Migrations in the first quarter of the 20th century and their effects on the socio-cultural structure of Anatolia: The case of Sivas

The migrations experienced in the first quarter of the twentieth century shaped the demographic structure of Anatolia, and in parallel with this, laid the groundwork for extremely important political, social, cultural and economic changes. In this thesis, the migrations in the said period and their effects on the socio-cultural structure of Anatolia have been examined through the example of Sivas province. At the beginning of the period, approximately 16.000 immigrants from the Caucasus and the Balkans, respectively, were settled in Sivas. Later, Sivas province became an important gathering center for the Eastern refugees who migrated from the Ottoman lands that were invaded by Russia at the beginning of the First World War. While hundreds of thousands of refugees accumulated in the province were transferred to the provinces suitable for housing, approximately 14.000 Eastern refugees were settled in the towns and villages of Sivas. Again from Rumelia accordance with the Exchange Agreement signed with Greece on January 30, 1923 Turkey due to the approximately 7.500 emigrant refugees and the massacres of Serbs and pressure are forced to migrate to Turkey in 1925 to 2.000 Bosnian refugees have been resettled in Sivas. Considering the geographical borders of the Republic period, we can say that approximately 30 thousand Muslim refugees were settled in Sivas during this period. In the same period, the number of non-Muslim immigrants who left Sivas is close to 100 thousand. This situation, on the one hand, caused an important labor deficit in terms of quality and quantity, on the other hand, the population became more homogeneous in the transition from empire to nation-state. The immigrants, who enrich the working life and cultural background of Sivas, have experienced various problems during the adaptation process, but over time, they mingled with the local people and displayed the best examples of the culture of living together in Sivas. Keywords: Sivas, migration, immigrant, refugee, exchanged, resettlement.