III. The Beginnings of Transformation

BEGINNINGS OF TRANSFORMATION
seem to suggest that quite to the contrary the Turks who came at this time
very definitely constituted a minority. As was previously mentioned,
the historians of the Crusades note that though Turkish military forces
were to be found along the routes from Nicaea to Dorylaeum, Philo-
melium, Konya, Heracleia, Tarsus, Marash, Edessa, Plastentza, Coxon,
and Antioch, the inhabitants most often were largely Christians. The
figures given for Turkish armies tend to confirm the fact that the Turks
were still a small minority. Undoubtedly these armies constituted a sub­
stantial portion of the Turks in Anatolia at this very early date. There is
mention of large armies in Anatolia, but these were usually armies sent
from Persia, which came to raid or to bring recalcitrant emirs under
control. Once they finished their business in Anatolia, these armies
usually left the peninsula and returned to Persia, Iraq, or Syria. Such
was the army ofArtuk called in by Michael VII against Roussel which is
3. Avars sent by Heraclius to the borders in 620.
4. Bulgars settled in Tohum and Gaihan to fight the Arabs in 755.
5. Khazars and Ferghanid Turks in the retinue ofthe Greek commander who presided
over the exchange of prisoners at Tarsus in 946, and who were supposedly settled in
Cappadocia.
6. Bulgarian troops under Bardas in 947.
7. Patzinak troops brought to Anatolia in 1048 to fight the Seljuks.
8. Patzinaks in the army of Romanus IV at Manzikert.
Unfortunately Yinanc has lumped together a few events spanning six centuries, and
even if the cases of supposedly "Turkish" settlement were accurate, they would have made
no noticeable alteration in the ethnography of Anatolia. As a matter of fact, this supposed
Turkish penetration of Anatolia is the figment of the imagination of a school of historiography
which sprang up in Kemalist Turkey and had to struggle with a powerful
nationalist sentiment. The Bulgars settled by Justin in the Euphrates region were not of
any considerable size and were no doubt soon assimilated. Yinanc refers to a settlement of
Avars in eastern Anatolia byJustin II in 577, and he does this on the authority of Muralt
(I, 235). But this section in Muralt merely refers to an expedition of the emperor with
troops from the Balkans, there being no mention of their settlement in Anatolia (Theophanes,
I, 246-247). Contrary again to Yinanc's assertion, Muralt (I, 275), mentions no
settlement of Avars on the eastern borders. As for the Bulgars settled in Anatolia by
Constantine V in the eighth century, these were either Slavonized or fast on their way to
becoming Slavs, and then once in Anatolia all evidence points to their rapid Hellenization
(Vryonis, "St. Ioannicius," pp. 245-248). As for the Khazars and Ferghanids who appeared
in Tarsus with the Byzantine commander in 946 to preside over the exchange of
prisoners, they were certainly not settled in Cappadocia as Yinanc asserts, and they were
few in number. These were part of the imperial troops stationed in Constantinople and
recruited abroad (Constantine Porphyrogennitus, De Caerimoniis, I, 576). The Bulgarian
troops of Bardas in 947 were recruited from the Balkans, and as such were Slavic-speaking
and not Turkophone. As for the Patzinaks who were sent to Anatolia by Constantine IX
Monomachus, they stayed only for a few days and then returned to the Balkans
(Cedrenus, II, 587). (Even if they had stayed in Anatolia they would not have made any
impression On Anatolian ethnography as they were only 15,000 in number). Thus the
proposition that the existence of a substantial Turkish ethnic bloc in Anatolia prior to
1071 helped to pave the way for a smooth Turkish occupation is false. There is no
evidence for it in historical sources. Yinanc's book is also marred by certain other fallacious
racial theories concerning the existence ofHetite and Thracian tribes in eleventh-century
Anatolia.
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