Toplumsal Bellekte Sürgün: Ahıska Türkleri Örneği
Exile in Collective Memory: The Case of the Ahıska Turks

Summary/Abstract: Exile, which is included in the category of forced migration, can be defined as taking individuals from the places individually or as a group, and relocating them to another region as part of a state policy. An example that can be given to exile is from the Soviet Union during the World War II. As one of today’s peoples who are left without homeland, the Ahıska Turks were sent to exile to Central Asia. This article, which aims to understand the sociopsychological effects of the exile and its place in collective memory with the example of the Ahıska Turks who were left without their homeland, is based on a qualitative study carried out between 2010 and 2013 which compares the migration and integration processes of 1989 Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria and Ahıska Turks in Turkey. Within the scope of this qualitative research, in-depth interviews were conducted with 1989 Turkish immigrants and Ahıska Turks living in Tekirdağ, Kocaeli, Istanbul and Bursa. Yet the present article includes the narratives of Ahıska Turks living in Kocaeli, Bursa and Istanbul. In the article in which some of the Ahıska Turks living in Turkey told us about the exile in 1944 and the life in exile in Uzbekistan, it is concluded that while the memories of exile and its grief were transmitted from generation to generation and caused feelings of loneliness, emptiness, longing, skepticism and anger, they did not feel rootless and humiliated and as some of the interviewees emphasised, this traumatic experience played a role in preserving and strengthening their Turkish identity.

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