Talk:Cretan Muslims/Archive 1

Move
I moved the page in 'Cretan Turks'. i think it is better. --Hectorian 01:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Number
Is anyone aware of any estimation about the number of Cretan Turks? i think it will be important for this article. --Hectorian 02:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a sourced estimate that says -if I remember right, I don't have in front of me- 30,000, which is, first, too low a number for all with Cretan Turkish descent, and second, has a rather vague basis on what is meant. We didn't live in ghettos since a century, one could indicate Cretan Turkish quarters in places like Bodrum or Ayvalık till recently, but with the rapid development of these towns, with further urbanization and with intermarriages (things that should be taken into account when evaluating all population groups in Turkey), it is very difficult to pronounce a number. I am thinking about it. I will put something if I can come up with an acceptable figure and statements. Cretanforever


 * I've found two sources about the total number of Cretan Turks. i have added both, since both seem reasonable to me (having in mind that during the population exchange of 1923, 80,000 Cretan Turks were transferred in Turkey). The figure 500,000 comes from a site (in english) that i do not know if it can be considered reliable enough. The other source, citing 200,000-300,000 comes from a greek webpage, is academic and can well be considered reliable . The page is in greek and the number is in bold towards the end of the page. The article is long enough, sourced and wellwritten... i suppose it deserves to have a numerical estimation. --Hectorian 01:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The second source seems reliable enough. --Cretanforever 13:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Turks of Cunda
At the Cunda Island island article, it says:

"The islands former Greek population was forced out in the course of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey but the Greek population was replaced by Muslim Cretans, ensuring that the island retains a largely Greek atmosphere."

I wanted to know if (a) the Muslim Cretans of Cunda are Cretan Turks or Albanians, (b) who wanted to "ensure" that the island retains a largely Greek atmosphere, and (c) if there are any sources that state this. I know I probably should be asking this at the talk page there, but more people have this page watchlisted. &mdash; Khoikhoi 01:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll try to answer:
 * (a) They simply can't be Albanians. From the early beginning i thought that the inclusion of the Albanians as ancestors of Cretan Turks was just an exagerration serving two purposes: 1. To underestimate the Greek contribution (which was the most significant one, as seen in their language, traditions, customs, music, vendettas, etc etc etc). 2. To show some sort of a very close relationship with the only muslim distinct balkan nation. (but of course, i am Greek, so my POV is not a surprise)
 * (b) The Cretan Turks were settled in the coastal areas of Turkey, not in the mainland. Since Turkey was the one to choose were to place the exchanged population, it was definately not an "attempt" to ensure that the island will retain a largely Greek atmosphere, but more like a socio-economic matter: farmers from Thessaly or workers from Thessaloniki could do nothing in a small island. Cretans could!
 * (c) No idea about sources. Btw, i just learnt the turkish name... I've always knew the place by its greek one... --Hectorian 02:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * (a) Ok, thanks. If we find a source it should be changed to Cretan Turks.
 * (b) İlginç.
 * (c) I'll try to do some research myself. &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My inclusion of Albanians was a reference to the fact that Crete has been under the administration of an Albanian dynasty and an Albanian governor for 20 years (as aside natural moves by members of that nation during a larger period of time along with other ethnicities of the Empire). Any Albanian element plausibly became Turkified in time rather than Hellenized.

If Greeks had been seen to have a Bavarian touch, for example to have applied Germanic solutions to situations, that would have been worthy of mention. But since the mentioning style remained shaky, I removed Albanians. Cretanforever


 * Ok, thanks for the explanation. &mdash; Khoikhoi 20:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

(moved from Talk:Crete)

 * The article Miskin moved and editted is about Cretan Muslims in Turkey. There are also Cretan Muslims in Syria and Lebanon (village of Hamidie being the most important). There Cretans are Muslims, but have nothing to do with Turks. The term 'turk' simply meant 'muslim' during the ottoman times in all the Balkans and the places conquered by the ottomans. a note in Cretan Turks that the name does not imply ethnic origin, but rather religious affiliation would be fair enough. Muslim Cretans include Cretan Turks, but they are not limited to them. About the turkish name in the lead of Crete article, pls all have in mind that the Cretan Turks were speaking Greek, so, they called the island nothing more than 'Kriti'. if now their descendants in Turkey speak turkish, this is none of their fault, and if we add how they now call Crete is simply anachronistic (at least). About the population figures in Cretan Turks, it was me who added them (with Cretanforever accepting them). both figures come from greek sources (see talk there), cause it was imposimple to find not even a turkish one. both figures seem resonable to me, since back in 1923 500,000 muslims from greece were transfered in turkey. from these, more than 100,000 were from Crete. so, both figures make sense, 83 years later (the second one if we take in mind intermarriages as well). --Hectorian 20:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with your logic. The article claims 400-500K 'Cretan Turks', that's simply ridiculous. If we abstractly count the next generations as 'Cretan Turks' then we're doing OR (unless of course we start claiming a population of 5,000,000 "Asian Greeks"). I'll find more English sources and make edits according to consensus. By the way, Google book search gives 9 results for "Cretan Turks" and 30 for "Cretan Muslims". Test it for yourself in any search engine you want. I don't care what those people are called in Turkey today (formerly "semi-infidels"), it's against wp policy to use it here. The fact that Greek sources have always called them 'Turks' is also irrelevant. Since as you say the "Cretan Muslims" have no particular connection to Turkey, then the article head must be completely rewritten cos it's giving the wrong definition. It describes "Cretan Muslims" and calls them "Cretan Turks". Miskin 20:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I re-added population figures with sources. pls, do not remove unless u have better sources. for the record, google search gives me 151 results for "Cretan Turks" and 323 for "Cretan Muslims", in Google Greece, i mean. Hectorian 20:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * ...and 469 for "Τουρκοκρητικοί". &mdash; Khoikhoi 20:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * not exactly... in fact 562 for "Τουρκοκρητικοί" in google.gr... Hectorian 20:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

So it appears that the google web and book searches favour me, isn't that enough of an argument to perform a move? On the numbers: The "source" which gives 500K can hardly qualify as a source for the obvious reasons. The Greek source which gives the 200-300 gives a figure on the "Greek-speaking population of Turkey that descend from Cretan Muslims", and not on the Cretan Muslims who left Greece during the exchanges. It's simply a different thing. The article has to be specific, it will either speak about the Cretan Muslims (converted Greeks) who went to Turkey along with the exchanges, or about the Cretan Turks i.e. the Turkified ancestors of the formers. It cannot remain abstract and imply a massive Turkish population in Crete. Have a look at source from google books, it claims "some 30,000 in total". Miskin 21:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I also have 3 different neutral sources that clearly state that 'Cretan Muslims' were converted Greeks, therefore the term "Cretan Turks" is anachronistic. Unless of course we start speaking about "Arvanite Greeks". Miskin 21:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

My demands: or Clearly state the "Cretan Turks" refers to ancestors of the Turkicified "Muslim Cretans", and not the actual muslims who once lived in Crete. I think it's a reasonable thing to ask. Miskin 21:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove Sci-Fi figures
 * Rename the article

Any comments? Miskin 21:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's another source which backs up the figure of 30,000 Hectorian:

"The expulsion, in 1923, of the 30,000 Muslims of Crete (comprising approximately 9% and not "15 per cent of the population") was an awful episode, not only in the history of that island, but, more generally, in those of the newly formed Republic of Turkey and that of Greece." Miskin 22:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This discussion should had started here at first place, but anyway... Khoikhoi was kind enough to move it:).
 * I have no problem concerning the population figures, however i have to say that in every case i tend to favour the mentioning of 2 figures (lowest and highest) and let the readers decide which is valid, instead of causing rv-wars for such a matter.
 * Concerning your second demand, Miskin, i would not agree in a rename of the article. But i would like u to present your 3 sources, and to fix the article's lead and content, in order to express both POVs. I also believe that the Cretan Turks are islamized and turkified local Cretan population, and this (supported by credible sources) should be made very clear in this article.
 * In addition, i would like seeing the creation of a category named 'Cretan Muslims', in which people of Cretan descent and culture will be included (i.e. 'Cretan Turks', 'Cretan Greek-speaking muslims in Syria' and '... in Libya'). All these 3 population groups are of Cretan descent and muslim faith. those in Syria and Libya are aware of their Greek heritage and continue to speak the Greek language-those in Turkey have more or less been assimilated. This has to be made clear here.
 * BTW, the figure u just provided talks about those expelled, not about those of Cretan heritage. Hectorian 22:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

This is contradictory however because the article explicitely claims 45% of Crete's population, a completely unsupported claim. Miskin 22:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

From Misha Glenny's: The Balkans (1999): The fall of Crete was not however accompanied by a significant influx of Muslims from elsewhere in teh Empire. Instead, local Greek notables converted to Islam and continued in their role as chief landowners and administrators so that the Cretan ruling class remained Greek-speaking. Bt the bulk of the population not only declined to convert, they refused to accept the Sultan's rule, unlike Christians in other parts of the Empire. The section history must be re-written, figures of 45% and 100K of the population are simply not accepted by modern sources. Miskin 22:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

In my view the article's content and subject the way you present it is still the result of original research. I have yet to deal with an anglophone source that speaks about "Cretan Turks: the ancestors of Cretan muslims". "Cretan Turks" is used by english-speaking authors in a non-scientific context to refer to the Cretan Muslims. The article's head is equally ridiculous: An "ethnic turkic population"? How come the Arvanites are not an "ethnic Hellenic population" then? The article's overall overtone implies the Turkish nationalist fantasy of "a muslim Crete" annexed to Greece. This is not a Turkish schoolbook, it takes more than ethnic insecurities to name and compile an article. Miskin 22:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to see some corrections in this article, if u are willing to do so. But please, do not rename it. If the term 'Cretan Turk' is anachronistic, the term 'Turkish people' is anachronistic as well. --Hectorian 22:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the head but I'm still not satisfied, it appears that the article needs a cleanup. Despite what you say, the article clearly speaks about the "Cretan Muslims" in general, and not just the ancestors of those Cretan Muslims who migrated to Turkey (like Cretanforever). Actually, it speaks selectively, according to its editor's preferences. In any case, I'm not willing to compromise on something as primitive, WP:POLICY is pretty clear on such matters. Leaving the article at its current state is clearly OR of the worst kind, but as I don't want to play the bad guy here, I'm voting for a strong cleanup. Miskin 22:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course the use of "Turkish people" when referring to the pre-kemalist era is anachronistic, but as I said, I don't want to be the bad guy here. After all, 'Turks' was widely in use by non-Ottoman people to refer to the Ottomans, just like 'Greeks' was in use by non-Greeks to refer to the Byzantines. So whether anachronistic or not, it was in use. It's not the case of course with 'Cretan Turks', who were clearly a converted ethnic Greek people. Miskin 22:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

>>"Neighbors, don't bank too much on geneaology. Eisenhower and Nimitz had German ancestry. Just to state the truth, we don't like you." This is equivalent to "I am in denial". Do you really think that wikipedia articles are built according to their editors' personal ethnic insecurities? Think again. Miskin 14:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please review WP:CIVIL, Miskin. &mdash; Khoikhoi 00:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Khoikhoi under what arguments are you disputing the liberation of Crete? Is it Crete another of those places that were contested 50-50 between Turks and Greeks? Well you're wrong, and the fact that you believe such a thing shows why this article needs to be renamed.Miskin 01:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Miskin, I want you to imagine that you are a Turk living in Crete in 1909. Would you prefer the island you live in to become part of Greece or remain part of the Ottoman Empire? Remember that you are Turkish, not Greek (we are still pretending here). What do you think your future will be now that Crete is part of Greece? Think about that. &mdash; Khoikhoi 01:48, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

First of all there were no "Turks" in Crete by 1909, there were only Muslim Cretans who later became (amongst other nationalities) Turkish by _force_. The article's name is giving the wrong idea about what went on. If 91% of Greek Cretans doesn't count as representative, then neither should the smaller number of Greeks in Peloponnese of 1821. What next? Should we rename the Greek war of Independence to Phanariote rule in Peloponnese or something? I'll give you another example. Think of the war of the Maccabees against Antiochus the Illustrious. A _great_ part of Hellenized Jews supported the Greek rulers at the time, yet we're talking about the revolution and liberation of Israel from Hellenistic rule. Nobody speaks about the "Rule of the Maccabees over the Greco-Jewish land of Israel" and nobody even considers the position of Hellenized Jews in the Israilite society. Crete is not Macedonia, you must understand which "ethnic group" has the right to be the owner of the island. Miskin 02:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Conversion
About the last addition:  In Ottoman Empire's Millet system, both were acts of bureaucratic, legal and social consequences.. why do we have to make it seem the same? It wasn't. Conversion to Islam was encouraged by the Ottoman system, but conversion to Christianity was not only discouraged (additional taxes, janissaries, etc), but, at least in the first centuries, punished by death. Hectorian 11:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

You have it Hectorian! The conversions had bureaucratic, legal and social consequences. I will add a link to State and Religion (Ottoman Empire) in the footnote. Cretanforever

Huh?
In response to this:

Miskin, per WP:NPOV, we shouldn't have an article that only reflects the Greek POV, we should include the Turkish one as well (for obvious reasons). Could you please clarify what you meant? &mdash; Khoikhoi 01:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

What I mean is that I provided my sources earlier and I'm pretty sure that they're far from "Greek POV". Claims such as "turkic tribe migrations" are plainly ludicrous and do not have any place in a serious encyclopaedia. We can't just add the opposite of what all neutral sources state, just because it is an editor's point view. Cretanforever's last edits made no improvements whatsoever, they just readded the POV I've been trying to remove. The article's title is Turkish POV anyway, I think it's enough for one article. As for the edit on "liberation", it's basically the opposite of "occupation", quite a simple concept. Miskin 01:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For unsourced claims that you dispute, simply add fact tags to them. If they have sources but the sources are biased, rephrase the claims and attribute them properly (i.e. "according to Turkish sources..."). Both "liberation and "occupation" are POV, the most neutral wording I can think of is "became part of Greece". &mdash; Khoikhoi 01:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I did rephrase the whole thing and Cretanforever changed it back to his version. My sources on this matter are pretty straight-forward, and Cretanforever's edits are implying basically the opposite. It's just too POV to get away with a 'fact' tag. So far the only reason he's given is "let's keep this origin out, we don't like Greeks" or something like that. I don't understand how a clearly Greek territory that fights for union with Greece cannot use the term 'liberation'. It's just absurde. NPOV doesn't mean "mask the truth in order to make everyone happy", you also need to use common sense. Miskin 01:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's also common sense that even if the island was 100% "pure Greek" at the time, that doesn't stop the fact that Greek scholars on the issue have a certain POV and Turkish scholars have another. Instaed of trying to find a neutral alternative you're trying to find a loophole in order to push a certain view. :-( &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Again, I haven't included a single Greek scholar in my sources. Therefore it's fair to not use a Turkish scholar either and let the non-partisan sources reflect the truth. Miskin 02:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No one said you didn't have to include Greek scholars. Turkish and Greek citations can definately be included—they just have to be attributed properly. &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see sources and direct citations on the following claims: Miskin 01:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * are the terms used to refer to the Muslim inhabitants of Crete when it was part of the Ottoman Empire and who continued to live there, in progressively decreasing numbers as the Ottoman control over the island weakened, up until the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations in 1922-1923.
 * These terms are used today for their descendants, who are principally in Turkey, but also in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Palestine, as well as in other countries through diasporic movements.
 * Muslim Cretans came about as a consequence of the Ottoman rule in Crete that started in 1645 through Turkish migrations


 * Then add the tags. &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I double checked on the internet and verified that the term "liberation of crete" is in fact widely used. If for no good reason because the island acquired the status of an independent state before uniting with the Greek Kingdom. Miskin 02:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * So...because it's widely used it's therefore NPOV? &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Because it's widely used and because it is correct, for the reasons I just explained. Miskin 02:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * How is it correct? Do you really think Cretan Muslims were overjoyed for Crete to become part of Greece? Do all Turkish historians call it liberation as well? &mdash; Khoikhoi 02:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

They were certainly not overjoyed to find themselves in Turkey and be labeled the "semi-infidel" either. Despite their origin, they were muslims i.e. by Ottoman law - the conquerors. Therefore their minority view doesn't represent the Cretans any more than the French colonists in Algeria represented the Algerian muslim population. Miskin 02:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Besides Crete became later an independent state, which means that it was liberated from something. The fact that it chose to unify with Greece, means also something. But you're suggesting to ignore all that by claiming a misinterpreted NPOV policy. Miskin 02:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to include any Greek sources, precisely because I don't want to have to deal with Turkish POV. What Turkish historians claim is none of wikipedia's concern. Don't forget that we're dealing with a "scholarship" that shamelessly refuses three different genocides. If some of their claims on the specific topic are correct, then I'm sure we can find them in non-partisan sources. End of story. Miskin 02:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it's not the "end of story". Miskin, no one is asking you to not include Greek sources, but there isn't a policy against Turkish ones, either. This is not just an issue between Muslim and Christian Cretans—suppose we write an article about a small village in Nagorno-Karabakh home to both Armenians and Azeris: when the Armenians invaded the village (which was predominately Armenian at the time) and expelled the Azeris, can we call this liberation, and present it as a neutral, undisputed fact?


 * Here's another example, see this part of User:Kober/History of Abkhazia:


 * "Modern Abkhazian historians insist that large areas of the region were left uninhabited, and that many Armenians, Georgians and Russians subsequently migrated to Abkhazia, resettling much of the vacated territory. This version of events is strongly contested by Georgian historians who argue that the local groups of the Georgian people always constituted the majority in Abkhazia. Either way, at the beginning of the 20th century ethnic Abkhaz were a minority in the region. The Encyclopædia Britannica reported in 1911 that in Sukhumi (population at the time 43.000), two-thirds of the population were Mingrelian Georgians and one-third were Abkhaz. In 1881, the number of the Abkhaz in the Russian Empire was estimated at only 20,000. Those Abkhaz who remained in Abkhazia were declared by the Russian government a 'guilty people' and 'temporary population' and deprived of the right to settle in the coastal areas."


 * Do you see how both POVs are represented, while in the wording one is not given more priority than the other? It's not our job to sway the reader like this...let him/her decide who is right here. NPOV dictates that all views should be heard. I assume this includes the Turkish POV (which FYI does not even have to be presented as an undisputed fact). Not including it is pure censorship. &mdash; Khoikhoi 03:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't be so naive. You keep argueing on the inclusion of sources that you haven't even seen yet. Miskin 12:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but your examples are not of similar cases. Please, just stay out of this one, it's out of your league and you're only making things worse. The presence of a poor fella like Cretanforever who's in denial of his past has made you to believe that there used to be Turks in Crete. I restored in the article the only edit which claimed a source. WP:CITE is a policy therefore I have to the right to remove anything that doesn't have one. I'd like to see a direct citation for the following claim: My previous requests were ignored, and so were the associated edits. Miskin 11:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * According to William Yale, when the Greek War of Independence broke out on the mainland in 1821, the population of Crete was approximately 290,000, of whom 160,000 were Moslems and 130,000 were Christians


 * Hmm that's very interesting... I just managed to find this book on the internet and this is what William Yale says:

"...in Crete where a Cretan Moslem population of only 30,000 out of a total population of 300,000 had had since 1897 equal political and civil rights with the Christian majority..." What do you know, another source which supports the 30,000 figure since 1897. I can't find a single reference on a moslem majority of 160,000. He basically says the same things as Glenny. I gotta admit, those Turks are experts at presenting themselves as victims and making other people feel sorry for them. After all, they have fooled every editor on this article. Anyway, since I verified for myself that this source does NOT back up those edits, I'm forced to remove them until Cretanforever proves otherwise. For the time being all I see is that either Cretanforever is lying about his sources, or that he trust Turkish claims too much. Either way, it's a shame that this sort of poor contribution can go in wikipedia unpunished. Miskin 12:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm proposing according to NAME to rename this article to Cretan Muslims and keep "Cretan Turks" as a sub-section. 80% of the article speaks about the 30,000 Greek Cretan Muslims and not their 300,000 Turkish ancestors, therefore it is against wp:policy to keep it under such a name. An alternative solution would be to start an article on Cretan Muslims, and move the related sections from here. The decision is yours, but one thing's for certain: the article cannot stay in this condition. Miskin 12:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Update
Miskin, somehow I doubt that you read every single source that Cretanforever added to this article... There is nothing to justify a full revert of his work like that. &mdash; Khoikhoi 21:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What I'm somehow sure of, is that you haven't been following the dispute at all. What sources did I remove? Source number 1 is on the name "Cretan Muslims" or "Cretan Turks", something nobody questioned and it was removed during the revert, you can add it back in the NPOV article. Source number 2 is on the term "ihtida", so likewise. What I removed was everything that involved the claims of source number 3, i.e. The Near East: A Modern History by William Yale. The text can be found on digital form under subscription on www.questia.com, and I did check it. As I stated above, it claims since the 19th century the analogy of 30K muslims versus 300K Christians, just like the majority of sources do. Cretanforever's claims of a 160K-120K analogy that kept magically decreasing was simply not claimed in the book. The rest of the edits that I removed were pure OR that claimed no source at all, and were based on his fantasy that the island's majority had at some point been muslim. I would advice you to re-read the WP:NPOV policy and pay particular attention at the section Undue weight. You will then realise that an under-supported view does not take precedence over the mainstream views, let alone dominate the article and its head. Of course, for the time being, there is no source whatsoever for Cretanforever's edits, hence you should be looking at WP:VERIFY and WP:OR to find out why I did what I did. Miskin 22:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm keeping however the tag as I'm planning to proceed on a rename to Cretan Muslims, according to wikipedia's naming policy. Miskin 22:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This article (the apparently disputed part)
One result of the Ottoman conquest was that a sizeable proportion of the population converted to Islam (same phrasing as below). Contemporary estimates vary, but on the eve of the Greek War of Independence the majority of the population of the island may have been Muslim. According to William Yale, when the Greek War of Independence broke out on the mainland in 1821, the population of Crete was approximately 290,000, of whom 160,000 were Moslems and 130,000 were Christians; and the overwhelming majority of these were Greek-speaking Cretans (William Yale) [3]. One Greek source notes that, had it not been for the Greek War of Independece, the island would have been completely Islamicized (William Yale confirmed by a Greek source). [4] Whereas, according to Misha Glenny, unlike other Ottoman provinces, the fall of Crete was not accompanied by a large influx of muslims. A minority of the population (local Greek notables) converted to Islam, so that the Cretan ruling class would remain Greek-speaking. The majority of contemporary estimates calculate the number of Muslim Cretans at the eve of the 20th century at 30,000, 9% of the island's population (Contradicting source in line with NPOV policy). The majority were local Greek converts who spoke Cratan Greek. Their descendants are still found in several Muslim countries today, and principally in Turkey (numbering over 200,000). They have a tendency to attribute their origins to an ancestor from Anatolia. There may be some historical foundation to this if the ancestors were in fact Janissaries. This possibility is strengthened by the fact that many of these families still have connections with the Bektashi order of dervishes, the religious affiliation of the Janissaries (same phrasing as below). The emergence within the Ottoman Divan poetry of a distinct "Cretan school" that had largely evolved around dervish orders and counting twenty-one recognized poets is yet another interesting point in this perspective [5] (additional info, I can open pages for each of these poets, add verses:). There were also intermarriages between Cretan Christians and Muslims until the middle of the 19th century, and possibly later (same phrasing as below).

and the wikipedia article on


 * Hello, welcome to wikipedia. Read WP:CITE before citing an other article as your source (which is also about to be corrected according to NPOV policy anyway). Miskin 06:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

History of Crete
One result of the Ottoman conquest was that a sizeable proportion of the population converted to Islam. Contemporary estimates vary, but on the eve of the Greek War of Independence as much as 45% of the population[1] of the island may have been Muslim. It declined sharply during the 19th century and there are conflicting estimates of its numbers, but according to British consular reports which are probably the most independent guesses, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Cretan Muslims still numbered around 100,000. Though some of this Muslim population was accounted for by officials, soldiers and immigrants from Turkey, an important part was local converts who continued to speak Greek and even write it in Arabic script. Descendants of these Turco-Cretans are still found in several Muslim countries today. Each family tends to attribute its origins to an ancestor from Anatolia. There may be some historical foundation to this if the ancestors were in fact Janissaries. This possibility is strengthened by the fact that many of these families still have connections with the Bektashi order of dervishes, the religious affiliation of the Janissaries, which also led to the emergence of a school of a Cretan Bektashi literature (in Turkish). There was also intermarriage between Cretan Christians and Muslims until the middle of the nineteenth century, and possibly later. In Crete, as in other Ottoman lands, there were also Crypto-Christians, families which were outwardly Muslim but some of whom retained their Christian identity in private.

