The Pomaks in Greek Thrace: a speach in "Mercator"
POMAKS IN GREEK THRACE
The Pomaks are a small ethnical entity (member of which is the person speaking) that lives in the northern – eastern Greece, in the part of Thrace that has remained to my country. The original area where we once lived is the mountain chain of Rhodopi, along the Greek – Bulgarian borders. During the last decades a large part of population – the total of which is estimated around 40.000 people – immigrated either towards the lowlands, mostly in urban areas, or abroad, seeking for employment opportunities and better conditions of living. Nowadays, the Pomak population lies concrete primarily in the mountainous areas of the municipality of Xanthi and in a lesser extent in the mountainous areas of the neighboring municipalities of Rhodopi and Evros. Of course there are numerous Pomak populations both in Bulgaria and in Turkey, as well as immigrants for financial reasons in countries such as Germany or Holland. However we will confine our reference to the Greek territory.
As far as the descent of the Pomak people is concerned there are various theories. I need to point out that no theory can be concerned scientifically solid, since on the one hand all the necessary proof for their sufficient supporting is missing, and on the other hand the current conjectures basically reflect the political interests of their initiators.
The fifteenth edition of Zagalisa has just been published in Komotini, Greece, by the Pomak Research Centre. Zagalisa is the first newspaper in the Pomak language and its launch in 1997 was a major development for the Pomak community. The Pomaks live in Western Thrace (Greece). In the past two decades, a few thousands of them have migrated to the prefecture of Attici. They speak the Rhodope dialect of Pomak, a Indo - European language, part of the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic Branch. According to estimates, about 27.000 Pomaks lived in Western Thrace in 1971. Under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the Muslims of Western Thrace (viz. Turks, Pomaks and Gypsies) enjoy protection and rights and are allowed to maintain their own religions institutions. Pomaks enjoys no official status. Pomak children attend Muslim schools where subjects are equally divided between Greek and Turkish. The use of the mother tongue is therefore relegated to family and colloquial interaction only. 