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The Torbeshes of Macedonia: Religious and National Identity Questions of Macedonian-Speaking Muslims

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The Torbeshes of Macedonia: Religious and National Identity Questions of Macedonian-Speaking Muslims Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 28, No. 1, April 2008 The Torbeshes of Macedonia: Religious and National Identity Questions of Macedonian-Speaking Muslims ALI DIKICI Abstract Torbesh is the name given to the Macedonian-speaking Muslim minority commu- nity living in the Republic of Macedonia. The name is a colloquial term and means “the bag carriers”. There are some prevailing discussions on whether Torbeshes are descendants of Christian Slavs who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period or if they are of Turkish origin. During the Ottoman rule, not language, but reli- gion, motivated social groups and political allegiancies and was used in the desig- nation of identity. After the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, this situation reemerged and religion played an important role during the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans. Although religion and religion-based tradition appeared to be decisive ethnicity components for many other Muslim minorities in the Balkans, the Torbeshes of Macedonia have not developed their collective iden- tity solely on religious grounds. The ethnic identity question of the Torbesh commu- nity is still under dispute although a majority declare themselves as Turks. A minor Torbesh group, for whom language is a much more important identity criterion, feels much closer to the orthodox Macedonians. Some of the Torbeshes declare themselves as Muslim Albanians for pragmatic or ideological reasons. Therefore, Torbeshes have neither a firm Macedonian national affiliation nor a separate Torbeshidentity. Introduction The Balkan region is situated at the crossroads of various cultures, religions and civiliza- tions. It is one of the most complicated regions in the world from the ethnic, religious and language points of view. Tribes passing through or settling in the Balkans were not only affected by the local culture but also influenced it. So, new entities were created from the new tribes combined with the original ones. Many states emerged comprising various heterogeneous ethnic and religious minorities which are presently hostile to each other. Thus, in the Balkans, as a result of encounters between various religions, new cul- tural and national groups emerged, such as the Christian Orthodox Turks (Gagauzes), Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks, Serb–Croat-speaking Bosnians and Macedonian-speaking Torbeshes.1 Macedonia, in which a considerable amount of migration movements and wars have taken place throughout the centuries, was settled as early as prehistoric times and so had a very complicated and fragile ethnic structure. A small Muslim minority group called Torbeshes, which is hardly mentioned within this context, shall be studied in this article. Although most of the Torbeshes are not able to speak Turkish, they claim to be Turks and this seems to be a subject that deserves examination in detail. However, this is a difficult subject to study since there is limited research and little written on Torbeshes. Most of the data on Torbeshes is derived from other general ISSN 1360-2004 print/ISSN 1469-9591 online/08/010027-17 # 2008 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs DOI: 10.1080/13602000802011044 28 Ali Dikici sources about ethnicity in the southeastern Balkans. There are only a few serious inde- pendent studies on them yet there are deep differences between the scholars’ works. The main factors obscuring the research in this field are: political speculations; the reality and complexity of the problems; complex ethnic structures; and reality merged with myth. Political leaders and the state officials in the Balkans interpret subjects according to their own political interests. Thus the quality of scholarly reports diminishes and subjective speculations increase. An attempt will be made in this article to clarify the confusion. The Torbesh Identity The Torbeshes are generally defined as a Muslim ethnic group in the Balkans, mostly speaking the Macedonian language. The Torbeshes have a twofold identity problem. It is possible to define them by two elements: the Macedonian language and Islam. While Macedonian historians underline the language factor and refer to the Torbeshes’ original Christian identity, Turkish researchers focus on Islam as their religion, disre- garding the language and cultural dimension. Most Torbeshes define themselves as Turks and have a close affinity to Turks. They live predominantly in the western and southern parts of Macedonia and in Kosovo, with limited numbers in Greece, Albania and Turkey. The largest concentration of them is in the western part of Macedonia, in the town of Debar and its surrounding villages, and in the Reka2 region between Mavrovo (the state border with Albania), Debar and Kichevo. Eighty percent of the population in this region is comprised of Torbeshes.3 The two