Rahmizâde Bahaeddin Bediz

I saw the edits on History of Crete. And I understand. That's what happens if you change between faiths like between overcoats:) If we don't want to see 21 poets from Ottoman Divan poetry tradition ornamenting this page (with more to come), I am putting it back to Cretan Turks (or Turkish Cretans, that suits me fine too), with explanatory footnote at the first line. With the second footnote on the "muhtedî" and the "mürtedî" following. :)

Joke apart, you risk having an empty page with Cretan Moslems. It's not the first term one would use for the individuals mentioned here. But I can provide info on former Cretan Moslems, who remain very much traceable on an individual basis. 

Cretanforever

This article is on Cretan Muslims, which doesn't mean "Turks". If you want a separate article on the ancestors of the Muslims who came to Turkey from Crete, you'll need to start it from scratch, or borrow the 5 relevant lines from the present article. Miskin 17:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Move warring
Can people please stop move warring. I admit I participated only for WP:POINT reasons, and I wanted to try that move block trick Khoikhoi uses a lot, but maybe we should get an admin to move it to its original location and then follow the procedure properly. --Tzekai 16:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'll talk to an admin right now. BTW, "Muslems" isn't even spelled correctly. &mdash; Khoikhoi 17:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The "Muslems" was a typo. I need to learn that move+block trick as well. Khoikhoi we did the google test together, you know wp naming policy already, so I don't even know why you're still arguing on this. Miskin 17:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * See and . Just start a WP:RM poll, leave it for a couple of days, and if you are right, then it will be moved to the proper title (Cretan Muslims) and it will be end of story. --Tzekai 17:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, what was wrong with my Cretan Mohammedans? :p --Tzekai 17:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Dirty trick... Miskin 22:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are we going to move the article to its proper name or are we going to troll some more khoikhoi? Miskin 23:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that unilateral moves without discussion and concensus are against the policies of Wikipedia. Subsequently, users who had performed those unilateral moves have been blocked for a 24h period. Please, discuss the issue here before moving anything unilateraly. Thanks. -- Szvest 23:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not just about khoikhoi, miskin.. There is no concensus, I also see that you tried to get it moved three weeks ago.. In any case what is this circus of Moslem, Muslem, Mohammedans? What is this talk of Google tests?? Google is not an academic source.. It can give an idea, but nothing more. Period..Baristarim 23:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In fact, if you are so much interested in an article about Cretan Muslims, please go start one miskin. But respect other people's work and don't move this article like you did.. Baristarim 23:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This article talks about Cretan Muslims, it does not give special focus to Cretan Turks. Actually this article's name was originally Cretan Muslims, it was moved without consensus some time ago. See wikipedia's naming policy, the Google test is suggested there. Miskin 00:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is the first version of the article by Cretanforever. It was at "Turkish Cretans", not "Cretan Muslims". &mdash; Khoikhoi 00:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess a specific comment gave me the wrong idea. Either way this name doesn't comply to WP:NAME nor the related naming conventions, and you know very well khoikhoi the results of the google test, I don't understand what pleasure you receive but continue opposing my edits here. WP:NAME is a POLICY, which means that we don't have to reach a consensus to perform a move. In any case, more than 3 editors were in agreement. Miskin 00:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ummm, make that four... •N i k o S il v e r•  00:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

(to Miskin) How does it comply to WP:NAME? Who says we don't have to follow consensus? Is it because you think it complies or because you know it complies? Three Four editors agreeing? What about me, Cretanforever, and Baristarim—do we not count? &mdash; Khoikhoi 00:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Khoikhoi is right about the article's creation. i then removed it to 'Cretan Turks' for reasons i explained on that 'move summary', without creating any tentions with the creator of the article, Cretanforever. However, at that time the article was in an 'infant status', lacking basic characteristics (culture, population figures, history) and talking only about cretans who spoke turkish, were muslims and had a turkish national identity. and all those based on the then sources provided (note that the info of some of them was altered in the article). now, the article is talking about greek-speaking muslims, local converts and Cretans of muslim faith in counties other than Turkey (notably Syria, Lebanon, Egypt). having the article under the current title, the next thing i expect is to list the people of Al Hamidiyah in Turkish diaspora (huh?!). the article has to be remained into 'Cretan Muslims', where 'Cretan Turks' will be a section, or it should be split, and the 'Cretan Turks' article will talk only about those it has to (id est, those Cretan Muslims who live in Turkey today). maybe a category 'Cretan Muslims' would be created then, in order to include all. Hectorian 00:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps then we could move some if this article's cotent to a new article called Islam in Crete, as a sub-article of Islam in Greece. &mdash; Khoikhoi 00:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hector's comment illustrated the exact impression I had when I read the article. I oppose to 'split', and agree to 'sub-heading'. Khoi's proposal: I need a little time to think. •N i k o S il v e r•  01:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with Khoikhoi's new suggestion. Keep in mind though that this would require editing the article as well. A rename to Cretan Muslims would only require an article move. Miskin 01:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I oppose to split the article as well (i tried to illustrate the 2 options that we have before), for no other reason, but that we will just create some more stubs... 'sub-heading' will be better. i am not sure if 'Islam in Crete' would be a good article and not just a repetition of 'Cretan Muslims'... In addition, what i see in similar articles about '(religion) in (country)' is that they are talking about the present, not the past. in the same way, we could create an article Greek Orthodoxy in Cappadocia, which would be nothing more than a repetition of Cappadocian Greek and Karamanlides, not to mention that it would talk about faithful that no longer live in Cappadocia. Hectorian 01:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright, it was just a suggestion anyways. I'll try to think of some more. &mdash; Khoikhoi 01:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Hectorian. Amongst other things, 'Islam in Crete' would offer opportunities for POV-forking. "Cretan Muslims" however is the standard anglophone term, and I never understood why neutral people opposed it. Miskin 01:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No absoloutely not, i oppose any move. This article is specifically to do with descendents of the Ottoman Empire in Crete who consider themselves Turks, that is enough to warrant the articles entry. If people are trying to change the articles focus towards Islam, then create a new article. --A.Garnet 07:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I heartily support the idea of an article titled Islam in Crete, so that this article remains focused on people. Cretanforever

That suggestion was about moving the current article to 'Islam in Crete', not creating a new one. A. Garnet do you have any English sources that can support your claim? After having seen your arguments against the Pontic Greek genocide I find it hypocritical that you suggest such a thing. Despite what you say, 80% of the Article focuses on Cretan Greeks of the Muslim religion, and not on Turks. The Cretan Turks are treated in their respective section. The "An eye for an eye" strategy that you're trying to apply is a really poor editing practice. Miskin 10:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

POLICY

 * Google web search gives 348 results for "Cretan Muslims" and 100 for "Cretan Turks".
 * Google book search gives Books 1 - 10 with 49 pages on "cretan muslims" and Books 1 - 9 with 9 pages on "cretan turks".
 * Google scholar search gives 26 for "Cretan muslims" and 5 for "Cretan Turks".

Quoting from WP:NAME: Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. and A number of methods can be used to identify which of a pair (or more) conflicting names is the most prevalent in English: The Google test. Using Google's advanced search option, search for each conflicting name and confine the results to pages written in English; also exclude the word "Wikipedia" (as we want to see what other people are using, not our own usage). Note which is the most commonly used term.

Is anyone still not convinced that this is a WP:POLICY issue and does not require a consensus? If yes, then explain before making any alternative suggestions. If not then I should proceed with the move. Miskin 11:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that's not the point. You can split the article into two: One for Cretan Muslims and one for Cretan Turks. There is enough written under Cretan Turks and a list of them to warrant an article (plus history).. Cretan Turks refers to something specific, it is not upto you to decide if it is notable or not.. If you want, split the article than add the first part of this article to it, if you really would like to write about Cretan Muslims and their history, you can imporove it too.. :)) There is no basis for deletion - Religion and Race are not the samething, but it is not fair to delete Cretan Turks'' this way.. Baristarim 13:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've already proposed that in the past. Miskin 21:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Nah, the article current state is still trying to imply that Cretan Muslim = Turk. I'll realise now the solution proposed by two of the Turkish editors, before it gets any worse. Miskin 10:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally, I would have no problem, and in fact approve if you split the article into two and remove the contents about only Muslims, and leave an article that talked about the Cretan Turks, what kinda bothered me however, is the fact that you seemed to want to delete the article and just wipe out the Cretan Turks article, maybe I was mistaken, I don't know.. Baristarim 18:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I know you don't Baristarim, me you and Garnet independently proposed the same thing, Khoikhoi is only opposing every single of edits because of personal reasons. I never wanted to wipe out the article, initially I wanted to add it a section of the same article for practical reasons. Miskin 18:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What personal reasons? &mdash; Khoikhoi 18:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, ask yourself. Miskin 18:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, normally I don't talk to myself... &mdash; Khoikhoi 18:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

We need a Cretan language article
Cretan language achieved recognition by the EU as a distinct language according to this link, yet there is no article on wikipedia about it. There is one on Eteocretan language, but that relates to antiquity and even before. We definitely need an article on the living Giritçe. Instead of turning this page into a juggling ball till the boil point, it could be a nice starting point and a good homework for Cretan Christians (or, sometimes Muslims, sometimes Christians, according to how the wind blows, since "Cretans dislike investments with poor returns" source: same link). It is always better to start from home rather than ... (I will stop there). Cretanforever 11:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I really admire your enthusiasm, Cretanforever;-). but the link u provided is really stupid... There is no objection among the world's serious linguists that the 'Cretan dialect' stems from Koine Greek (just like all the other modern greek dialects, apart from Tsakonian and, maybe, Griko). In addition, Linear A has not yet been read, so, any suggestion that it has anything to do with modern 'Kritika' is in a theoretical base. and, btw, the 'Eteocretan language' may had nothing to do with modern Cretan (since it is considered by many as Pelasgian-however, the relation between Greek-Pelasgian is somehow obscure, and no answer can be given for both of the above, unless Linear A is read... sadly, Michael Ventris died so young...). Furthermore, Ancient Greek is not dead... it is still alive, passing through medieval-byzantine to modern greek (like a human being that gets older through time...). A modern Cretan speaker would have the same potential to understand an ancient ancestor in Knossos, Mycenae, or elsewhere in Greece, as a modern e.g. Thessalian. Also, saying that Cretan has remaned "purer" than other greek dialects is indeed laughable!:). In mainland Greece there are many linguistic infuences from turkish and slavic languages, whereas in the islands (Crete, Ionian and Aegean isl.) and also Cyprus the italian, latin and french infuence is more than evident... I guess u know that the most important works of early modern greek literature (Erotokritos, King Rodolinos, Voskopoula, Katzourbos, Panoria, and of course Erophile) were written in the cretan dialect, and many scholars suggest that, had Crete not fallen in 1669, the cretan dialect may had become Standard Greek (instead of the modern standard greek, largely based on the Peloponnesian dialect for obvious reasons). However, i support the creation of an article like that, but named Cretan dialect. think it would be really interesting... Regards Hectorian 12:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

All this is material for an article Hectorian, not for a talk page:) . I see stuff heaving to be born in the form of an article. Till then, I kindly request that the work I have done, and prepared to do still, for this article be respected. May each user concentrate on what he knows or he has the grounds to develop. You are from Thessaly, right? (joking:) Cretanforever 12:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * LOL... yes, i am from Thessaly... i think i should had used another greek subgroup as an example;-) (if i remember well, i had told u i'm from Thessaly in your talk, anyway...). I am thinking of creating an article on 'Cretan dialect' soon, cause u re-enforced my interest on that! Your work on this article is much appreciated and respected on my behalf. but, i will remove the 'Albanians' from the 'Infobox: related ethnic groups'... I think it does not represent the very minor contribution they have in 'Cretan Turks' (perhaps they are as important as the Venetians or the Arabs or Romans are for the whole island). feel free to re-add it, but do consider it first. Regards Hectorian 12:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hectorian, I already removed the Albanians from the lead. As I stated before, the island has been ruled by an Albanian dynasty and an Albanian governor for 20 years. The first two Khedives of Egypt had shaped a very dynamic power for their time. In Çukurova, the same Khedives drastically changed the economy and added new elements into the human colors of the region within 9 years. When I was in Rethymnon, I was told that "this place and that place" were the Turkish quarters, and "this place" was the Albanian quarter. What they became is, at the end of the day, plausibly a question of individual history for each. But they deserve to be mentioned here because of the relative parallels in the spheres of culture. I included Matthew of Candia, an Armenian who had evolved within Turkish cultural spheres, for the same reasons, but he has been deleted. If there weren't any Turkish Cretans, none would have had any connections with the island. I display my arguments in appreciation of your general wikipedian qualities. Cretanforever 13:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the compliment:). I have to admit that i am not much aware of the Cretan history during the 19th century, at least this is when i suppose the 'albanian quarters' u mentioned were formed... 20 years of albanian governors, or maybe some more decades of albanian infuence, i think are not enough to be mentioned in the infobox (note that Romans, Arabs, Venetians, Jews had had more infuence on the island and its people and for much longer, but are not mentioned at all...). I would propose, though, to mention this in detail in the main body of the article. having 'Greeks' and 'Turks' as related ethnic groups in the box, i think its the most widely accepted and no disputed at all. (i am not disputing Albanians' contribution, but their prominence). If u think differently (and maybe know better) re-add it, i won't revert it... Regards Hectorian 13:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Well done! We are a step closer to a purely Greek History of Crete:) Cretanforever 17:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Huh? Hectorian 07:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I am still waiting for a Cretan language or Cretan dialect (decide!) article to be started in order to pursue here. At this moment, the article makes reference to many Cretan Turks "preserving their unique culture, traditions, and Greek language" which needs an additional touch of precision. It will be a kakomira thing if I have to start the Giritçe article:) Cretanforever 07:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * U will have to wait no more:). Cretan Greek. I know, it needs work. i added to it material from Modern Greek literature and some facts from History of Crete. it stll needs information about the structure and its grammar feutures. for the other possible requests for citations, they will be provided as time passes. Feel free to make corrections and to add info. to be honest, i am curious (and interested, i must say) to see info about the present usage of the dialect by your Cretan compatriots there! Regards Hectorian 15:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thx, at least there is an article now. There's work to do! One day I will be back and claim this place for the people of Afrika! (never mind! it's just a Lenny Henry quote that rose to my mind:) Cretanforever 19:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there such a thing?
Was there ever such a thing as a 'Cretan Turk'? I mean, they are not native inhabitants to the island, it's a bit like saying Turkish 'Cypriot'. Perhaps we should draw the distinction between the native inhabitants (Cretans) and the Turks?

What the heck is "native inhabitants" ? So Greeks are not native to Greece too. According to sub saharan theory, they've migrated to "Greece" from Ethiopia, so ... --BlueEyedCat 00:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Such personal views and poor referencing is the source of most content disputes in wikipedia, BlueEyedCat. Miskin 14:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

?
What is "Turkkritikoi"? Baristarim 13:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Where did u see that? Probably it is a typo: Turkokritikoi, somehow bad translileration from greek Τουρκοκρητικοί/Tourkokritikoi/turkokritiki (the last one being the closest phonologically in the english language, the second being a mixture of phonology in latin characters+greek orthography:). Hectorian 13:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

POV check
I know that in rare cases the term "Cretan Turks" is used as direct translation of the Greek 'Tourkokrites' in order to refer to "Cretan Muslims" in general. However, is there really any proof that the English language contains the term "Cretan Turks" in order to refer to the Turkish nationals of Cretan ancestry as the article claims? Miskin 14:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Similarities with Bosnian Moslems aka. Bosniaks
The title "Cretan Turks" is simply wrong and misleading. If we are refering to the Greek speaking Cretan Moslems and their descendants in Turkey....then it should be "Turkish Cretans"...or perhaps "Moslem Cretans in Turkey".

If we are refering to the indigenous Cretan Moslem community (which this contribution is mostly about) then we are discussing the history of the "Cretan Moslems".

It is totally irrelevent how the "others" called them. The fact is they are, and were of Greek Cretan ethnic origin. Their language was Greek. Their roots were overwhelmingly Cretan. What's Turkish about that. Islam maybe!!!

It's just intellectually dishonest to make them Turks before they even got on those boats to Asia Minor. Have mercy on those poor people! Their destiny was sad enough...it's just so cruel to attempt to posthumously rewrite their identity as well, because their descendants have to be above all...loyal Turks...and it's so inconvenient to be anything else in modern Turkey.

As a Bosnian, I am VERY familiar with this subject. If a modern Turk wouldn't call me a "Bosnian Turk" then why would ethnic Greeks who converted to Islam be referred to as Turks! Then I am a Turk too...for just like their ancestors, mine also converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire. Their descendants may have since become Turkish but the fact is, this community was overwhelming Greek-Cretan.

In my grandfather's days...Balkan Moslems were called "Turks" by their Christian neighbours...but then the Turks were called Ottomans. There was also a local linguistic distinction between "Turchin" and "Turkusha". One being the de facto ethnic Ottoman Turk and the other an somewhat culturally turkicized...indigenous Moslem. In the Balkan Ottoman patois...Turk didn't necessarily mean a Turk...but most often....an islamicized native. Gospe 19:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

-- The Turkish Republic was found after the model of the modern West European nation-states. Now of course Turkey should evoluate and it will, namely towards the Kurdish language, regardless the fact that France or Greece never chose the path of more tolerance and recognition of the arbitral nature of autochtone French ethnicity and modern Greek ethnicity. Do keep in mind that the West-European (which unfortunately infiltrated the US) worldview takes its foundation on Colonial history, which is a French colonial tool against the Ottoman Empire and Islamic Civilization. Arbitral divisions of people have been made and fake identities have been given and native languages replaced by Modern Arabic, all aimed at a rupture with history and toward an anti-Ottoman nationalism. The result is current ultra-nationalist Greece on the one hand, and the pan-Arabism and Arabic nationalism and anti-Semitism of such colonial creations as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Algeria, Mauritania, Egypt etc. which are all doomed to permanent backwardness since the colonial propaganda infiltration in Ottoman provinces, the split of the Ottoman Empire and the French-English alliance in colonization and the ultimate caging of the people in a colonial scheme designed to stand infinitly after the theoretical decolonization in the second half of the 20th century.

This explains the difficulty of writing an article dealing on the Cretan Muslims. Prejudice and colonial world view on one hand, and Turkish nationalist intolerence as a reaction on the other. I don't know if Cretan Muslims are Turks or not, but I know it's been a Turkish island for several centuries and that today Creta is annexed to Greece and no trace of a Turkish history or soul is to be found. Perhaps, answers have to be found in Cyprus. I also know that, during the Soviet Union many Turks have been been permanently Russified in just 2 or 3 generations, which perhaps, shows that assimilation policy in Ottoman Empire if existant has nothing to do with the scale, methodology and aim of the Occidental model (Soviet Union may be Eastern but the ideology is Western) and any claim that Greeks have been victims of a brutal Ottoman Turkification policy is a gross exageration, a view that takes its origin in anti-Ottoman colonial scheme and propaganda.

This is what it comes down to
Are there Turkish citizens of Cretan ancestry? Yes. That's the whole point and the raison d'etre of the article. It doesn't matter if they were ethnic Turks or Greeks or Chinese. In any case, let me also remind you that the same is also true for "Greek". When I was little, I had neighbors in Sisli in Istanbul who insisted on being called "Rum" and NOT Greek for the simple reason that their ancestors were most probably indigenous Romans who had converted to Orthodoxy. See? The dial works both ways my fellow. The modern definition of "Greek" is not as clear cut as you think it is. You cannot label every single past resident of the Eastern Roman Empire as "Greek", that would also be intellectual dishonesty as you had claimed in your post. On what basis can you do that? Anatolia was widely settled by Persian peoples for centuries, so it is also possible that many "Greeks" in Greece are not "Greeks" after all. Maybe Christianized Persians? How about looking at it from that angle? :))) What is for sure is that they were Romans, but I wouldn't jump the gun on calling them Greeks. So stop trying to call Turks crypto-Greeks. Modern Greece has scarce connections with Ancient Greece, and the only thing that was used to consolidate the modern "Greek" identity was Orthodoxy. You know, Ottomans were much smarter than you give them credit for, there was a very good reason why they called the Orthodox people "Rum" and not "Yunan", since that was the correct definition. They were Romans, not neccessarily Greeks.Baristarim 10:18, 16 December 2006

Actually Ottomans used "Rum" because it was common terminology in the Islamic world, they didn't go through any thinking on this one. Proof of this, a modern Turkish dictionary translates Rum to Yunan. Also, the translation of "Rum/Romios" to "Greek" didn't come from the Greeks, it came from the non-Greeks. Byzantium's official name outside its borders was "Imperium Graecorum" (Empire of the Greeks). Nobody ever called every single inhabitant of the Empire a 'Greek', that would be a silly thing to do. In any case the Byzantine Empire was much more Greek than the Ottoman Empire was Turkish in all aspects, so the standards you're using are not really to your profit. Miskin 18:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

