Abstract:

Demographic structure of contemporary Turkey is in large part formed due to conflict-induced forced population movements in the previous two centuries. By focusing on the immigration and settlement of Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus as well as the settlement and sedentarization of nomadic tribes, the article looks at the relationship between state formation, nation building, and population movements and the impact of transition from indirect to direct and centralized rule on population and settlement policies of Ottoman Empire throughout nineteenth century. Based on available historical evidence, the article argues that population movements that were practiced in the nineteenth century and the institutions developed to manage these set the conditions for future political, economic and ideological developments in the next century constraining certain options, strategies and policies, and encouraging others for the political authorities of the late Ottoman and early Republican period. Early twentieth century Ottoman population policies were pretty much conditioned by the late nineteenth century Ottoman demographic structure. The importance of this demographic shift cannot be overlooked in terms of the formation and transformation of political and social identities starting in the late Ottoman period stretching into early Republican Turkey. Thus, the forced mobility of the Caucasian and the Balkan Muslims into the Ottoman Empire and settlement of nomadic tribes throughout the nineteenth century had a big impact in the transformation of the political and social structure of the imperial polity, leading to a profound transformation in the social fabric of Anatolia, and by extension the very bedrock upon which the Turkish republic was founded.

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