Turkification#Late Ottoman era

Prior to the 20th century, Anatolian, Balkan, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern regions were said to undergo Ottomanization. "Turkification" started being used interchangeably with "Ottomanization" after the rise of Turkish nationalism in the 20th century.{{Cite book |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1-5261-0334-5 |last=Göl |first=Ayla |title=Turkey facing east: Islam, modernity and foreign policy |date=2015-11-01 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pb0SDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT95}}

The term has been used in the Greek language since the 1300s or late-Byzantine era as "εκτουρκισμός", or "τούρκεμα". It literally translates to "becoming a Turk". Apart from people, it may refer also to cities that were conquered by Turks or churches that were converted to mosques. It is more frequently used in the verb form "τουρκεύω" (to Turkify, to become Muslim or Turk).{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=00NDAAAAYAAJ&q=%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%B5%CF%8D%CF%89&pg=RA6-PA408 |title=Skarlatos D. Vyzantios, Dictionnaire Grec-Français et Français-Grec, Athens, 1856, p. 408 (French part), under term "TURBAN" |access-date=2014-05-05 |year=1856|last1=Vyzantios |first1=Skarlatos D. }}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0K5DAAAAIAAJ&q=%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%B5%CF%8D%CF%89 |title=Thumb Albert, Handbuch der neugriechischen Volkssprache, Trübner, 1895, p. 233 |access-date=2014-05-05 |year=1895|last1=Thumb |first1=Albert |publisher=Trübner |isbn=9783112172148 }}[https://archive.org/details/chrestomathiegr00perngoog Emile Louis Jean Legrand, Chrestomathie grecque moderne, 1899, p. 479.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718064512/http://archive.org/details/chrestomathiegr00perngoog |date=2013-07-18 }} "τουρκεύω, rendre turc, se faire turc.

By 750, the Turkification of Kashgar by the Qarluq Turks was underway. The Qarluqs were ancestors of the Karakhanids, who also Islamized the population.{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-866277-8| last = Dickens| first = Mark| title = The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity| chapter = Kashgar| access-date = 2018-07-21| date = 2018-03-22| chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-2617}} The Iranian language of Khwarezm, a Central Asian oasis region, eventually died out as a result of Turkification.{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-866277-8| last = Dickens| first = Mark | title = The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity| chapter = Khwarezmian (Chorasmian) language| access-date = 2018-07-21| date = 2018-03-22| chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-5745}}

The current population of Central Asia is the result of the long and complex process that started at least 1,400 years ago. Today this region consists of mainly Turkic ethnic groups, barring Persian-speaking Tajiks, although centuries ago its native inhabitants were Iranian peoples.{{cite book |last1=Peimani |first1=Hooman |title=Regional Security and the Future of Central Asia |date=1998 |publisher=Praeger |location=Westport, CT |isbn=0-275-96021-8 |page=44}} Turkification of the native Iranian population of Central Asia{{NoteTag|Mainly the territories of the present-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan}} began by the 6th century A.D. partly due to migration of Turkic tribes from Inner Asia. The process of Turkification of Central Asia, besides those parts that constitute the territory of present-day Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan with a majority Tajik population, accelerated with the Mongol conquest of Central Asia.{{NoteTag|Though Mongols were not Turks or Turkic-speaking people, their army consisted mostly of Turkic warriors by the end of the conquest of Central Asia}}Hooman Peimani, "Conflict and Security in Central Asia and the Caucasus", ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2009, p.144 Mahmud al-Kashgari writes that the people who lived between Bukhara and Samarkand were Turkified Sogdians, whom he refers to as “Sogdak”.{{Cite journal|last=Mélikoff|first=Iréne|date=1996-09-01|title=From God of Heaven to king of men: Popular Islam among Turkic tribes from Central Asia to Anatolia|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09637499608431734|journal=Religion, State and Society|volume=24|issue=2–3|pages=133–138|doi=10.1080/09637499608431734|issn=0963-7494}}

Tajiks are considered to be the only ethnic group to have survived the process of Turkification in Central Asia. Despite their clear Iranian ethnicity, there are arguments that attempt to denounce Tajiks' Iranian identity, and instead link them with the descendants of Arabs raised in Iran or Turks who have lost their language under the influence of Persian civilization.

Turkification of the non-Turkic population derives from the Turkic settlements in the area now known as Azerbaijan, which began and accelerated during the Seljuq period.{{cite book|author=Golden, Peter B.|year=1992|title=An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi00gold|url-access=limited|publisher=Otto Harrasowitz|isbn=978-3-447-03274-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi00gold/page/n395 385]–386}} The migration of Oghuz Turks from present-day Turkmenistan, which is attested by linguistic similarity, remained high through the Mongol period, since the bulk of the Ilkhanate troops were Turkic. By the Safavid period, the Turkic nature of Azerbaijan increased with the influence of the Qizilbash, an association of the Turkmen nomadic tribes that was the backbone of the Safavid Empire.{{cite book|author=Blow, David|year=2009|title=Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who Became an Iranian Legend|publisher=I.B. Taurus|isbn=978-1-786-72953-8|page=165|quote=The primary court language remained Turkish. But it was not the Turkish of Istambul. It was a Turkish dialect, the dialect of the Qizilbash Turkomans}}

According to Soviet scholars, the Turkification of Azerbaijan was largely completed during the Ilkhanate period. Turkish scholar Faruk Sumer notes three distinct periods in which Turkification took place: Seljuq, Mongol and Post-Mongol (Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid). In the first two, Oghuz Turkic tribes advanced or were driven to Anatolia and Arran. In the last period, the Turkic elements in Iran (Oghuz, with lesser admixtures of Uyghur, Qipchaq, Qarluq as well as Turkified Mongols) were joined now by Anatolian Turks migrating back to Iran. This marked the final stage of Turkification.

