#gagauz

[safije]

Carpets in the village of Congaz, Autonomous Territorial Unit Gagauzia, Moldova.

The Gagauz are an Oghuz Turkic speaking ethnic group who are primarily Orthodox Christians.

[folkfashion]

Gagauz woman, Moldova, by maria_bratan_photographer

[songs-of-the-east]

Photograph of Gagauz families from Moldavian/Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics and People's Republic of Bulgaria during the 1960/70's - Colorized by Simon Stamatov

The Gagauz are a Turkic-speaking people whose origins lie in the historical interaction of native inhabitants of the Black Sea region, who were either assimilated or intermarried with Oghuz Turkic peoples.

Many scholars believe that the Oghuz Turks in question were the Pechenegs, who entered Eastern Europe via the Eurasian steppes of Ukraine. While most Pechenegs assimilated into the surrounding Slavic (Kievan Rus’ and Bulgarian), Hungarian, and Romanian populations, some groups preserved their distinct identity and language, absorbing local inhabitants into their communities rather than disappearing entirely. The Gagauz are thought to descend from these latter groups, who eventually settled in the Balkans, particularly in what is now Bulgaria.

Unlike most Turkic-speaking populations in Eurasia who are Muslim, the Gagauz are a predominately Eastern Orthodox population, similar to the Chuvash of Russia.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Gagauz migrated northward into southern Moldova and southwestern Ukraine, often encouraged by the Russian Empire to settle in newly acquired lands in Bessarabia. The majority of them now live in Gagauzia, a region of southern Moldova.

[turkicculture]

Gagauz people

[spale-vosver]

Every European who's suddenly an expert on decolonization/indigeneity when it comes to Israel/Palestine should maybe start looking into their own country's history of colonialism...and I'm not talking about in Africa/Asia/North America, I'm talking about within Europe itself.

Like, for instance, the fact that there are over 100 endangered languages in Europe due to forced assimilation. Languages like Romansh, Walloon, Gagauz, etc. are all just as native, if not more so, to their respective regions than the dominant language, but have been forced into minority status in attempts to build a cohesive and homogenous national identity by the dominant cultural group.

In France, for instance, there are dozens of "French dialects" that are mutually unintelligible enough to be considered their own language, but have not been given minority recognition due to the national policy of having only one official language.

And just so you know...language erasure is considered a form of cultural genocide.

[aroundtheworldinstamps]

Ethnicities of Moldova series, featuring Ukrainian, Gagauz, and Romani people in traditional clothes

[dailyworldmusic]

Visit Original Link

Tikenli yol - Natalie Papazoglu

💿 Tikenli yol Ukraine, 2020

[eastern-anarchist]

Eastern Europe is usually associated with the Slavs, and I don't like that. Jews, Tatars, Roma, Gagauz, Greeks, Armenians, Finno-Ugric peoples, Yakuts, Chechens, Circassians, etc. etc. are the same full-fledged inhabitants of this part of the earth, like the Slavs, despite the fact that in relation to many non-Slavs there is a long history of discrimination. Moreover, the ultra-rights are increasingly spewing xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hatred of the peoples of the Caucasus, and this is troubling.