(UTC)
 * You're making a false distinction there. The Greeks have called themselves Romans well into modern times, and the two are simply alternative ethnonyms for the same people. It is highly likely that your neighbours insisted on being called Rumlar so as to avoid being overly associated with a rival neighbouring state, with all the very real repercussions that has tended to entail for the Greeks of Turkey over the years. Your suggestion however that they were ethnically distinct from the Greeks of Greece cannot be taken seriously. I guess the Rumlar of Cyprus aren't Greek either, then? In any case, there are hardly any Rumlar/Yunanlar/Romans/Greeks left in Turkey, so you needn't concern yourself with such trivia. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 12:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Aha. And most of the Turks were stupid enough not to know that Rum is very close to Yunan? :)) Those "Rum"s that you were talking about were also called Rums when they were being kicked out. So it wouldn't have saved them anything. For my family it wouldn't have changed a lot since we were not a bunch of wackos and they were pretty wealthy. We also had Jewish neighbors. And I think you are a bit confused on the notions here, Romans do not equal Greeks. Megali Idea at work again? :)) just kidding, but the trait is similar. You seem to not grasp the chronology of the development of the Greek identity. Not all East Romans were Greeks, and most of those people were not even Greek neither under the modern or the ancient definition of Greek. It is pan-whateverism to assume the contrary, and could lead to Megali catastrophes :)) And therefore could be a safety hazard. Big parts of the Anatolian population was of Persian, Arab and Slavic origin, so I really cannot understand how you are making the connection that East Romans=Greeks. As for Cyprus, I don't know the exact genetic composition of the island, however I think that many of those people who call themselves "Greeks" are Christianized Persian and Arab settlers from the 10th century. You know, similar to all those attempts to call Turks "crypto-Greeks" :)) Is that what is taught in Greek schools? That it was the Greeks who were there before and than Turks came and Islamized the place and the population to the degree that nearly all Turks of today are actually Greeks waiting to be woken from their deep sleep to claim the lands of yore?? lol. You should have asked your teachers "how has the "Greek" identity developed and isn't it possible that many Christianized non-Greeks are also being lumped in together with Greeks?". That's all I am saying. You know, Greece and Turkey present many many traits similar at every level imaginable, so if I were you, I wouldn't be digging this up by calling Turks "crypto-Greeks" since I can also say that "Anatolian "Greeks"=Christianized Persians+Arabs". Baristarim 12:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * All I am saying is that both Turkish and Greek identities were formed based on religious identity, and it should not be pushed further. Otherwise it might not be very comforting what will be discovered, that's all I am saying. Till 20th century, Orthodox=Greek, Muslim=Turk and their respective modern identities were formed on it. Simple and shouldn't be explored any further. Who is to say that most of Greeks today were not Christianized ("Orthodoxized") Persians, Albanians or Arabs? Were you alive back in the 16th century? :)) that's all.. Baristarim 13:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That's definitely true for Cyprus in any case, Cyprus has been the center of migration currents since 25 century BC, nearly every imaginable ethnicity has passed over it like some sort of village bicycle. How do you know that they are "Greeks" ethnically? Baristarim 13:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * They are "Greeks" ethnically because that is how they identify today, pure and simple. Since when does ethnonational identity depend on genetics? I wouldn't care if your blood was "100% Greek" (whatever that means), you're nothing but a Turk now. Similarly, the genetic origins of each individual Greek, apart from being impossible to ascertain, are ultimately irrelevant. The Greeks of today are the descendants of those Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians who called themselves Romans during and after the Byzantine era, regardless of where they came from. So I suggest you calm down, stop seeing threats and enemies everywhere and have a read through Names of the Greeks for a more in-depth analysis. You may even learn something. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 13:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nhahaha :)) Exactly what I was trying to say to the fellow above who was trying to have this article's title modified. I don't think that you have correctly understood the context of my words and the pervious debate above. I agree with you, and think that that is the correct criteria. Please read the conversation thoroughly before you accuse me of being paranoid. I really think that you missed the purpose of my first edit and subsequent humor. However, I was trying to show that a similar thing is true for Turks: the genetic origins of each Turk, apart from being impossible to ascertain, are ultimately irrelevant. The Turks of today are the descendants of those Ottoman speaking Muslims who called themselves Turks/Muslims during and after the Ottoman era, regardless of where they came from. That's all :))) Don't worry, I had read that article months ago.. Baristarim 13:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The title has to do with common Anglophone terminology, not with how much hellenic or turkic blood flows through their veins. Miskin 18:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I don't find being associated with irredentist extremism for stating a basic historical fact particularly amusing, especially when coupled with tasteless gibes about "catastrophes". But you're right, the Turks of today are perhaps the nation that is furthest removed from its "ancestors"; that explains why they look more Mediterranean/Middle Eastern than Mongolian. So which part of Romans = Greeks didn't you understand? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 14:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the case here is pretty straightforward: Yunanlılar (yeni) < Rumlar and Müslümanlar < Türkler (halklar) < Türkler (Anadolu). Something nationalists on both sides are not willing to admit. Calling Rumlar in a time before the GR national awakening Yunanlılar is an anachronism in the Turkish language anyway, not the English language. The western world called the Byzantines who called themselves Romans Greeks. Today though, we non-Greek speaking Rumlar declaring as Yunanlar (Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians in Syria for example) and non-Turkish speaking Müslümanlar (Pomaks for example) declaring as Turks. What do we consider these people? //Dirak 14:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I am sorry kekrops, I should have read my comments before I posted it. Going back to the discussion. They should be considered as they would like to be considered. If people haven't gotten on the nation-state building train yet, they should get a move on! If someone feels Turk, go to Turkey, feel Greek? go to Greece, wanna feel American? go to America :) I agree with Dirak, case is pretty straightforward really. As for the other thing. Roman is not neccasarily equal to Greek. You cannot apply a 19th century concept to 15th century. It is not possible to go dead people's graves and say: "no, you were not Roman, you were Greek! Roman became Greek in the 19th century!!" Who made the call of Romans becoming Greeks? It was not Romans=Greeks, it was Orthodox=Greeks. Some Romans became Greeks. The language spoken concept is also flawed, you are confusing lingua-franca and local languages. Many people in the Byzantine Empire didn't speak Greek, let alone modern Greek. I have no problem that there was a Greekification process that went on to create a nation-state, it is perfectly cool with me. That's what needed to happen, and it happenned, however the underlying unifiying concept was religion, and there were many Christianized Persian, Arab, Slavic and etc people back then. That's all I am saying. But you still haven't grasped my response to the fellow above: you cannot call Cretan Turks "cyrpto-Greeks" since they were first and foremost Romans and Ottomans (even if there were Islamized Romans), and when the push came to shove, they chose the Turkish identity, and not the Greek one that was developing at the time. "Greek" was just a word to rally together a bunch of Orthodox Romans who wanted to create their own country away from the "infidels". Claiming the contrary is also an anachronism. In fact Dirak's question about Syrian Orthodox Christians is extremely valid. It is more correct to call them Greek than the Cretan Turks. For all that we know, many Cretans could have been Arab settlers from 6th century. From then on, they considered themselves as Romans, then Ottomans (Christians and Muslims), then some of them chose the Turkish identity rather than the Greek one. We cannot go to 13th century Cretans and call them Greeks. That's also wrong. Feel free to call them Romans however. As I said, "Greek-speaking" is not a criteria, Ottoman court spoke Persian, however they were still Turks. Any claim to the contrary is also false since, otherwise, a Turkish nationalism would not have been born. If there is smoke, there is a fire :)) So Dirak, how come you know Turkish? :) Baristarim 14:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Ρωμηός and Ρωμαίος (rum and roman) are two different words. A non-native speaker of the Greek language, or someone who's ignorant to medieval Greek history will never be able to know this. You make a good example of that. Miskin 23:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Id est, we can call the mediæval Ottomans "Turks" but we can't call the Byzantines "Greeks". I get what you're hinting at, and why, and it's entirely unconvincing. If you'd read Names of the Greeks more thoroughly you'd have known that Hellene had been absolved of its negative pagan connotations and restored as an ethnonym as early as the 9th century. Thus your claim that "Roman became Greek in the 19th century" is simply wrong. And, as User:Dirak pointed out above, the West called the East Romans "Greeks" regardless of their self-identification, much less of subsequent Turkish terminology, so the use of the term in English is perfectly valid whichever way you look at it. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 15:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm.. Good point of with the Ottoman-Turk analogy. True, the West called the East Romans Greeks and nearly all Muslims as Turks.. The funny thing is, none of them were used widely as ethnoyms since it was the religion that counted for the populations concerned. Nevertheless, since not all ex-Romans identified themselves as Greeks, that kind of proves that the transition from Roman to Greek was not universal. Even Orthodox-Greek was not universal. That's all I am trying to say. Not all Muslims of Balkans continued to identify themselves as Turks after 1910s btw, and only those that did eventually immigrated to Turkey. The others chose different identities. I am not trying to attack the Greek identity, but I have some problems with calling the Islamized Cretans as "Islamized Greeks"; "Islamized natives" or "Islamized Romans" would make a bit more sense since we are talking about 15th century. I suppose if they insisted on calling themselves as Hellenes, then that would legitimize the use of "Greek" to define them. But the thing is, this is such an obscure area of 15th century Eastern European history that nobody will ever be able to find reliable sources on the ethnic association and composition of Crete at the time of Ottoman conquest. I mean, I have been trying to find a good and precise source for ethnic composition of Turkey for our era to use in that article, and I still haven't found one except wild guesses that give varitions of five million either way :)) Baristarim 16:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hellenic identity re-emerged in Greece only at the start of 19th century, a romantic chauvinism, a sense of nationalism encouraged by the European powers and a domino effect of the French revolution. We see the same pattern in Turkey at the start of 20th century, with Ziya Gökalp and Mustafa Kemal. Of course this subject is very un-negotiateable with Greeks, I think we all know the meaning of "orthodox". Also I don't know about the West but Easterners identified the Byzantines/Eastern Romans as Rum/Roman, not Yunan/Greek/Hellenic.--Doktor Gonzo 16:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Then is must be one of the greatest historical scams in history. We should be proud of ourselves for being able to pull it off... (so should western Europe, after all, they have been calling what Turks call the Rumlar "Greeks" [Graeci] for centuries). //Dirak 16:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hehe, they didn't call us şeytan gavur for nothing. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 17:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Many activities NonMuslims engaged in the Ottoman empire, the Muslim community regarded as sin and unacceptable. Commerce (regarded as unjust earning), prostitution (well you know), taverns etc. (the alcohol thing). No wonder they were "kaffir" to them. Anyway Muslims used to look down on Christians, now Christians are looking down on Muslims, vicious cycle, eh?--Doktor Gonzo 17:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "Scam", "pull it off", these are simplistic approaches. As I said, I don't know about the Western terminology but in the East, Byzantines were recognized as Rum/Roman.--Doktor Gonzo 17:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * They were known as Rum by the Turks because Roman was their main self-identifying term when the Turks arrived, but by no means the only one. The fact that the Turks started using Yunan only in the 19th century is irrelevant; the Greeks started calling themselves Hellenes (in addition to Romans) again in the 9th century, so you're about a thousand years off the mark I'm afraid. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 17:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * And in any case, it would be fair to say that the people discussed in this article would be Greeks (and still living on Crete) today had their ancestors not been Islamised. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 17:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict 2x) Yep, Greeks and Turks were able pull it off. We should be proud off it. lol. Well.. I can see the commerce (for interests though, not for general commerce) and alcohol. But I don't think that prostitution was spread much more than in Islamic communities, that would also not be fair. Many non-Muslims in the OE were also pretty religious (they still are in former OE territories). Again, that's just my personal feeling, I am not an expert on the 17th century Ottoman prostitution scene :) Baristarim 17:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As for Yunan.. It is true that it doesn't matter when the Turks called them Yunan. However, the question is what parts of Byzantine and Ottoman Empires called themselves as "Hellenes" along with "Roman". Roman was similar to Ottoman, it was also simply a term to designate the sovereignty one was living under. It is true that they would be Greeks today, however, one cannot also exclude the fact that many Muslim (not neccessarily Turkish) migrants had also settled there during the 5 centuries of Ottoman rule. My father's father was born in Lebanon to Turkish parents; don't forget that there was freedom of movement back in the day. I actually have family in Saudi Arabia that stayed there after 1923 even though they were Turkish. They had settled there in the 1800s, and only some of them returned to Turkey, the others stayed there because they had commercial interests. Today most of them speak Arabic along with Turkish. So even back then there was a difference between Turkish/Muslim. So labelling all Cretan Turks as "Islamized Rums/Greeks/Romans" is also not correct simply because we don't know the exact ethnic composition of Crete at the time of Ottoman conquest. Baristarim 17:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I am pretty sure Byzantine was known in the Middle East as Roman. Nationalism only emerged in 18th century with French revolution, it reached Greece 19th and Turkey in 20th century. We don't know who identified himself/herself as Greek or Turk before that therefore to say Cretan Turks are Islamicized Greeks is an unsourced assumption. Would Greek government finance a scientific research?--Doktor Gonzo 17:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Did someone call us? NikoSilver 17:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hahaha, I always knew. Your logo looks like 2 male genitals double troubling a female by the way. Or is it just my sick imagination?--Doktor Gonzo 17:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * We still practice every aspect of chauvinism. NikoSilver 17:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well I don't know how much Earvin Johnson is English and how much he is related to Dr Johnson. What is your point with family names?--Doktor Gonzo 17:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Just trolling. Check all meanings of chauvinism. I made a paralel with 'double troubling'. NikoSilver 18:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hehe, nice--Doktor Gonzo 18:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Baristarim said: When I was little, I had neighbors in Sisli in Istanbul who insisted on being called "Rum" and NOT Greek for the simple reason that their ancestors were most probably indigenous Romans who had converted to Orthodoxy. Due all the respect but that's a load of rubbish, my family comes from Fener and Romios (rum) is a synonym to Greek, in fact today the former is hardly ever used. If what you said were half true then the Turkish government would look extremely stupid for starting the 1955 anti-Greek pogroms over the issue of Cyprus. Hence your neighbours were neither Greek nor Rum, they were just Turkish citizens of a confused origin. I believe that the explanation about Romans converting to Orthodoxy was something you just made up. Nobody can be foolish enough to make such statements that a even a 6th century Byzantine emperor would think twice before making them. Miskin 18:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That's false. Their ancestors were never the citizens of the Republic of Greece. Secundo, they did call themselves as "Rum" and not "Yunan". Just as Turkish citizen is not the samething as Turkish people, there is also a similar issue at work here, I am afraid. The same way some editors on insisting that Turkish citizen and Turkish people are not the same, there is a similar analogy here. All schools, churches are referred to as "Rum X, Y, Z" by the Rums themselves. I know Istanbul man! I do not know how they refer to themselves as in Greek (and do not forget that Pontics didn't even speak a language close to anywhere near the Greek of Athens), but in Turkish they always referred to themselves as Rum. I don't how they introduced themselves to anglophones however. They were pretty Rum, believe me :) + Jewish neighbors on the fourth floor. I remember very well. Sisli, Mecidiyekoy. If you knew this place, you would know that there is a huge Rum cemetery in Sisli. I am not following you, the Cypriots are also referred to as Rum in Turkish since they are not citizens of the Rep of GR, who are called Yunan, regardless of ethnicity. Baristarim 19:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Baristarim, sometimes I wonder whether you have a basic knowledge on the topics you start debating. Almost half of the citizens of Constantinople by the time of the pogroms had Greek citizenship, i.e. they were citizens of the Hellenic Republic (Glenny). As for those who didn't, maybe life in France has shaken your world a bit. Turkish-speakers in Greek Thrace (aka Greek Muslims) are 'ethnic Turks', period. Similarly, ethnic Greeks in Turkey are Greeks. 'Tis rather naive to apply French post-colonial rules on Balkans nations. They just won't work, hence why France is dealing with such major "internal" problems between French people, such as racism, riots, car burning and the list goes on. And hence why the Balkans are still at war. You don't speak Greek, so I don't think you know what 'Rums' call each other in their native tongue, and I don't think you know how far Pontic is from Demotic Greek. If I were you I would be ashamed to make such statements while aware of all the Turkish POV that exists right now in wikipedia. The fact that you think that 'Cypriot Rums' cannot be called 'Yunan' reveals true ignorance, and that you have never spoken to a Greek Cypriot in your life (I wouldn't advise you to meet one). Your views about the subjects in question are alien to Greeks, Turks and most importantly the anglophone world. Miskin 23:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

PS: In the Romaic (modern Greek) language, Rum is not a synonym to Roman, if you want to know how we meant 'Rum' and 'Hellene' then read the article on Byzantine Greeks. Miskin 23:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I'm closer to Baristarim's views in this particular debate. The Cretan Muslims (at least those who then became Turkish citizens) are called Turks, because they had a Turkish national identity in their majority. Blood purity does not matter! After all, blood purity is not "respected" by nowadays scientific research. Baristarim is wrong in one point: Most of them (or at least a part of them) did not choose to leave; they wanted to stay, but they were obliged to leave because of the treatied ending the Balkan Wars and the 1st World War. Nevertheless, I still believe that the term "Cretan Turks" is accurate: It describes a vibrant part of the Muslim Cretes who had indeed a Turkish identity; this was proved during the repetitive revolutions of the indegenous Christian population at the end of the 19th century; the Muslim population was averse to these revolutions and supported the Turkish rule. This proves something! As far as the Byzantine History is concerned, IMO Byzantine Empire is not equal to Byzantine Greeks. The empire had many nations, and many of the emperors were not even Greeks. The empire gets more hellenized after 1204. I also agree that Eastern Roman and Greek is definitely not the same thing. But in the beginning of the 20th century the terms "Rum" was actually equal to "Greek of Turkey". I also want to point out something else, which IMO is very interesting: when the Turks of Crete were forced to leave Crete, some Greeks of Anatolia were also forced to leave their villages and ancentral homes and come to Greece. The most amazing thing: These people were not speaking Greek! They were speaking only Turkish, and some of them never managed to properly speak Greek! But they were orthodox, and they had a Greek identity. Although they may never have said a proper Greek phrase, although they may not have had a "pure blood", these "Rums" were more "Greeks" than many other "Greeks" of Athens, who were treating them with contempt and suspicion. Thanks!--Yannismarou 20:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as "more" or "less" Greek. You're either Greek or you're not. And User:Baristarim questions whether the Rum population of what is now Turkey was Greek at all, perhaps to deflect attention from the indisputably Greek (Greek-speaking, Greek Orthodox) origins of the Cretan Muslims. WP:POINT? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 04:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * By telling "more Greek", I believe you understand what I mean. You speak about Greek origins, but I insist telling you that national identities are not formed by oigins and blood analyses. Muslims of Bosnia have Serb origins. Do you really regard them as Serbs?--Yannismarou 08:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course not. I have already made my position on this clear. The Cretans who became Turks after Islamisation were not Greek because of any DNA analysis, but because that's simply what they were. They are Turks now, so I don't understand why some Turks are so sensitive about discussing their earlier origins. It seems User:Baristarim is at pains to say they were Arabs, Persians, anything really but Greeks. Why? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 09:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * (edit conlict) Whow whow. Misunderstanding. I know that Greek Cypriots are Greeks, are you crazy?! I was talking about the difference in the Turkish language, and only gave an example of "Rums" living in Istanbul. I am sure that most of them would introduce themselves as Greeks to an anglophone, but also know that they do not consider themselves as "Greek" in a way that connects them to the Greek Republic, see what I mean? That's all I was trying to say. In Turkish, "Yunan" means a citizen of the Greek Republic, and "Rum" means Greek Orthodox and/or native Greek speakers who are not citizens of the GR. I am not trying to say that Cypriots are not Greeks or etc, I am sorry if there was some confusion. In Turkish, Greek can be translated as Rum or Yunan, depending on context. And this is not a figment of Kemalist propaganda. The word "Rum" has been in Turkish vocabulary since 13th century, and "Yunan" was later developed and now refers to the citizens of GR. Similar to Turkish people/Turkish citizens. Exactly as Yannismarou said, what I was trying to say was "Rum=Greek of Turkey". I suppose because of the problems in Cyprus, a proper classification has not developed for Cypriot Greeks and we have simply stuck with Rum for them. Freudian slip, anyone? :)) As for the origins of Cretan Turks, I replied below why we cannot say that they were "Islamized Greek" since we do not know that Crete was exclusively settled by Greek speakers or Greek Orthodox all these centuries, most of those Cretan Muslims could have been Arab settlers who settled in the island as well, right? Remember that there were no borders in East Med back than. Baristarim 08:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * In that case provide sources which support your thesis that they were anything but Greek and stop bandying about this WP:OR. As for the "non-Greek" Rumlar, one must ask why the overwhelming majority moved to Greece after they were forced out by the Turks. Fancy that, moving to a country they had no connection to... Actually, you'll find that most Greeks in Turkey also hold Greek citizenship these days. The fact they may not have done in the past was largely due to the severe restrictions placed on Greek citizens by the Turkish authorities, not because of any undivided loyalty to Turkey. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 09:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I replied to most of your comments below. As for the Rumlar/Yunanlar/Greeks, I don't mind or, frankly, can care about what they consider themselves as today. It is not my business to mind it either. They can do whatever they want! I respect their choices, but it is not my business nor primary concern either. Baristarim 19:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

What Baristarim is missing is that there is no more 'Rum' in Turkey. Almost all Greek-speaking 'Rums' were deported to Greece in the course of the 20th century. They fought in the Greco-Turkish war and faced the same fate as the 'Yunan', until they officially became Yunan. Baristarim's assumptions are anachronistic. Miskin 00:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The term 'Rum'='Romios'='Romeos' causes confusion also in Greece. 'Romios' is understood as a term denoting ethnic greeks as opposed to christian albanians, slavs, etc in the pre-1832 era. Pontians on the other hand call themselves 'Romeos' with a slightly different prononciation and spelling, so most greeks get confused by this, as that spelling is reserved for inhabitants/citizens of the city of Rome modern or ancient. Neverhteless, the three terms including the turkicized Rum have the same Byzantian/Ottoman origin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kotika98 (talk • contribs) 00:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The complex of Baristarim
And enough on defending the Greek identity. What about the Ottoman Empire? Are you _that_ naive to believe that anything "Ottoman" was actually remotely connected to anything "Turkic" (like Kemal has made you believe)? If yes, then cite me some examples, and let's make a comparison between Turkic->Ottoman->Turkish and Hellenic->Byzantine->Greek. Let's get this out of Baristarim's system once and for all. I've noticed Baristarim denying the Armenian genocide, stating in the Ottoman Empire's lead that it was a "Turkish empire" (linked to a modern nationality), replacing the Byzantine province of Armenia in the Battle of Manzikert with "a region in the Byzantine Empire", and replacing in the same article "Seljuks" with "Seljuk Turkish" people. So I'm curious to know, how can you convince us that you're a neutral editor? As far as evidence shows, you're a chauvinist like Mustapha Akalp, pushing Turkish POV as far as it gets. Instead of showing some gratitude for not making a big deal out of this, you have the nerve to attack us. I guess you must think that we're rather stupid. What is it that makes the Turkish, Kemalist national myth more real than the continuation of Greek history (I'm expecting citations and corresponding sources). What is it that makes your edits more neutral than ours, or what is it that makes your edits any neutral at all? Miskin 23:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Real close to removing some of the comments per WP:NPA, but I will leave them. First of all, I never changed Seljuks to Seljuk Turkish, I changed it to Seljuk Turks. So that's lie number 1. Second of all, I have been to both parts of Cyprus, I am not some sort of alien zooming around: I do not comment on articles where I do not have sufficient knowledge of the subject matter. I also know how the Greek identity was built in the 19th century, and with all your comparisons to "those Kemalist blah blah", I am sorry that they present many similarities. Assimilation of certain minorities, telling people that they are "X" know simply because of their religion etc. The difference is that the word "Turk" has existed since 177 BC, and since 6th century AD. It is not the same for Greek. Trying to label all Orthodox citizens of the Byzantines as "Greeks" is not correct. Crete and Cyprus have been extensively settled by all sorts of ethnicities over the centuries, and you have absolutely NO PROOF to show that the ethnic composition of Crete before and after the Ottoman conquest was only made up of "Hellenes". Trying to call the Cretan Turks as "Islamized Greeks" is really irredentist, I hope you see that as well. How do you know that the island had not been settled with Arabs, Levantines, Venetians, Albanians etc before and after the Ottoman conquest? Calling every Orthodox "Greek" is also not correct.


 * I know very well how the Orthodox in Turkey refer to themselves. My family's house in Istanbul is in a upscale neighborhood in Istanbul Miskin, and if I am telling you that we had Jewish and Greek neighboors, the guess is that we were not living in the sort of residence where we would have hanged someone because they said they were "Yunan" instead of "Rum". I said I do not know how they referred to themselves in another languages. But, most of those people believe, rightly so, that they are the descendants of the natives of Istanbul, before the conversions (to any religion btw) etc. It wouldn't disturb me at all if they called themselves Yunan. Just like Yannismarou said, what's important is choice. If they choose to do so, fine. But you should also respect the choice of those who chose the Turkish identity, whether they were originally Hellenic villagers, Turkish settlers, Arab traders, Levantine adventurers etc who made up Crete's population during the Ottoman years. Look, all I am saying is that modern Greek nation was formed by Orthodox who chose to do regroup in under that banner, and Turkish nation as well with Islam. The best proof for the difference is the fact that not all the Orthodox of old Byzantine territories chose the Greek identity, just like not all the Muslims of the Ottomans chose the Turkish identity. Funny that, most Bosnians did actually refer to themselves as Turks back in the day! Just like the post below so rigthly suggests. But not all of them moved to Turkey after the Balkan wars. Some of them did though. I am cool with this, there is no way you can create a "national" identity out of the blue! Of course, then you have to create a "Us-Them" situation so as to blind its adherents to the apparent cracks in them. Then you hope for the best as time passes by, new generations are born and taught that they are the descendants of the great blah blah Empire (either way), and BOUM, you got yourself a nation! The US-THEM situation. But don't just label the Cretan Turks as "Islamized Greeks", that's all I am saying.


 * As for your comments. "The nerve to attack US"? What's happening here Miskin, is there some sort of gang? If you are referring to the AfD where some editors "somehow" woke from their sleep of 1.5 months to come and vote, I was only referring to what went down in that AfD. If you read carefully, none of my comments were directed at people outside the AfD, whether they are Turkish, Greek, Kurdish etc. This assumption that there is US and THEM, is the real non-neutral approach. I have not attacked anyone's "peeps". Yeah, as for sources, you should check out the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, co created by a Harvard professor titled "Turks: The journey of a thousand years: 600-1600". As for things like "chauvinist like Mustafa" etc. Better watch for civility, if you think that my words in the AfD gives you the right to insult me like this, think of what I just said about the nature of my comments. When did I "attack" you? I am a blunt person, but I don't recall when you came into this, did you participate in the AfD by any chance? If you didn't, isn't it also nationalist to attack me for arguing with other Greek editors? Do I attack you when you argue with some other Turkish editor by saying "why are you attacking US?". Is that really neutral?