large towns in the region where Torbeshes are the majority are Rostushe4 and Centar Zhupa.5 There are smaller concentrations of Torbeshes in other parts of the country, such as Skopje, Struga, Kichevo, Yelovyane, Struga, Berovo, Urvich and Kolichani. Torbeshes often live in underdeveloped, neglected, and isolated areas, e.g. the muni- cipalities of Debar and Kichevo, where there is no absolute ethnic majority. These people are well known as owners of restaurants, candy makers, fresco painters, wood carvers and mosaic makers. In the past few decades large numbers of them have emigrated to Italy and other Western European countries due to unemployment. Not all but most of the surnames of the Torbesh end with Slavonic (-ov/-ski) suffixes. Torbesh in the Turkish language (Torbes¸) refers to people with deference, who are loyal and do not cause problems. This view is also supported by the historical attitude of the Torbesh people who never caused any conflict with the Ottoman administration and accepted remaining secondary and supportive under all circumstances.6 The Torbeshes are distinguished by their remarkable adaptation capability, just like the Pomaks. Since the name Torbesh is an informal and pejorative name, at least half of all Torbeshes, if not more, refuse to be called Torbesh.7 Some scholars say that the Gorans of Kosovo and the Torbeshes of Macedonia are closely related to the Pomaks of Greece and Bulgaria,8 and that the Torbesh community is a subgroup of the Muslim Pomak ethnicity in Bulgaria,9 and so the Pomaks are called Torbeshes in Macedonia and Gorans in Kosovo and Albania.10 The language of the Tor- beshes is a different dialect of the Pomak language and it has lost its original form due to the long term influence of the Macedonian language. Sometimes Torbeshes are called “Mijaks, Nashinci”,11 or “Poturs, Kurkis”12 as well. However, “Pomaks, Torbeshes and Gorans see themselves as different from each other. This difference even can be observed among the Torbeshes and Gorans living together. While Gorans see themselves The Torbeshes of Macedonia 29 with a higher status than other Torbesh, Torbeshes are not inclined to differ themselves from Gorans.”13 Gorans share many common customs with Torbeshes but they do not intermarry with them.14 However, neither previous Western nor Ottoman writings used the term Torbeshes. In the Ottoman millet system, all of the citizens derived their identity either as being Muslim or as non-Muslim and there were no other subdivisions based on specific nationalities.15 The Sublime Porte recognized only religious communities, which were protected by the sultan and granted a degree of self-administration under the millet system. The Ottoman official records did not divide the Muslims according to their ethnic or linguistic affilia- tions.16 Therefore, it is quite difficult to determine the real number of different ethnic groups that comprised the Islamic community in the Ottoman period.17 The Serbian nationalist geographer Jovan Cvijic´ was the first to treat Torbeshes as distinct from the other Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks in 1913.18 Torbesh: The Etymological Roots The original meaning of the name “Torbesh” is obscure. There are various views on this subject and “folk” rumors are more common than written sources. There is a cynical story which states that this name comes from a Turkish word “torba” meaning “bag” implying that the Torbeshes sold their soul for a bag of wheat flour19 or sold their Chris- tian faith for a bag of “urda” (kind of a soft cheese).20 According to Hacivasilevic, the word “Torbesh” is closely related to the Persian word of “torbekes”, meaning “with a bag”. The Torbesh people generally live in the mountains; they make their living by breeding cattle and as construction workers. They always used to carry their tools in a sack with them and were referred to as a people with a bag.21 Another Persian-related explanation is that the word “Torbesh” denotes a mobile sales- man who sells halva 22 and oriental drinks. Palikuruseva brings an explanation for the term from Ottoman history suggesting that “Torba acemi” was a branch in the Ottoman army or “Torba group” was a special class in the central Ottoman adminis- tration body.23 In this sense, the name relates to the old Slavic tribe named Torbachei, and then to the special type of employees of the Turkish army and the candidates for janissaries 24 who carried bags (torbi in Macedonian, torba Oglanlari/torba Acemileri in Turkish). There is yet another opinion that the ethnic name is related to the Bogomil movement. The Bogomil missionaries (kutugeri) carried bags (torbi) with them to hold books related to their faith and to hold food. Angelov25 also says that the Torbesh people are the last descendents of the Macedonian Bogomils who converted to Islam and that the term Torbesh is an old Bogomil word. It is true that the map of the Bogomil movement and of Islamization is overlapping at the Balkans, but this is not so relevant when it comes to the ethnic name.26 According to Turkish scholar Yusuf Hamza, Torbes¸ 27 is a Turkish compound word coming from tor þ bas¸.
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