The Turks of the Dodecanese () are a community of ethnic

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...

, indigenous

Greek Muslims Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims, are Muslims of Greeks, Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity in more recent times) dates either from the contact of early Arabic dynasties of th ...

and

Cretan Muslims The Cretan Muslims or Cretan Turks ( or , or ; , , or ; ) were the Muslim inhabitants of the island of Crete. Their descendants settled principally in Turkey, the Dodecanese Islands under Italian administration (part of Greece since 1947), S ...

living on the

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

islands of

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

() and

Kos Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 37,089 (2021 census), making ...

().

History

The Dodecanese was gradually settled by Turks from the Anatolian mainland from the 1480s onwards, added to by the

whose ancestors on the islands converted to Islam in the Ottoman period and were consequently referred to as 'Turks' as a synonym for Ottoman Muslim rather than because of their actual ethnic origin. The main island of

passed from Hospitaller to Ottoman rule in 1522. In a decree dated April 1673, it is stated that some of the

Bozulus Bozulus, also spelled Boz-ulus or Boz Ulus ( in Turkish), is the name given by the Ottomans to a tribal nomadic confederation of predominantly Turcoman tribes that were located in the vicinity of Diyarbakır. These tribes were brought into the Ott ...

Turkmens, who migrated to Western Anatolia, migrated to ''İstanköy'' (

). After almost four centuries under the Ottoman Empire, control of the Dodecanese passed to Italy in the aftermath of the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...

of 1912. The Turkish population on the island was not affected by the 1923 population exchange, because the Dodecanese islands were under the rule of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...

at the time. All inhabitants of the islands became Greek citizens after 1947 when the islands became part of

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Their population is estimated at less than 5,000 individuals. As a result of this incorporation into Greece and due to the situation following the

Cyprus conflict The Cyprus problem, also known as the Cyprus conflict, Cyprus issue, Cyprus dispute, or Cyprus question, is an ongoing dispute between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot community in the north of the island of Cyprus, where troops of t ...

and the

Turkish invasion of Cyprus The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of Cypriot intercommunal violence, intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots, Greek and Turkish Cy ...

in 1974 many Muslim Turks were expelled from the islands and forced to settle in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The Turks in Kos are partly organized around the Muslim Association of Kos, which estimates that the community on the island numbers approximately 2,000 individuals. Those in Rhodes are organized around the Moslem Association of Rhodes, which estimates that the community numbers roughly 3,500 people. The president of their association Mazloum Paizanoglou has said that the communities number approximately 2,500 in Rhodes and 2,000 in Kos.

References

Bibliography

* .

External links

Website of the association of Turks from the Dodecanese settled in Turkey (in Turkish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dodecanese Turks in Greece *Dodecanese Middle Eastern diaspora in Greece Ethnic groups in Greece Muslim communities in Europe

History

See also

References

Bibliography

External links