The AfD was not one of my best time in Wikipedia, however I also found it weird that nearly all the contributors to the AfD, except a few admins, were primarily Turkish and Greek! The least some of them could have done was to vote for a rename of some sorts, u know. I don't recall ten Turkish editors showing up in a Macedonia related dispute and voting in a block. Pff. But, let's drop this. The holidays are coming, I also wont be around for a while. Let's not disturb the festivities :) Merry Christmas! Baristarim 07:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think we earn something by trying to prove whose "historic continuation" is more "real". Do we? Merry Christmas!--Yannismarou 08:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * True :) Baristarim 08:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * You've got it in a nutshell. According to User:Baristarim's infinite wisdom, the Turks display an unbroken continuity going all the way back to 177 BC, while the Greeks were invented in the 19th century. And then he wonders why his "cooperation board" has gone to the dogs. I don't believe in Christmas, so I'll wish everyone Καλά Μυαλά instead! ·ΚέκρωΨ· 08:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I am concerned the cooperation board has not gone to the dogs. For Baristarim neither I think. Otherwise, he wouldn't have edited today in its talk page. Let's not regard a crisis as a dead end. The board will have to face more crises in the future. Its viability and strength will depend on the way its members will handle these crises and on whether it will survive these crises.--Yannismarou 12:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Coop board is not over. It is like many other WPs, it can be more or less active depending on times. I agree with Yannismorou, there will be other issues in the future. By the way, let me assure you that I do not think that "Greeks" were invented in 19th century! Definitely not. But that's beside the point anyways. My point was that Cretan Turks cannot be simply categorized as "Islamized Greeks", we simply don't know how many Greeks, Arabs, Venetians, Turks settled there over the centuries, who they were nor what they did nor what went on. That's all I am saying. I have the feeling that we got into stuff that was not relevant. I definitely know that Turks do not have an unbroken identity that date back to 177BC, either!

Maybe a happy new year would be better, a bit more secular :) Baristarim 13:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

As if there are no Greek nationalist myths. Pot calling the kettle black. And doesn't the topic of this discussion violate Wiki's "no personal attacks" rule?--Doktor Gonzo 14:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The main nationalist myth on this talk page is the one that denies the Greek origins of the Cretan Turks. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 15:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Really, were you alive back in the day? Do you know how many Arabs, Levantines, Venetians or Turks settled on the island during the centuries of Ottoman rule? If not, on what are you basing your claims on? That's exactly what happened in 1919. Some people thought that the whole world was Greek, tried to reunify it and boum the megali catastrophe happened. Dude, you better bring in sources as to the ethnic composition of the island during the Ottoman rule, otherwise your claims are baseless. Baristarim 15:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * You think parts of China are "still Turkish". Who's the deluded one? And I'm still waiting for your sources supporting your crackpot theory that the population of Crete was not Greek at the time of the Ottoman conquest. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 17:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Look I understand the Greeks here question the factual accuracy of history taught in Turkey, I just wish they showed the same amount of doubt towards theirs. Also if you are interested in our common history that's Ottoman, please do your homework. It is a fact that Ottomans moved Turkic villages from Asia Minor to the conquered lands, sometimes they did this forcefully. For example it is known many Karamanid Turks were forced by Mehmed II to move to Constantinople after its conquest. If you want to prove the ethnic origins of Cretan Turks, you have to do better than "it is common sense". There has to be a scientific research and since there is none and since these people identify themselves as Turks, they are, my friends, Cretan Turks.--Doktor Gonzo 16:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * You can have them, no one's questioning the fact that they are Turks now. But what were they before they were Turks? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 17:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Kekrops, I explained what it meant by "still Turkish" ok? It is not a part of Turkey, but it is still settled by Turks, alright? It is still referred to as East Turkistan sometimes. I will change it to "still settled by Turks". Since that is the correct political version I suppose. Anyways. Look man, islands like Cyprus and Crete were like the village bicycles back in the day, everyone had a ride. There is no way that you can find any convincing academic source that will say that Crete was exclusively settled by Hellenes until 1923. It was an Empire, and it is very probable that many non-Turk Muslims settled there over the centuries, as well as Turks. The conversions would have been minor, even though I am sure there were. Please remember that Ottomans constantly moved populations around to "Islamize" the places. And not just Turks. I know of entire Arab tribes that were forcibly settled in the Balkans and Eastern Anatolia. Unless you are saying that Crete, somehow, remained an unpenetrated racial cloud in the middle of an Empire, I seriously cannot understand how you can claim that they are all "Islamized Greeks". That's all I am saying, do not exaggerate the rate of conversions. Baristarim 19:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Assimilation of certain minorities, telling people that they are "X" know simply because of their religion etc. The difference is that the word "Turk" has existed since 177 BC, and since 6th century AD. It is not the same for Greek. Your gratest mistake is your conviction that Greeks have been using religion as identifying their ethnicity, which is not at all the case. This wasn't the case neither in antiquity, neither in Byzantium, nor in modern Greece. Ironically enough this was purely an Ottoman innovation, so if you want to blame it on someone, blame it on them. But even within the Ottoman Empire, at a non-official and non-legal level, "Rum Orthodox" and "Bulgarian Orthodox" were not the same thing, otherwise we would have never had the second Balkan War. Secondly, you're judging Greek history by the criterion that your own national myths are based, the existence of an ethnonym. Greek-speaking people had been centered in Greece and coastal Asia Minor for over 3500. Mycenaeans never called themselves "Greek", nor were they called so by others. It was ancient Greeks who first recognised them as their ancestors. According to your logic, we should stop regarding Achilles, Odysseus and Diomedes as "Greek heroes". Byzantines called themselves 'Hellens' in restricted occasions, especially when it involved anti-Latin feelings. However Byzantine 'Romios' (Rum), which as you correctly said was retained in popular level until the 19th century, did in fact refer to a separate 'Christian Hellenic' culture. Also, 'Rum' was used only in the Islamic world, where Roman heritage was weak, the European and Slavic world used both 'Graeci' or 'Hellenes'. Thus the Byzantine Empire was known as the "Kingdom of Greece", or the "Empire of the Greeks" (Imperium Graecorum), therefore the Rum-Greek connection was not simply invented in the 19th century as you thought. It had always existed, but for religious and political reasons, 'Romios' was preferred in the Greek world. It was in the 19th century that the 'Rums' realised that they had to seek Western support by paying more attention to their pagan (Hellenic) past. Miskin 01:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not the same for Greek. Trying to label all Orthodox citizens of the Byzantines as "Greeks" is not correct. Crete and Cyprus have been extensively settled by all sorts of ethnicities over the centuries, and you have absolutely NO PROOF to show that the ethnic composition of Crete before and after the Ottoman conquest was only made up of "Hellenes". Trying to call the Cretan Turks as "Islamized Greeks" is really irredentist, I hope you see that as well. How do you know that the island had not been settled with Arabs, Levantines, Venetians, Albanians etc before and after the Ottoman conquest? Calling every Orthodox "Greek" is also not correct. As I said before, Byzantium was no Ottoman Empire, i.e. being an Orthodox Christian wasn't enough to be recognised as a Romaios, which is altogether irrelevant to the possession of a Byzantine citizenship. So not all Orthodox citizens of Byzantium are labeled as Greeks, only the ones who were self-identified as Romioi, i.e. the ones who were called by the Latins 'Graeci'. It's not us who are labelling them Greek, it was their contemporaries, and later themselves. Makes sense doesn't it? I don't understand what you mean by "NO PROOF", because there's actually a whole science which deals with those "mysteries". We are able to go on the moon, don't worry, we have our means to have an idea about who, when and how settled in region X. Crete was colonised by various people but it never received an influx of foreign population. The "Cretan Muslims" were Greek converts, this is documented with this exact same wording in every source I have come across. If you have a problem with it, blame it on scholars, wikipedians' role is not to refute each other's personal research. But you know, let's assume that the island was settled by Arabs and Venetians, and that Greeks became a minority. If by the Ottoman occupation those peoples were Hellenised and self-identified as 'Rum/Greek' (e.g. El Greco), then we wouldn't have any basis on denying it. I hope you would agree that ethnicity was never based on blood, not even in antiquity. Take the ancient Athenians for instance, their citizenship was inherited by ancestry eventhough they knew that they racially a mix of Ionians and Hellenised Pelasgians (a non-Greek people). Therefore it's naive to use such primitive criteria as such "their ancestors might not have been 100% Greek", trying to find ancestry to the proto-Greek people who broke off the Indo-European family (not to mention contradictory to the emphasis you frequenty give on citizenship). If we used such criteria, then I'm sure you would agree that Turks of today should have been renamed to something else, as the "Turkic" element is clearly a minority in their population. Still, they tend to consider everything that resembes the name 'Turk' as their ancestral heritage, and it's their right to do so. Miskin 01:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"I know very well how the Orthodox in Turkey refer to themselves. My family's house in Istanbul is in a upscale neighborhood in Istanbul Miskin, and if I am telling you that we had Jewish and Greek neighboors, the guess is that we were not living in the sort of residence where we would have hanged someone because they said they were 'Yunan' instead of 'Rum'." As I've already pointed out, you're missing the picture Baristarim. If you have met "Rums" who do not identify themselves as Greek, then they're as much Rum as the Cretan Turks (i.e. not at all). They are simply Turkish people of Greek ancestry. Of course things are not like you present them, and I know this by personal experience, but I don't want to start my life story. It all comes down to the fact the "Rums" (ethnic Greeks in Turkey) do not exist anymore. When a living Greek community existed, every Rum identified with the Megali Idea and the Greek Kingdom, and fought in the Greco-Turkish war, this is something historically attested. As you know well the "Rum Orthodox" community of Asia Minor or Turkey is today found in Greece, possibly people you're talking to in wikipedia, so it's rather ironic that you're trying to teach them what they feel (based on their assimilated remnants of their dead community). Maybe it's easier for you to think that up until some point, all Greeks in the Ottoman Empire were once "Rum" and successively were turned Hellenic. They all succeeded, but for some it meant losing their homes. Miskin 01:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The enromous power of Turkish and Greek nationalism!
Isn't it interesting how Turks are disputing the Greek origins of Cretan Moslems....yet the descendants of this same community who live in Lebanon and Syria have no issue with the fact that they are of Greek origin and Cretan!! It reminds me of my refugee relatives....the ones in Syria and Saudi Arabia who are still Bosnians...while the ones in Turkey have disappeared...they're "real" Turks...already.

Also...I'd like to point out that the Ottomans were very efficient administrators and most towns, villages and settlements' population data was recorded...eg...there are even records for my little Bosnian town (curr.pop. 50 000) from the time of conquest and conversions to Islam (thus we have such odd entries...where the father's name is Jerome...the son is Mehmet...the daughter is Fatma) ...and one can clearly deduce the ethnicity-religion of the native population. As far as I know..these archives are all in Istanbul.

Later Turkish documents indicate mass emigration of Christians (Catholics) from the region and mass immigration of Moslem converts from the neighbouring territories in Croatia and Hungary (Austria-Hungary).

Essentially, except for Bulgaria and Macedonia, Romania...there is very little evidence of larger Turkish settlements in the Balkans...and in these settlements...obviously...Turkish was the mother tongue. These movements of people can be traced and have usually been recorded by the Turks themselves.

One major movement is of Moslem converts fleeing from territories which the Ottomans were losing...and it is the descendants of this population...moving in the direction of Turkey proper...that probably made up a huge percentage of the natives of Istanbul prior to the 1950's.

In fact...many of the "Turks" in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians who became Turks right on their home turf...far away from Turkey proper. (I know such a family!) They insisted on speaking Turkish...as their mother tongue...yet they knew Albanian (perhaps as a sign of class and cultural distinction...after all...during the Ottoman times the ruling-educated classes wrote in Persian, prayed in Arabic, ruled in Turkish and lived-loved in their native idiom).

Also...there was quite a bit of pressure on the indigenous populations (especially Moslem) around the middle of the 19th century...to speak Turkish, identify as ethnic Turks and essentially become Turks. This was the case in Bosnia!

What I am trying to say...(to those who are disputing the Greek origins of the Cretans)....if the majority of Cretans spoke Greek...I would question th turkishness of the minority (and not the Greek-Cretan ethnicity of the majority)...for as usually...in the absence of mass settlements of Turks...the trend seems to have been to culturally (and linguistically) turkicize the indigenous moslem  population...either passively...or sometimes...even through pressure-coercion...on their own territory.

Rarely...did the Ottomans settlers assimilate into the native masses (not many had a chance...as the empire was to a large degree administred by people who were ethnically of non-Turkish origin...but loyal to the Ottomans). For example...of all my ancestors...I only know of one from "Anadol" (as my grandfother would say)...and even then...I can never acertain his exact ethnic origin...for at that time Anatolia has its Greek and Armenian Christians, Kurds, Moslem converts...the only thing I know is that he was very successful in the regional Ottoman hierarchy...was titled...and that my grandfather looks more like a very light skinned Iranian than an Asian Turk. Usually, it was the males...Tatars, Janissaries...who would marry the native women...and their subsequent progeny would again intermarry with the natives...so today I have cousins who are in fact Bosnian...but on the mother's side...far removed...mostly Croatian Moslem refugees....part Tatar and part Hungarian as well.

It really isn't important what the Moslem Cretans' DNA was...if they were "pure" Greeks or not. If they spoke Greek, were indigenous to the island...by all modern definitons of ethnicity and identity...they were Greek (as much as the Greeks loathe the idea of their own Hellenes being heathen Moslems, and the Turks hate to admit that they are berely "Turkish" and maybe even more Greek and Kurdish in origin)).

If we cannot question the "Turkishness" of the modern Turks (who are probably even less "real" Turks)...then how can we deny the Greek ethnicity of the Moslems in Crete...if obviously...the overwhelming majority was of a already homogenous Greek-Cretan-Orthodox background!!!

The same analogy applies to all the islamicized people living in the Ottoman Empire. I am sure...that all their descendants living in Turkey today want to prove how they were "real" Turks...when in fact...that was rarely the case. I am sure that a DNA analysis will show that I am overwhelmingly a mixture of Celtic, Dinaric, Germanic and Slavic stock...yet when the Ottomans invaded my part of the world...we were already a homogenous people (except for the sporadic settlements of Vlahs-Aroumanians)with a common Slavic language, a common identity, nobility, a name, a country, a defined territory...and even in the absence of modern nationalism...(vis-a-vis our Ottoman conquerors)...we were ("another") a people...just as the Cretans...whether Moslem or Christian..Orthodox or Catholic...were another ethnicity...in relationship to their Ottoman rulers...and obviously not ethnic Turks. That seems Greek enough to me...but obviously to the xenophobic Orthodox Greeks who wanted to take over their homes....and purify the land of any vestige of Islam, and memory of the Ottoman Empire...it wasn't! In the face of such mortal hatred...any one would flee and become a Turk....and that's exactly what happend. Gospe 01:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This is one of the most interesting talk edits I've ever read (and I seldomly read long texts). I had no idea about the dispute here, nor am I educated on the Cretan Turks/Cretan Muslims story. Gospe, you might want to contribute in my Nationality quiz. NikoSilver 00:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Turcophone culture
The article currently reads:
 * Cretan Turks ... refers to the descendants of those Cretan Muslims who had developed a Turcophone culture (see below) on Crete during the Ottoman rule...

The "Turcophone culture" part doesn't seem right for the vast majority of the Giritli. All the sources I've seen say that the Cretan Muslims were almost entirely Greek-speaking:
 * despite a large Muslim community, the islanders remained Grecophone, as many travelers attested. Robert Pashley, traveling in Crete in the 1830's, referred to Greek as "the common language of the island".  An official proclamation was read out to the villagers "in Greek, the common language of the island, and was therefore intelligible to his audience." A demographic study of the island, undertaken in 1890 by a (Greek) member of the local administration, had this to say on the linguistic situation of the Cretans: "All of the inhabitants of the island without exception speak the Greek language.  Both Ottomans and Christians speak Greek at home as their mother tongue.  Very few--some city dwellers only--know Turkish at all."
 * Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean, Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 39.
 * The departing Muslims regarded Crete as their home. Their language, for the most part, was Greek... Cretan Muslims and their children, many still Greek-speaking, occasionally visit Rethemnos.
 * Michael Herzfeld, A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town, Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 20
 * ...there were substantial Muslim minorities in Cyprus and Crete (where the Muslims were Greek-speaking)...
 * Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 48

It is fascinating that there was a Turkish-language high literary culture in Crete, as documented in this article, but most Muslim Cretans who were part of the population exchange were not Turkish-speaking. Unless there is some evidence that there were significant numbers who were Turkish-speaking (Turcophone), I believe the article should mention that they were primarily Greek-speaking. Comments? --Macrakis 23:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

There was a source that cited the fourteen different languages that were being spoken in the island circa 1900, but I lost track of it. I will add it if I find it. That the Kritika was the lingua franca of the island would not make all islanders Greeks, some of whom would have brindled at the term and did not even use it referring to the language they spoke. By that account Matthew of Candia would be what? An Cretan Gregorian who had developped an Armenophone culture? Many Armenians (and Greeks) of Turkey spoke primarily, and sometimes even exclusively, Turkish. Komitas Vardapet. Should we term them as Turkish Christians? There are Turkish schools still standing in Crete, and Turks usually develop a Turcophone culture, or, for that matter, a Turcophone culture is usually developped by Turks. I will add more on the fascinating Turkish-language high literary culture and then we can pursue the discussion. Also, without passing a definite judgment on this, I would advise caution when reading the statements made by 19th century Western observers. I will seek out the source on the fourteen languages of the island. Cretanforever 12:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Please reread my comment. I never said that everyone who lived in Crete was "Greek", that everyone who speaks Greek is "Greek", or that everyone who speaks Turkish is Turkish (or Muslim). For one thing, the term "Greek" was used at the time for Orthodox Christians, just as "Turk" was used for Muslims, regardless of language. I am well aware, for example, of the Karamanlides who were Orthodox Turkish-speakers; in fact, I have visited Cappadocia and read the Turkish-language inscriptions on their houses written in the Greek alphabet. I am also aware of the Gagauz, who are Turkish-speaking Christians.

I am not sure what the 14 languages claim refers to. Surely Greek, Turkish, Ladino, and Armenian were spoken natively by some number of locals; Arabic, Italian, French, Russian, and English were no doubt spoken by traders, diplomats, and soldiers. Muslims studied Arabic to read the Koran, and Jews studied Hebrew to read the Tanakh. But that is all besides the point. By all evidence I've seen (and I don't think I've been selective in my reading), the lingua franca of the island was Greek, and the vast majority of both Christians and Muslims spoke Greek as a native language. Now of course, you could define the "Cretan Turks" as the Muslims in Crete who were Turcophone; but that would exclude the vast majority of the Giritli in Turkey.

You say "Turks usually develop a Turcophone culture, or, for that matter, a Turcophone culture is usually developped by Turks." That claim requires evidence, and for that matter, an unambiguous definition of "Turk" -- just as claims about "Greeks" require unambiguous definitions of "Greek" (you will see in my edits on Greek-related articles that I am just as sceptical of Greek essentialism as of Turkish.) It is clear that Turkish was used in Crete as a language of administration -- the archives of Crete are full of Ottoman documents written in Ottoman Turkish (which I have struggled to read...) -- but that doesn't tell us much about the vernacular. Similarly, most documents (both administrative and literary) in early medieval Europe were written in Latin, though only a very small educated class knew Latin, and no one spoke it as a native language.

What is more, we have concrete evidence today that large numbers of Giritli were Greek-speaking: that they continued to speak Greek after the population exchange, and even passed along the language to their families. I have met such people in Turkey, and spoken Greek with them.

I look forward to working with you on improving this article based on solid sources. I think you will find that I am open-minded and reasonable. --Macrakis 16:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

In which language are the tombstones of Cretan Muslims? I am not trying to arrive at essentialism, here it's just a question of the right terminology to use in the context of an internet encyclopedia. We are not going to solve the Cretan question here.

Here is the very old and outdated link, I doubt if they had ever heard of Salacıoğlu, http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Crete, where I had come across the "fourteen languages" quote. It's Ch. Laroche, Crête ancienne et moderne. I had a direct link to the "fourteen languages" but I lost it. My point in indicating it is that there was a multilingual society who also needed an everyday life linguistic instrument, aside from Turkish for the administration, literature and the other world. Cretanforever 17:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I would assume that the tombstones of Cretan Muslims are inscribed in Arabic or Ottoman Turkish, but again that tells us nothing about the vernacular.

The 1911 Britannica article you mention says "The Moslems, as well as the Christians, are of Greek origin and speak Greek." and doesn't mention "fourteen languages" (only fourteen insurrections between 1207-1365). The Grande Encyclopedie (1890) says "ils... parlent tous, même les musulmans, un dialecte particulier de la langue grecque".

As I said before, there was clearly an elite which wrote and spoke Turkish. Indeed, there were a few Christian Cretans who wrote books in Ottoman Turkish (as well as Greek), such as Andreas Androulidakis Kopassis (Κοπάσης) = Andreya Kopası Efendi, who started out as the secretary (kâtib-ı 'umûmî) of the Ottoman governor of Chania. (Johann Strauss, "The Millets and the Ottoman Language: The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters (19th - 20th Centuries)" in Die Welt des Islams, New Ser., Vol. 35, Issue 2. (Nov., 1995), pp. 189-249. ). But it seems that outside these narrow circles, the common vernacular was Greek. Evidence (scholarly sources, not original research) to the contrary is, of course, always welcome. --Macrakis 19:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Another interesting source:
 * Communication between the two religious communities was easy for one very simple reason. Almost all the Turkish Cretans were native speakers of Greek; indeed, very few spoke Turkish well. Stavrakis (1890, I: 201) notes that knowledge of Turkish was extremely rare among Turkish Cretan women, and I have even encountered in Ayvalik on the Turkish coast a West Cretan woman whose Turkish, after seventy years of domicile in Turkey, was still limited to a few conventional greetings. Stavrakis (1890, I: 201–5) also observes that most Muslim functionaries, including the imams of the two Dervish sects, officiated in Greek. The reason for this apparent contradiction is not hard to seek. Many Turkish Cretans were apparently descendants of Christians who had changed their religion in order to escape the Ottoman capitation tax on non-Muslims. Their surnames are unequivocally Cretan; many of them (e.g. Lagoudakis), which are still found among the Christians of Crete today, are also attested in combination with Muslim given names in these documents.  Cretan surnames are essentially patrigroup or clan names, often derived from the nickname of some outstanding ancestor, or from an ordinary given name (Moustafakis; cf. Anastasakis); the characteristically Cretan ending -akis is a mark of patrifiliation. As their Christian neighbours had already done earlier in imitation of their liberated brethren on the Greek mainland, then, these Muslims acquired European-style surnames as soon as Crete adopted the Greek legal code after autonomy.  The code recognised such names as equivalent to European surnames; it was only after they had fled to Turkey (or been forcibly ‘repatriated’ there in 1924) and submitted to the Kemalists’ nationalist cultural programme that these obviously Cretan surnames disappeared. They survive in legal documentary form as we shall see, and they can also be found among the Turkish–Cretan inhabitants of Kos and Rhodes, whose forebears went to those islands while they were still in Turkish hands or, after 1911, had become part of the Italian Aegean ‘empire’.


 * ...while the Muslim religious leadership used Greek for most purposes, some of them also knew both Turkish and Arabic.


 * Michael Herzfeld, "Of language and land tenure: The transmission of property and information in autonomous Crete", Social Anthropology 7:7:223-237 (1999),
 * Stavrakis reference is to: Nikolaos Stavrakis, Statistiki tou plithismou tis Kritis (Statistics of the population of Crete), Athens: Palingenesia. 1890.

--Macrakis 20:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your research and contribution Macrakis, a point has definitely been made. Cretanforever some of your views here and elsewhere are just things that are not accepted outside Turkey, so as you understand it's only normal that we don't take them into consideration. Reverting blindly is just not going to make a difference. We must be careful not to turn this article into a POV-fork of Cretan Muslims. Miskin 10:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's not panic. Till two days ago, Moly Greene and Herzfeld did not about Salacıoğlu. I will concentrate on developing the article, especially the high-Turcophone literature part. I gather we all agree that the administration, education, literature and the final choice of the tombstones were in Turkish. I will archive this discussion if no one sees an inconvenient. Kritika article also needs work. Thanks. Cretanforever 11:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What makes you so sure that Greene and Herzfeld are unaware of Salacıoğlu? Anyway, again, the presence of high culture in Ottoman Turkish tells us very little about the vernacular. After all, Erasmus, Euler, Francis Bacon, and Milton wrote in Latin; should we conclude that there were large Latin-speaking populations in Amsterdam, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London? It is especially suggestive that few Muslim women spoke Turkish; this implies that the home language (the mother tongue) of the Muslim Cretans was Greek. --Macrakis 14:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

PS Please do not archive this discussion, as it is still in progress. When we come to a conclusion, then we can archive. --Macrakis 14:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Any Greeks who wrote in Latin? While under the Roman Empire for example? I can't think of a single name. Especially by being raised in a Greek-speaking culture? Not taken in childhood as a slave or after anything similar?

