56 · Ömer Turan
Migration to Turkey
During the declining period of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims and Jews
of the Balkans and surrounding areas suffered from the interventions
and invasions of the Hapsburg Empire and Russia. The Christian Balkan
and Slavic countries put pressures on the Muslims and Jews and forced
them to leave. Both groups considered the Ottoman Empire and Tur-
key to be a safe haven. Muslim migrations to the Ottoman lands from
Crimea, the Caucasus, and the Balkans in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries continued. The best known cases are migrations of Circassians
from the Caucasus and Crimea to Turkey after the Crimean War, Turkish
migrations from Bulgaria during and after the Ottoman-Russian War of
1877–78, Bosniak migration from Bosnia after the Treaty of Berlin, and
Turkish migration from Macedonia during the Balkan Wars.^20
Sometimes with the Muslims, sometimes on their own, the Jews of
the above mentioned areas also migrated to the Ottoman Empire from
the Slavic and Balkan states. The Ottoman government was always
compassionate and receptive not only for the Muslims but also for the
Jews. The anti-Semitic measures of those under the leadership of Bogh-
dan Chmielnicki caused the Jews of Ukraine to be massacred, and they
therefore took shelter in Ottoman lands. The attitudes of the Ottoman
government toward Muslim and Jewish refugees from Crimea in mid-
nineteenth century were very positive without discrimination. After the
Crimean War of 1853–56, Muslims and non-Muslims of Crimea were
forced to leave the peninsula. They arrived in Ottoman lands, and the
sultan issued a firman and accepted all of them without any religious
discrimination. They were going to be settled in and around Dobrudja.
Since they had to leave all their property and lands in Crimea, they were
to receive free food, homes, agricultural equipment, and lands.^21 In a let-
ter to the governor of Silistre, the Ottoman government ordered no reli-
gious discrimination while assisting them.^22 The Jews of Kerch applied
to the Ottoman government to be settled in an appropriate place. The
Ottoman sultan allowed them to settle somewhere in the Balkans.^23 Since
they had different traditions, they were also allowed to live under their
own rabbis.^24
Except during the Crimean War, Jewish and Muslim migration to Tur-
key continued from Bulgaria during the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877–
78, from Eastern Roumelia during the Bulgarian annexation of Eastern