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820 TURKS, RUMELIAN
occupation by the Ottomans, in the hands of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine
Empire. The Balkan peninsula includes the modern states of Romania, Bulgaria,
Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia. Historically, the lands of Rumeli also encompassed
Hungary, Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete, as well as the smaller Greek islands.
The term "Rumelian Turk," then, refers to those Turks who came to Eastern
Europe from Anatolia, along with Turkmen and others from Central Asia and
the Crimea. It also has come to apply to Circassians from the Caucasus who
settled in the Balkans.
Occasionally in local usage it may also encompass other non-Turkic Muslim
populations, such as the Bosnians in Yugoslavia (see Bosnians). Strictly speaking,
however, it should be used to designate intrusive Turkic communities as
opposed to Muslim converts from indigenous populations. In fact, not all Rumelian
Turks in this sense are Muslims. A small number are converts to Christianity
or Judaism.
The largest concentrations of the 7 million Rumelian Turks, whether in villages
or towns, are in Bessarabia (formerly northern Romania, now part of the Ukraine
S.S.R.), Dobruja (eastern Romania), eastern and central Bulgaria, northern Greece
and Thrace in modern Turkey. The numbers and political status of Turks in the
Balkans have closely reflected historical events. With the exception of the Turkish
inhabitants of the five provinces of Turkey located in Thrace, Rumelian Turks
in the Balkans are everywhere minorities whose political and social status varies
greatly from country to country.
The earliest recorded settlement of Muslim Turks in Rumelian lands occurred
in 1249. Sultan Izzeddin Kayka'us, ruler of the Seljuks of Anatolia, having lost
his crown to his brothers, took refuge in Byzantium and was given land by the
Byzantines in Dobruja. He was followed by about 30 to 40 obas, or small groups
of closely related families, of nomadic Turkmen from Anatolia, who settled
there. When Dobruja and Bessarabia fell to the Mongols of the Golden Horde
in the late thirteenth century, there were further settlements of Turkic peoples
who mingled with the Turkmen and became Muslim. Under the pressure of the
Christian Bulgars, the majority of these early Turkish-Mongol settlers returned
to Anatolia in the fourteenth century. Those who stayed became converts to the
Greek Orthodox religion. Today some 3,000 to 4,000 of these Christian Turks
remain in Romania and are known as Gagaus, a derivation from the name of
Sultan Kayka'us.
The more permanent and large-scale settlement of Turks in the Balkans took
place during the long period of Ottoman domination of the peninsula, beginning
in 1350. The lands gained in Europe by Ottomans were united until the midsixteenth
century under one administrative system, and the Rumeli territory was
headed by a beylerbeyi or "lord of the lords." He retained a status equivalent
to that of a vizier and attended cabinet meetings at the Ottoman court in Constantinople.
After 1550 the Balkans were divided into smaller administrative