Turkish-Tatar community of Romania and their migration to Turkey (1918-1941)

In this thesis is analyzed the emigration of the Turkish-Tatar community from Romania to Turkey beteewn the years 1918-1941. The emigration of this community wich was present in the Dobrudja since the XIIIth century had politically, diplomatic and sociological dimensions. The fact that between XIV-XIX centuries Dobrudja was part of the Ottoman Empire and the majority of the population was Muslim is important in order to understand the historical dimension of migration. From the political perspective the developments in the Republic of Turkey and Kingdom of Romania affected the migration process. Both Bucharest and Ankara supported the migration but they strived to keep this process in a legal framework. From the point of view of the Romanians, the Muslim community's abandonment of the region between the Danube and the Black Sea gave the opportunity to settle in this region Vlah colonists. Thus, Romania has tried to get ahead of the Bulgarians' demands on this region. Regarding the Romania-Turkey relations, the diplomats of both countries tried to solve the problems faced by the emigrants. Therefore a treaty regulating the emigration was signed in 1936. Although there were shortcomings, this treaty addressed many problems of the emigrants. From the sociological perspective, those that arrived in Turkey had to adapt to a new society while those that decided not to emigrate and to remain in Romania had to find new solutions to the challenges they faced as their number decreased. In order to reveal all the aspects of the emigration from Romania to Turkey between 1918-1941, in this thesis, we used Romanian, Turkish, French archives, the press of that time in the two countries and published studies on this subject.