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The geographical name change program of Turkey was an initiative by the Turkish government to replace non-Turkish geographical and topographic names of the Turkish Republic or the Ottoman Empire with Turkish names, as part of a policy of Turkification. The replaced names were almost always of Armenian, Greek, Laz, Bulgarian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Arabic origin.

History

Ottoman Empire

In 1913, after the Committee of Union and Progress took the reigns of the Ottoman government through a coup d'etat, a nationalist political current came to power. At the height of World War I and during the final years of the Ottoman empire when the ethnic cleansing policies of non-Muslim Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian minorities were underway, Minister of War Enver Paşa issued an edict (ferman) on October 6, 1916 declaring:

It has been decided that provinces, districts, towns, villages, mountains, and rivers, which are named in languages belonging to non-Muslim nations such as Armenian, Greek or Bulgarian, will be renamed into Turkish. In order to benefit from this suitable moment, this aim should be achieved in due course

Enver Paşa disregarded however, changing the geographical names belonging to Muslim minorities (i.e. Arabs and Kurds) due to the Ottoman governments role as a Caliphate. His decree however, inspired many Turkish intellectuals to write in support of such measures. One such intellectual, Hüseyin Avni Alparslan (1877 - 1921), a Turkish soldier and author of books regarding Turkish language and culture, was inspired by the efforts of Enver Paşa and wrote in his book Trabzon İli Lâz mı? Türk mü? (Is the Trabzon province Laz or Turkish?) the following:

If we want to be the owner of our country, then we should turn even the name of the smallest village into Turkish and not leave its Armenian, Greek or Arabic variants. Only in this way can we paint our country with its colors.

It is not known how many geographical names have changed due to the ordinance, nevertheless the ultimate objective of the policy ended up in failure due to the collapse of the Ottoman government and its leaders being sent to trial before Ottoman and European courts for the massacres committed in 1915. These policies however contributed to the commencement of similar and more successful initiatives in the Turkish republic.

Republic of Turkey

Turkish nationalism and secularism were two of the seven founding principals of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the leader of the early decades of the Republic, aimed to create a nation state (Turkish: Ulus) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It is known that during the first three decades of the Republic, efforts of changing geographical names were a reoccurring theme. Imported maps containing references to historical regions such as Armenia, Kurdistan, or Lazistan (the official name of the province of Rize until 1921) were prohibited and banned (such was the case of Der Grosse Weltatlas, a map published in Leipzig).

Journalist and writer Ayşe Hür has noted that after the death of Ataturk and during the Democratic period of the Turkish republic in the late 1940s and 50s, "ugly, humiliating, insulting or derisive names, even if they were Turkish, were subjected to changes. Village names with lexical components meaning red (kizil), bell (çan), church (kilise, i.e. Kirklareli) were all changed. To do away with “separatist notions”, the Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Tatar, Circassian, and Laz village names were also changed."

However, it was not until 1956 when The Special Commission for Name Change (Ad Degistirme Ihtisas Komisyonu) was created under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior, which brought together professors, politicians, generals, linguists, and academicians throughout Turkey to take up the task of official name changing. The initiative proved successful as approximately 28,000 topographic names were changed which included 12,211 village and town names and 4,000 mountain, river, and other topographic names. This figure also included names of streets, monuments, quarters, neighborhoods, and other components that make up certain municipalities. In 1927, all street and square names in Istanbul, which were not of Turkish origin, were changed. The campaign continued until 1978 but was reintroduced after the military coup of 1980 in 1981-83. During the heightened tension between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government, the focus of geographical name changing in the 1980s were of Kurdish villages, towns, rivers, and etc.

Current status

Although geographical names have formally changed in Turkey, their native names persist and continue in the local dialects throughout the country. At times, Turkish politicians have also used the native names of cities during their speeches. On August 8, 2009, when addressing a crowd in the town of Güroymak, president Abdullah Gul used the native name Norşin. On August 12, 2009, when talking about his family origins, Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan used the native Greek name of Potamya instead of Güneysu.

Efforts at restoring the former names of geographical terms have been recently introduced in Turkey. In September 2012, legislation has been promulgated to restore the names of (primarily Kurdish) villages to their former native names. According to the bill, the province of Tunceli would be named Dersim, Güroymak would be named Norşin, and Aydinlar would be named Tilo.

