Gagauzians are a Turkic-speaking people who live mainly in the south of Moldova and in the Odessa region in Ukraine, as well as in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey and in small numbers in Canada and Brazil. In the past, they were most often referred to as “abducted Bulgarians”. Gagauz - baptized or Bulgarian Turks or linguistically Turkized Christian Bulgars. They speak the northwestern dialect of Turkish with many Slavic, especially Bulgarian and, more recently, Russian additions. Migrated to Bessarabia in the late XVIII and early XIX centuries. In the original settlement area on the western Black Sea coasts (in Romania and Bulgaria) there are few of them. With the accession of Bessarabia to Russia, the Gagauz occupied the southern part of the region as privileged colonists.
Today, 152,752 people with the Gagauz nationality (77.5%), 32,017 (16.2%) in Ukraine and 10,057 (5.1%) in Russia live in Moldova. In the remaining former republics of the USSR, there are few of them.
Demography
Over the 30 years between Soviet censuses, the number of Gagauzians, including in Moldova, increased by 59.2%, which is 1.6% more than in the Soviet Union as a whole. The Gagauz population increased by 26.5% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s and 13.8% in the 1980s. A sharp drop in growth in the 1970s. can be explained by the Soviet assimilation policy and, in particular, by the fact that after the Khrushchev thaw from the beginning of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1960s, the development of Gagauz identity and the possibility of social and professional advancement of Gagauzians were limited in Moldova. In order to adapt to the realities of the Moldavian SSR, it was necessary to join the majority. Therefore, instead of the “Gagauz” nationality, many people had “Moldavian” in their passports.
According to the census of the 1970s, 1/3 of the Gagauz lived in cities and 2/3 in villages. The number of men and women was the same.
Gagauzians: their language and who they are
Gagauz language belongs to the southwestern (Oguz) subgroup of the Turkic group of the Altai family. It has two colloquial dialects: central (spoken in the former Chadyr-Lung and Comrat regions of the MSSR) and southern (in Vulcanesti).
Before the revolution, folklore texts were published in Cyrillic. In Romania, literature, in particular religious and historical, was published in Latin. In 1957, a written system based on the Russian alphabet was created.
Gagauz retain their native language with relative constancy. So, 94.3% spoke it in 1959, 93.6% in 1970, 89.3% in 1979 and 87.4% in 1989. They also speak other languages, mainly Russian He was known by 63.3% of the Gagauzians in 1970, 68% in 1979 and 71.1% in 1989. Some of them are fluent in the Romanian language (about 6% of the population in the 1970s and 1980s).
Origin hypotheses
And the question "who are the Gagauzians" and their origin are still a mystery. At the moment, neither local nor foreign experts have been able to reach a consensus, although more than 20 hypotheses have been proposed. Many of them begin with the question: "What kind of nation of the Gagauzia are the renounced Christians or Christian Turks?" That is, were they the Bulgarians who adopted the Turkish language, or the Turks who converted from Islam to Orthodoxy? Do they come from pastoralists, or was it a sedentary population that assimilated with pastoralists?
It is difficult to answer the question of the origin of the Gagauz people as a result of two factors. Firstly, there is no information in medieval chronicles. Secondly, the Gagauz population on the Balkan Peninsula on the eve of their resettlement in the Russian Empire was heterogeneous.
Most of the early ethnic history of the Gagauz unfolded on the borders between what was supposed to become a cattle-breeding steppe country, and land inhabited by settled peoples. On the eve of resettlement to Bessarabia, they consisted of two ethnic lines: Hasyl (true) and Bulgarian.
So who are the Gagauz people? Both their origin and nationality have haunted scientists for many years. Most scientists are inclined to the following. The original core of the people consisted of Turkic-speaking cattle breeders Oguzes, Pechenegs and Polovtsians. One of the last Polovtsian migrations to the Balkans took place in 1241. But there is evidence that among them were Bulgarians who spoke the Turkish language, and part of the population who were under the protection of the Turkish sultan Izzedin Keykavus. In addition, European historians often wondered whether the Turkic-speaking Proto-Bulgarians, who came to the Balkans from the banks of the Volga in 670 under the banner of the Bulgarian ruler Asparuh, were the most likely ancestors of the Gagauz.
Gagauz - who is it?
