different countries including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and the United States. The present living conditions of the Meskhetian Turks vary significantly according to their place of settlement. It is estimated that there are more than 40.000 Meskhetian Turks living in Turkey. Approximately half of them has received Turkish citizenship. In this article, we focus on the questions of integration of Meskethian Turks in Çanakkale, one of the provinces of Turkey where Mesketian Turkish community live. The results indicate that the major problems facing most Meskhetian Turkish communities in Turkey are economic and that they are relatively closed community.

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Meskhetian Turks , integration , deportation , Çanakkale

Aegean Geographical Journal

90

Aegean Geographical Journal