Karamanlides

[akritas]

The tribe Karamanlides lived in the region of Karaman of The Ottoman Empire. The region is well known as Cappadocia. Also there were many Karamanlides living in Constantinople (Istanbul) and other provinces of the Empire. Karamanlides were a Christian Orthodox people, monolingual with Turkish. They were writing Turkish with Greek alphabets. Today, only a 80-100 people group remaining from this tribe live in Constantinople. All of the Karamanlides were sent to Greece after the exchange of populations.

Karamanlides used Turkish as the church language and translated the bible into Karamanlidika. Also the first novel written in the Ottoman Empire was Temasha-e Dounia by a Karamanlis Evangelinos Missailidis(1872). In this novel, Ottoman Empire is characterized through the eyes of a Greek living in Constantinople. Also many religious, law, philosophy, medical books were written or translated in Karamanlidika language. One of such books is named Anadolu Türküleri(The Songs of Anatolia), by Stauros Stauridis(1896). A lyric from the book:

BIRER BIRER SAYDIM DA YEDI YIL OLDU
DIKTIĞIN FIDANLAR MEYVAYA DURDU
SENINLE GIDENLER SILAYA DONDU
ISTANBUL YOLUNA DIKTIM GOZUMU

I counted the years one by one and it made up of seven
The saplings you planted now give fruit
Those who had gone with you returned to homeland
I still have my eyes on the roads from Istanbul

Also there were newspapers published in Karamanlidika as Anatoli, which was established by Evangelinos Missailidis in 1851 and continued to circulate till 1914.

By the exchange treaty both Greece and Turkey solved their ethnic minority problems. In a radical and bitter way. The Muslims in Greece and The Orthodox Greeks in Turkey were exchanged.

In 1924, all the Karamanlides started the immigration to Greece. When they were transported to the harbour of Mersin, neither of them had an idea about the place they're going, besides most of them were seeing the sight of the sea for the first time. The Karamanlides were regarded as foreigners also in Greece in the first time.



A written literature was developed then by the Turkish-speaking Orthodox of the Karamania principality. This literature was religious at the beginning, called Karamania literature. It was written in Turkish with Greek letters by Greek writers. The term Karamanlis as it is used today is restrictive and vague. All the inhabitants of Karamania are called Karamanlides. At first the Turkish- speaking Orthodox inhabitants of Kappadokia are called Karamanlides, too but in the end the term applied to all Turkish- speaking Orthodox people in Asia Minor. As we have mentioned, apart from the Turkish-speaking inhabitants of Kappadokia there were 31 Greek- speaking communities untill 1924. Dockins, the English linguist who visited Kappadokia early in the 20th century, studied the dialects of these villages and divided them in three groups: a) the dialect of Silly b) the dialect of Kappadokia and c) the dialect of Farasa. Among the Greek-speaking villages were Farasa, Malakopi, Anaku, Silata, Floita, Axos, Troxos, Goundounos, Aravani, Misti and the colonies of Tsarikli, Dela, Tseltek and Karadzaviran.

SOURCES:
http://www.megarevma.net/Karamanlides.htm
http://www.kappadokes.gr/english/his...ges/his_19.htm

[Amyntas]

Guys can anyone tell me a few things about them? are they greeks? or christian turks? you get so much different informatian about them

[akritas]

Originally Posted by Giourkas

Guys can anyone tell me a few things about them? are they greeks? or christian turks? you get so much different informatian about them

http://www.megarevma.net/Karamanlides.htm

It's up to you what was them origin

[Ellinas]

Yes, the only sure is that the Karamanlides were Turkish speaking Orthodox Christians. Not sure about their racial backround.

[Tsontos]

Its not possible they were Turkish racially or Kurdish for that matter. Are you telling me that under Ottoman sharia law (where the penalty for converting to Christianity was death), in the heart of Anatolia, they gave up all the privledges of being a muslim and converted en masse to Greek Orthodoxy. This would have meant paying crippeling amount of taxes, sending their children away as Jannisseries to never be seen again??

It was common practice for the Ottomans to force the christians of Asia Minor to choose between their language and their religion. The Karamanlides chose to keep their religion. thats why their are many Janniseries in the Ottoman records found with the name Karamanli. Only Christian children were taken as janniseries remember.

They were Turkish speaking Greek Orthodox Christians by the 1920s. Racially they were likely to be Greek for the most part and possibly some Armenians as well as they were the other Christian people present in the area.

[Oka]

hello guys!
i am first time at your forum.
was reading a bit and decided to ask you a question.
sorry in advance if i did not choose perhaps the correct topic..
in any case, my question is about the last name Karaman...how does it sound to you? i know you might say Turkish...but is there any Greek background?
Thank you all in advance
Olga Karaman
just in case, my mail is oka220180@yahoo.com

[akritas]

Originally Posted by Oka

hello guys!
i am first time at your forum.
was reading a bit and decided to ask you a question.
sorry in advance if i did not choose perhaps the correct topic..
in any case, my question is about the last name Karaman...how does it sound to you? i know you might say Turkish...but is there any Greek background?
Thank you all in advance
Olga Karaman
just in case, my mail is oka220180@yahoo.com

kara- is a turkish loan (propably persian origin) and not Greek and mean black.
κάρα is the greek word that mean head
its up to you what finally is the origin of the karaman

[Oka]

thank you, akritas!
i guess the right thing is to make a research where my anchestors come from...
otherwise, i always have 2 options: greek and turkish...but for some reason, i'd love to know my anchestors were greek

[Truth Bearer]

Karamanlis means black Christian in turkish(Manlis shorthened for Christs name Emmanuil)They were Christians who became isolated once the Ottomans took over the region.We believe they were Greek speakers originally but due to being marginalised they lost the language but still kept their faith.

[Dianatomia]

Hi guys,

I am also new on this forum. I'd like to give my two cents.

The origin of the name does not mean a thing. Since names were given to Greeks by non-Greek administrations who at a certain period of time ruled the Greek population.

Karamanlides could not be of Turkic origin because they were Christian. So that leaves a few options. My guess is that they were of Anatolian origin. If they lived in the west of modern day Turkey they may have been Greeks. But this is obviously not the case cause the Karamanlides lived to the east of today's Ankara. Best guess is that they were Anatolian tribes who in the Byzantine era became Hellenized.
Later the Turks came and Turkofied most of the Anatolian population. Some of them though choose not to convert to Islam and thus only adopted the Turkish language.

So their roots are Anatolian. But Anatolians and Greeks were never that different to begin with. That's why Turks and Greeks sometimes resemble. Turks are 'primarily' Anatolian peoples who were Hellenised in the Byzantine era and were Tourkofied in the Ottoman era.