{{Main|Turkic migration}}

File:Janissary Recruitment in the Balkans-Suleymanname.jpg

Anatolia was home to many different peoples in ancient times who were either natives or settlers and invaders. These different people included the Armenians, Anatolian peoples, Persians,{{cite book|last=Raditsa |first=Leo|chapter=Iranians in Asia Minor|title=The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1983|pages=100–115|isbn=978-1139054942|editor-first= Ehsan|editor-last=Yarshater}} Hurrians, Greeks, Cimmerians, Galatians, Colchians, Iberians, Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Corduenes, and scores of others. During the Mycenaean and Classical periods of Greek history, Greeks colonised the Western, Northern and Southern Coasts of Anatolia. Over the course of many centuries a process of Hellenization occurred throughout the interior Anatolia which was aided by the fact that Koine Greek was the lingua franca in political circles and also later became the primary liturgical language, and the similarity of some of the native languages of Anatolia to Greek (cf. Phrygian). By the 5th century the native people of Asia Minor were entirely Greek in their language and Christian in religion.{{cite book|last1=Swain|first1=Simon|last2=Adams|first2=J. Maxwell|last3=Janse|first3=Mark|title=Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Word|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford [Oxfordshire]|year=2002 |pages=246–266|isbn=0-19-924506-1}} These Greek-speaking Christian inhabitants of Asia Minor are known as Byzantine Greeks, although at the time they would have considered themselves to be Romans (Rhomaioi), and they formed the bulk of the Byzantine Empire's Greek-speaking population for one thousand years, from the 5th century until the fall of the Byzantine state in the 15th century. In the northeast along the Black Sea these peoples eventually formed their own state known as the Empire of Trebizond, which gave rise to the modern Pontic Greek population. In the east, near the borderlands with the Persian Empire, other native languages remained, specifically Armenian, Assyrian Aramaic, and Kurdish.Mitchell, Stephen. 1993. Anatolia: land, men and gods in Asia Minor. Vol. 1, The Celts, and the impact of Roman rule. Clarendon Press. pp.172–176. Byzantine authorities routinely conducted large-scale population transfers in an effort to impose religious uniformity and quell rebellions. After the subordination of the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018, for instance, much of its army was resettled in Eastern Anatolia. The Byzantines were particularly keen to assimilate the large Armenian population. To that end, in the eleventh century, the Armenian nobility were removed from their lands and resettled throughout western Anatolia with prominent families subsumed into the Byzantine nobility, leading to numerous Byzantine generals and emperors of Armenian extraction. These resettlements spread the Armenian-speaking community deep into Asia Minor, but an unintended consequence was the loss of local military leadership along the eastern Byzantine frontier, opening the path for the inroads of Turkish invaders.{{cite journal |jstor=177624 |doi=10.1017/S0010417500012093 |title=The Transfer of Population as a Policy in the Byzantine Empire |year=2009 |last1=Charanis |first1=Peter |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=140–54|s2cid=145091581 }}

Beginning in the eleventh century, war between the Turks and Byzantines led to the deaths of many in Asia Minor, while others were enslaved and removed.{{sfn|Vryonis|1971|p=172}} As areas became depopulated, Turkic nomads moved in with their herds.{{sfn|Vryonis|1971|pp=184–194}} However, despite the suffering of the local Christian populations at the hands of the Turks and in particular the Turkoman tribesmen, they were still an overwhelming majority of the population 50 years after the Battle of Manzikert.{{Cite book |last=Vryonis Jr |first=Speros |title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century |publisher=Berkeley University Press |year=1971 |location=California |pages=178–79}} The Turks seem to have been aware of their numerical inferiority during this time period as evidenced by the fact many Turkish rulers went to lengths to disarm their Christian subjects. There is also evidence that the Turks resorted to kidnapping Christian children and raising them as Turks, as attested by contemporary chronicler Matthew of Edessa.{{Cite book |last=Matthew of Edessa |title=Chronicles |pages=199–209}} Intermarriage between Turks and Greek, Armenian and Georgian natives of Anatolia was not unheard of, although the majority of these unions were between Turkish men and Christian women. The children of these unions, known as 'Mixovarvaroi', were raised as Turks and were of the Muslim faith (although there were some cases of Mixovarvaroi defecting to the Byzantines). It is likely that these unions played a role in the eventual diminishment of the Christian population in Anatolia and its transition from Greek/Christian to Turkish/Muslim.

The number of nomads of Turkic origin that migrated to Anatolia is a matter of discussion. According to Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, there were 200,000 Turkmen tents in Denizli and its surrounding areas, 30,000 in Bolu and its surrounding areas, and 100,000 in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NnGvHLvUYEoC&q=boli&pg=PA7 |title= Peter Thonemann, The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium, p. 7|year=2011|isbn= 9781139499354|last1= Thonemann|first1= Peter|publisher= Cambridge University Press}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6xsuDwAAQBAJ&q=30%2C000+turkmen+tents+in+bolu&pg=PT34 |title=Rudi Paul Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia|access-date=2008-05-15|year=1983|isbn=9781134897841|last1=Lindner|first1=Rudi Paul|publisher=Routledge }} According to a Latin source, at the end of the 12th century, there were 100,000 nomadic tents in the regions of Denizli and Isparta.{{cite book|url=http://journals.manas.edu.kg/mjtc/oldarchives/2004/29_1007-2465-1-PB.pdf|title=İlhan Şahin The Oghuz Turks of Anatolia, 2004 p. 5|year=2004|access-date=2018-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729012956/http://journals.manas.edu.kg/mjtc/oldarchives/2004/29_1007-2465-1-PB.pdf|archive-date=2018-07-29|url-status=live}}

According to Ottoman tax archives, in modern-day Anatolia, in the provinces of Anatolia, Karaman, Dulkadir and Rûm, there were about 872,610 households in the 1520s and 1530s; 160,564 of those households were nomadic, and the remainder were sedentary. Of the four provinces, Anatolia (which does not include the whole of geographic Anatolia but only its western and some of its northwestern parts) had the largest nomadic population with 77,268 households. Between 1570 and 1580, 220,217 households of the overall 1,360,474 households in the four provinces were nomadic, which means that at least 20% of Anatolia was still nomadic in the 16th century. The province of Anatolia, which had the largest nomadic population with 77,268 households, saw an increase of its nomadic population to 116,219 households in those years.{{cite book|url=http://journals.manas.edu.kg/mjtc/oldarchives/2004/29_1007-2465-1-PB.pdf|title=İlhan Şahin The Oghuz Turks of Anatolia, 2004 p. 24|year=2004|access-date=2018-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729012956/http://journals.manas.edu.kg/mjtc/oldarchives/2004/29_1007-2465-1-PB.pdf|archive-date=2018-07-29|url-status=live}}

{{Main|Devşirme}}

Devşirme{{Cref2|a}} (literally "collecting" in Turkish), also known as the blood tax, was chiefly the annual practice by which the Ottoman Empire sent military to press second or third sons of their Christian subjects (Rum millet) in the villages of the Balkans into military training as Janissaries.{{cite book |author=Perry Anderson |title=Lineages of the Absolutist State |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f7Wz4b4JTC8C&pg=PA366 |year=1979 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-0-86091-710-6 |pages=366– |access-date=2015-10-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317093052/http://books.google.com/books?id=f7Wz4b4JTC8C&pg=PA366 |archive-date=2015-03-17 |url-status=live }} They were then taught to speak Turkish and converted to Islam{{cite book |title=The New Encyclopedia of Islam |editor=Cyril Glassé |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2008 |page=129}} with the primary objective of selecting and training the ablest children of the Empire for military or civil service, mostly into the ranks of the Janissaries.{{cite journal|last1=Başgöz|first1=I. |last2=Wilson|first2=H. E.|year=1989 |title=The educational tradition of the Ottoman Empire and the development of the Turkish educational system of the republican era |journal=Turkish Review |volume=3 |issue=16 |page=15}}

Started by Murad I as a means to counteract the growing power of the Turkish nobility, the practice itself violated Islamic law.{{cite book |author=Alexander Mikaberidze |title=Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jBBYD2J2oE4C&pg=PA273 |date=22 July 2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-59884-337-8 |pages=273– |quote=This effectively enslaved some of the sultan's own non-Islamic subjects and was therefore illegal under Islamic law, which stipulated that conquered non-Muslims should be demilitarized and protected |author-link=Alexander Mikaberidze |access-date=19 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617074501/https://books.google.com/books?id=jBBYD2J2oE4C&pg=PA273 |archive-date=17 June 2016 |url-status=live }} By 1648, the practice drew to an end. An attempt to re-institute it in 1703 was resisted by its Ottoman members who coveted its military and civilian posts, and in the early part of Ahmet III's reign, the practice was abolished.

