TURKLER VE AHISKALILAR

History of Ahiska Turks

Ahiska Turks, coming from Anatolia were forced to settle in the region between 1578 and the Russian invasion in 1828 and then became the indivisible part of the Anatolian Turkism. The essential homelands of Ahiska Turks are the provinces of Ahiska, Ahılkelek, Aspinza, Adıgen and Bogdanovka that are within the lands of the Republic of Georgia and the neighbours of Turkey. The reason for the classification of the Turks that settled in these regions as Ahiska Turks is that the geographical name of the region that included these provinces was Ahiska.

Ahiska Turks was a Turkish group that was exiled for 3 time in the recent 70 years who incurred the wrath of Stalin, the bloody dictator in the year of 1944 and was subjected to exile again. Ahiska Turks expanded to various regions of the USSR and sacrificed thousands of martyrs.
Today, Ahiska Turks live in 264 different regions of 13 Republics. There are totally 629 thousands of Ahiska Turks that are dispersed into regions as follows: 70 thousands in 28 centres of population in Russian Federation, 145 thousands in Kazakhstan, 106 thousands in Azerbaijan, 57 thousands in Kyrgyzstan, 30 thousands in Uzbekistan, 18 thousands in Ukraine, 200 thousands in Turkey, and 3000 Ahiska Turks in various countries. They have lots of social, cultural and educational problems. Ahiska Turks try to preserve their national identity in the cultural centres that they have established in the countries in which they live. This effort is given in various Turkish Cultural Centres established by Ahiska Turks in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The cultural centre pertaining to Ahiska people that is located in Uzbekistan was founded as “Turkish Centre of Civilisation” within the structure of Uzbekistan Foundation of Civilisation in the beginning of the year 1992. The chairman of the centre is Dr. Ömer Salman. Kazakhstan Ahiska Cultural Centre was founded in Almaty by Dr. Tevfik Kurdayev Haşimoğlu in the year of 1991. The courses such as Turkish, religion, etc. are given in this centre. Furthermore, this centre also embraces the Turkish citizens who come to Kazakhstan from Turkey. İzzet Maksudov manages the Turkish Centre of Civilisation that was founded by Ahiska Turks in Kyrgyzstan in the year of 1991. These three centres have a great strategic significance. These centres can be turned into the organisations tha can undertake significant missions against those who want to bring discord among Turks, Kazakhs, Khirghizes, and Uzbek people.
The reason why Ahiska Turks were subjected to exile was kept as confidential information for exactly 47 years. The allegations that were asserted throughout these 47 years were the reasons of anticipation or supposition… The subject was revealed upon the publication of the major documents that were related with the exiles in the year of 1991. Lavrentiy Beriya of Georgian roots, Superintendent of the Public Internal Affairs of the USSR sent a letter of proposal to Georgian İ.V. Stalin, the President of the State Defence Committee who was equipped with all authorities due to the state of war. In his letter (24th July 1944), he stated that “most of the Turkish nation that reside in the regions of Georgia SSR on the border of Turkey have an inclination of immigration upon their relations with their relatives on the side of Turkey. They are smugglers and they are engaged as spies for the Turkish intelligence bodies and they constitute manpower for the brigands”. Due to this statement, he proposed that 16700 families (with a population of 86 thousands of people, this figure is stated as 91 thousands of people in some other resources, and 40 thousands of people in military forces) could be exiled from Ahiska region towards the Central Asia. Instead of these people, he also proposed the settlement of 7000 Georgian families from the districts that suffered lack of sufficient land in Georgia. After one week pursuant to this letter, the “exile” activities were initiated upon the Resolution of State Defence Committee with the aforesaid date and number that was signed by Stalin. The interesting point was that the motivated motion of proposal arranged by Berilya and the motivated resolution signed by Stalin had the same expressions. It is of no doubt that the more interesting point was the unfounded and untrue allegations that were included in both the motion and the resolution.
Among the Turkish communities, Ahiska Turks is the only Turkish community that does not possess its own administration, and they do not possess their own schools and publication organs, either. The foundations of cultural centres, societies or associations have been initiated recently. Although they were exiled to a wide area, they did not lost their Turkish identity, and they preserved the name of Turk with its proper dignity and honour.
Ahiska, the ancient Oguz region was called as “Ak-Sıka” (White Castle) in Dede Korkut’s Book and “Akesga” in the records pertaining to the year of 481. Ahiska is also rendered as the Turkish or Farsi form of Ahal-Thise that mean “Yeni Kale” (New Castle). In the course of the first Islamic conquests, Habib b. Mesleme, one of the commanders of Damascus’ Governor Muaviye conquered Ahiska in the period under the caliphate of Hz. Osman. It was under the Mongolian dominion between the years of 1267-78 and then it was administered by “Atabeğ”s, the autonomous governors of the region in the following years.
Ahiska Atabegs were connected to the Ottoman dominion as a result of Çıldır War (1578) in the command of Lala Mustafa Pasha. The last atabek, Minüçihr declared its dependence to Ottomans and he became Muslim and then, he was given the name of Mustafa Pasha. Pursuant to that date, Ahiska had become the centre of Çıldır province that was newly established and it was drawn up thereof. However, Ahiska became a province when Çıldır got worn out due to the wars. The city that was once conquered by Safevis got under the dominion of Ottomans again in the year of 1635. Until it was subjected to the Russian dominion in the year of 1828, Ahiska remained as a forefront city of the Ottoman State. When it was separated from Turkey, the Serhat Turks that lived in this region met with their bad destiny. In the course of the Ottoman-Russian war in 1853-1856, some of Ahiska people ran away and took shelter in Erzurum due to the intense pressure imposed upon them on the grounds that they collaborated with the Ottoman army. Pursuant to this war, Kars was broken off from the Ottoman borders and Ahiska remained far away from the border of Turkey. In this period, an Armenian migration was experienced from the North East Anatolia towards the Ahiska region.

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