If there are references you want to add, for example Lily Macrakis? :), you should go ahead. They will enrich the article. But the header paragraph looks hijacked as it is. In all kindness, I want to see Turkish language mentioned first, not Turcophone or any other politically correct term, and this, with regards for the individuals listed below. If we discover twenty to thirty "Cretan Muslims" who clearly left a Greek legacy, an equal number to those who left a Turkish legacy, we can discuss about it again. To my knowledge, there isn't even one who signed in Greek as El Greco did. The readers will find it strange. Kritika has its place in the header too of course. Thank you. Cretanforever 01:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Section
—If we discover twenty to thirty "Cretan Muslims" who clearly left a Greek legacy, an equal number to those who left a Turkish legacy, we can discuss about it again. To my knowledge, there isn't even one who signed in Greek as El Greco did— Cretanforever

I think that it is TOTALLY irrelevant what kind of legacy Cretan Moslems left...or how their decendants idetify themselves today. It just happens that the majority fled to Turkey...thus after several generations of assimilation into the Turkish mainstream....they will obviously identify themselves as Turks...but if they had fled to Palestine...I am sure that they would also identify as Palestinians.

The issue here is WHO WERE THEY...WHAT HAPPEND TO THEM...WHY....and NOT...what is the actual national identity of their decendants. We KNOW that their decendants are Turks today.

Let's imagine that most of them had fled to Lebanon and Syria...would you have changed the heading of the article...to "CRETAN ARABS"! Why should the identity of my decendants....my future progeny...define MY OWN...actual identity...TODAY...as well as my ancestry!!! This last argument...M. Cretanforever...just doesn't make sense. Obviously...if they hadn't had to flee Crete...sooner or later...they would have greatly contributed to modern Greek culture...just as we Bosnians who remained in Bosnia...although small in numbers...and struggling for our physical survival in the face of enormous adversity and centuries' old hatred....have greatly contributed to both European, Slavic, Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern-Islamic cultures. If we had ALL been forced out like the Cretans...today... someone in Turkey would be writing an article for Wikipedia about "Bosnian Turks". Thanks to the Austro-Hungarians, Tito and our own resourceful people...we survived.

As far as the art and contributions of El Greco...well...he was a Cretan...a "Venetian" Cretan too...influenced by Venetian culture the same way that the Cretan Moslems were influenced by the Ottoman Turkish and Islamic cultures...Also a Greek...but undoubtedly... a "Spanish painter". I mean...if the Greeks can claim Alexander the Great as "their own", then why can't the Spaniards claim El Greco! He lived and worked in Spain...his subject matter and themes were influenced by the Iberian society he inhabited...so of course...although Cretan, a Greek...he was a Spanish painter. There is one HUGE difference though...neither the Spaniards nor the Venetians are claiming that he was not an indigenous Cretan...a Hellene...therefore Greek as well..nor disputing his Cretan roots and ancestry simply because he HAS to be Spanish.

As far as the influence of the Turcophone culture on the islamicized peoples living in the formerly Ottoman territories...well...it has been exagerated. My grandfather was born an Ottoman citizen...a Moslem...but ended up an Austro-Hungarian citizen...and a soldier of the Emperor's army. His daily "patois" was our regional dialect...with an equal admixture of Turkish, Arabic, Persian, German, Hungarian and Italian words.

So he may have greeted you in the morning...with a "Sabah Heir'allah" in Arabic...but then he'd refer to breakfast..in German...as "Fruschtuck"...and reminisce about his youthful days on the Italian Front and in Budapest. This above mentioned "Turcophone" influence very quickly dissipated from our culture...and within a generation...our youth was studying in Vienna, Prague and Budapest...and not just in Istanbul, Mecca and Cairo..as before. If we were THEN "Turkish" as a result of have been influenced and ruled by Turks...then today we are all "Americans, Brits and Anglo-Saxons"...for obviously...English and MTV..rules. Gospe 05:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good point. If they had fled to Lebanon then somebody would have be trying to convince us that they were never Greek, but the ancestors of ancient Phoenicians or something like that. Unfortunately not everyone sees that. It's really astonishing how some people are naive enough insists on speaking about "Turkic" settlements in Crete, and ignore all sources. This article speaks of Turkish citizens, brought up in Turkish culture, what's more in natural in the world for them to have a biased point of view about their origin. I wish Cretanforever could look into the "mirror" for a moment. Miskin 10:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

–That's a good point. If they had fled to Lebanon then somebody would have be trying to convince us that they were never Greek, but the ancestors of ancient Phoenicians or something like that.—

Well...the interesting thing is that the Cretan Moslem communities in Syria and Lebanon have survived for generations...and still speak Cretan. Although...nominally Moslem...they are also very secular communities...and seem to have had more problems in being accepted as Greeks...by the Christian Greeks themselves...than by their Arabophone neighbours...and co-citoyens in Lebanon and Syria. Their estimated number is around 10 000. Gospe 20:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I read in source that the Cretan Muslims who fled to Turkey were labeled there for some time as the "semi-infidels". Miskin 21:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that there is a lot of "mythology" about converts being Crypto-Christians. I mean...let's face it...Sultan Murat was no Torquemada...most Greeks remained Christian...and if converts had been motivated solely by $$$ gain...and a better life under the Ottomans...then they could have just as easily reverted back to Greek Christianity...kept their homes...and lived happily ever after (may be in Melbourne...Chicago or Athens) like the rest of their countrymen-women. Sufi influenced Islam is far from dogmatic...and seems to have been the major religious influence in Crete, Albania and Bosnia.Gospe 03:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Errr, many of them did it - convert back to Orthodoxy and live happily ever after. How could those who remained muslim been accepted as Greek? The island was coming out of Ottoman occupation and Greece was in war with an Islamic state. It's like expecting today from the Arab countries to easily accept arabs of the Jewish religion (kindof). Miskin 10:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hungary was conquered by Turks...Vienna almost fell...yet the Austro-Hungarians were extremely "cool" and tolerant vis-a-vis their Moslem subjects. Overall...they were very accepting. There was no persecution of their Moslem citizens. Fearing the worst...many fled to Ottoman territories...yet the new conquerors were pretty "lame-benign"...and nothing "happend". We're talking about 19th century Europe...and a very Roman Catholic Empire! So...it's an amazing record and awesome legacy for that period of European history! I think the Greeks could have done a lot better in their treatment of this minority...but I guess...during their national "renaissance" the leadership chose to identify more as Byzantines-Christians...than ethnic Greeks...the emphasis being placed on the Orthodox religious identity and not on ethnicity, culture, language, roots. It's a pretty sad record. Gospe 16:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Miskin and his "semi-infidels" statement
What does that prove really? Greeks labeled Greek refugees from Turkey as Turk; be careful throwing stones while in a glass house. --Doktor Gonzo 09:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It proves that it was hard to accept a Greek-speaker as a muslim. Anatolian Greeks were not labelled as Turks, I don't know where you got that idea from (A Touch of Spice maybe?) Miskin 11:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a close Athenian Greek friend with a mother and a father born in Turkey. I don't think it is a big secret mainland Greeks discriminated against the refugees from Turkey. You may not know but the refugees do.


 * As for the semi-infidel comment against Cretan Turks, I wouldn't make much out of it. Ironically there were hardcore Islamists among those Cretan Turks, such as those responsible for the events in Menemen. Turks sometimes use gavur to desribe Turks who lead a more western lifestyle or for Muslim emigrants from the Balkans.--Doktor Gonzo 12:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh I know, what makes you so sure that I'm not a refugee? Sure there were discriminations, but it was in the popular context of dealing with immigration, not in the context of suspecting someone for not being of the same culture. The cultural differences between Anatolian and mainland Greeks were minor things as music, food, dressing etc (except the case of Pontians who spoke an untelligible dialect). In the case of Cretan muslims moving to Anatolia it's different, Crete was liberated from the Ottoman Empire, so technically the Cretan Muslims were moving within the same state. The "semi-infidel" is a great insult within an Islamic society, and it I don't think it could have been applied on muslims from Macedonia for instance. Miskin 13:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * What makes me sure; could it be because you claimed Greek refugees weren't labeled as Turks? As for the semi-infidels, pardon me the wisdom but I very much know my society and who they label as an infidel. It is what I wrote above and any Turk will tell you that.--Doktor Gonzo 14:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Especially when you generalise it like that, then it's a completely a false impression you have. I'm not sure in what degree you can know what a 19th Ottoman society was like. Your friend's parents must have come from Constantinople during the pogroms, a much more recent event. In any case you may be right, it's just that the book I read put emphasis on that discrimination above all others. And it wasn't written by a Greek. Miskin 14:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

All this reminds me of a song that was popular in Turkey for a brief period during the late seventies (I will omit the context).

A be gozim Hora, Dalga yapma bora, Batar sonra Mora, Cretanforever 18:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Cretanforever, could u please translate it?:). I only got the word "Hora" (though not sure about it). As for the "discimination" of the Asia Minor Greek refugees in Greece, I would like to clear up some things: the natives of a land feel threatened when non-natives arrive (re-partitioning of agricultural fields, new villages and town with negative effects for those who controlled till then the local economy, etc... This was the case for the German refugees from Eastern Europe in post war Germanies, this was the case for the Greek Cypriots from the North to the South, this was the case for the Asia Minor Greeks in Greece, this is the case for the Pontian Greeks from the former USSR in modern Greece... I have never heard the refugees from Asia Minor called "Turks", but I do know how in popular Greek phrases the term "Turk" is sometimes used: when someone is very angry, out of his mind, he says "I have become a Turk"; in football games the fans of a club may call the fans of their opponents (if it is a club founded in Asia Minor or Constantinople, e.g. AEK FC or PAOK) "Hanums" or "Turks", without implying that these fans are really slave girls or Turks... They just use these words to piss them off... If these phrases could mean anything about ethnic origin or basic characteristics of ethnic discrimination, then, I suppose, that every English speaker who is told what u say, is all Greek to me, is simply a Greek:). Hectorian 18:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Now you are trying to justify Greeks labeling refugees. My initial point was it is common to label outsiders, thank you for proving it. Some Turks calling Cretan Turks semi-infidels means nothing.--Doktor Gonzo 06:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not trying to justify anything, I am just explaining the usage of the word "Turk" in Greek. Nothing of what I said above refers to the Refugees. The phrase concerning "anger" is much older than 1923 and can be used for every person who gets very angry (regardless if he is a descendant of the refugees, a Greek in general or whatever). The football clubs I mentioned are rather popular in Greece and their fans include Greeks of every social background or place of residence/origin. I am not familiar with the "semi-infidels" label concerning the Cretan-Turks and if they are called that by the Turks; for what I am sure is that none in Greece ever questioned the ethnic origin or religion of the Greeks from Asia Minor, and none ever called them "Turks" (football stadium language referring to fans is excluded, unless the supporters of Olympiacos are gavroi:)...) or "semi-Christians". Hectorian 06:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Constructive talk page discussion
There are many interesting points above on both sides of the discussion. However, I don't think they are moving forward the editing of the article. The purpose of Talk pages is not to support Usenet-like free-form discussion, but to move forward the editing of the article. In my experience, the more contentious the subject of the article, the more important it is to be rigorous about finding high-quality third-party secondary sources (not primary sources, the interpretation of which constitutes original research), to report on these sources honestly, and to stay focussed on the particular subject. May I suggest that both sides here make an effort to find such sources rather than depend on personal experience, received wisdom (which tends to be different on different sides of the debate... or of the Aegean), and argument from first principles? --Macrakis 16:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * We were just having a chat. Miskin 16:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Please try to keep the article tidy and readable as it is, and it will be easier to develop through all levels of sources and above all, a level of civility, loss of which is very hard to compansate for afterwards. Cretanforever 12:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:POV fork
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles should not be split into multiple articles solely so each can advocate a different stance on the subject.

I don't mean this as a threat, but if Cretanforever doesn't stop POV-injections into the article and land-claim implications, I'm gonna have to propose this article for deletion, as a POV-fork of Cretan Muslims which is tending to become. Cretanforever is not far from implying that Crete is "Turkish national land" like once Kemal said for Anatolia. Miskin 10:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Admire the skills of Khoikhoi's adminship, he's edit-warring on the limit of 3RR due to his own lack of judgement. Do I need to consensus? How come you didn't ask Cretanforever to seek consensus when he and Bonzo made those edits ? Macrakis was perfectly right to remove the claims against the Greek state, it is explicitely mentioned in the article that Cretan Muslims were extinct by the late 19th century before the island was annexed to Greece. It is very very rare that I'm on the same side with Macrakis but you fail to see that. Cretanforever has been injecting POV since "forever" and all we've been doing is asking him for citations. Look I would normally try to talk this over with the Turkish editors, but now thanks to Khoikhoi's diplomacy, I'm really thinking that only a merge&delete or just delete can protect from this POV-fork. Miskin 10:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This article, with a great flexibility over NOR, was initially proposed as a complementary to Cretan Muslims. Recent edits removed Cretan Muslims from the opening paragraph and replaced it with a POV which implies that Cretan Turks are the same as Cretan Muslims (ignoring all sources and all policies - under the blessings of an administrator). I tried to restore the NPOV, cited version, but got reverted by User:Khoikhoi. I don't know how much clearer it has be made in order for some people to understand what a POV-fork means. Miskin 11:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia doesn't decide what should be, it is about giving information. Google gives 67.300 results for Cretan Turks, the title deserves an article of its own.--Doktor Gonzo 13:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The string "Cretan Turks -wikipedia" gives 332 results, so you're off only by some 67,000. I don't know what you mean by "wikipedia doesn't decide what should be", then who does? Certainly not individual editors. It's not my fault some editors are constantly try to turn this article into a POV-fork of Cretan Muslims. It must be either decided and acknowledged that "Cretan Turks" differs from "Cretan Muslims" in the way it was formerly stated, or the two articles should be merged, I don't see a middle way solution in order to avoid POV-forking, and most importantly I don't see the minimum effort to comply with NPOV and CITE. Allowing this article to exist separately, constantly in the limit of becoming a POV-fork (despite the lack of sources), is already an effort of compromise from my part. User:Khoikhoi is only reverting my edits out of personal antagonism against my verbal expression, which in his opinion tends to be occasionally dictatoric. Hence why he won't even participate in discussion, despite his clear double-standard practice of selectively asking for a consensus (say, only when I'm making edits). Miskin 17:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "Cretan Turks" -wikipedia gives 334; "Cretan Muslims" -wikipedia gives 183 results. Wikipedia doesn't decide what should be, it means wikipedia doesn't decide if the correct usage should be Cretan Turks or Muslims, if the word has a popular usage (334-183=151) then it rightfully deserves an article of its own--Doktor Gonzo 10:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a small note...
I'm not going to delve into this huge debate above to what degree these people were Turks or Greeks or whatever. Just two small notes: For the moment, I'm going to reintroduce the formulation in the intro that contains the link to the other article, about them being "descendants of Cretan Muslims". I'm not touching the wording about their Greek background. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The current version of the intro is abominably poor quality. "Cretan Turks... came about by..." is hardly English, and certainly not a suitable encyclopedia lead sentence.
 * Whatever the ethnic characteristics of these people, the relationship between this article and the Cretan Muslims article needs to be clarified. Both articles essentially deal with the same group of people. In order for them not to be POV forks of each other, they need to clearly state what the division of labour between the two is supposed to be, in the intro. The only division I can imagine is for Cretan Muslims to deal with their life while still in Crete, and for this article to deal with what they did after they left. If that's not what this article is intended to be about, then it must be merged with the other one. I don't care too much under which title.

I agree. "Cretan Muslims" are the Muslims in Crete, and "Cretan Turks" are their descendents in Anatolia who have come to have a Turkish national consciousness.

The current introductory paragraph is problematic:
 * Cretan Turks ... are the descendants of Cretan Muslims who had lived in Crete during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
 * Well, there were still a few between 1897-1923, and not all the descendents of the Cretan Muslims became Cretan Turks; an unknown number converted to Christianity.
 * They were forced to leave Crete and migrate, in their overwhelming majority to Turkey, in successive waves in the course of the 19th century, after the events of 1896-1898, at the start of the Greek rule in 1908 and especially in the framework of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations.
 * By 1896, the majority had already left or converted. (See sourced table in Cretan Muslims.) The 1923 exchange was definitive, but by then very few remained.
 * Many Cretan Turks and their descendants had attained prominent positions within the Ottoman Empire and later in Turkey and they had forged a high level Turkish language culture. In the multilingual environment of Ottoman Crete, many were bilingual in Turkish and the Cretan Greek dialect (Kritika).
 * Information about the Muslims of Crete under the Ottomans belongs in the Cretan Muslims article, where there is sourced information about their language. An interesting thing in the context of this article, perhaps, is that many of their descendents in Anatolia (and later the Republic of Turkey) continued to speak Greek.

I have avoided intervening in this discussion because the past behavior of some of both the Greek and the Turkish editors has been confrontational, not cooperative, drowning out the sensible middle. Both sides' extremists seem to act as though words like "Turk" and "Greek" meant the same thing 200 years ago as they mean today, and that religion, language, and political loyalties were all neatly aligned; not to mention projecting modern notions of national consciousness into the past. They seem to ignore the difference between the small literate elites and the masses of the people. In short, they seem to be working from simplistic school-book assumptions rather than trying to understand current scholarly analyses. That is why it may well be hopeless to try to improve the article. --Macrakis 21:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

CretanForever, you have made some changes to the article without joining the discussing here. Please join the discussion so that we can work towards a consensus. --Macrakis 16:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This is why I'm saying that there's no remedy for this article. As long as Cretanforever insists on adding his POV, camouflaged by misleading edit summaries, it's only a matter of time before this article becomes a POV-fork and gets proposed for deletion. Alas some editors don't even make the slightest effort to judge their practices, they just hope that at some point their POV will go unnoticed. Miskin 20:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Crete Province, Ottoman Empire
I am shifting the redirect for that title and starting an article. I feel your energies and rhetoric will be put to use there.

Anyone who finds the "when they were in Crete, they were Cretan Muslims, and then once they set foot in Turkey, they and their descendants became Cretan Turks" line plausible should develop the Cretan Muslims article. At present, it is one of the saddest things in wikipedia. It becomes sadder still when it is reinforced by such gems of thought like "but the Greeks used this term this way, and the other term another way". In French, they say "Que dalle!" At present, what takes place here is a non-discussion and I will avoid immersing in it. Regards. I am copy-pasting my previous discussion left unanswered. Cretanforever 05:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If there are references you want to add, for example Lily Macrakis? :), you should go ahead. They will enrich the article. But the header paragraph looks hijacked as it is. In all kindness, I want to see Turkish language mentioned first, not Turcophone or any other politically correct term, and this, with regards for the individuals listed below. If we discover twenty to thirty "Cretan Muslims" who clearly left a Greek legacy, an equal number to those who left a Turkish legacy, we can discuss about it again. To my knowledge, there isn't even one who signed in Greek as El Greco did. The readers will find it strange. Kritika has its place in the header too of course. Thank you. Cretanforever 01:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * "You want", but do you have a source to support your edits? The way I see it your only concern is to promote (or rather create) Turkish land claims on Crete. Your username itself says much about your views on the topic. You are now openly promoting the idea of a POV-fork, by denying that Cretan Muslims and Cretan Turks have been referring to a different thing. If I stand correct your sole argument so far has been that the Cretan Christian called in Greek the Cretan Muslims "Turks". And for that very reason you're suggesting to ignore or hide all scholarly mentions on the origin of Cretan Muslims (Greek converts to Islam). Well, what can I say, after all you do have an administrator's support, so as far as you're concerned you've got nothing to lose. Miskin 10:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I abide by Khoikhoi's old proposal, i.e. to merge the two articles in Islam in Crete. I think it is evident by now that Cretan Muslims and Cretan Turks cannot co-exist without the one being a fork of the other. Miskin 11:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Problem is, they don't live in Crete anymore. The Islam in Crete article would only have to discuss their history in Crete, before they arrived in Turkey. Khoikhoi 11:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, the current version states that the article "Cretan Turks" refers to the Muslims who lived in Crete, not the ones who went to Turkey. At least that's the sense I make from: "Cretan Turks came about as a consequence of the Ottoman rule in Crete starting 1648 (some sources prefer to use the term Cretan Muslims)" If you agree that the article should refer to the Cretan Muslims who moved from Crete to Turkey (and became Turkish), then you should have been supporting my edits. Miskin 12:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears that Miskin, Macrakis, Khoikhoi, FPS, Ninio agree that this article should refer to the Cretan Muslims that went to Turkey - this looks like a consensus to me. I restored an older version of the head which was agreed by consensus, and changed without one. From now significant changes should come with a source, otherwise they should be reverted, what do you think of that Khoikhoi? Miskin 12:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Does a Turkish student report count as a credible source that represents consensus? What if I come up with 10 non-partisan anglophone sources which contradict such claims? Cretanforever please answer or I'll just revert you. Miskin 17:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Cretanforever, thanks for the Bayraktar reference. It looks like an interesting unpublished Masters' thesis based on a lot of good sources (including Molly Greene, by the way). About the language of the Cretan Muslims, you might be interested in what it says on p. 3:
 * The limited colonization and the extensive Islamization of the island resulted in a rather hybrid of Muslim in faith but Cretan in terms of customs and language population.

The English is a bit awkward, but the point is clear. As far as I can tell, he also never refers to the Muslims of Crete as "Turks", but systematically as "Muslims". --Macrakis 21:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

When defining the 17th century conversions (extensive) from the present-day optique, it is always useful to take account of the re-conversions (back to Christianity) (also extensive) in the 19th century. I mentioned that some prefer to use the term Cretan Muslims. But the legacy is still Turkish. Cretanforever 07:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what Molly Greene says on page 48, in her book "A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the early modern Mediterranean", 2000.

''Time constraints in Turkey allowed me to copy down complete info for only two districts, Temenos and Pediada. The figures for the other districts are based on a sample of villages from each district. No photocopying or any other type of reproduction of this register, which exceeds 900 pages, was allowed. Let us hope that scholars based in Turkey publish this survey some time in the near future.''

Therefore, besides being five years more recent, Bayraktar's work goes further than being "an interesting unpublished Masters' thesis based on a lot of good sources", especially if we take exception of the "awkward English". It constitutes a very good step towards filling the vacuum in place since A. Lily Macrakis. :) Cretanforever 08:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Let's hope he continues his research and comes out with a publishable Ph.D. dissertation. Anyway, Lily Macrakis did not use many Ottoman sources (some from the Vikelaia Library in Iraklion). --Macrakis 15:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I had thought that I would not have to stop by this article for a long while, but what seems to be the problem this time? I have never understood this Muslim/Turk thing to begin with. I mean, isn't it true that during the nation-state transition nearly all Muslims of Greece and many from the Balkans, particularly those that immigrated to Turkey, adopted the Turkish identity? At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter if in the 17th century they were referred to as "Muslims" - there were no national identities to begin with! (obiviously one can also say that Europeans referred to all the Muslims as Turks as well, but that would just further complicate the issue) The real issue is this: Is there continuity between the identity of the Cretan "Muslims" of 16th, 17th century and Cretan "Turks" of post-nation state world? The answer is yes, therefore it is not anachronistic to call them "Turks". I am sorry but this insistence of Greece to call Turks as Muslims is a bit unnerving. At least Turkey doesn't insist on calling the Greeks as "Orthodox" rather Greek, the only variation is that they are called "Rum" - but that is just how they have been referred for millenia in Turkish so there aren't any particular overtones or anything. Baristarim 12:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that there "were no national identities" in the 17th century, which is precisely why we have to be careful with words like "Greeks" and "Turks", which in modern language have a very specific meaning related to the modern conception of nationality and ethnicity. And for that matter we need to be careful about calling various Orthodox Christians in the Balkans "Greeks".  The tendency for Greek nationalists is to appropriate everyone who is called Greek in historical sources as a "Greek" in the modern sense; yet many of them came to have the national consciousness of Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs, Albanians, etc., so they are clearly not Greek in the modern nation-state or ethnic identity sense. It is similarly misleading to call all Muslims in the Balkans and Anatolia "Turks", because that implies that they are somehow "the same" as modern Turks. In both cases, contemporary writers often called all Orthodox Christians "Greeks" and all Muslims in the Balkans and Anatolia "Turks", but our job as encyclopedia editors is to clarify, not to muddle.  When we call someone in 1800 a "Turk" or a "Greek" we need to establish that they had Turkish or Greek national consciousness, which was emerging in the case of Greeks, but not yet in the case of Turks.