The late Ottoman government sought to create "a core identity with a single Turkish religion, language, history, tradition, culture and set of customs", replacing earlier Ottoman traditions that had not sought to assimilate different religions or ethnic groups. The Ottoman Empire had an ethnically diverse population that included Turks, Arabs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Greeks, Persians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Kurds, Zazas, Circassians, Assyrians, Jews and Laz people. Turkish nationalists claimed that only Turks were loyal to the state. Ideological support for Turkification was not widespread in the Ottoman Empire.{{Cite book |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-10615-9 |last=Tas |first=Latif |title=Legal Pluralism in Action: Dispute Resolution and the Kurdish Peace Committee |date=2016-04-22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YuIGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA43}}

One of its main supporters was sociologist and political activist Ziya Gökalp who believed that a modern state must become homogeneous in terms of culture, religion, and national identity.Akcam, Taner. A Shameful Act. 2006, page 88. This conception of national identity was augmented by his belief in the primacy of Turkishness as a unifying virtue. As part of this belief, it was necessary to purge from the territories of the state those national groups who could threaten the integrity of a modern Turkish nation state.{{cite book|last=Bloxham|first=Donals|year=2005|title=The great game of genocide |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/greatgameofgenoc00blox/page/150 |url-access=registration |page=150 |isbn=0-19-927356-1}}{{cite journal |last=Levene |first=Mark |date=Winter 1998 |title=Creating a Modern "Zone of Genocide": The Impact of Nation- and State-Formation on Eastern Anatolia, 1878–1923 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=12 |issue=3|pages=393–433 |doi=10.1093/hgs/12.3.393 |url=http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/393 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061003213503/http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/393 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2006-10-03}} The 18th article of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 declared Turkish the sole official language,{{Cite book |title=Aspects of the political language in Turkey|last=Doganalp-Votzi |first=Heidemarie|publisher=Isis Press|year=2002|location=Istanbul|pages=64}} and that only Turkish speaking people could be employed in the government.{{Cite web |url=http://www.verfassungen.eu/tr/verf76.htm|title=Die Verfassung des Osmanischen Reichs (1876)|website=www.verfassungen.eu|access-date=2019-01-19|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106053310/http://www.verfassungen.eu/tr/verf76.htm|archive-date=2018-11-06}}

After the Young Turks assumed power in 1909, the policy of Turkification received several new layers and it was sought to impose Turkish in the administration, the courts, and education in the areas where the Arabic-speaking population was the majority. Another aim was to loosen ties between the Empire's Turk and ethnically non-Turkish populations through efforts to purify the Turkish language of Arabic influences. In this nationalist vision of Turkish identity, language was supreme, and religion was relegated to a subordinate role. Arabs responded by asserting the superiority of Arabic language, describing Turkish as a "mongrel" language that had borrowed heavily from the Persian and Arabic languages. Through the policy of Turkification, the Young Turk government suppressed the Arabic language. Turkish teachers were hired to replace Arabic teachers at schools. The Ottoman postal service was administrated in Turkish.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Neu3q8Vt01sC&pg=PA18|title=A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East|last=Suleiman|first=Yasir|date=2004-06-10|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-54656-0|pages=17–18}}

Those who supported Turkification were accused of harming Islam. Rashid Rida was an advocate who supported Arabic against Turkish. Even before the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Syrian Reformer Tahrir al-Jazairi had convinced Midhat Pasha to adopt Arabic as the official language of instruction at state schools. The language of instruction was only changed to Turkish in 1885 under Sultan Abdulhamid.{{Cite book| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 978-1-317-37126-7| last = Çiçek| first = M. Talha| title = Syria in World War I: Politics, economy, and society| date = 2015-12-14}} Though writers like Ernest Dawn have noted that the foundations of Second Constitutional Era "Arabism" predate 1908, the prevailing view still holds that Arab nationalism emerged as a response to the Ottoman Empire's Turkification policies.{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-512558-0|editor1= John L. Esposito | last = Esposito| first = John L.| title = The Oxford Dictionary of Islam| chapter = Arab Nationalism| access-date = 2018-07-21| date = 2003-01-01| chapter-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001/acref-9780195125580-e-183| url = https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00bada}} One historian of Arab nationalism wrote that: "the Unionists introduced a grave provocation by opposing the Arab language and adopting a policy of Turkification", but not all scholars agree about the contribution of Turkification policies to Arab nationalism.

European critics who accused the CUP of depriving non-Turks of their rights through Turkification saw Turk, Ottoman and Muslim as synonymous, and believed Young Turk "Ottomanism" posed a threat to Ottoman Christians. The British ambassador Gerard Lowther said it was like "pounding non-Turkish elements in a Turkish mortar", while another contemporary European source complained that the CUP plan would reduce "the various races and regions of the empire to one dead level of Turkish uniformity." Rifa'at 'Ali Abou-El-Haj has written that "some Ottoman cultural elements and Islamic elements were abandoned in favor of Turkism, a more potent device based on ethnic identity and dependent on a language based nationalism".{{Cite book |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-91757-6 |last=Kayali |first=Hasan |title=Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 |date=1997-09-03 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NX2fICZGh80C}}

The Young Turk government launched a series of initiatives that included forced assimilation. Uğur Üngör writes that "Muslim Kurds and Sephardi Jews were considered slightly more 'Turkifiable' than others", noting that many of these nationalist era "social engineering" policies perpetuated persecution "with little regard for proclaimed and real loyalties." These policies culminated in the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.{{cite journal |last=Üngör |first=Uğur Ümit |author-link=Uğur Ümit Üngör |title=Geographies of Nationalism and Violence: Rethinking Young Turk 'Social Engineering' |journal=European Journal of Turkish Studies |year=2008 |issue=7 |url=http://ejts.revues.org/2583 |access-date=24 March 2013 |doi=10.4000/ejts.2583 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130424051957/http://ejts.revues.org/2583 |archive-date=24 April 2013 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}

