2008/01/16 by Ahmet İçduygu, Şule Toktaş, B. Ali Soner · 8 citations
Social Sciences · #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Migration, Refugees, and Integration #Turkey's Politics and Society
paper · doi:10.1080/01419870701491937
openalex publication_date 2008/01/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Within the politics of nationalism and nation-building, the emigration of ethnic and religious minorities, whether voluntary or involuntary, appears to be a commonly occurring practice. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century, modern Turkey still carried the legacy of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious diversity in which its Armenian, Greek and Jewish communities had official minority status based upon the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. However, throughout the twentieth century, Turkey's non-Muslim minority populations have undergone a mass emigration experience in which thousands of their numbers have migrated to various countries around the globe. While in the 1920s the population of non-Muslims in the country was close to 3 per cent of the total, today it has dropped to less than two per thousand. This article analyses the emigration of non-Muslim people from Turkey and relates this movement to the wider context of nation-building in the country.