During the frequent Russian-Turkish wars in the late XVIII and early XIX centuries. the Gagauzians, together with the Russian army, emigrated to the steppes of southern Bessarabia, primarily within the borders of the Bender and Izmail districts. In the years 1861-1862, some of them settled in the Tauride province.
A wave of Stolypin agrarian policy between 1912 and 1914 brought some Gagauz to Kazakhstan, and then another group settled in Uzbekistan during the very difficult years of initial collectivization. In order not to lose their civil rights, in the 1930s they called themselves Bulgarians. In Meislerga near Tashkent, where the Gagauz live, they retain this name to this day.
Traditional dwelling
Where do the Gagauz live? Their traditional house consists of three rooms with an additional wall of turf (mound) along the main wall and a veranda supported by columns. The walls of the rooms are hung with towels and carpets (decorated with floral patterns), popular among the Gagauz, and the floors are carpeted.
Economy
The traditional economy of the Gagauz was based on livestock, especially sheep, and agriculture - growing grain and viticulture. Until recently, despite the cultural similarities, it was easy to determine who it was - Gagauz or Bulgarian. They always had important differences: the Bulgarians were peasants, and although the Gagauz people were engaged in agriculture, in their outlook, in fact, they were pastoralists.
Food
Many traces of the nomadic past can be found in the kitchen of the settled Gagauz. Who they are allows us to understand, for example, a special way of processing milk and preserving meat, cottage cheese and sheep’s milk. Their main food is grain in many variations. Many holidays and rituals are associated with the baking of bread, wheat bread (kalach) and unleavened cakes.
A favorite dish of the Gagauzians is a multi-layer pie stuffed with sheep's milk cheese and doused with sour cream before baking. Other delicacies include pumpkin pies and from the first milk of the cow that has just been calved. A traditional ritual dish called kurban, which is a porridge made of Bulgarian wheat with a chopped up “sacrificial” ram, is another evidence of the Balkan origin of the Gagauz people, a people with a pastoral pastoralism. Spicy meat sauces occupy a special place in the national Gagauz cuisine. In one of them, onions and finely granulated porridge are combined, and the other is prepared on the basis of tomatoes. Homemade red wine is served for lunch and dinner. An indispensable component of the festive table is jellied meat.
clothing
At the end of the 19th century, the costume of Gagauz women consisted of a canvas shirt, sleeveless dress, a bathrobe and a large black shawl. In winter, they wore a dress with sleeves, a jacket with fabric and a sleeveless coat. Mandatory features of women's clothing were earrings, bracelets, beads, and among the rich Gagauz women - a necklace of gold coins. According to a pre-revolutionary researcher, women wore so many jewelry that they covered their entire chest to the waist.
The traditional appearance of the Gagauz (photo is given in the article) included a shirt, pants, a wide red belt, and in the summer - a hat. The winter hat was made of astrakhan sheep wool. The shepherd's clothes consisted of a regular shirt combined with sheepskin pants with wool inside, a sleeveless coat and a short tanned jacket, sometimes decorated with red and green stitching.
Socio-Political Organization
Recently, in connection with an increase in demand for minorities in various professions, a need arose to improve mass communication. Unfortunately, efforts in this direction remain limited. For example, in 1988, 5.5 books were published in Gagauz for every 100 people of Gagauz nationality, compared with 297 books in Moldavian (i.e., Romanian) for every 100 people, 1293 for 100 in Estonia and an average of 807 in the former USSR as a whole.
The prospects for the survival of the national culture and the independent existence of the Gagauz are insignificant. They have the lowest ratio of people with higher education in Moldova, there is practically no artistic and very weak scientific intelligentsia, and there is an acute shortage of intellectuals in general. In 1989, half of the Gagauzs studied at state universities and polytechnic institutes than in 1918. Accordingly, they are poorly represented in government bodies, professional fields and in the service sector. This led to a national revival movement.
On November 12, 1989, an extraordinary session of representatives of the Supreme Council of Moldova adopted a resolution calling for the creation of the Gagauz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the Moldavian SSR. However, after 3 days, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Moldova could not confirm this decision, thereby violating the principle of national self-determination. Moreover, the Moldovan press launched a campaign of anti-Gagauz propaganda. Despite a number of statements about the revival of the Gagauz, the absence of the necessary conditions, including national-territorial autonomy, would impede their implementation, and they would be doomed to assimilation.
