Turks can’t return to their homes for 70 years
T heir historical land is in the territory of present Georgia from where the innocent people of about 200 000 were exiled far away having become the sacrifice of Stalin’s ethnical policy. They were derived out of their dwellings by the order of Stalin, a despot of Georgian off spring. For been last 70 years these unlucky people have been struggling to return to their native land.
More than 100 000 Ahiska Turks deported once from their native land now live in Azerbaijan. The whole nation deprived of their right to dwell in their motherland, have long suffered from the tragedy of being exiled, like some other peopleo of the former Soviet Union- Crimean Tatars, Chechens, İngushes, Garachays, Balkars and Kalmiks.
The truths of the long history have remained in the pageo of the history. The ahiska Turks have not forgotten yet about their being once a part of the Ottoman Empire, their relationship with the Bunturks, the direct Turks of the ancient Caucasus. But as one of the ola ethnical units of the Caucasis, the Ahiska Turks remember their being exiled with a greater horror and excitement-the cold winter of the 1944 and the horrible heat of the summer of 1989...
Their historical land is in the territory of present Georgia from where the innocent people of about 200 000 were exiled far away having become the sacrifice of Stalin’s ethnical policy. They were derived out of their dwellings by the order of Stalin, a despot of Georgian off spring. For been last 70 years these unlucky people have been struggling to return to their native land.
Their being exiled to the hot fields of the middle Asia and Kazakhstan was a second blow on the ill-fated people. However
the ghost did not let them have a peace in this land as well.
The consent for displacement of the exiled peoples’ indeed after Stalin’s death did not concern the Ahiska Turks, because Mikoyan, one of the Armenian leaders of the former Soviet Union, had transferred to their land the Armenian refugees from foreign countries.
The Ahiska Turks, inspired by the glasnost and reconstruction reform of M.Gorbachov made a new effort for returning to their land. However disaster came after disaster. In order to prevent their being reorganized a bloody slaughter was committed in 1989.
The lands organized with close participation of Armenians on KGB-s plan inflicted reprisals against the Ahiska Turks who lived in compact in Fergana province of Uzbekistan. Their houses were burns, their properties were plundered, hundreds of people were killed and dislocated being sent to different republics of the former Soviet Union.
The slaughters against their native brothers, their problems troubled Azerbaijanis. The consent and decision of Azerbaijan’s government a part of Ahiska Turks were moved to Saatli, Sabirabad, Guba, Khachmaz and Shabran provinces of Azerbaijan, although they had not lost their hope to return to their eternal landAhiska. The unfortunate people, taken under patronage and care of Azerbaijani people, consider this land their second motherland. It should be noted that yet in he 50’s, Azerbaijan had achieved a decision for the settlement of Ahiska Turks in Azerbaijan. A part of them were already settled, but with the fear that they would again be living in compact, Moscow stopped their resettlement.
The Ahiska Turks who have undergone a historical injustice have no representatives in their eternal land in present Georgia, except those who have been organized changing their surnames.
Another goal for the deportation of the Ahiska Turks was decreasing the number of the Turks in the Caucasus.
Georgian officials did not react to the decision of resettlement of Ahiska Turks in their native land positively. Disregarding their obligation before the European council they gave preference settle the Ahiska Turks not in compact, but individually, in different areas of Georgia. Therefore the Ahiska Turks disagreed with this policy, that prevents them to resettle in their native land. Furthermore, the Ahiska Turks are considered by Georgian scientists to « Islamized Georgians » , to be meskhetian by their original location. This grounders conception of late Rome century. This goal of this groundless theory was to remove the whole however, the so- called, «meskhian». Turks have proved their being of Turkic origin by preserving all their Turkic national components, ethnical psychology and self-conscience, traditions.
We think, the ethnical and deportation history of the Ahiska Turks must be regarded within the long history of Georgian faith the Turkic world. The Ahiska Turks who would never be reconciled with their fortune, go on struggling for joining their eternal native land and keeping their material and moral culture.
There is one more notion that nourishes the inner world of the Ahiska Turks- the notion of being Turkic. This ideal, as the great son of the Ahiska Turks has once noted, is that «they have never abandoned the idea of being Turkic from their hearts, and the Turkic language from their mouth» (on nwspaper «Ashig söz», January 18, 1917).
While turning over the pages of the painful history of the Ahiska Turks, we remember their hopeful saying: «And for us the sun will rise».
This saying expresses the great expectation, belief and wish of a nation for a happy day after the painful history of 70 years long deportation.