Ethno-nationalism of the Ahiska (Meskhetian) Turks: A diaspora perspective of their response to change in multiple locations, with a particular emphasis on Turkey

The stateless Ahiska (Meskhetian) Turks, deported from their homeland in 1944, have until today been unable to return to ‘Ahiska’, located in southern Georgia. This thesis addresses their current situation with particular emphasis on their relationship with Turkey and draws on Anthony D. Smith’s cultural approach to nationalism (Smith 2010) to help understand how the Ahiska Turks’ ‘Turkish nationalist’ expression is displayed and fits in the wider study of nationalism. This study applies an ethno-symbolist approach to nationalism with its emphasis on the ethnie’s reliance on symbols, memories, and values particularly highlighted while being in diaspora. As the Ahiska Turks live scattered across ten nations, literature from diaspora studies is drawn upon to analyse different communities as they adjust transnationally and (re)connect with Turkey, which is one of their ‘homelands’.
Applying an ethnographic approach, this qualitative research examines the Ahiska Turks through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The primary fieldwork was conducted in Turkey, extending to supplemental locations in Central Asia, the United States, and Georgia. Utilizing a multi-site approach is advantageous to understanding the complexity of the Ahiska Turks’ lives and experiences to reflect on their views of Turkishness and growing sense of affinity with Turkey. The conclusions reveal how their oral ethno-history emphasises an ethno-nationalism which both maintains their Turkishness held and protected in the Soviet period, while also beginning to integrate itself into official Turkish nationalist narratives. Secondly, the view towards their ‘homeland’, ‘Ahiska’, continues to be central to group solidarity, but the group also stresses Ahiska’s Ottoman (Turkish) roots in order to integrate with the ‘imagined’ homeland of Turkey. Finally, ethnoreligious nationalism, largely suppressed under the Soviet Union, is leaned on to further connect to Turkey in the diaspora and to maintain their sense of Turkishness and religious identity in the present day.