During World War I, the Ottoman government established orphanages throughout the empire which included Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish children. Armenian orphans were given Arabic and Turkish names.{{sfn|Demirdjian|2016|p=51}} In 1916 a Turkification campaign began in which whole Kurdish tribes were to be resettled in areas where they were not to exceed more than 10% of the local population. Talaat Pasha ordered that Kurds in the eastern areas be relocated in western areas. He also demanded information regarding if the Kurds Turkified in their new settlements and if they got along with their Turkish population.{{Cite web |title=Young Turk social engineering: mass violence and the nation-state in eastern Turkey, 1913-1950|last=Üngör|first=Umut|website=University of Amsterdam|pages=217–220 |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/867135/65687_13.pdf|access-date=8 April 2020 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411205919/https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/867135/65687_13.pdf|archive-date=11 April 2020}} Additionally, non-Kurdish immigrants from Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Bulgaria were to be settled in the Diyarbakır province, where the deported Kurds had lived before.{{Cite web|title=Young Turk social engineering: mass violence and the nation-state in eastern Turkey, 1913-1950|last=Üngör |first=Umut|website=University of Amsterdam|pages=226–227 |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/867135/65687_13.pdf|access-date=8 April 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411205919/https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/867135/65687_13.pdf |archive-date=11 April 2020}} By October 1918, with the Ottoman army retreating from Lebanon, a Father Sarlout sent the Turkish and Kurdish orphans to Damascus, while keeping the Armenian orphans in Antoura. He began the process of reversing the Turkification process by having the Armenian orphans recall their original names.{{sfn|Demirdjian|2016|p=53}} It is believed by various scholars that at least two million Turks have at least one Armenian grandparent.{{sfn|Demirdjian|2016|p=53}}

Around 1.5 million Ottoman Greeks remained in the Ottoman Empire after losses of 550,000 during WWI. Almost all, 1,250,000, except for those in Constantinople, had fled before or were forced to go to Greece in 1923 in the population exchanges mandated by the League of Nations after the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).Peoples on the Move, Pertti Ahonen, page 8, 2008 The lingual Turkification of Greek-speakers in 19th-century Anatolia is well documented. According to Speros Vryonis the Karamanlides are the result of partial Turkification that occurred earlier, during the Ottoman period.{{Cite book |last=Vryonis Jr |first=Speros |title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century |publisher=Berkeley University Press |year=1971 |location=California |pages=176}} Fewer than 300,000 Armenians remained of 1.2 million before the war; fewer than 100,000 of 400,000 Assyrians.

{{Atatürk sidebar}}

After the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 displaced many of the Salonikan Jews and the Burning of Smyrna, the rebuilding of these places by the post-Ottoman Turkish and Greek nation-states devastated and erased the past of non-Turkish (and non-Hellenistic) habitation.{{cite book |last=Houston |first=Christopher |title=Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism. Coup D'etat, and Memory in Turkey |date=2020 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=9780520343191 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ynJDwAAQBAJ&dq=de+ottomanization&pg=PA57}} According to historian Talin Suciyan, for non-Muslims in the Republic of Turkey, Turkification resulted in "de-identification, in which a person loses all references to his or her own grandparents, socialisation, culture and history, but cannot fully become part of the society, culture, and politics of the imposed system". There continues to be state-organized discrimination, such as keeping files of citizens of non-Muslim descent.{{cite book |last1=Suciyan |first1=Talin |title=The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics and History |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-85772-773-2 |page=88}}

Ottoman Turkish classical music was banned from the school curriculum. Ottoman archival documents were sold to Bulgaria as recycled paper. Sunday was made the official rest day instead of Friday (the traditional rest day in the Muslim religion).{{cite book |last=Gul |first=Murat |title=The Emergence of Modern Istanbul |page=76}}

Political elites in the early Republic were divided: the modernist agenda, which promoted radical transformation, erasing all vestiges of the Ottoman past, and moderate nationalists, who preferred a softer transition that retained some elements of Ottoman heritage.{{cite book |last=Gul |first=Murat |title=The Emergence of Modern Istanbul |page=78}}

When the modern Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, nationalism and secularism were two of the founding principles.{{cite book |last=Findley |first=Carter Vaughn |title=Turkey, Islam, nationalism, and modernity: a history, 1789–2007 |year=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, CT |isbn=978-0-300-15260-9}}{{page needed|date=January 2014}} Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the early years of the Republic, aimed to create a nation-state ({{Langx|tr|Ulus}}) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Ministry of National Education in 2008 defines the "Turkish People" as "those who protect and promote the moral, spiritual, cultural and humanistic values of the Turkish Nation."{{cite web |url=http://www.meb.gov.tr/Stats/apk2001ing/Section_1/1Generalprincipals.htm |title=Turkish National Education System |access-date=2008-02-20 |author=Republic Of Turkey Ministry Of National Education |publisher=T.C. Government |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080207000723/http://www.meb.gov.tr/Stats/apk2001ing/Section_1/1Generalprincipals.htm |archive-date=2008-02-07 |url-status=live }} One of the goals of the establishment of the new Turkish state was to ensure "the domination of Turkish ethnic identity in every aspect of social life from the language that people speak in the streets to the language to be taught at schools, from the education to the industrial life, from the trade to the cadres of state officials, from the civil law to the settlement of citizens to particular regions."Ayhan Aktar, "Cumhuriyet’in Đlk Yıllarında Uygulanan ‘Türklestirme’ Politikaları," in Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türklestirme' Politikaları,2nd ed. (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2000), 101. In 2008, the then Defense Minister of Turkey; Vecdi Gönül remarked defending the actions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk regarding the Turkification of Anatolia: "Could Turkey be the same national country had the Greek community still lived in the Aegean or Armenians lived in many parts of Turkey?"{{Cite web|last=Akyol|first=Mustafa|title=The Turkification of Turkey|url=https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/the-turkification-of-turkey-10397767|access-date=2021-09-30|website=www.hurriyet.com.tr|date=20 November 2008 |language=tr}}

The process of unification through Turkification continued within modern Turkey with such policies as:

• According to Art. 12 of the Turkish Constitution of 1924, citizens who could not speak and read Turkish were not allowed to become members of parliament.{{Cite web | url=http://www.verfassungen.eu/tr/tuerkei24.htm | title=Verfassungsgesetz der Republik Türkei (1924) | access-date=2018-12-23 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425130612/http://www.verfassungen.eu/tr/tuerkei24.htm | archive-date=2018-04-25 | url-status=live }}
• A law from December 1925 demanded that clothes worn by employees in all companies must be of Turkish production.{{Cite book|title=Pogrom in Istanbul, 6./7. September 1955|last=Ağrı|first=Ülkü|publisher=Klaus Schwarz Verlag GmbH|year=2014|isbn=9783879974399|location=Berlin|pages=135}}
• A Report for Reform in the East was released in September 1925 according to which non-Turkish languages shall be forbidden.{{Cite web|title=ÜMİT FIRAT yazdı: 27 Mayıs, Kürtler ve Şark Islahat Planı Kararnamesi|url=https://www.bianet.org/bianet/siyaset/107183-27-mayis-kurtler-ve-sark-islahat-plani-kararnamesi|access-date=2021-01-30|website=Bianet - Bagimsiz Iletisim Agi}}{{Cite book|last=Goner |first=Ozlem|date=2017-06-14|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bv8nDwAAQBAJ&q=sark+islahat+raporu+and+the+kurds+s%C3%BCkr%C3%BC+kaya&pg=PA52|title=Turkish National Identity and Its Outsiders: Memories of State Violence in Dersim|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-315-46296-7|pages=52}}
• On 18 March 1926 a Civil Servants Law came into effect, which allowed only Turks to become civil servants and explicitly excluded Armenians and Greeks to become such.{{sfn|Bayir|2013|p=122}}
• On 28 May 1927 it was decided that business correspondence must be in Turkish language, and foreign assurance companies must employ Turks, except for the director and the deputy director.
• The Law 1164 from September 1927 {{Cite web|url=https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/20607|access-date=8 April 2020|title=Üçüncü Umumi Müfettişliği'nin Kurulması ve III. Umumî Müfettiş Tahsin Uzer'in Bazı Önemli Faaliyetleri|website=Dergipark|page=2|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411214425/https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/20607 |archive-date=11 April 2020}} enabled the creation of regional administrative areas called Inspectorates-General ({{Langx|tr|Umumi Müfettişlikler}}), where extensive policies of Turkification were applied.{{sfn|Bayir|2016|pp=139–141}} The Inspectorates Generals existed until 1952.{{Cite book|last1=Fleet|first1=Kate|title=The Cambridge History of Turkey |last2=Kunt|first2=I. Metin|last3=Kasaba|first3=Reşat|last4=Faroqhi|first4=Suraiya|date=2008-04-17 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-62096-3|pages=343}}
• Citizen, speak Turkish! (Turkish: Vatandaş Türkçe konuş!) – An initiative created by law students but sponsored by the Turkish government which aimed to put pressure on non-Turkish speakers to speak Turkish in public in the 1930s.{{sfn|Kieser|2006|p=45}}{{cite journal|last=Toktas |first=Sule|year=2005|title=Citizenship and Minorities: A Historical Overview of Turkey's Jewish Minority |journal=Journal of Historical Sociology|volume=18|issue=4|pages=394–429 [400] |doi=10.1111/j.1467-6443.2005.00262.x| s2cid=59138386 |url=https://www.academia.edu/761586|access-date=7 January 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200503083439/https://www.academia.edu/761586/Citizenship_and_Minorities_A_Historical_Overview_of_Turkey_s_Jewish_Minority|archive-date=3 May 2020}}{{cite journal |last=Aslan |first=Senem |title="Citizen, Speak Turkish!": A Nation in the Making |journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics |date=April 2007 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=245–272 |publisher=Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group |s2cid=144367148 |doi=10.1080/13537110701293500}} In some municipalities, fines were given to those speaking in any language other than Turkish.{{cite book |last=Sofos |first=Umut Özkırımlı & Spyros A.|title=Tormented by history: nationalism in Greece and Turkey|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-231-70052-8|location=New York|page=167}}{{cite book |last=Soner |first=Çağaptay |title=Otuzlarda Türk Milliyetçiliğinde Irk, Dil ve Etnisite |year=2006 |location=Istanbul |pages=25–26 |language=tr}}{{cite book |last=Bali |first=Rifat N. |title=Cumhuriyet yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri bir türkleştirme serüveni; (1923–1945) |year=1999 |publisher=İletişim |location=İstanbul |isbn=9789754707632 |page=604 |edition=7. bs. |language=tr}}{{cite book |last=İnce |first=Başak |date=2012-04-26 |title=Citizenship and identity in Turkey: from Atatürk's republic to the present day |publisher=I.B. Tauris |location=London |isbn=978-1-78076-026-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ydpiawe35DwC |access-date=8 January 2013 |page=61 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131013031112/http://books.google.com/books?id=Ydpiawe35DwC&pg |archive-date=13 October 2013}}
• The Law 2007 of 11 June 1932 reserved a wide number of professions like lawyer, construction worker, artisan, hairdresser, messenger, etc. to Turkish citizens and forbade foreigners also to open shops in rural areas. Most affected by the Law were the Greeks.{{Cite book|title=Xenophobia and Protectionism - A Study of the 1932 Law Reserving Majority of Occupations in Turkey to Turkish Nationals|last=Bali |first=Rifat N.|publisher=Libra|year=2013 |isbn=9786054326723|location=Istanbul|pages=31–33, 37}}Vryonis, Speros (2005). The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul. New York: Greekworks.com, Inc. {{ISBN|0-9747660-3-8}}.
• 1934 Resettlement Law (also known as Law no. 2510) – A policy adopted by the Turkish government which set forth the basic principles of immigration. The law was issued to impose a policy of forceful assimilation of non-Turkish minorities through a forced and collective resettlement.{{sfn|Jongerden|2007|p={{page needed|date=January 2014}}}}
• Surname Law – The surname law forbade certain surnames that contained connotations of foreign cultures, nations, tribes, and religions.{{cite book |editor-last=Suny|editor-first=Ronald Grigor|title=A question of genocide: Armenians and Turks at the end of the Ottoman Empire|editor-last2=Goçek|editor-first2=Fatma Müge |editor-last3=Naimark|editor-first3=Norman M.|date=2011-02-23 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-539374-3|location=Oxford}}{{cite book |last=İnce |first=Başak |date=2012-04-26 |title=Citizenship and identity in Turkey: from Atatürk's republic to the present day |publisher=I.B. Tauris |location=London |isbn=978-1-78076-026-1}}{{cite journal |last=Aslan |first=Senem |title=Incoherent State: The Controversy over Kurdish Naming in Turkey |journal=European Journal of Turkish Studies |issue=10 |url=http://ejts.revues.org/index4142.html |access-date=16 January 2013 |quote=the Surname Law was meant to foster a sense of Turkishness within society and prohibited surnames that were related to foreign ethnicities and nations |date=2009-12-29 |doi=10.4000/ejts.4142 |doi-access=free |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120726111611/http://ejts.revues.org/index4142.html |archive-date=26 July 2012 |url-status=live}} As a result, many ethnic Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds were forced to adopt last names of Turkish rendition. Names ending with "yan, of, ef, viç, is, dis, poulos, aki, zade, shvili, madumu, veled, bin" (names that denote Armenian, Slavic, Greek, Albanian, Arabic, Georgian, Kurdish, and other origins) could not be registered, and they had to be replaced by "-oğlu."{{cite book |last=Ekmekcioglu |first=Lerna |title=Improvising Turkishness: Being Armenian in post-Ottoman Istanbul (1918–1933) |year=2010 |location=Ann Arbor |isbn=978-1-124-04442-2 |page=169}}
• From 1932 on, it was implemented by the Diyanet that the Adhan and the Salah shall be called in Turkish. Imams who delivered the Adhan in Arabic were prosecuted according to the article 526 of the Turkish Criminal Code for "being opposed to the command of officials maintaining public order and safety".{{sfn|Aydar|2006|p=59}} 1941 a new paragraph was added to Article 526 of the Turkish Criminal Code and from then on Imams who refused to deliver the Adhan in Turkish could be imprisoned for up to 3 months or be fined with between 10 and 300 Turkish Lira.{{sfn|Aydar|2006|p=60}} After the Democrat Party won the elections in 1950, on 17 June 1950 it was decided that the prayers could be given in Arabic again.{{sfn|Aydar|2006|p=61}}
• The conscription of the 20 Classes working battalions in the years 1941–1942. Only non-Muslims, mainly Jews, Greeks and Armenians were conscripted to work under difficult conditions.{{Cite web |url=http://www.noravank.am/upload/pdf/5.Ruben%20Melkonyan_02_2010.pdf|title=On some problems of the Armenian national minority in Turkey|last=Melkonyan|first=Ruben|website=www.noravank.am|access-date=2018-12-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171112154659/http://noravank.am/upload/pdf/5.Ruben%20Melkonyan_02_2010.pdf|archive-date=2017-11-12|url-status=live}}Rifat Bali, Model Citizens of the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party Period, Lexington Books, 2012, {{ISBN|1611475376}}, p. 12.
• Varlık Vergisi ("Wealth tax" or "Capital tax") – A Turkish tax levied on the wealthy citizens of Turkey in 1942, with the stated aim of raising funds for the country's defense in case of an eventual entry into World War II. Those who suffered most severely were non-Muslims like the Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines, who controlled a large portion of the economy;{{cite web|title=6-7 Eylül Olayları (1)|last=Güven|first=Dilek |date=2005-09-06|work=Radikal|language=tr|access-date=2008-10-25 |url=http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=163380|quote=Nitekim 1942 yılında yürürlüğe giren Varlık Vergisi, Ermenilerin, Rumların ve Yahudilerin ekonomideki liderliğine son vermeyi hedeflemiştir...Seçim dönemleri CHP ve DP'nin Varlık Vergisi'nin geri ödeneceği yönündeki vaatleri ise seçim propagandasından ibarettir.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721205422/http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=163380|archive-date=2015-07-21|url-status=live}} the Armenians who were most heavily taxed.{{cite conference |last=Smith |first=Thomas W. |date=August 29 – September 2, 2001|title=Constructing A Human Rights Regime in Turkey: Dilemmas of Civic Nationalism and Civil Society|page=4|quote=One of the darkest events in Turkish history was the Wealth Tax, levied discriminatory against non-Muslims in 1942, hobbling Armenians with the most punitive rates.}} According to Klaus Kreiser for President Inönü the aim of the tax was to evict the foreigners who control the Turkish economy and move the economy to the Turks{{citation|title=Geschichte der Türkei, Von Atatürk bis zur Gegenwart|date=2012 |page=73|publisher=C.H. Beck|language=de|isbn=978-3-406-64065-0|first=Klaus|last=Kreiser}}
• Article 16 of the Population Law from 1972 prohibited to give newborns names that were contrary to the national culture.{{Cite book|title=Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics)|last=Yeğen|first=Mesut|publisher=Routledge |year=2011|isbn=978-0415583459|editor-last=Jongerden|editor-first=Joost|pages=73|editor-last2=Casier|editor-first2=Marlies}}