Religion
Gagauz - who is this religiously? Most of them are Orthodox Christians. Their ancestors, the Turkic-speaking cattle-breeding tribes that came from the southern Russian steppe, settled on the coast of northeastern Bulgaria and converted to Christianity in the 13th century. Despite the devotion to Christianity, which was rooted among them one and a half centuries before the Turkish conquest, the Gagauz only superficially understood the basic dogma of religion. Although at the beginning of the XX century. there were several books translated in local villages; there is no reliable evidence that the translation of the New Testament into Turkish (distributed by the Bible Society in London and using the Greek alphabet) was widely available to them.
Historical context
After the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia in 1940, the Gagauz settlements were divided between the Moldavian and Ukrainian SSR. The regions where the Gagauzians live are among the poorest in Moldova. Under Soviet rule, they were subjected to Russification by switching to the Cyrillic alphabet, introduced in 1957, and through teaching in schools in Russian from the late 1950s. About 73% of Gagauzians consider Russian as their second language, and the majority of the political elite is Russian-speaking.
Within the Soviet Union, the Gagauzians were the largest Turkic population without their territorial formation. Throughout the Soviet period, their ethnic identity remained underdeveloped. This situation quickly changed in the late 1980s, as fears of Romanization arose. Although the 1989 law allowed the use of the Gagauz language, there were strikes against raising the Moldovan level to the status of the state. In response to the declaration of sovereignty of Moldova, authorities in Comrat announced the creation of the Gagauz SSR.
Such actions led to a period of diarchy in the region. In 1992-1993, local militias periodically clashed with the Moldovan authorities, but did not intervene in the Transnistrian conflict. But Comrat collaborated with Tiraspol in promoting the idea of ​​a confederation of 3 states. Since 70% of the Gagauz people live in Moldova, they do not consider themselves a national minority, but people who have the right to national territory. The Turkish embassy supported the more moderate idea of ​​autonomy in the context of a single country.
Gagauzia Status Law
In February 1994, the Gagauz people abandoned the idea of ​​confederalizing the country and agreed to participate in the elections if their requirements for autonomy were met. The Russian-speaking block of parties won in the region. In July 1994, a new Constitution of the country was approved with an article guaranteeing autonomy for Gagauz settlements.
In December, the law "On the special legal status of Gagauzia" was adopted. In the preamble, the Gagauzians were recognized by the people, and not by an ethnic group or ethnic population, as the Soviet theory pointed out, with the right to self-determination in Moldova. The initiative combined two principles: it linked nationality to a specific territory and the concept of constitutional guarantees, the transfer of powers, representative bodies, a system of checks and balances. The law also allowed self-determination of Gagauzia, Moldova will change its status.
According to the law, the Autonomous Territorial Unit (ATO) received its own legislative body, Hulk Toplusu, elected for 4 years, and the executive bodies, headed by Bashkan, who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova. Both posts were vested with significant authority. In addition, Gagauz, Moldavian and Russian were to become the three official languages. ATO received its own court, police and security agencies in central and regional jurisdiction. Central authorities retained their finances, defense and foreign policy.
On March 5, 1995, a referendum was held to determine the borders of Gagauzia. On May 28, 1995, the elections of Bashkan and the National Assembly were held, and a referendum was held to determine the administrative center of the region, which Comrat became.
Although most of the political forces in Moldova reached a consensus on the creation of territorial autonomy, it also provoked considerable opposition. Throughout the beginning of 2000, allegations by opposition groups in Gagauz-Yeri about government interference in the affairs of the autonomous region, including election campaigning, were also strengthened, and in 2004, the Our Moldova centrist opposition alliance accused the PCRM of “totalitarianism” in Gagauz- Yeri after the resignation of mayor of Comrat Konstantin Taushanji, accused of embezzlement.
Current issues
With backward industry and the absence of other sources of income besides agriculture, Gagauzia is still the poorest region of Moldova and is heavily dependent on subsidies from the central government. There is widespread concern that further integration with the EU will adversely affect the already low standard of living and trade with Russia. Consequently, pro-Russian sentiments and sentiments against the EU are strong. The fact that the Gagauz nation stands for the fact that in 2014 almost 99% of them voted in a referendum for joining the Eurasian Economic Council, and not for closer ties with the EU.