Comparative analysis

Most of the geographical name changes occurred in the eastern provinces of the country and the coast of the eastern Black Sea where minority populations tend to live. Through independent study, Sevan Nisanyan estimates that of the geographical location name changes, 4,200 were Greek, 4,000 Kurdish, 3,600 Armenian, 750 Arabic, 400 Assyrian, 300 Georgian, 200 Laz, and 50 others. However, the official statistics of the The Special Commission for Name Change (Ad Degistirme Ihtisas Komisyonu) claims that the total number of villages, towns, cities, and settlements renamed is 12,211. The chart below lists the provinces and the number of villages or towns renamed.

Notable geographical name changes

Armenian

Historically, Armenian geographical locations were first abolished under the reign of Sultan Abdulhamit II. In 1880 the word Armenia was banned from being used in the press, schoolbooks, and governmental establishments and was subsequently replaced with words like Anatolia or Kurdistan. Armenian name changing continued under the early Republican era up until the 21st century. It included Turkification of last names, change of animal names, change of the names of Armenian historical figures (i.e. the name of the prominent Balyan family were concealed under an identity of a superficial Italian family called Baliani), and the change and distortion of Armenian historical events.

Most Armenian geographical names were in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman empire. Villages, settlements, or towns that contain the suffix -kert meaning built or built by (i.e. Manavazkert (today Malazgirt), Norakert, Noyakert), -shen meaning village (i.e. Aratashen, Pemzashen, Norashen), and -van meaning town (i.e. Charentsavan, Nakhichevan, Tatvan) signify an Armenian name. Throughout Ottoman history, Turkish and Kurdish tribesmen have settled into Armenian villages and changed the native Armenian name (i.e. the Armenian Norashen was changed to Norşin). This was especially true after the Armenian genocide when much of eastern Turkey was depopulated of its Armenian population.

It is estimated by etymologist and author Sevan Nişanyan that 3,600 Armenian geographical locations have been changed.

Kurdish

The Kurdish geographical name changes were exempt under the Ottoman Empire due to the Islamic religious orientation of Kurds. However, during the Republican era and especially after the Dersim massacre, Kurdish geographical name changes became more common. During the Turkish Republican era, the word Kurdistan and Kurds were banned. The Turkish government had disguised the presence of the Kurds statistically by categorizing them as Mountain Turks. This classification was changed to the new euphemism of Eastern Turk in 1980.

It is estimated by etymologist and author Sevan Nişanyan that 4,000 Kurdish geographical locations have been changed.

Greek

Much of the Greek names have maintained their origins from the Byzantine empire and Empire of Trebizond era.

With the establishment of the Ottoman empire, many Turkish name changes have continued to retain their Greek origins. For example, the modern name "İzmir" derives from the former Greek name Σμύρνη "Smyrna", through the first two syllables of the phrase "εις Σμύρνην" (pronounced "is Smirnin"), which means "to Smyrna" in Greek. A similar etymology also applies for other Turkish cities with former Greek names, such as İznik (from the phrase "is Nikaean", meaning "to Nicaea"), Istanbul (from the phrase "is tan Polin" or "to the City") or even for the Greek island of Kos, called "İstanköy" in Turkish.

After the Cyprus war and the establishment of Northern Cyprus, Greek geographical names were once again subject to change. Villages and cities such as Kyneria were changed to Girne, Famagusta to Gazimağusa, Kythrea to Değirmenlik, and more.

It is estimated by etymologist and author Sevan Nişanyan that 4,200 Greek geographical locations have been changed, the most of any ethnic minority.

Assyrian

Most Assyrian name changes have occurred in the southeast of Turkey near the Syrian border in the Tur Abdin region. The Tur Abdin (Template:Lang-syr) is a hilly region incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language meaning 'mountain of the servants (of God)'. Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac Orthodox Christians, for whom the region used to be a monastic and cultural heartland. The Assyrian/Syriac people of Tur Abdin call themselves Suroye and Suryoye and traditionally speak an Aramaic dialect called Turoyo.

After the Assyrian genocide, the Assyrians of the region were either depopulated or massacred. Currently, there are 5,000 Assyrians living in the region.

It is estimated by etymologist and author Sevan Nişanyan that 400 Assyrian geographical locations have been changed.

See also

• Geographical renaming
• Turkification
• Citizen speak Turkish!
• Surname Law (Turkey)

External links

• Index Anatolicus: Map of Geographical locations of Anatolia with descriptions, etymology, and cultural origins (Turkish)

References

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