Greeks of Tsalka: History, Culture, Language, and Crisis of Ethnic Identity
Greeks of Tsalka: History, Culture, Language, and Crisis of Ethnic Identity

Summary/Abstract: The Greeks of Tsalka is a sub-ethnic group, whose ancestors originated from the Pontus and Erzurum regions and lived for several centuries under the rule of the Ottomans. Therefore they absorbed cultural elements of many peoples of Asia Minor – Turks, Armenians, Persians, Assyrians, etc. That can be traced in their language, folklore, and rites. As a result of the Russian-Turkish wars, they were resettled to the territory of Georgia – to the Tsalka region. The migration to the territory of the Russian Empire was accomplished in several waves – after the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829 until the end of the 19th century. At the time of the resettlement, most of them forget their native language and switched to Turkish.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in Georgia, the inter-ethnic issue became very acute. In conjunction with the economic crisis, the situation forced many Greeks to leave Tsalka. Currently, the Greeks of Tsalka have a little more than 50 thousand representatives, living mainly in Greece and in southern Russia. Those who moved to Greece almost immediately faced an identity crisis, as the Greek society did not welcome them well. As a result, many Greeks of Tsalka ceased to identify themselves as Greek and tried to forge new hypotheses about their origin.

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