• Animal name changes in Turkey – An initiative by the Turkish government to remove any reference to Armenia and Kurdistan in the Latin names of animals.{{cite news |title=Turkey renames 'divisive' animals |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4328285.stm |access-date=26 January 2013 |newspaper=BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation |date=8 March 2005 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203014054/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4328285.stm |archive-date=3 February 2013}}{{cite news |last=Gunaysu |first=Ayse |title=Learnings from the Sari Gelin Case |url=http://www.armenianweekly.com/2009/03/04/learnings-from-the-sari-gelin-case/ |access-date=26 January 2013 |newspaper=Armenian Weekly |date=March 4, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106234112/http://www.armenianweekly.com/2009/03/04/learnings-from-the-sari-gelin-case/ |archive-date=6 November 2013 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Shahbazi |first1=Shirana |last2=Krebs |first2=Manuel |last3=Zolghadr |first3=Tirdad |title=Shahrzad: history |year=2005 |publisher=JRP Ringier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8WBQAAAAMAAJ |access-date=26 January 2013 |page=97 |isbn=9783905701500 |quote=Turkey Renames Armenian Animals |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160522105801/https://books.google.com/books?id=8WBQAAAAMAAJ&q |archive-date=22 May 2016}}{{cite book |last=Grigoriadis |first=Ioannis N. |title=Trials of Europeanization : Turkish political culture and the European Union |year=2009 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0-230-61215-0 |edition=1st}}{{cite book |last=Morris |first=Chris |title=The new Turkey : the quiet revolution on the edge of Europe |year=2006 |publisher=Granta Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-86207-865-9 |edition=Paperback |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/newturkeyquietre0000morr_l7s3 }} "A species of red fox known as Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica will henceforth be plain Vulpes Vulpes, while a species of wild sheep called Ovis Armeniana has been renamed Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus. Foreign scientists, the Ministry noted."Revue des deux mondes 2006 "L'espèce de moutons appelée Ovis armeniana a été renommée Ovis orientalis anatolicus. De même, le chevreuil dit Capreolus caprelus armenius a été rebaptisé Capreolus caprelus capreolus. « Les noms de ces espèces animales auraient ..."La Recherche Numéros 393 à 398 Société d'éditions scientifiques (Paris, France) – 2006 – Page 96 "Ovis Armeniana devient Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus, Capreolus Capreolus Armenius se transforme en Capreolus Caprelus Capreolus, et Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanicum, le renard roux du Kurdistan, s'appelle désormais en Turquie Vulpes ..."{{cite book |last=MacDonald |first=David B. |title=Identity politics in the age of genocide: the Holocaust and historical representation |year=2008 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-43061-6 |page=261 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SBmGWaK-PfoC |edition=1. publ. |access-date=26 January 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603225127/https://books.google.com/books?id=SBmGWaK-PfoC |archive-date=3 June 2016 |url-status=live }} "The Ovis Armeniana (wild sheep) is now the Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus, while the roe deer, formerly known as Capreolus Capreolus Armenus, has become Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus. These previous names have disappeared thanks to ..."
• Confiscated Armenian properties in Turkey – An initiative by the Ottoman and Turkish governments which involved seizure of the assets, properties and land of the Armenian community of Turkey.{{cite book |last1=Ungor |last2=Polatel |first1=Ugur |first2=Mehmet |title=Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property |year=2011 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-4411-3055-6 |page=224 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=06K7KM4s-wgC |access-date=22 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131009030447/http://books.google.com/books?id=06K7KM4s-wgC&dq |archive-date=9 October 2013 |url-status=live}} The policy is considered a nationalization and Turkification of the country's economy by eliminating ownership of non-Turkish minorities which in this case would be of the Armenian community.{{cite news |title=Revisiting the Turkification of Confiscated Armenian Assets |newspaper=Armenian Weekly |date=April 17, 2012 |url=http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/04/17/revisiting-the-turkification-of-confiscated-armenian-assets/ |access-date=24 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106025252/http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/04/17/revisiting-the-turkification-of-confiscated-armenian-assets/ |archive-date=6 November 2012 |url-status=live}}
• Geographical name changes in Turkey – An initiative by the Turkish government to replace non-Turkish geographical and topographic names within the Turkish Republic or the Ottoman Empire, with Turkish names,{{cite book |last=Nişanyan |first=Sevan |title=Adını unutan ülke: Türkiye'de adı değiştirilen yerler sözlüğü |year=2010 |publisher=Everest Yayınları |location=İstanbul |isbn=978-975-289-730-4 |edition=1. basım. |language=tr}}{{cite news |last=Halis |first=Mujgan |title=Norşin'den Potamya'ya hayali coğrafyalarımız |url=http://www.sabah.com.tr/Cumartesi/2011/07/30/norsinden-potamyaya-hayali-cografyalarimiz |access-date=12 January 2013 |newspaper=Sabah |date=30 July 2011 |language=tr |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106040226/http://www.sabah.com.tr/Cumartesi/2011/07/30/norsinden-potamyaya-hayali-cografyalarimiz |archive-date=6 January 2014}}{{cite book |editor-last=Jongerden |editor-first=Joost |title=Social relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870–1915 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-22518-3 |page=300 |editor-last2=Verheij |editor-first2=Jelle |date=2012-08-03 }} as part of a policy of Turkification.{{cite book |last=Sahakyan |first=Lusine |title=Turkification of the Toponyms in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey |year=2010 |publisher=Arod Books |location=Montreal |isbn=978-0-9699879-7-0 |url=http://www.ararat-center.org/upload/files/Toponym_Lusine.pdf |access-date=2013-03-24 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130526060554/http://www.ararat-center.org/upload/files/Toponym_Lusine.pdf |archive-date=2013-05-26}}{{cite book |editor-last=Simonian |editor-first=Hovann H. |title=The Hemshin: history, society and identity in the highlands of northeast Turkey |url=http://hemshin.org/books/TheHemshin-Full.pdf |year=2007 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-7007-0656-3 |page=161 |edition=Repr. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130503043711/http://hemshin.org/books/TheHemshin-Full.pdf |archive-date=2013-05-03 }}{{sfn|Jongerden|2007|p=354}} The main proponent of the initiative has been a Turkish homogenization social-engineering campaign which aimed to assimilate or obliterate geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Turkish unity. The names that were considered foreign were usually of Armenian, Greek, Laz, Slavic, Kurdish, Assyrian, or Arabic origin.{{sfn|Jongerden|2007|p=354}}{{cite news |last=Korkut |first=Tolga |newspaper=Bianet |title=Names of 12,211 Villages Were Changed in Turkey |url=http://www.bianet.org/english/minorities/114491-names-of-12-211-villages-were-changed-in-turkey |access-date=12 January 2013 |date=14 May 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090720005719/http://bianet.org/english/minorities/114491-names-of-12-211-villages-were-changed-in-turkey |archive-date=20 July 2009}} For example, words such as Armenia were banned in 1880 from use in the press, schoolbooks, and governmental establishments and was subsequently replaced with words like Anatolia or Kurdistan.{{cite book |language=ru |title=Modern History of Armenia in the Works of Foreign Authors [Novaya istoriya Armenii v trudax sovremennix zarubezhnix avtorov |editor=R. Sahakyan |publisher=Yerevan |year=1993 |page=15}}{{cite book |last1=Blundell |first1=Nigel |first2=Roger |last2=Boar |title=Crooks, crime and corruption |year=1991 |url=https://archive.org/details/crookscrimecorru0000boar |publisher=Dorset Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-88029-615-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/crookscrimecorru0000boar/page/232 232]}}{{cite book |last=Balakian |first=Peter |date=2009-10-13 |title=The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response |url=https://archive.org/details/burningtigrisarm00bala_198 |url-access=limited |page=[https://archive.org/details/burningtigrisarm00bala_198/page/n53 36] |isbn=978-0-06-186017-1 |publisher=HarperCollins}}{{cite book |title=The World in arms : timeframe AD 1900–1925 |year=1989 |page=[https://archive.org/details/worldinarmstimef00time/page/84 84] |publisher=Time-Life Books |location=Alexandria, Va. |edition=U.S. |url=https://archive.org/details/worldinarmstimef00time |isbn=978-0-8094-6470-8}}{{cite book |last=K. Al-Rawi |first=Ahmed |title=Media Practice in Iraq. |year=2012 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-35452-4 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AhMoMFuO--gC&q=armenia+word+banned+abdul&pg=PA9 |access-date=16 January 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231220045/http://books.google.com/books?id=AhMoMFuO--gC&lpg=PA9&dq=armenia%20word%20banned%20abdul&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=armenia%20word%20banned%20abdul&f=false |archive-date=31 December 2013}} Assyrians have increased their protest regarding the forced Turkification of historically Aramaic-named cities and localities and they see this process as continuing the cultural genocide of their identity and history (as part of the wider erasure of Assyrian, Kurdish and Armenian cultures).{{cite web |url=http://www.todayszaman.com/_arameans-call-for-reversal-of-place-names_175906.html |title=Arameans call for reversal of place names |work=TodaysZaman |access-date=2015-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115080252/http://www.todayszaman.com/_arameans-call-for-reversal-of-place-names_175906.html |archive-date=2015-01-15 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://www.wca-ngo.org/humanrightsfiles/the-tur-abdin-cases/373-request-to-reverse-turkification |title=World Council of Arameans [Syriacs] |author=Maria Kara |work=wca-ngo.org |access-date=2015-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115085917/http://www.wca-ngo.org/humanrightsfiles/the-tur-abdin-cases/373-request-to-reverse-turkification |archive-date=2015-01-15 |url-status=live }}Çağatay, Soner 2002 'Kemalist dönemde göç ve iskan politikaları: Türk kimliği üzerine bir çalışma' (Policies of migration and settlement in the Kemalist era: a study on Turkish identity), Toplum ve Bilim, no. 93, pp. 218-41.
• Article 301 (Turkish Penal Code) – An article of the Turkish Penal Code which makes it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions. It took effect on 1 June 2005, and was introduced as part of a package of penal-law reform in the process preceding the opening of negotiations for Turkish membership of the European Union (EU), in order to bring Turkey up to the Union standards.{{cite web |work=EurActiv |date=June 2, 2005 |orig-year=updated November 14, 2005 |url-status=dead |url=http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/turkey-new-penal-code-touches-raw-nerves/article-140266 |title=Turkey's new penal code touches raw nerves |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170625201939/http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/turkey-new-penal-code-touches-raw-nerves/article-140266 |archive-date=2017-06-25}}{{cite web|last=Leicht|first=Justus |url=http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/turk-f06.shtml |title=Turkey: Court drops prosecution of writer Orhan Pamuk |access-date=2008-07-29 |work=World Socialist Web site |publisher=ICFI |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725062252/http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/turk-f06.shtml |archive-date=25 July 2008 |url-status=live |date=2006-02-06}}
• Turkification was also prevalent in the educational system of Turkey. Measures were adopted making Turkish classes mandatory in minority schools and making use of the Turkish language mandatory in economic institutions.{{cite book |last=Kadioglu |first=Ayse Keyman |title=Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies : Symbiotic Antagonisms : Competing Nationalisms in Turkey |year=2011 |publisher=University of Utah Press |location=Salt Lake City, UT |isbn=978-1-60781-979-0 |page=40}}

