Dal silenzio alla mobilitazione: la diaspora caucasica nella Turchia repubblicana

Abstract

Nearly seven million Turkish citizens are fully or partly descendants of refugees coming from Northern and South-Western Caucasus and more than two million of them keep and vigorously affirm a strong commitment to their roots. The public expression of their identity was totally forbidden from 1923 to 1946, but has been more or less tolerated since then. After a discussion of some meaningful events of the republican age, a survey of the current situation of this community is provided. Traditionally present in the Ottoman and later republican state apparatus much more than the Kurds, perceived as a privileged rather than a victimized minority, the Caucasian diaspora looks increasingly less inclined to blend in.