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NOTE: have quoted select paragraphs, not the whole article
Popular DNA tests are troubling Turks and shaking belief in their “Turkishness” as they find that, instead of being direct descendants of the Seljuk and Ottoman hordes who surged into Anatolia from Central Asia a millennium ago, they are instead part of the kaleidoscope of peoples who have lived in what is now modern Turkey and migrated there since time began.
Issues such as what had happened to the survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the presence of thousands of Greeks and Jews, but also millions of Kurdish citizens of the new republic were swept aside in often heavy-handed attempts to assimilate minorities or pressure them to leave the country altogether.
She said her family, from the northeastern province of Bayburt, had refused to believe that they had had Armenian, Italian and Greek links. “I told them the test was scientific, but they did not even want to listen,” she said.
Historians say that as the mass killings and deportations gathered pace, many young Armenian women were taken by local Turks and Kurds, or handed over by their families in order to save their lives, and that they then changed their religion and hid their roots.
“Before this test, we believed that Bayburt had only Turks. But people get married, they change religions voluntarily, or by force, they mix. Maybe my grandmother knew about it, but did not want to say because of social pressure,” Çelik said.
The reaction of Çelik’s family is similar to many. A 2012 book by Fethiye Çetin, a lawyer, tells the story of how she discovered her grandmother’s hidden identity and sparked a big debate about the Islamisation of non-Muslims. Another book named “The Grandchildren”, which Çetin wrote with academic Ayşe Gül Altınay, provides a collection of intimate, harrowing testimonies by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of what are known as the forgotten Armenians.
A report in the journal Annals of Human Genetics in 2012 indicated the paternal ancestry of those living in Turkey was 38 percent European, 35 percent Middle Eastern, 18 percent South Asian and only 9 percent Central Asian. But DNA tests sometimes throw up even more surprising results
https://ahvalnews.com/turks/dna-based-tests-shake-turks-beliefs-their-turkishness
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https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...enerlogy-family-trees-ethnicity-a8234346.html
Only in Turkey is the identity of a citizen a matter of national security. That’s why the population registry in Ankara was until now a closed book, its details a state secret. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s definition of “Turkishness” was “anyone who is attached to the Turkish state as a citizen”. Turks came from a clear ethnic identity, untainted by racial minorities or doubtful lineage. That’s one reason why the Nazis lavished praise on Ataturk’s republic, their newspapers mourning his death in black-bordered front pages.
Rather a lot of Turks, it turned out, were actually Armenians – or part-Armenians – or even partly Greek or Jewish
Just think: you think you are a red-blooded Turk but turn out to be a pure-blood Armenian.”
Popular DNA tests are troubling Turks and shaking belief in their “Turkishness” as they find that, instead of being direct descendants of the Seljuk and Ottoman hordes who surged into Anatolia from Central Asia a millennium ago, they are instead part of the kaleidoscope of peoples who have lived in what is now modern Turkey and migrated there since time began.
Issues such as what had happened to the survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the presence of thousands of Greeks and Jews, but also millions of Kurdish citizens of the new republic were swept aside in often heavy-handed attempts to assimilate minorities or pressure them to leave the country altogether.
She said her family, from the northeastern province of Bayburt, had refused to believe that they had had Armenian, Italian and Greek links. “I told them the test was scientific, but they did not even want to listen,” she said.
Historians say that as the mass killings and deportations gathered pace, many young Armenian women were taken by local Turks and Kurds, or handed over by their families in order to save their lives, and that they then changed their religion and hid their roots.
“Before this test, we believed that Bayburt had only Turks. But people get married, they change religions voluntarily, or by force, they mix. Maybe my grandmother knew about it, but did not want to say because of social pressure,” Çelik said.
The reaction of Çelik’s family is similar to many. A 2012 book by Fethiye Çetin, a lawyer, tells the story of how she discovered her grandmother’s hidden identity and sparked a big debate about the Islamisation of non-Muslims. Another book named “The Grandchildren”, which Çetin wrote with academic Ayşe Gül Altınay, provides a collection of intimate, harrowing testimonies by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of what are known as the forgotten Armenians.
A report in the journal Annals of Human Genetics in 2012 indicated the paternal ancestry of those living in Turkey was 38 percent European, 35 percent Middle Eastern, 18 percent South Asian and only 9 percent Central Asian. But DNA tests sometimes throw up even more surprising results
https://ahvalnews.com/turks/dna-based-tests-shake-turks-beliefs-their-turkishness
--
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...enerlogy-family-trees-ethnicity-a8234346.html
Only in Turkey is the identity of a citizen a matter of national security. That’s why the population registry in Ankara was until now a closed book, its details a state secret. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s definition of “Turkishness” was “anyone who is attached to the Turkish state as a citizen”. Turks came from a clear ethnic identity, untainted by racial minorities or doubtful lineage. That’s one reason why the Nazis lavished praise on Ataturk’s republic, their newspapers mourning his death in black-bordered front pages.
Rather a lot of Turks, it turned out, were actually Armenians – or part-Armenians – or even partly Greek or Jewish
Just think: you think you are a red-blooded Turk but turn out to be a pure-blood Armenian.”