page_title: Albanians in Turkey
section_title: Second Phase: Wars and forced population movements (1878-1944)
hierarchical_section_title: Albanians in Turkey / History / Migration and formation of the Albanian diaspora in Turkey / Second Phase: Wars and forced population movements (1878-1944)
caption_attribution_description: English: Kâzım Pasha (Özalp)
context_page_description: Albanians in Turkey are ethnic Albanian citizens and denizens of Turkey. They consist of Albanians who arrived during the Ottoman period, Kosovar/Macedonian and Tosk Cham Albanians fleeing from Serbian and Greek persecution after the beginning of the Balkan Wars, alongside some Albanians from Montenegro and Albania proper. A 2008 report from the Turkish National Security Council estimated that approximately 1.3 million people of Albanian ancestry live in Turkey, and more than 500,000 recognizing their ancestry, language and culture. There are other estimates however that place the number of people in Turkey with Albanian ancestry and or background upward to 5 million.
context_section_description: The second phase was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Albanians mainly fled persecution and became refugees as the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating due to conflict. Albanians were expelled by the Serb army and fled from the Sanjak of Niş in 1878, settling in the Samsun region. The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) fought by Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria against the Ottoman Empire expanded the Albanian diaspora. Large numbers of Muslim refugees arrived in Istanbul and Anatolia overwhelming the abilities and resources of Ottoman authorities to provide food, shelter, personal registration and documentation. Descendants from these Albanians form the largest portion of the Albanian community in Turkey. 
  Ottoman authorities aware of the demographics of Kosovo and Macedonia understood that a large portion of the unregistered refugees migrating toward Eastern Thrace and Anatolia were Albanian and many of them had congregated in urban centres like Karacabey, Edremit, Değirmendere, Karamürsel, Kirmasti and Bursa. The capture of Debar by Serbia made many of its Albanian inhabitants flee to Istanbul. There were several Ottoman official and press reports that referred to communal violence by incoming Albanian refugees against local Orthodox Greeks by evicting them from villages and taking their lands. The new Young Turk (CUP) government of the Ottoman Empire sought to restructure the demographic situation during the First World War around the wider Marmara region. 
  At the onset of the war, Albanian migration to Anatolia continued toward districts (Istanbul, Edirne, Hüdavendigâr) and counties (Çatalca, Kale-i-Sultaniye, İzmit and Gelibolu) made forbidden by authorities to Albanians, due to large numbers already present and the geostrategic importance of the area. The Young Turk government viewed Albanians as prone to banditry and violence when congregated and sought to undermine threats to the state through dispersal. The Young Turk government also was distrustful of Albanians after they had declared independence from the Ottoman Empire, especially Christian Albanians who were involved in that process and they were banned from coming into the country.  New destinations by the Ottoman government were intended for Albanian migrants toward Ankara, Konya with resettlement in Sivas, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Kayseri, Adana and other places while those measures were also applied to settled Albanians in the Marmara region with few exceptions. 
  Albanians were one of many Muslim peoples in the empire set for resettlement throughout Anatolia to generate conditions for linguistic and cultural assimilation with the aim of creating loyal Muslim Turkish speaking citizens. Ottoman government officials applied the policy in some regions and avoided it in other places understanding the sociopolitical importance of Albanians in an area as some of the decision making authorities hailed from a Balkan Albanian linguistic or cultural space. Some Albanian migrants resisted those government moves for resettlement.
  After Albanian independence, the Albanian elite from Shkodër, Tiranë or Kosovo had the option of working for the Republic of Albania while those Albanian elites from Greek and Serbian Macedonia had no home or government in need of them or familial, business or other Balkan networks to draw upon and moved to Anatolia. The Albanian community consisting of a large number of refugees was geographically fragmented between 1914-1918 and were not much integrated into Ottoman paramilitary formations based on the Eastern Front, unlike other more established communities like the Circassians. Albanians were seen as possible recruits for those structures and some Albanians from the Ottoman elite who had previous affiliations to the CUP in the Balkans or joined later in Anatolia, worked to recruit Albanians. 
  At the end of the First World War, Albanians of the Bursa and Kirmasti regions in paramilitary formations had sided with the Turkish Nationalists. Albanian armed groups fought against Laz and Georgian paramilitaries due to local interests and 
caption: Kâzım Özalp, military officer, later General; politician, and a leading figure in the Turkish War of Independence
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