The Ottoman elite identified themselves as Ottomans, not as Turks, because the term was associated mainly with Turkmens.{{sfn|Kushner|1997|p=219}}{{sfn|Meeker|1971 |p=322}}Ch. 3 (Shifting Social Boundaries and Identities in the Modern Middle East); Beyond Islam by Sami Zubaida (2010) Ottomans, like Central Asian Turkic peoples, firstly identified themselves via tribal descent and secondly viewed the various peoples under their dynastic rule (devlet) as part of a unique civilization, while viewing other Turkic peoples as more alien; seeing as they claimed Kayi ancestry through the House of Osman, the modern notion of "Turk" as a uniquely inter-ethnic label would not be communicable.Ch. 5 (Nationalism Confronts Islam); Islamic Identity and Development by Ozay Mehmet (1991)

In the late 19th century, while "Turk" was still a pejorative for poor Yörük-Turkoman farmers and pastoralists of ignoble origins, European ideas of nationalism were adopted by the Ottoman elite, and when it became clear that the local Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, the term Türk took on a much more positive connotation.{{sfn|Kushner|1997|pp=220-221}}{{cite book |last=Çetin |first=Berfin Emre Çetin |title=The Paramilitary Hero on Turkish Television: A Case Study on Valley of the Wolves |publisher= Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2015 |isbn=978-1443875233 |page=31}}