 * The notion of "continuity" between the Cretan Muslims of 16-19th century and the modern Giritli of Turkey is problematic. There is also continuity between some Cretan Muslims of the 16-19th century and modern Christian Cretans whose ancestors converted (I avoid the term "re-converted", since there was a gap of centuries) to Christianity in the 19th century.  Surely we are not going to call the Christian descendents of Cretan Muslims "Turks", too?


 * About the Greek usage of "Turks" vs. "Muslims", perhaps you are alluding to the issues around the Muslim minority in modern Northern Greece. Many of them do have Turkish ethnic identity, and speak Turkish, and should be called Turks, I agree.  (Others, by the way, identify as Pomaks, not Turks.) The careful avoidance of the term "Turk" when Greeks talk about these people is, I agree, inappropriate.  But we are not talking about those people in this article.  We are talking about a historical population mostly in the pre-national period. --Macrakis 15:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Nonetheless, our role as editors does not include judging in which occasions we can use "Greeks" or "Turks", this would fall under original research and there no point getting to it any further. We follow standard usage as it is seen in anglophone sources. Cretan Muslims were called Turks only by the Greeks, but this much less common in English. Furthermore assuming that 'Cretan Turks' had been more common, there would still be no reason to hide the fact that those 'Turks' were Greek converts to Islam. I'll provide some relevant sources shortly. Miskin 14:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I said we "had to be careful". I did not suggest inventing our own terminology, but using standard modern English-language academic terminology, per WP policy. You seem to think that I am proposing that the Muslims of Crete in Crete be called "Cretan Turks".  But I never suggested that.  The question here is what to call the descendents of the Muslim Cretans who live in Turkey and now (apparently) have Turkish national consciousness. In a Turkish context, they tend to be called simply "Cretans" (Giritli), but obviously that won't do as terminology here. In your comment of 12:12, 11 February, you seem to agree that "Cretan Turks" is an appropriate name.

As far as I can tell, there is no "standard" terminology for these people in modern academic discourse, simply because they haven't been studied much, but "Cretan Turks" seems OK to me. If we find better sources, so much the better. We already have lots of sources (in the Muslim Cretans article, where they belong) about the fact that most of the Muslims were converts. So what exactly is the problem? --Macrakis 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood, I was also replying to Baristarim as well. I have digged up more sources but I won't reveal them yet, cos as you said, they don't belong here, and I'm not willing to accept the establishment of a POV-fork that easily. I need some answers from Cretanforever in order to decide in which article each source belongs. Miskin 18:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

And the other point, that I really hope won't be discussed again, is the actual "Greekness" of Cretan Muslims. Listen, I am sure that there were Greek converts to Islam and all but as I had mentioned earlier, nobody has access to any sources on the comparitive demographic repartition of the island before, during and after the Ottoman conquest. Islands like Crete and Cyprus have been immigration points for millenia with all sorts of Venetian, Turkish, Arab and Balkanic invaders, traders and settlers immigrating to those islands. I really doubt that someone can come up and say with near certainty that "all Cretan Muslims are of Greek origin" or "all Cretan "Greeks" are of ancient Greek origin". For all that we know they could be the descendants of many other Mediterranean settlers you know. Only thing that we know is that during the nation-state transition the Muslims chose a Turkish ID and the Orthodox ones a Greek ID (in Crete, it can vary for other places).

Miskin, I really don't think that Cretanforever is trying to lay Turkish land claims on Crete. We are all past that and we are living in 2007 - have no worries for that. I am sure that for all Turkish editors this article and related ones are only one of historic interest - nothing more. Baristarim 12:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well all of his actions so far, including the very name he's chose in wikipedia, have shown the opposite. This is not about fearing an invasion of Crete, it's about common principles and minimum respect of NPOV. I'm favourable to the inclusion of any information provided by neutral, non-partisan sources. If the sources are partisans, then they'd better be credible. Cretanforever on the other hand has been simply POV-pushing, and Gonzo has been supporting him. Khoikhoi has been reverting me because he simply doesn't like me, and this encourages the POV-pusher to continue (in general). I don't agree with your approach on the currect topic Baristarim for the following reasons:
 * You cannot assume by default Crete (or any region) has today mixed-origin population because it had been conquered by several peoples in the past. History and ethnology are today advanced enough to be in position to draw a straight line betwee "conquest", "colonisation" and "permanent settlement". You're using erroneous methodology to imply that "Cretans don't have the right to claim any ethnic identity anyway". Ironically enough this is what extremist Turkish scholars say about the Turkish Cypriots, i.e. that they're not Greek in origin therefore they shouldn't be called Yunan, but only Rum (Greek in culture), which also happened to be the Ottoman term for the Greeks as their "subject people". I'm sure you don't mean to, but you're unwillingly using extremist reasoning and argumentation.
 * Even if the Cretans had been a mixed-origin society as you assume, this doesn't change the fact that the island's predominant population had always been "Greek", and by that I mean in language and religion, this is something undisputable. This is the term used by scholars, and neither you nor me nor Macrakis have the power to judge it (per WP:NOR). Therefore the argument on Cretan Muslims (or Turks) is not on whether they were Muslim or Turkish, because those terms were synonymous at the time. The argument is on whether the Cretan Muslim population was the result of Muslim/Turkish settlement, or simply by conversion of local Cretans (Greek) to Islam. This is documented, so I don't see why hide it or come up with original research arguments against it (such as e.g. that you can't apply terms as 'Greeks' and 'Turks' for that period). Your conversation with Macrakis shows that you both have a tendency towards "choosing the right terminology", which as you both very well may know, is an ability that editors don't possess. In other words, there's no reason to complicate things by declaring how something "in our opinion happened". For the sake of history as you yourself put it, we should base all edits and terminology on credible sources, nothing more nothing less. If the sources say that Cretan Muslims/Turks were Greek converts, then that's what the article should state (and of course include all other significant opinions). If you think that the Cretan Muslims/Turks only included "some" Greek conversions, then you should back it up with a reference. I'll shortly provide some sources to demostrate what scholarly consensus supports on the matter. But first we have to decide whether this article is about Cretan Muslims or about something else. Miskin 14:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Miskin, I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Could you be more explicit?  What exactly do you think the scholarly terminology is?  For the Muslims of Ottoman Crete, do you think they are called "Muslim Cretans", "Muslim Greeks", "Turks", "Turkish Cretans", or what?  For the Orthodox Christians of Ottoman Crete (there weren't many Armenian and Catholic Christians, so let's not overcomplicate the matter), do you think they are called "Christian Cretans", "Greek Cretans", "Greeks", or what?  In the above, you say that "Greek" refers to "language and religion", but in this period, language and religion are not aligned.


 * I am also confused about what you disagree with in my comments. I had thought that (for once!) we agreed (based on good sources) that the population of Ottoman Crete was largely Greek-speaking, and split about 55/45 Christian/Muslim in 1821, and that the populations are normally named "Christians" (or "Christian Cretans") and "Muslims" (or "Muslim Cretans") in standard academic sources. So what's the problem? --Macrakis 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I do agree with you Macrakis, I just think that it's pointless to debate on whether we have the right to use 'Greeks' or 'Turks' prior to peoples of territories that were not part of the Turkey or Greece respectively. They're used in literature so that settles it. I don't agree that an article on "Cretan Turks" should be talking about Cretan Muslims for the simple reason that "Cretan Muslims" is the most popular english terminology, and not because I'm judging that terms like 'Turk' and 'Greek' cannot be applied to people of that period. Anyhow, the article in current state is clearly a POV-fork, there's no doube about that. In the very opening paragraph it says that Cretan Turks is the same as Cretan Muslims. In fact I'm wondering of what Cretanforever was thinking when he made those edits, does he actually hope that those articles can co-exist in that manner? Even his own source (which I don't consider reliable), speaks only about muslims, and therefore belong in the "Cretan Muslims" website. I have gathered some sources which will enlighten some people on the scholarly consensus of Cretan Muslims, the language they spoke and their origins. However I won't provide them until Cretanforever and Gonzo declare openly their position on the subject (the questions I posed below). For the time being my sources concern Cretan Muslims and not Cretan Turks. Miskin 18:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Also you are completely missing my initial point, that this article is on the limit of becoming a POV-fork. If we assume that Cretan Turks and Cretan Muslims are the same thing, then this article is automatically a POV-fork. If we admit that they are essentially different groups (e.g. the former is composed by the Turkish ancestors of the latter) then we can have an article. Alas Cretanforever, Gonzo and Khoikhoi have been reverting this version. If we however all agree that Cretan Turks are never referred to as the Turkish ancestors of the Cretan Muslims, then we have to decide and merge the articles under the most popular name (WP:NAME), which happens to be 'Cretan Muslims'. This is why I've been adding the 'merge' tag every time Cretanforever implied that Cretan Turks is synonymous to Cretan Muslims. I'm not saying that he's wrong, but if we assume that he's right, then we have no choice than to merge the articles. The only thing I've been trying to do since the beginning is to protect this article from becoming a POV-fork. Miskin 15:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would be the last to claim that the Cretan Muslims were somehow "inherently" Greek. That is simply a meaningless statement. And the business about ancient Greek blood is nonsense which alas might still be found in elementary school books in Greece, but no serious scholar thinks in those terms.


 * On the other hand, we have copious evidence (please see the bibliography in Cretan Muslims and for that matter Turkish M.A. thesis cited by Cretanforever) that they were largely descendents of local converts to Islam, spoke Greek, and shared much of the culture of the Cretan Christians. Whether they had Venetian or Egyptian or Tibetan grandparents is irrelevant.


 * As for "during the nation-state transition the Muslims chose a Turkish ID and the Orthodox ones a Greek ID", this is not completely true, either. Some Cretan Muslims converted to Christianity during the 19th century.  And the "choice" of national identity was imposed by outside forces, the last of which was of course the Treaty of Lausanne. --Macrakis 15:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, do we know what the Cretan Muslims who settled outside Turkey call themselves? The article mentions settlements in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and I believe there are some in Libya as well. Apparently some in Lebanon and Syria still speak Greek, see: Roula Tsokalidou, "The Greek-speaking Cretans of Lebanon and Syria: The Survival of a Particular Ethnic Identity" Διαλεκτικοί θύλακοι της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας  'Dialect Enclaves of the Greek Language' , Athens, 1999 -- but I haven't been able to get a copy of the paper. --Macrakis 19:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is the third time a four-letter term comes back, both times with Greek sources. The need to go below the belt often shows the extent to which one's arguments are restricted. I never heard it but I am keeping the mentions here in memory. If you are prepared to add to African-Americans article, "African-Americans, also known as...", or to Jews in Britain article, "They are also called under such names as"...Then I can see the point about having it here. Cretanforever 06:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Huh? I'm sorry, but I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here. Could you please be more explicit? What "four-letter term"? What do you mean by "arguments are restricted"? What did you "never hear"? --Macrakis 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cretanforever we're trying to reach a mutually acceptable solution and you're replying with riddles. I'm going to restore the article's intro to its original version, that's the only way to attract some attention. Miskin 18:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

All-out
Cretanforever let's not complicate things, if we're gonna do this let's do it right, let us clearly declare our views so that there won't be any room for excuses later. Just complete the sentence: "I think that by 'Cretan Turks' we mean...:" You have to choose 1 or 2 in order to start negotiations. Miskin 15:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC) Miskin 15:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) "...the ancestors descendants of those Cretan Muslims who went to Turkey and acquired a Turkish identity" or...
 * 2) "...an alternative term for the 'Cretan Muslims', as they are described in their respective article."


 * I'm not going to get involved here right now; just to prevent some further misunderstandings, please Miskin, could you look up "ancestor" in a dictionary and make a mental note of it? I've seen you using that word wrongly at least half a dozen times, it means exactly the opposite of what you mean. What you want are descendants. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm dyslectic. Miskin 23:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Making progress
This is really getting out of hand. Multiple WP policies are being flouted: instead of rational, calm discussion, we have nasty, sarcastic attacks, creation of POV fork pages, edits made to "attract some attention", little effort to find reliable third-party sources, edit warring, etc. Could we all take a deep breath please and try to discuss calmly, rationally, and civilly and not change existing pages (or creating new ones) until we have reached a consensus? If we're convinced we've reached an impasse, perhaps we should try to get some outside arbitration. --Macrakis 17:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am shocked that this discussion is still on. Why is it so hard to acknowledge (given the overwhelming evidence) that Cretan Moslems...were indigenous Cretans...and NOT Turkish settlers.

Cretanforever keeps referring to prominent Turks...living in Turkey today...who are of Cretan origin. Should objective and honest debate be subject to their newfound Turkish nationalism! Eisenhower was obviously of German origin...but that didn't stop him from being a loyal American...and a president. I can't recall ever reading that he denied being of German origin...and let's not forget...he was THE General Eisenhower who fought the Germans and helped the US win the war against Hitler's Germany. Queen Elizabeth is mostly German...many European royals are also descended from Attila the Hun...including Elizabeth...and heck...after so many non-Turkish wives in the Sultans' harems...the last Ottoman Sultan was more Greek and Circassian...than Turkish.Gospe 03:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Temporary protection
This page has been temporarily protected (wrong version) to allow disputes to be worked out here on the talk page. Please make a note here once a consensus has been reached on how to proceed. Thank you, Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 01:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment - POV issues
There are several things wrong with your version: the intro was unsourced, including the definition of "Cretan Turks". It also failed to mention that they were forced to leave Crete? Which ones left by choice? Lastly, entire paragraphs were blanked, and sourced information was removed. --Mardavich 02:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Does "the mob" really prefer NPOV or their POV
That's the question. I must say I am deeply annoyed by a group of Wikipedians and their mob act, they know who they are, not naming any names. It has been going on for a while, the mob already taken full control of their national articles, hardly allowing any "outsider" edits; now trying to adjust others' to their own liking. Obviously a lot of free time on their hands or maybe paid for the job. I am currently thinking whether I should spare some major time and take radical action against these people or keep myself busy with my real life and try to ignore the annoyance and disgust these people are causing in me. You'll know the result.--Doktor Gonzo 08:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

"Radical actions"? So you're implying that although you could end this with one swing of your sword you actually choose not to because you are too busy to fall down to our level, which by the way causes you disgust and annoyance. And this my friends summarises pretty much the argumentation of Cretanforever's version. Miskin 14:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * My sword I spare for more worthy occasions. As for the radical, it is radical for me to put aside my business and private life and spare major time to rewrite this page from zero and counter the mob agenda in most Turkish related articles, obviously this is a way of life for some. I didn't give any names by the way, but as I said the mob knows itself, see.


 * I trust in Cretanforever and his intellect, it is your approach to him that lacks class. You are hardly showing any interest in a cooperation.--Doktor Gonzo 06:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Discuss
Has anybody replied to the very rational considerations of User:Macrakis, User:Miskin and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise expressed in all sorts of places? See the following threads:


 * User talk:Khoikhoi
 * User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise
 * User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise
 * 
 * 

All I see is people blindly reverting without excuse, with no edit summaries and with no talk whatsoever. The worst part is people having the audacity of appealing on "consensus" to which they haven't taken part, and on "undiscussed reverts" when it is them who do not discuss. Paying with the same currency is not going to solve this, apparently, so let's discuss. Seriously. NikoSilver 11:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You're wrong NikoSilver, Gonzo just replied to everything. His argumentation complies with the WP:KAWS (Kick Ass With Style) policy, which is a parent of minor policies such as WP:CITE, WP:NPOV etc. Miskin 14:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

But seriously who are those new editors who are rv-warring without having ever particapated in the article's discussion or previous edit-history? They could at least show up in Talk. Maybe they're willing to provide us with non-Brute force approach to editing wikipedia. Miskin 14:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

And I'm talking about Mardavich and Artaxiad. One of them ironically urged some editor to "use the Talk page". Miskin 15:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

So that's it? "Use Talk", rv-war and then gone? No arguments to support the reverts? Miskin 18:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Still, no response, no comment whatsoever, no argument. But of course! We have the "right" version up and protected! I'm sure we would be really articulate if the page was protected on the "wrong version", now wouldn't we? NikoSilver 23:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm disputing the content of that article as it is now, and request the addition of the pov-title and totally disputed tags. The grounds are on the links above. Please unprotect, and add these tags while we discuss. NikoSilver 23:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding the template:

...until this is done. Thank you. NikoSilver 23:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The article was split to deal with one specific group of Cretan Muslims, this section has now become a WP:POVFORK. I support adding the tags.--Domitius 00:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Miskin, KAWS applies to real life as I mean it literally. On the internet I am as nice as a polar bear in a Coca Cola commercial.


 * Back to the subject, this is not a POV fork as "Cretan Turks" -wikipedia gives nearly twice as much results than "Cretan Muslims" -wikipedia. These people identify themselves as Cretan Turks, not Cretan Muslims. What we see here is what we see in Western Thrace, Turks being denied their identity by the Greek, which is also in several reports --Doktor Gonzo 06:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doktor Gonzo (talk

They identified themselves as Cretan Turks from the moment they set foot in Turkey. If they had set foot in Saudi Arabia they would identify themselves as Saudis, that's the whole point of keeping a separate article from Cretan Muslims. If you think that Cretan Turks is more correct to describe Cretan Muslims in general (for any reason), then why didn't you propose to rename the former? How on earth are the Turks of Western Thrace denied their ethnic identity? And how would that be similar to the Cretan Turks, who do not even live in Greece anymore? Cretan Muslims were a Greek ruling class which had converted to Islam in order to retain a high social status. That's what all sources say, and Cretanforever's claims about "Turkophone culture" and "Turkophone colonisation" are national myths that find no support in credible, non-partisan sources (or any sources whatsoever for the time being). --Miskin's unsigned comment


 * I don't understand your logic. If I create an article about Turkish Americans, do I have first sort out the American Muslims article? Secondly the Cretan Turks identifying themselves as Saudi if set food in Arabia thing, how do you make such a comment, based on what? Do you ever talk scientific or will the discussion continue based on your assumptions, beliefs and dogmas? And yes Thracian Turks are being denied their identity by the Greek state, I gave the link, there are also complaints made to the UN and EU parliament, legal cases, smell the coffee. Ottoman colonisation is not a myth, all Ottoman scholars know many Asia Minor Turks were forced to emigrate to the conquered states and mix with the local converted Muslims. Actually yours is the myth here, while there is no ethnic research regarding the subject you expect whole to believe all Cretan Turks are actually converted Greeks. Which by the way puts Greek identity in question as well, which I am sure you believe in its purity and preservation since Alexander the Great. Haaaa.-- Doktor Gonzo 18:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope your parallel about American Muslims was only a joke and not an argument that expects a serious response. The comment about Cretan Saudis is based on the fact that many Cretan Muslims went to middle-eastern countries and became Cretan-something-else-rather-than-Turkish, if you're not familiar with that it's a different story. I've got numerous non-partisan sources which support that the Cretan Muslim population was a result of Greek conversions and not of Turkish/Muslim colonisation. What you say is true, but Crete is one of the exceptions. Hence why the Cretan Muslims were the only Greek-speaking Muslim population in Greece (which a few other exceptions). If you have a source which supports an alternative view then by all means share it with us. Would you like a direct citation for this? Miskin 19:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you saying American Muslims are just a joke? How very racist of you. Anyway, yes there may be Cretan Saudis -which by the way gives 0 results on google, "cretan lebanese" 0, "cretan syrian(c)" 0, at that point I went crazy and went for the "cretan arab", guess what, 1-, what's your point? I tell you, with your comments you are only helping me unintentionally. You are telling me there are Cretan Saudis -the myth-, which also means there must be Cretan Turks. Leave Cretan Turks alone, what's your problem? What POVFORK are you talking about? You know what, the fact that hardly anybody knows what the POVFORK thing is all about, you are trying to get them confused and get rid of this article. Your sources about ethnic roots of Cretan Turks may be non-partisan but their scientific value is in question here. Hell there is even an encyclopedic book about homosexual animals, its scientific value I don't know. As I said if you are saying Cretan Turks are converted Greeks, that also puts Cretan Greek identity in question.-- Doktor Gonzo 19:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

We need an article on the Cretan Republic. It's strange not to have an article on an entity that existed for more than a decade (1897-1908, and even 1913), while we have articles on much shorter-lived states. It is also strange to have users so eager to poke into Turkish matters, while no effort is made by the same to build up essential references closer to them. It had taken a while to have a article on Kritika too. Cretanforever 10:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Not before we sort out the situation here. There no need to start linking POV-forks here and there. Cretanforever do you think that Cretan Turks should speak about all Muslims of Ottoman Crete? If yes, then why did you just propose to rename Cretan Muslims but chose to create a POV-fork instead? Miskin 10:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Who are these other Cretan Muslims? Cretan Turks rightfully deserves an article of its own, in google we trust, how is it POVFORK when it has 100 more hits than Cretan Muslims. You make the Cretan Muslims article and add those other Cretan Muslims you know plus the Cretan Turks. Go ahead.-- Doktor Gonzo 18:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Those in Lebanon, Syria etc who do not speak Turkish nor consider themselves Turks perhaps?--Domitius 18:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for helping me out. So there are Cretan Muslims who do not consider themselves Turks, that eliminates Miskin's merge proposal. What are their numbers and roots in Crete? If they are notable then create your Cretan Muslims article, add the Turks on top of it and please stop pushing the Greek state agenda on this article.-- Doktor Gonzo 19:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * What is a Cretan Turk? A descendent of Cretan Muslims who arrived in Turkey in 1924 and acquired a Turkish nationality or generally all Muslims originating from Crete (including those who have nothing to do with TR). If this article can be exclusively about the former, then I have no objection to not merging. Unfortunately, this article (as it's currently written) deals with the latter and claims a Turkish identity for all Cretan Muslims. And you talk of a Greek state agenda?! The only agenda around here my friend is the Turkish one.--Domitius 19:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Gonzo: no it doesn't, since the proposal would be a merge under the article "Cretan Muslims". The opening paragraph would be something like "Cretan Muslims often known as Cretan Turks" etc, etc. Then everything about what Turkish editors perceive as "Cretan Turks" (i.e. Cretan Muslims who went to Turkey) will be treated in its own section. Alternatively, it can retain a separate article only as long as you and Cretanforever acknowledge the difference between Cretan Muslims and Turks of Cretan Muslim origin. And by 'acknowledging', I also mean stop making edits which turn the article into a fork. PS: A pov-fork has nothing to do with how many results are obtained in google, read WP:POVFORK to get the idea. Miskin 19:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok my last comment then I am off to my room. Cretan Turks with their overwhelming number and authentic culture deserve an article of their own. You expect me to ignore the fact that Cretan Turks has a more popular usage than Cretan Muslims? By the way, still I can't see a notable Cretan Muslim population other than the Turks, Google won't cooperate with you. Wikipedia is about giving information, treat it that way.


