Gajal

The Gadjal or Gadzhal (Turkish: Gacal, Bulgarian: Гаджал, Gadžal) are a Turkic-speaking group of the Muslim faith living in the east of the Balkans and Turkey. The main areas of settlement of the Gajals are located in the extreme northeast of the Republic of Bulgaria at Deliorman, as well as in the region of Eastern Thrace (Turkey) at Tekirdağ Province-Kırklareli Province-Edirne Province. Because of the Turkic language, and the Islamic faith in other countries, Gadjals are usually ranked among the Turks, although the Gadjals cause some ethnic isolation due to their ethnogenesis. Balkan-Gagauz language is spoken by the Gadjals. The total number of Gadjals is about 300,000 people, including about 20,000 native speakers. They are believed to be descendants of Pechenegs, Cumans and Uzes. They are closely related to the Gagauz people, leading to claims they are the Christian part, while the Gadjal are the Muslim part.

History

In 1398, Yanko the last independent Gagauz ruler of Dobruja was forced to recognize Ottoman suzerainty. After the loss of independence, parts of the population converted to Islam and were henceforth called Gajal. For the near future there are not many references to the Gadjal's in historical sources. Neither Jirecek nor Kanitz mentioned this word. It was first used in Ahmef Vefik's dictionary Lehçe-i Osmani written in 1873–1876. According to him, Gadjal was a word used to describe gypsies of Varna and Balchik. In fact, his dictionary is the only Turkish dictionary which mentions this word. The Škorpil brothers - Hermann Škorpil and Karel Škorpil published in 1898 "The Yearbook of the Varna State High School", where they had written: "In our research we paid attention to the questions - what happened to the first non-Slavic Bulgarians? Is it possible that these people, who won, disappeared completely in two centuries, mixed with Slavs, whose character was completely opposite to the character of the ancient Bulgarians? We came to an opinion that cannot be final until more material is collected, namely: that today's Muslim population of Deliorman - the Gadjals, and perhaps the Christian Gagauz in Eastern Bulgaria are the remnants of non-Slavic Bulgarians."

Soon their theory became very popular and was accepted by a number of historians, such as Gavril Zanetov, one of the supporters of the Turkic theory of the origin of the Bulgarians. Zanetov perceived both the Gadjals and the Gagauz as descendants of non-Slavic Bulgars. His source was also the Shkorpil brothers - but with one difference - he added that the Alevi population of Balbunar, Silistra and Varna were also Bulgarians who have converted to Islam, because "they give sacrifice for St. Elijah (actually Ali, local Christians believed that Ali was related to the Christian Elijah, which is not true), drink and don't hide their faces". Lyubomir Miletich was another historian who also supported the Škorpil brothers' theory in his book "The Old Bulgarian Population in Northeastern Bulgaria" published in 1902. Miletich, who had visited the Ludogorie region wrote in his book that: "they (Turks of Deliorman) are old inhabitants, they did not come from Asia Minor, as the Turks from Tuzluk (region covering most of Targovishte) did, and that from time immemorial their ancestors knew each other as locals." His other claims were that the Deliorman Turks have a different language and dialect.

In 1906 Stefan Bobchev visited the region to collect information about the Deliorman Turks and about Bulgars' origin. He was accompanied by Matei Stoyanov, Tsonyu Boyadzhiev and Mehmed Sülüş during his trip. He was in these Turkish villages, all in the Ludogorie region: Duştubak (Yasenovets), Abdal Yunus (Yonkovo), Duraç(?), Mumcular (Sveshtari), Köse Abdi (Raynino), Eniceköy(?), Caferler (Sevar), Şeremetköy (Veselets) and Ahmetler(?). Contrary to the claims of the Shkorpil brothers, Miletich and Zenetov, Bobchev did not find people who called themselves Gadjal in Deliorman. According to him, the term is clear only to educated Bulgarians who have learned this word from books, but even they do not claim that the local Turks call themselves "Gadjal". However, through conversations with the Turkish population of Ludogorie, he learned that this term was used offensively to the Turks of Dobruja. This may explain why Naiden Gerov in his dictionary (1895-1905) gives meaning to the word gajal "stupid, brutish, predatory". The Turks from Dobruja used the pejrorative "tahta külah" for Turks of Ludogorie. Bulgarians in Shumen and Razgrad - two cities where many Turks live - used the word Gadjal as an insult to Turkish villagers. Bobchev found that the term was familiar even in Stara Zagora and Haskovo - in the first city it was again used contemptuously for Turkish peasants, and in the second it was used for Turks with big çalma (Bulgarian: Gajva). The term Gajal was known in Balkan villages too such as Elena and Zlataritsa, but it also had negative meaning. According to Stefan Bobchev: "the Deliorman Turks call themselves Turks. They say: "ben Türküm" (I am a Turk). The more cultured ones say that they're Ottomans." Although the Deliorman Turks did claim to be autochthonous, they also claimed to came from Konya, Haymana, Ankara and Eskişehir. About the alleged language differences, Bobchev says: "they (Turks of Ludogorie) have different dialect, just like we and other nations also have many dialects. Nothing more. And there can be no question of racial and tribal differences based on linguistic differences." Bobchev is also trying to find the origin of the term gadjal. According Moshkov, it means in Turkish "rich, strong". According to Bobchev, the word gajal is of Bulgarian origin and related to the word gajva.

Valentin Moshkov, on the other hand, claims that the Deliorman Turks - he admits that Turks of Deliorman call themselves "Turk" and not Gadjal because they don't know this word - are descendants of Pechenegs. Zehra Kaderli, a Turkish woman from Ludogorie also says that although she worked in Ludogorie and collected ethnographic material from local Turks, she never came across Turks who call themselves Gadjal. She herself is from the Ludogorie and says that the term is unknown to her family. She is an associate professor at Hacettepe University and has many research on Deliorman Turkish culture.

Turkey

There are two Groups in East-Thrace who called Gadjal (Gacallar). The first Group: The Gadjal are the pre-Ottoman Turkish people of the Bulgaria-Deliorman region. In fact, their affiliation with the Gagauz people is considered. When they met and mingled with the Ottomans, they converted to Islam arround 1398. These are the original Gadjals. In Turkish they called, Asıl Gacallar. This Gadjal immigrants from Deliorman came at Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) to East-Thrace and settled in Tekirdağ-Edirne and Kırklareli . These second Gadjals of Turkish Thrace are actually Yörüks and Tatar Turks, and named Sanal Gacallar in Turkish.

See also

• Ludogorie
• Tekirdağ
• Edirne
• Kırklareli