The imprecision of the appellation Türk can also be seen with other ethnic names, such as Kürt, which is often applied by western Anatolians to anyone east of Adana, even those who speak only Turkish.{{sfn|Meeker|1971|p=322}}

Thus, the category Türk, like other ethnic categories popularly used in Turkey, does not have a uniform usage. In recent years, centrist Turkish politicians have attempted to redefine this category in a more multicultural way, emphasizing that a Türk is anyone who is a citizen of the Republic of Turkey.{{sfn|Kushner|1997|p=230}} After 1982, article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a "Turk" as anyone who is "bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship".{{sfn|Bayir|2016|p=144}}

{{Main|Genetic studies on Turkish people}}

The population of Asia Minor (Anatolia) and Balkans including Greece was estimated at 10.7 million in 600 AD whereas Asia Minor was probably around 8 million during the early part of Middle Ages (950 to 1348 AD). The estimated population for Asia Minor around 1204 AD was 6 million, including 3 million in Seljuk territory.{{cite journal |first1=J. C. |last1=Russell |title=Late Ancient and Medieval Population |volume=48 |issue=3 |journal=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |year=1958 |pages=93–99 |jstor=1005708 |doi=10.2307/1005708}}{{Better source needed|date=March 2021}} Turkish genomic variation, along with several other Western Asian populations, looks most similar to genomic variation of South European populations such as southern Italians.{{cite journal| author=Taskent RO, Gokcumen O| title=The Multiple Histories of Western Asia: Perspectives from Ancient and Modern Genomes. | journal=Hum Biol | year= 2017 | volume= 89 | issue= 2 | pages= 107–117 | pmid=29299965 | doi=10.13110/humanbiology.89.2.01 | pmc= | s2cid=6871226 | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29299965 }}

Data from ancient DNA – covering the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, and the Bronze Age periods – showed that Western Asian genomes, including Turkish ones, have been greatly influenced by early agricultural populations in the area; later population movements, such as those of Turkic speakers, also contributed. The first and only (as of 2017) whole genome sequencing study in Turkey was done in 2014. Moreover, the genetic variation of various populations in Central Asia "has been poorly characterized"; Western Asian populations may also be "closely related to populations in the east".

An earlier 2011 review had suggested that "small-scale, irregular punctuated migration events" caused changes in language and culture "among Anatolia's diverse autochthonous inhabitants," which explains Anatolian populations' profile today.{{cite journal |doi=10.2753/AAE1061-1959500101 |title=Who Are the Anatolian Turks? |year=2011 |last1=Schurr |first1=Theodore G. |last2=Yardumian |first2=Aram |journal=Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=6–42|s2cid=142580885 }}

{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}

• 1925 Report for Reform in the East
• Cultural assimilation
• Demographics of Turkey
• Genetic history of Europe
• Genetic origins of the Turkish people
• Hellenisation
• History of Anatolia
• Kurdification
• Pan-Turkism
• Russification
• Sun Language Theory
• Turkification and Islamification of Xinjiang
• Turkish History Thesis
• Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus
• Uzbekisation
• Turco-Mongol tradition
• Turco-Persian tradition

{{div col end}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Cite web|last=Aydar|first=Hidayet|date=2006|url=http://dergipark.gov.tr/download/article-file/10182 |title=The issue of chanting the Adhan in languages other than Arabic and related social reactions against it in Turkey|access-date=2019-02-26|url-status=live|archive-date=2019-01-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190112195037/http://dergipark.gov.tr/download/article-file/10182}}
• {{Cite book|last=Bayir|first=Derya|year=2013|title=Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |isbn=978-1-409-42007-1|location=Surrey, England}}
• {{Cite book|last=Bayir|first=Derya|year=2016|title=Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-09579-8}}
• {{cite book |last=Demirdjian |first=Alexis |year=2016 |title=The Armenian Genocide Legacy |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1137561633 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1L3tCwAAQBAJ}}

• {{cite book |last=Jongerden |first=Joost |year=2007 |title=The settlement issue in Turkey and the Kurds: an analysis of spatial policies, modernity and war |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden, the Netherlands |isbn=978-90-04-15557-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ME5oLvCd088C |access-date=12 January 2013}}
• {{Cite book |series=International Library of Twentieth Century History |volume=8 |title=Turkey Beyond Nationalism towards Post-Nationalist Identities |editor-first=Hans-Lukas |editor-last=Kieser |year=2006 |publisher=Tauris |location=London |isbn=978-1-84511-141-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKVSHjjUT2UC |access-date=7 January 2013}}
• {{cite journal |jstor=261242 |doi=10.1177/002200949703200206 |first1=David |last1=Kushner |date=April 1997 |title=Self-Perception and Identity in Contemporary Turkey |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=219–33|s2cid=159374632 }}

• {{cite journal |jstor=162721 |doi=10.1017/S002074380000129X |title=The Black Sea Turks: Some Aspects of Their Ethnic and Cultural Background |year=1971 |last1=Meeker |first1=Michael E. |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=318–45|s2cid=162611158 }}

• {{cite book |last=Vryonis |first=Speros |year=1971 |title=The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century |publisher=University of California Press}}

{{refend}}{{Turkish nationalism}}

{{Turkic topics}}

{{Cultural assimilation}}

Category:Turkish nationalism

Category:Cultural assimilation