 * Anyway, I think Macrakis below summarized it all. I didn't know Greeks believe Turks have secret plans to make claims and demands in Crete. That explains it all, that explains why the mob is here. So we should get rid of this information in benefit of Greece. Uh-huh Sherlock, I think we a clue.-- Doktor Gonzo 19:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Not all Turks but Cretanforever at least does have cultural land-claims. I think the name he chose to represent himself in wikipedia says it all. Cretan Turks is not the most popular name in English, read my edit above. Thanks for participating anyway. Miskin 19:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * (re above) Editprotected tag removed. This tag is for simple and non-controversial edits, solely.  Proto   ►  20:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

merge
I agree with the merge, not sure under which title, maybe Turco-Cretans would be best. That's not passing judgement on the content issues, but clearly the two articles have the same scope. dab (⁳) 13:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Turco-Cretans? Let's not craft names here, please? Cretan Turks is the popular usage. I think the initial question is who are these other Cretan Muslims Miskin is talking about. Would Miskin also prefer a Muslims of Western Thrace article instead of a Turks of Western Thrace. You know what, I'll bet that's next on his agenda.-- Doktor Gonzo 18:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * In google "Cretan Turks" returns many results from Greek websites and wikipedia mirrors, and still it doesn't take precedence over "Cretan Muslims" and "Muslim Cretans". If you check books.google and scholar.google you'll see that Cretan Muslims wins almost by double score. And please stop bringing up irrelevant topics such as the Turks of Western Thrace, take it to the respective article. Miskin 19:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually there isn't. There is the article Muslim minority of Greece and the Turks of Western Thrace are a component of that community and not the whole community; another component of the Muslim community are the Bulgarian speaking Pomaks. In a similar way, Cretan Turks are a subset of Cretan Muslims, the remainder being those who do not live in Turkey, do not have a Turkish identity and do not speak Turkish (those in Syria and Lebanon etc). This fork was originally intended to deal with those with a Turkish national identity but "certain users" have been messing with the text so as to claim that all Cretan Muslims are Cretan Turks. Sigh...--Domitius 19:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If there is a notable Cretan Muslim community other than the Turks then feel free creating that page and make this its sub. I don't understand why this page needs any merging or deleting. Promote a rewrite then, why is Miskin jumping up and down for a merge? Rewrite we ca do.-- Doktor Gonzo 19:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "Rewrite we can do" you say. If only - as far as I can tell, any edit made by a non-Turkish editor is reverted (excluding reverts to the Turkish POV version which claims all Cretan Muslims are Turks). Anyway, our discussion is duplicated, my proper response is here.--Domitius 19:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * To add to this, a significant number of Cretan Muslims (I'm not sure if it was the majority) converted back to Orthodoxy (i.e. Greekness), so this is another reason not to consider them all as ethnic Turks (independently of their origins). I'm only favourable to a merge because I see that Cretanforever has been stubborn about this, and I get the impression that he will always try to imply that "Cretan Muslims of Ottoman Crete = Turkish nationals". If I knew that he respected WP:NPOV then I wouldn't be in favour for a merge. Miskin 19:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The second article (Cretan Turks) was created in order to describe the community of Greek-speaking Muslims who went from Crete to Turkey. This could have been treated as a section under Cretan Muslims but some editors insisted to have it on a separate article. So eventhough initially the article Cretan Turks had a different scope, recent edits have turned it into a fork. The editors who are responsible for those changes will not participate in Talk in order to let us know what they want from the article. For some weeks now I've been asking Cretanforever the same question and he refuses to reply. Standard procedure would be to revert his edits, but then other editors (who have never participated in Talk) would start a rv-war out of the blue. So it is really a dead-end as long as these people refuse to co-operate. Miskin 13:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm only interested on your solution proposals, not the original question: I gut this part; you guys do not want this topic (Turks) exist in your national lands (you say, all the people in my nation is Greek, right). However you do not reject existence of people from non-pure blood (that is to be Turco-Cretans). BUT are you guys proposing an ethnic group based on a RELIGION? Can we say "Turkish-speaking Muslim" or "Greek-speaking Christian". Is there an ethnic (serious publication) study on a "Greek-speaking Muslim" or a "Turco-Cretans?" Is it a Cretan evolved to be a Turk? Do you propose Creatans are the lost origin of Turk? I feel recarnation of WWI Germany in these arguments. I do not believe merging is your solution guys. --OttomanReference 14:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ottomanreference, unlike what most Turkish editors support, non-partisan sources clearly state that Cretan Muslims were local Greek converts to Islam, and they were Greek-speaking. No editor has come up with a source which would seriously challenge this point, or even present us with an alternative view. So far the only argument has been "THEY WERE TURKS!!" or something along those lines. There is a difference between the Muslims of Ottoman Crete (Cretan Muslims) and the Muslims of Turkey who emigrated from Crete (Cretan Turks). This article was initially created in order to present the latter (supposedly it was ever called like that), but recent edits have turned it into a fork of the former. There's not even any evidence that Turkish nationals of Cretan origin are called "Cretan Turks" in English, this is just pure OR. "Cretan-Turks" is a direct translation of the Greek "Tourkokritikoi", and is used in english as a second name to 'Cretan Muslims'. An alternative to merging would be to change this article to its "stable" (non-fork) version and rename it to "Turkish people of Cretan origin" or whatever the popular anglophone name is. This way we keep two different articles for two clearly different populations. Miskin 16:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Several comments in this discussion have questioned the motives of other editors. On one side: "you guys do not want this topic (Turks) exist in your national lands"; on the other side: "your only concern is to promote (or rather create) Turkish land claims on Crete". I think it would be more productive to focus on the actual content and wording of the article than on the perceived/&shy;feared/&shy;imagined agendas of other editors. --Macrakis 17:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Your opposition is based on ethnicity on "blood" arguments. You dismiss the opposing view (Turkishness) based on "they do not have the blood!". The argument "Turkish people" is a blood base ethnic group is very argumentative, but turkishness on culture, language is not. I wonder, how much of your blood matches to Plato, or whatever you perceive your ancestor is. I have hard time understanding when a group claims self-association to a specific ethnicity, an opposing view reject their association. I'm not expert in this specific (highly highly specialized argument) area. But general flow of argumentation irks me. The next step, just to show how argumentative it can be, could easily be Muslim-creatans are deviant ("they gonna come and claim land"), so we need to convert them to Christianity? Also a western culture (citation of western sources or "no one called "Cretan Turks" in English") develops an argument to have a proof of wrongness of western culture. Do not get me wrong, I support that create-turks (whoever they are) need to publish more; inspite of difficulties when all the referees are westerners. But my point is; it has to be fixed (brought reliability and validity); merging is not a solution. I'm sorry I do not have the citations, except these people (whoever they are) do exist in my circle. Thanks Guys for your time. --OttomanReference 17:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

OttomanReference, you've got it all wrong, the argument doesn't focus on ancestry. The question is on the most popular name in the English language. Had "Cretan Turks" been the most popular name, then Cretan Muslims wouldn't exist. However we've already been through this and proved that Cretan Muslims is the commonest name and agreed that Cretan Turks can only exist as long as it describes a different topic. We cannot have two articles talking about the same subject, see WP:POVFORK for details. Also, what you perceive as Cretan Turks can write about themselves, but they cannot write about Cretan Muslims since the latter is not restricted to Turkey. There are people of Cretan Muslim origin in Syria, Lebanon and the middle east in general, and I'm sure they would have a different perspective from the Turkish one. In other words, Turkish editors insist on using "Cretan Turks" in order to describe both Cretan Muslims and their ancestors who became Turkish, Syrian, Lebanese or whatever. They also want to ignore all sources on the topic and claim that they were Turkish colonists rather than Greek-speaking converts. That's a little too much to ask. Miskin 18:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

PS:In Greek "Cretan Muslims" is 'Tourkokrites', literally 'Turco-Cretans' or 'Turkish Cretans'. So as you see, this has nothing to do with pushing a Greek agenda, for the Greek agenda is actually on your side. This has to do with the commonest and best descriptive name in the modern anglophone literature. Oh, and the pov-fork issue. Miskin 19:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

sigh, I said I didn't care where you merge it to, just as long as you do merge it, alright? dab (⁳) 13:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ottoman categories were confessional
The Ottoman Empire categorized people by religion, not nationality, ethnicity, or language. Cretan Muslims accurately describes Muslims on Crete during Ottoman times. Most of them spoke Greek. Likely most of them descended from Christians who converted. Now, by 1924 the last of them were forced to leave Crete (apparently a plea to convert to Christianity in order to stay was rejected). Large numbers of them ended up in a few places in modern Turkey, with sufficient concentration to preserve their Greek dialect for several generations and part of their culture. Cretan Turks or Turks whose ancestors came from Crete, they are distinctive enough to have an article written about them. Bruce Clark's "Twice a Stranger" is a very nice source for this topic. Each article can and should have a secondary paragraph in the lead disambiguating one from the other. Jd2718 19:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * We agree they are distinctive enough to have their own article. And I would agree on "they are converted Christians" rather than "converted Greeks". "A plea to convert back to Christianity in 1924", not sure, maybe some, cause you know the converted tend to be more religious in time, after a couple of generations they won't go "Sigh, I hope I can go back to worshipping Jesus, Muhammed sucks, no sculptures, no icons, what the hell, no fun".-- Doktor Gonzo 20:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Clark cites Pandelis Prevekalis reporting 1000 requests for last minute conversion denied by the Archbishop of Athens. Jd2718 20:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Setting them aside for a minute, what about the inhabitants in the Cretan Greek speaking village of Hamidie in Syria who of Cretan origin, are they de-Turkified Cretan Turks? Dealing with their ancestors in this article and calling them "Cretan Turks" seems to suggest so. The world does not revolve around Turkey, the proto-Cretan Turks if you will were about as "Turkish" as the Muslim Albanians or Bosnians, large numbers of which have immigrated to Turkey and assimilated as Turks in exactly the same way as the Cretans yet no one is claiming that the Albanians or Bosniaks are "Turks" - to what do the Greek speaking Cretan Muslims owe this "honour" of identity denial (by the same people who accuse Greece of identity denial! the world is full of surprises).--Domitius 20:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Those who stayed until the end were deported for their religion, not their language or culture. We should be careful in general here, as we write about undeniable victims (and this goes in both directions) that we do not victimize them again by denying who they were, and instead reporting on who their erstwhile compatriots think they should be. There is another source of conflation: the adjective "Greek" is sometimes used for ethnicity/nationality, and sometimes for religion. Let's keep them straight.
 * In this case though, it seems fairly clear that the vast majority of those forced to leave Crete were a) Muslim, and b) speakers of Greek (not Turkish). Their history through 1924 belongs in an article called Cretan Muslims. Jd2718 20:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem all along!! I'm happy to keep this article separate if it would be limited to the actual Cretan Turks, the problem is however that "certain users" keep expanding its scope making it a POV fork of Cretan Muslims.--Domitius 21:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A small paragraph low in the lead of each can effectively disambiguate the two. Jd2718 21:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Brilliant idea, how come we didn't think of that all along! Nevertheless, a lot of information needs to be transplanted from this article to the Cretan Muslims (because that's who it is about) article and if some does have to remain, it should be significantly reworded.--Domitius 21:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input Jd2718 and Domitius. I'm also favourable for a separate article iff all editors acknowledge how it would defer from Cretan Muslims. Gonzo, I'm of the opinion that we should use the terminology as seen in the sources, whatever that may be. Miskin 23:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * How about including a disambiguation note at the head of this article saying something like:

This article is about Turkish nationals with family ties to Crete. For the history of the Islamized Greek-speaking Cretan population only part of which consists of Cretan Turks since the 1920s, see Cretan Muslims.
 * I can't think of anything better, sorry.--Domitius 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

And Dr Gonzo, please understand that your Google search means nothing in this particular case. No one disputes that "Cretan Turks" is the most common names used to refer to Cretan Turks (i.e. self-identifying Turks with Cretan ancestry). What is disputed is that it is the most common name to refer to all Muslims whose family can be traced to Crete, including those who don't self-identify as Turks and don't live in Turkey. As I've told you before, Cretan Turks are a subset of Cretan Muslims; they are not two names which can be used to refer to the same thing. See it this way, all Cretan Turks are Cretan Muslims, but not all Cretan Muslims are Cretan Turks. See now why if the articles are merged "Cretan Turks" is an inappropriate title?--Domitius 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As I said earlier, Google books and Scholar favour "Cretan Muslims" by double score. Simple web search includes many wikipedia mirrors and Greek websites which translate the Greek 'Tourkokritikoi' and do not reflect the consensus of the anglophone literature. Miskin 00:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear Domitius, "all Cretan Turks are Cretan Muslims" affirmation is wrong. There was one who was a archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church. The only Turkish archbishop by the way. Born to a Turkish family in 19th century Crete, raised there, converted in France but affirmed his Turkishness all through his life. I am waiting for the right moment to create an article on him insert the intro into the article (when I have time that is, I'd like to see some more on these non-Turkish Cretan Muslims, because currently the article that treats them is a misery:). Cretanforever 01:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I look forward to seeing the sources. What was his mother tongue, Turkish or Greek? It strikes me as particularly odd for a Greek-speaking Catholic (and belonging to the corresponding millet, no?) to be declaring himself to be a Turk. Anyway, as I said, I look forward to seeing the sources. No point in speculating :) --Domitius 02:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The sources for Mollazade Mehmed Ali (alias Paul Mulla):

Mgr Paul Mulla, turc né en Crète en 1881, musulman fervent dans sa jeunesse, baptisé en 1905

Mgr Paul Mulla (1882-1959), Turc crétois, disciple (puis filleul) de Maurice Blondel, baptisé 1905, ordonné 1913,

Cretanforever 11:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * OK - so we have a "Paul Mulla", who was a Turk, born in Crete and converted to RC, it doesn't say anything about his "affiring his Turkishness all through his life", perhaps he gave it up (assimilated into the Latin millet). Didn't Turk have a wider meaning back then though? According to the article Turkish people, it referred to all Muslim populations of the Ottoman Empire. If the Karamanlides were not considered Turks only because of religion, I don't see how he can.--Domitius 11:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I am pretty much sure in their private talks Greeks regard these Muslims as Turks themselves but calling them Turks in public they find not politically correct, a belief that it conflicts with the Greek state interests.


 * As Jd2718 pointed out Ottomans identified its subjects by their religion, not ethnic origins. I doubt in 16th century Ottoman empire "Greek" or "Rum" was used in any ethnic sense. We know the merging of a Greek and Turkish national identity dates back to 19th and 20th centuries. So as much you regard yourselves Greeks nationaly and ethnicly and we should respect that, you also have to respect the Cretan Turkish identity and stop the denial, that should also apply to your perception of any Turk of Turkish Republic, we identify ourselves as Turks and you will have to respect that, I see you like to dig up our ethnic roots while having dogmatic beliefs about your own roots (its purity and preservation for centuries etc.). Anyway, this title is very much legitimate, despite of what you say Google search results are very important as they are one of our main guides in creating articles and with the correct titles. Honestly I don't care who these other Cretan Muslims are, obviously they are too insignificant to even mention here, if you ask me you are only bringing them out to stir. But Cretan Turks, a major group, distinctive culture and history, alone represents the Muslims of Crete, an important part of the history of Crete and also Turkish Republic. This title definitely stays otherwise I'll consider this an attempt to censor and silence.


 * Also why this attitude towards Cretanforever, I see here attempts to discredit him in front of other Wikipedians. As a Turk with Cretan origins, he is very much interested in the subject, gathering all the information he can and sharing. Some of what he says you may not like, but as long as it is sourced you have to play along.-- Doktor Gonzo 07:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Why attribute a non-existing Turkish ancestry to the modern Greek citizens whose ancestors were Greek-speaking Cretan Muslims who converted (back) to Christianity before the population exchanges in order to attribute a non-existing Turkish ancestry to the modern Cretan Turks in Turkey? Where did it come from? Again, Turkey is not the centre of the world, and the Turks' feelings are no more important of that of Greeks.--Domitius 11:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Doktor_Gonzo, this may sound harsh, but I am not interested in respecting modern Greek nationalism or modern Turkish nationalism vis a vis the Cretan Muslims or Anatolian Christians, ie real victims of Lausanne. The turkification and hellenization of large groups of people is encylopedic, and should not be buried for fear of offending modern nationalist sensibilities.
 * Most Cretan Muslims ended up in modern Turkey and became Turks. The lead to both articles should plainly say so. The exceptions (Syria, etc) were exceptions.


 * This article is about Turks whose ancestors were Greek-speaking Cretans Muslim. Most of these Muslims moved or were forced to move to the territory of modern Turkey in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. see Cretan Muslims.
 * The need for two separate articles should not be used to weaken the link. Jd2718 12:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hassiktir! Öyle başlık mı olur lan! 85.107.208.145 13:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Doktor Gonzo it's true that the Ottoman law recognised only religion and not ethnicity (at least in official context). But you must realise that our view of history today is not the one of the Ottoman historians and lawmakers, otherwise we'd be talking about 'Muslims and infidels' rather than 'Greeks and Turks'. The Cretan Muslims are not Turkish for the same reason that Bulgarians, Serbians and Romanians weren't Greek (they were all Orthodox subject of the Greek patriarch). Cretanforever is Turkish because his Cretan Muslim ancestors went to Turkey. If they had gone to Iraq he would have been Iraqi, this is what you have to understand. Cretanforever sees things from a very specific and biased perspective, which assumes that all Cretan Muslims were Turkish, like him. This is pretty much the definition of a POV. Also, have a look at the article Ottoman Turks: The Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. The ruling class is covered under Ottoman Dynasty. I've no idea whether this dubious claim about a "Turkish subdivision of the Muslim millet" is true. If it is true, then all of your efforts on this article are in vain, as you would agree that in a supposed millet with hierarchical subdivisions, the Greek-speaking, "semi-infidel" Cretan Muslims would not be very high on the list, let alone be considered as Turks. If this claim is plain POV then it should just be removed. Miskin 17:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Structuring the discussion
Let me suggest that we try to see what we agree on, and also what we disagree on, and try to focus discussion around the issues on which there is disagreement. I propose we try to discuss each of the following points separately. I will try to keep summaries of various positions in-line in the following.

Points of agreement
I think everyone including Cretanforever and Miskin (who represent, I think, the furthest-apart positions) agree (with sources) that:

1) There were negligeable numbers of Muslims in Crete under Venetian rule. (Perhaps a few traders.)

2) Very soon after the Ottoman capture of Crete, there were large numbers of Muslims in Crete.

3) The administrative work of Ottoman Crete was done in Ottoman Turkish, so there clearly was a class of functionaries who were literate in Ottoman Turkish.

4) The Muslim population was roughly 45% of the population in 1821, the beginning of the Greek War of Independence.

5) Part of the decline in the Muslim population was due to conversion to Christianity, and part to emigration driven by violence against them and fear of the consequences of Christian rule.

Gonzo: Jd2718 wrote previously -based on source- that a 1000 made plea for conversion but were rejected. Are you implying a mass conversion to Christianity? Any sources for this? Because from what you wrote I get the idea, the number of Muslims declined because there was mass conversion to Christianity and partly (insignificantly) because of Greek hostility?

6) The Muslim population of Crete declined throughout the 19th century. It declined especially rapidly during periods of armed insurrection by Christian Cretans, notably in 1896, to about 9% in 1900.

Gonzo: If there are atrocities we mention them in the article. Cretanforever told me he has sources for this.

7) Crete was under Ottoman rule until 1897, autonomous until 1908, declared its union with Greece in 1908, and united to Greece officially in 1913.

8) Ottoman administrative documents were written in Ottoman Turkish.

9) The Treaty of Lausanne required all remaining Muslims in Crete to be expelled involuntarily (as it required Christians in Anatolia to be expelled), leaving no Muslims in Crete after 1924.

10) The terms "Turk" and "Greek" in old (contemporary) documents are largely synonymous with "Muslim" and "Orthodox Christian", which were the meaningful categories under the Ottoman system of millets. They tell us little about the language or ancestry of individuals. I am not sure how to interpret some of the discussion above, but I believe we agree that speaking of "ethnic Turks" and "ethnic Greeks" or trying to trace "ultimate" or "essential" ethnic background is not useful or helpful in this period.

11) The main millets of Crete under the Ottomans were the Muslims and the Orthodox Christians. (Almost all the Catholics had left or converted after the departure of the Venetians.)  There were small numbers of Armenian Christians and Jews.

More contentious issues
Do we agree so far? Now we come to some more contentious issues.

Gonzo: I will comment on the below issues when I have the time to do my own research.

12) Where did the Muslim Cretans come from? What proportion were converts (and descendents of converts) of the local Christian population, and what proportion immigrants/colonists from Anatolia or elsewhere?
 * We have several solid sources stating that they were largely local converts. So far, I have not seen any good sources stating there were large numbers of migrants/colonists.

13) What language did the Cretan Muslims speak?
 * There is evidence of poetry written by Cretans in Ottoman Turkish.Prof. Filiz Kiliç
 * All secondary sources indicate that Greek was the vernacular spoken by both Muslims and Christians in the countryside and in the city. (Greene, Herzfeld, Clogg, 1911 Britannica, 1890 Grande Encyclopedie)
 * I do not believe we have found any good sources showing that Turkish was widely spoken.
 * We have sources that when they arrived in Turkey, the Cretan Muslims were treated as a linguistic minority, and were forced to learn Turkish in the 1930's.

14) How many converted to Christianity from 1821-1923, and how many emigrated?

15) How many "crypto-Christians" were there (Muslims who continued to practice Christianity in secret)? This is a difficult topic, since obviously converts to Christianity would have every incentive to claim this, and nationalist history would emphasize it. I do not think we have any solid sources either way on this.

16) What is an appropriate name for the Muslims of Crete while they were living in Crete? The possible names seem to be "Cretan Muslims", "Muslims of Crete", "Turco-Cretans", or "Cretan Turks".
 * Google sometimes gives useful guidance, though it needs to be treated with caution:
 * Note: To get correct figures, you need to go to the last page of results.

This shows a small (possibly statistically insignificant) preference on the Web in general and a very significant preference in Books and Scholar (probably the most reliable) for "Cretan Muslims" and its variants. (Of course, "Cretan Turks" may also refer to their descendents in Turkey.)

If everyone doesn't agree that the above summarizes the points of agreement and disagreement, and the current state of documentation for the various positions, let's correct the list. And then let's decide each issue, with backup from good, published, prefereably English-language sources.

I hope this structure will help us move forward. --Macrakis 22:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok but how do I represent an extreme or furthest position? By caring? Miskin 23:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I intentionally didn't describe your position as "extreme"; I simply said it was the furthest from Cretanforever's (at least among the regular visitors...). --Macrakis 23:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

(16) Thanks for your input Macrakis, but you forgot to test with "Cretan Moslems" and "Moslem Cretans". With this string "Cretan Muslims" wins by absolute majority. Miskin 23:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I will add those spellings and correct the table. Of course, all these Google numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. --Macrakis 23:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * For some reason that spelling is the most popular when it comes to literature.

(12),(13) Sample citation from a credible sources (Princeton UP): The local origin of most Crete's Muslims must explain why, despite a large muslim community, the islanders remained Grecophone, as many travelers attested. Robert Pashley, traveling in Crete in the 1830s, referred to Greek as "the common language of the island". An official proclamation was read out to the villagers "in Greek, the common language of the island, and was therefore intelligible to his audience". A demographic study of the island, undertaken by a (Greek) member of the local administration, had this to say on the linguistic situation of the Cretans: "All of the inhabitants of the island without exception speak the Greek language. Both Ottomans and Christians speak Greek at home as their mother tongue. Very few - some city dwellers only - know Turkish at all." Molly Greene - A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the early modern Mediterranean - 	Then the author goes on to say that Venetian spies who kept a record of the numbers of the Ottoman troops on the island, would report that the majority were renegades (Greek converts) - "la piu parte rinegati". Then he explains why, in his opinion, "conversion to Islam was greater in Crete than anywhere else in the Greek world". Miskin 23:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Now compare the above to Cretanforever's edits which instigated the dispute: Many Cretan Turks and their descendants had attained prominent positions within the Ottoman Empire and later in Turkey and they had forged a high level Turkish language culture. In the multilingual environment of Ottoman Crete, many were bilingual in Turkish and the Cretan Greek dialect (Kritika). and... the descendants of those Cretan Muslims who had developed a Turcophone culture (see below) on Crete during the Ottoman rule on the island, raising many personalities of note across the Ottoman lands And make your own conclusions. Miskin 00:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried to arrange the points above in a clearer outlook and added some more. It doesn't mean that I agree with the wording each time (as a point of note, I don't share this obsession with chromosomes that I observe here sometimes. I guess that comes naturally with the heritage of an empire.:). The people you see in this page are Turks, whether they be of the 18th or 19th centuries, and since I started the page, I feel a sense of responsibility and do not play with that. I also pity the poor man in Western Thrace when I have to present Turkishness arguments for people the last of which left your country 80 years ago. Feel free to polish up the table, and frankly I feel that we should archive the discussion until now and start a new page to have a clearer vision. There are still a lot of Turkey-related articles that I want to write and I don't want to get stuck in Crete, therefore I will probably edit here, say, once a week, although I fully understand your passion for your own history, cheaters as you are, and will contribute in the best way possible. Regards. Cretanforever 16:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Cretanforever, thanks for your comments. I was not trying to write a narrative yet, instead I wanted to clarify the individual points of agreement and disagreement. As for your particular points: Sincerely, --Macrakis 18:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * "this obsession with chromosomes" -- where in my summary do you see any mention of genetics? I speak only of religion and language, and in fact avoid both the terms "Greek" and "Turk"
 * "The people you see in this page are Turks" -- what exactly do you mean by this?
 * Western Thrace isn't Crete. Let's concentrate on Crete, the subject of this article.
 * "cheaters as you are," ???!!! I thought we had started a nice civil discussion, and you throw this in. What is that all about???
 * I would appreciate it if you would address some of the contentious issues, supplying sources for your position.


