Our Bosnian Memory Paths group met last weekend in Berlin for the final sum-up of the project. Four of us (Jovana could not come, but her spirit was with us) discussed the layout of the website with the stories and profiles of our Bosnian interviewees, we evaluated group cooperation, our aims and results. There were quarrels, laughing, and serious intellectual work as well. And in the meantime - a lot of fun, as you can see on the photos.

There we were Turkish. Here we became Bosniac.

The treaty of Berlin in 1878, which separated Bosnia from the Ottoman rule, started a cycle of migration waves from Balkans into Turkey. The most important of these waves are those of 1908, when Bosnia was annexed to Austria-Hungary Empire, 1954-57-60-66-67. Today the Bosniac population in Turkey is estimated to be from 5 to 7 million people. The last and apparently most tragically perceived and remembered of the waves, however, took place in 1992 through 1998, as a result of the Bosnian War of 1992-1995. Mr. Rifat from Bayrampasa Bosna-Sancak Association, who himself migrated in Turkey in 1957, stated that 30 thousand people migrated in Turkey during these years, especially the first two years of the war. He remembers with emotion how the migrants were gathered at camps in Kirklareli, a region on the Turkish-Bulgaria borders, and how they were making efforts, as a newly formed association, to help the migrants.



One of the thousands migrants that the mentioned association helped during the war, taken from the registry of the association.


Mr. Mehmet from Pendik Bosna-Sancak Association, on the other hand, remembers that the people were filled in busses and sent into Turkey, making the organization of humanitarian aid very difficult. Apart from 14 000 people in the camp in Kirklareli, hundreds of families were hosted by other Bosnian and Turkish families, especially in Istanbul. He believes that after the war about 1000 war-migrants stayed in Turkey, spread across the country, but different from the migrants from previous migration waves, they kept a closer contact with Bosnia, always having in mind a desire to return to their home.

The Bonsians in Turkey usually identify as being Bosniac Turkish. But the problem of naming their identity still seems to be there, as Salih, migrated in 1967 to Istanbul, states that "There (in Bosnia), we were Turk, here (in Turkey) we became Bosniac."



A solidarity dinner organized by a Bosnian’s association in Izmir




The hall of Bosna-Sancak Association in Pendik, Istanbul




A Bosniac music store in Bayrampasa, Istanbul




The anthlogy of modern Bosnian Literature, in Turkish, published in 2008 by YKY, Istanbul


Ergin