 * Cheaters as we are, I thought Cretanforever wouldn't participate in Talk so far because I was constantly being offensive to his people (Khoikhoi's words). Miskin 21:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Please don't fan the flames. I am happy that Cretanforever is participating, and I will be happy to have Khoikhoi participate. --Macrakis 22:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

First of all the 45% figure is not factual, other sources speak about 30%. I think it's worth mentioning that forced Islamisations took place. For example in K. S. Latourette's "A History of the Expansion of Christianity" it is mentioned that "In 1670 several thousand Christian children in Crete were taken from their parents, circumcised, and reared as Moslems.". Miskin 23:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've yet to see in literature how Turkish-speaking were the Cretan Muslims of the Ottoman administration. What Cretanforever assumes is not supported anywhere, Phanariote Greeks were both Greek-speaking and Christian and occupied high position in Ottoman administration, both in Constantinople and abroad. Kocabaci were Greeks-speaking converts like Cretan Muslims and retained positions as local rulers in mainland Greece. Armenians, Jews, Albanians and Slavs frequently occupied significant Ottoman positions as local administrators, soldiers, merchants etc. Due all the respect Cretanforever but your assumptions on the Ottoman society are blurred by your modern patriotic sentiments. Miskin 00:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Also about your second point: It's not as clear as you assume that administration in Crete was done in Ottoman Turkish, what I cited above implies the opposite. I'm going to isolate the citations in a new sections so that people can read them and judge for themselves. Miskin 00:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "On the eve of the 1821 uprising, the population was divided between the two religions, at around 100,000 each. Ny 1880 there were 206,000 Christians and 76,000 Muslims; in 1900 the Christian population had risen sharply to 270,000, while the number of Muslims had declined to 33,500..." Clark, Bruce,"Twice a Stranger" p30, Harvard University Press, 2006. Far more reliable a source (worked for the Economist, Reuters, and the Financial Times) than Latourette, whose work seems somewhat obscure. Anyhow, that quote fits 45%, but not 30%.
 * For sources on Crete, Clark includes "Prof Theocharis Detorakis of University of Crete, whose History of Crete has been translated into English and published locally" Has anyone seen this?  I will keep an eye out, and rather carefully if I go back there this summer. Jd2718 00:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

On Cretanforever's comment about Greek literature not being rich in Greek: I think you got this from the Cretan Greek article. It is an unsourced statement which is most likely OR. In many sources Cretan Greek was comparad to the Italian "toscana", which means that under different circumstances it could have become an official Greek language, in the place of Demotic Greek that was spoken in Peloponnese, Smyrna and Constantinople. The dialects of Crete and the Ionian islands had had a very rich literature. Miskin 00:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] Again to Clark as a source (supporting Miskin's last point). Clark cites an older Cretan Muslim, now living Ayvalik, Turkey, claiming that they were neither Greeks not Turks but Ottomans who spoke kritika. He has a volume of 80 pages of romantic poetry, copied out by a maternal great-grandmother. They are in Ottoman script, based on Arabic letters, but the language is Greek. (Not immediately on point, but the article on the Cretan dialect of Greek seems a little insulting. It's quite natural that different dialects borrow words from different places; all languages do that. Implications of impurity are unnecessary. Could someone more familiar take a look?)
 * Anyhow, perhaps there was some administration in Turkish... there had to be a certain minimum... But enough to be noteworthy? We would need a source, and we don't have one now. Jd2718 00:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look at the Cretan Greek article. Another source ("Balkans", M. Glenny) says that one of the reasons Cretans converted to Islam, was in order to retain a Greek-speaking administrator. This is just one author's opinion and it's most likely not the sole reason, but he does take for granted that the administration remained Greek-speaking. Somewhere else I remember reading about a Venetian primary source describing how the Ottoman Turkish officials who were passing from Crete did not trust the "local Muslims" because they did not speak their language. But I don't remember where that was. I haven't run into anything specific about the role of the Turkish language but Cretanforever has been speaking of some poems and literature. Miskin 01:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Latourette spoke about the forced Islamisations but didn't give exact figures. He cited a different source which I don't remember since I don't have the text with me. In any case, according to a different source which I might cite later, the number of Cretan Muslims declined between 1821 and 1900 mainly due to retro-conversion to Christianity and not migrations to Turkey as Cretanforever claimed. Also I don't agree that population movement from Greece to Turkey during the great population exchange can be regarded as an "explusion by the Greek state". After all this was proposed by Turkey as part of Kemal's plan of creating an ethnically homogenous country. Miskin 00:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I remembered, it was Sir Finlay who wrote that by the 1860s, 1/3 of Cretan population were "Greek Musulmans". But by then the Muslim community had most likely already gone into decline. Miskin 01:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Clark cites both conversion and migration. We should tend to believe the verifiably neutral source. "Conversion" rather than "retroconversion" (which is POV that the natural religion of these people is Christianity). The language for the forced migrations is tricky, but (neutrality off) what both countries and the great powers did to ordinary people is criminal (neutrality back). We should not be ok with any attempt to use pretty language to describe what happened to those forced to leave their homes to meet some politicians' needs. "Forced deportations under the terms of the Lausanne Treaty"? Anyhow, to the extent that you were objecting to blaming one country above the other, I agree with you. Jd2718 00:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Mention of a documentary to be added somewhere
There's a very nice documentary of Maria Mavrikou, "The journey - testimonials by Greeks from Aivali and Turkish Cretans from Rethymno" portraying victims and descendants of the 1924 ethnic cleansings ("population exchanges") in Turkey and Greece who came to visit their original towns in 2000. --Pylambert 19:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I have two Greek sources to add as well. Perhaps we should unbolt the page, for a brief period I would suggest, au vu de la demande. And at 238 kilobytes of Finnish sauna steam, I will be very surprised if anyone can pull any clear notion out of this discussion page. Cretanforever 09:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "I will be very surprised if anyone can pull any clear notion out of this discussion page"


 * Same here.-- Doktor Gonzo 15:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Which brings the question are they aiming for the "clear" or the "blurry".-- Doktor Gonzo 16:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see what's there to discuss about the title anyway. Obviously a national group feeling threatened by the word; are we supposed to give in to this mob act? Wikipedia, hello?-- Doktor Gonzo 16:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * And whenever I mention the Thracian Turks, they go they are not Cretans. What kind of "defense" is that? Is it a radical comparison? I don't think so, Turks being denied their identity by the Greek, whether in Thrace, in Cyprus or in Crete. All the same.-- Doktor Gonzo 16:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Dr. Gonzo, I've proposed a way forward for this article, where we discuss each issue separately. I think everyone here agrees (including Cretanforever and Miskin) on many points (1-11 above). If you do not, please contribute sources supporting other positions. Re your 16:02, 5 March 2007, I think it is best for everyone to avoid questioning the motives of other editors. Re your 16:08, 5 March 2007, saying "I don't see what's there to discuss about the title" isn't constructive. Obviously there is disagreement about the correct name for the Cretan Muslims before they left Crete. Obviously, those people who now live in Turkey and consider themselves Turks, whether they come from Crete or Egypt or Germany, can reasonably be called "Turks". Cogent discussion about the name for these people in Crete would be helpful. As for 16:23, 5 March 2007, I agree that bringing Thracian or Cypriot Turks into this discussion is not helpful. Let's stick to the Cretans. --Macrakis 18:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cretanforever himself said above he can't see any clear notion coming out of this discussion page, I don't know where you got the optimist idea. And I too don't see any agreement if you insist on a change of the title.
 * With your logic, there were no Turks in Asia Minor until early 20th century; since around that time the romantic nationalism -which took root in Greece a century earlier- reached these lands, only then a Turkish identity has remerged. I think one should read about the romantic nationalism first before making silly comments dividing Cretans into Muslim and Christian Greeks. Orthodox Cretans sure hell didn't consider the Muslims Greek; I think what we see here is the new Greek policy, after seeing what Greek racism can do in Cyprus, division. Now they go "We are brothers, we are both Greek". Heh. What? I see the King Midas, I see he has donkey's ears, I say it.-- Doktor Gonzo 14:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Doktor Gonzo, please re-read my comments above. No one (and certainly not me) is proposing to talk about "Muslim and Christian Greeks", but about "Muslim and Christian Cretans".  I really would appreciate your point-by-point thoughts on the comments above. --Macrakis 17:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

No Gonzo it isn't the same. The Thracian Turks may not be officially called 'Turks' because the muslim populations includes other ethnic groups, but I guarantee you that Turkish-speakers are recognised as such. It's the equivalent of the 'Rum' for the Greeks of Turkey and Cyprus, except that 'Rum' has the connotation of "Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottomans". Oh, and that Thracian Turks live in Greece, whereas Cypriots Greeks have their own nation (yet recognised as a subject people). Also the Romantic nationalism actually emerged within Anatolian Greeks, see for example Adamantios Korais and Philiki etairia, and reached later Greece (at a time when they were both 'Rum'). The Cretan Turks/muslims were called 'Turks' in Greek during an age where 'turk' meant muslim and the Turkish nationality didn't exist. Today the majority of sources calls them cretan muslims, and some of those who call them 'cretan turks' do point out that they weren't in fact turkish colonisers. The Greek-speaking Orthodox christians of Greece and Asia Minor are unarguably called 'Greeks' in mainstream sources. Then those of independent Greece changed their name in Turkish from Rum to 'Yunan', but didn't change anything in scholarship terminology. So as far as the article is concerned, I'm only suggesting to use mainstream terms, without making original research on the subject. Miskin 17:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Don't forget what the western world called the "Rum". It always started with the letters GR. They have done so since Roman times.--Domitius 17:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I told you that I have a Greek friend. I can tell this discussion is going nowhere. I just remembered cutting it short and to the point is much better; I should get it tattooed on my arm. Bottomline: There are enough books and google hits to keep this title, we both know that. You can't substitute Turks with Muslims, not the same thing. Keep the title, leave it alone, let's discuss the content. Starting with proposals for the intro.-- Doktor Gonzo 14:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Dr. Gonzo, I agree we should discuss the content. I have listed a number of points above for discussion.  Perhaps you could contribute to them? Thanks, --Macrakis 14:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)



Here is a source with interesting insights that I can point at. The title is misleading in that it is not only about Kurdification. It's a rather recent publication but you can reach at info about it just by googling the title. And this is the link for an eye opener of an article (in the sense Bunuel used the expression) by [Prof. Riginiotis|http://www.muammerketencoglu.com/roportajlar/tr/ChristianandTurks.pdf]

Conversions-Comparisons
In Bosnia...the unusually high number of converts is mostly the result of the socio-political-religious and leadership conflicts prior to the Ottomans....which created a power and social vacuum...facilitating acceptence of a new invader's faith, customs, laws, etc! A society at conflict, under constant pressure and also under attack...finds its "solution"...by accepting an altogether new system...new social order, as the established social order cannot withstand the pressures...internal and external! It simply fails!

There was the Heretic "native" Bosnian Church (under pressure to toe the offical "line" from Rome...and the official Roman Catholic Church as well. Pressure (constant threat)from Hungary...to prove that the Roman Catholic king had eradicated all Christian heresy...rivalry between various nobles...king's ambitions vis-a-vis Rome...etc. eased the Ottomans' entry into the country...who then enabled the subsequent conversions of a large segment of the population.

In Crete...a similar socio-political power struggle...and a similar vacuum...created by the "alien" presence of the Catholic Venetians and also...the native, traditional Cretan Orthodoxy.

"The establishment of Islam was mainly the result of conversions. During the Venetian period, the island was devoid of an Orthodox Church hierarchy. The local Orthodox priests were subjected to the authority of Catholic bishops....

What is unique about Crete is the equation between colonization and the high rate of conversions to Islam...'''The limited colonization and the extensive Islamization of the island resulted in a rather hybrid population of muslims in faith but Cretan in terms of customs and language.  In order to fully comprehend the "hatred" of the Orthodox population towards the Turcocretans and their longing for their land after they were forced to evacuate the island in the 20th century, one would have to examine the formative years, soon after the conquest of the island...Until recently, it was unknown that Ottoman documents including kadi records from Crete, Salonica, Kavala, Vodina and the islands were brought to Istanbul during the population exchange....When the Ottomans arrived in Crete, the Orthodox population of the island was devoid of an established Orthodox Church.... In Crete however, the rate of conversion is considered relatively high....the traditional policy of colonization of a conquered territory by Moslem settlers was not applied to Crete'''". Elif Bayraktar-THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OTTOMAN RELIGIOUS POLICIES IN CRETE 1645-1735: MEN OF FAITH AS ACTORS IN THE KADI COURT.Gospe 05:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Turkish İdentity ( Robredo )

Its not true that the colonization policy is not applied and you can read that so many rich mans ( AGA ) bought land from Crete and come there in so many ressources its written and also some part of the ottoman army stay there.They did not this politics becouse the dont need. But you cannot say that turks never existed in Crete its not true everbody know that near resmo and Khandiya there were a turkish noble community, ottoman familys who were knowing turkish.I am living the realty and one paragraph of a book can not be a raison of your logic.How ottoman divan poetery exist in Crete how they learned turkish?. Its easy becouse they were turkish and they were going to turkish school. The big religious mans are also come to island from anatoia. Horosanlı Ali Baba Turbesi ( temple of Khorosani Ali Baba ). if this newspapers or schools or a turkish identity existe in Bosnia? I think you tryed to create a theory and from this theory you did a comparaison but in the history and political sciences you cannot try to create a theory becouse this is not math this is not economy they are no solid bases, its more than economie its an human science and you cannot accept the same logic. Finaly the political situation in bosnia and crete is the same ! ok ! but its not a raison to accept that Cretans are muslim not turk. i think this point of wiew is not possible in history. I feel that its an analogie and its not possible. Even a little difference can change all of the human history and you cannot explain it with theories.( RObredo )

"related groups" info removed from infobox
For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all Infobox Ethnic group infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nikos Kazantzakis
"In the later novels by Nikos Kazantzakis, Cretan Turks also had to assume unflattering roles attributing, although in his earlier masterpiece, "a wise old Cretan Turk" forever affectionately recalled, Recep Efendi, teaches Zorba how to play the santuri."

I can't fully understand what the writer of the above part means with it. To me its seems more of a personal opinion.

It happens that two days ago I finished the reading of one of Nkos Kazantzakis books, "Kapetan Mihalis (Eleftheria i Thanatos)" (Captain Mihalis - Freedom or Death) and he portrayed Turks in Crete that had quite good roles. For example, Moustafa Baba, a doctor or healer of some sort, who was curing both Turks and Greeks (and other christians) without getting paid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.40.158.4 (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Long winded rant
Yes the Senlendirme systhem is not applied in Crete but Ottoman Empire give big lands to Agalar. And its prouved that the ottoman army did not return to Anatolia, stay in Crete. The riches mans of anatolia  Aga  bought so many lands on crete and more than 200-300 Aga stay in Crete and some of Cretans familys have the same name as they had in anatolia EX: Kabaağaçlılar ( Afyon Kabaağaç) Arabzadeler ( Anatolia Arablar Town), Salacogulları ( Salacoglu ), Bıçakçızadeler ,Cebecizadeler. They were big turkish familys of Crete who gouverned the island. Cretan turks have married with greek girls but the ottoman colonisation on Crete is made by the ottoman army who stay in crete and marry with Greeks. But its impossible to say that there is no turkish familys in Crete there were so many famly who descent from Agalar ( Big anatolian familys) like me we have the same family name since 400 years. There is so many different cretan Turks some from turkis descent some convert to islam but its clear that all accept the turkish identity and the higly rate of turks are from turkish descent. ( Robredo ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.44.120.54 (talk) 00:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You will need at least one credible source to back this up. The Turks conquering the island does not mean that their army remained there. Until 1669 and for 20 years, they used most of their army to capture Crete. I find it hard to believe that afterwards they kept that army there. Who defended the borders of the Ottoman Empire and contacted the wars to follow if the Turkish army stayed in Crete? Also, what do u mean by saying "married with locals"? Took local girls in their harems? In addition, the Janisary custom was applied to the Greek Orthodox Cretans as well, so, a number of Cretan Turks may well be descendants of islamized and turkified Greek boys. Lastly, switching from Orthodoxy to Islam was something that the Ottoman Empire actively supported and a policy it pursued. Many Cretan Turks may be of that stock. Even if Anatolian families settled in Crete, it does not mean that these families were of Turkish origin. Of course they were called "Turks" since they were Muslims, yet the concept of ethnicity was not associated with the modern tuskish identity. Lastly, since everobody knows that Turkic peoples are of Asian stock, it is hard for someone to believe that someone is a Turk (or at least of predominantly Turkish origin) if he does not have such characteristics; and the Cretan Turks for sure do not have any. --Hectorian (talk) 14:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

TURKS İN CRETE( ROBREDO )

I think its not true, becouse the family names that i write are turkish names my family also have a name finishing with zade we came from the Est-Anatolia and we retourned back from the island at 1897 my grand father wrote poetery in turkish languages at Crete. And when they came they were knowing very well turkish. What i want to show you ? the turkish language is not died in Crete, it exist. And also a turkish newspaper exist. All of the ottoman army did not stayed there, ottoman army is very big and composed of more than 200.000. Most of Create captured before 1650 and, the conquest finished at 1669 with the town of the Kandia. So, ottoman army tried to take Kandia during 20 years but at the other part of Crete the turkish administration was existing since 1650. Ottoman Empire mouved an army of Apprx 250.000 for the cretan war and only a small part of the army maybe 10.000 did not return. And i think to be muslim is really a good way to show that cretans are not greek becouse greek perception and nationalisme is based on the chretian religion its true that you cannot be muslim and at the same time Greek. The hazara people in Afganistan are ethnicaly mongolian and speak Persian language, the celtic people in Scotland and ireland speak only English and they forgotten their languages. Turkmens in Kerkouk and Moussoul speak arabic like primary language and they have so many commun culture, and also Karamanlidis? they were speaking greek ? i think no and they have higly an central anatolian culture at state of Greek. but the most important is the wiew of this people. What the are feeling.İf they have a conscience of being turk even if they speak spanish or french they will be turk or f they feel greek they are greek. I think its clear. I can say that i am cretan but not greek maybe i say becouse my family were officier in crete and i am descendant of turks and from my family name you can see it, and see from wich town of turkey i am coming. But exemples like me its very rare in crete howewer if they are some people converted to islam, now its so late to do greek nationalisme. Muslim and greek ? :) i cannot believe it you think that greek people will believe that they are greek even if they are muslim? and have a famly name like Mohammed or Omer. I think no, the first think that they will do  You were ancient christian now its time to accept Jesus way !  i think this kind of thinking can never accept cretian Turks like Greeks. From the Ottoman registrations and statistics you can read how many turk are mouved to crete but its logical that more than 95 percent of the island were Greek and its normal that those people were assimilate. Only some big familys we say nobles Turks could keep their language but all use the word Turk for them. I am living in turkey and so close to Cretan turk community and i think that they use the word turk not muslim and most of them are very nationalistes.   if we look at the Cretan Turks in island of Rhodes , the turkish community in Rhodes are %25 from Cretan turks mouved there. Now they are in greece, there is no turkish pressure but they identifie themselfs like turks. You can understand that this people feel turk and muslim. Also ancient Cretan turk Paul Mulla (Mollazade .... ) frequantly saying that he have turkish origines even if he converted to christianty.Most of the turkish divan poetary are written in Crete by turks. The rich familys were sending their childs to school to learn perfectly turkish, if they are not turk why they are going to school and learning all of the courses in turkish? Albanians or Bosniak were doing it ? And Bektashism was deported to crete by anatolian turks becouse bektashism is derivated from alevisme and alevism is a turkish conception of islam. The same situation exist also for some people in Tracia were Slavic but speaking turkish in the life, like POMAKS ,becouse they were living at the middle of a big turkish majority like Turkish Cretians living in an island of %90 Greek. But the name Turk for Cretian Turks is not coming from the space, at the begining of the colonisation they were turks coming there and Greek people used this terminologie.Maybe i accept that they are some people converted to islam but all of the cretian turks are not like this , you have 5 fingers and they are not the same.Me , i am turk of turkis descendant i can see that my 5. grand father is not cretian. And they were all speaking turkish. As you see all of the cretian turks are not the same, but we say for all of this mixure and different culture the turks of crete. Not the muslims. And this name will never change and we will continue to identifie ourself like this. With this discussion you cannot prouve something. Look in al hamidiyah or egypte or Rhodes they are all saying that they are turkish and i think they like so much their religion they are not christian and never want to be. its the democraty and the peoples have the right to say their identity.And if we read the history we can understand that the turkish language and turkish culture exist in crete. Newspapers, Bektashism alevism , Divan poetry and from so many family names ( cebecizade , salacoglu , kabaagaclı , arabzade , mollazade ). Turks did exist in island its very naif to believe that turkish army came conquert and after return back there were no turk in the island and suddenly all of the greeks become muslim:) there were no turks but suddenly greeks say to this greeks muslim TUrks.I thiks its more logical to belive to the existance of turks in the island the greek perception is a little absurde. Also Cretan turks who retourned to turkey at 1924 were a small minority and the most of turks retourned before 1914 and i think the biggest migration were at 1897 why did they retourned to turkey and not to Greece ? why they fighted in ottoman army and in civil resistances agains Greeks in anatolia?( Giritli Cafer Efe ). There is also cretans in Egypte and they describe themself like turks and also Cretans in Al Hamidiya describe themself like turk and you can read the reportage with the family Bekraki.Why the cretans in Rhodes island are describing themself turk, they are in greece not in turkey but they are learning turk and going to turkey ? I think people have doing a big mistake in this discussion becouse they think that all of the cretans come in 1924! NO ! its not true they were a small minority and the majority came in turkey themself not with the population exchange. Cretan turks = population exchange this is not true.My father's family came at 1897 and when i ask to them if they were speaking turkish when they came or my grand fathers were knowing turkish, my father told me that they were speaking turkish , my grand father wrote so many turkish books and also my big grand mother were fluently speaking turkish. I think its a good raison to see that turkish were speaking in crete in a small fonctionnary or noble community. İ never heard from my father about the linguistic difficultys of his father they all know very well turkish. You told that they feel turkish becouse they come to turkey, if they come to egypte they will feel arabic:) lol lol :) you must to know that at 1923 turkish population in Crete was %7 and at 1850 it was %40 , most of them retourned at 1897 themself, not with the population exchange , why they did returne to turkey not to Greece? you will say that becouse of the religion! Now think again Greek culture can accept Islam can put, the islamic culture and muslims in his structure? i think no ! and you have never forget that the religion is a very good way to feel the state of belonging in a community. I think even if they will stay in Greece they will feel turkish like in Rhodos island ( Cretan Turks in Rodos Island ). Becouse to be turk is socialy not separable of islam in anatolia maybe we can accept a different way in central asia but its a realty in anatolia.Even if they are turk or turkified they are all living in turkey and they are %100 turk and muslim.I think this discussion can change nothing.The scientific researchs and the real life is different. İranians wanted to prouve that azerbaidjani people are iranis turkicified, they show so many genetic proof but what changed ? They are turk and want to feel turk.with this discussion the feelings and turkish identity will not change. Sorry if you want a brother, there is only (2500) greek living in Turkey you can be brother with them :) ( Robredo )


 * Hey there's a thought, how come there are only a few thousand Greeks living in Turkey? I seem to remember there were 200,000 left in 1923 after the Lausanne Treaty. What ever happened to them?--Xenovatis (talk) 21:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

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Black Turks from Crete
No mention of Black Cretan Turks/Muslims who were subjected to population exchange and were primarily Greek-speaking? . "Keep Cretans white." Right? Behemoth (talk) 17:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't object in the slightest to mentioning the Afro-Turks so long as there are valid sources and I expect something more than half a sentence in a newspaper. Frankly I didn't know about them and doubt many of the other editors did, much less that there are many descended from Crete. Btw the article Turkish people doesn't even make a single referrence to Afro-Turks. It seems to me like typical antihellenic hypocricy. Accusing Greeks of racism while the Turks marginalize their black co-ethnics and deny them even a cursory mention in the article on Turkish people.--Xenovatis (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah man, don't come in with guns blazing! This is an interesting subject (of which I had no knowledge, well, except for the general slavery part). A quick google search seems to bring up only the (online news-) sources cited in Afro-Turks (with plenty of sites, ranging from the kurdish nationalist to the afrocentrist and the white supremacist, commenting on them; the joys of the internet) but also this: The Invisibility Of Turks Of African Origin And The Construction Of Turkish Cultural Identity. If someone has access... 3rdAlcove (talk) 19:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You did not live the balkan wars not live their history and you want to create your own history and impose to them. The history is making peoples and identitys not the ethnic researches. How can you say that cretan peoples feel Greek. Did you asked me ? And also you are ignoring their history that some of them escaped to turkey with little boats after balkan wars and died on the way. at this time also they was feeling greek? The identity is not only the blood its the history for that it will be allways cretan turks not cretan muslims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.185.250.183 (talk) 01:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)