The main purpose of this paper is to present some basic information about the population of Turkey and its interpretation in a manner which readers of New Perspectives will find interesting for their purposes. One way to do this is to notice how certain population issues are handled in the public and scholarly discourse. Then, as a demographer and social scientist I will comment on some of these issues and hope to clarify them. Second is to present some of the main features of the macro-demography of Turkey. The account is unavoidably quantitative, but I hope digestible even by those who have aversions to numerical analysis. When the truly large changes in the size and age structure of the population are seen, important questions about the effect of these changes on other fields arise, and it is interesting to think about them. Third, the urbanization of Turkey is one of the central and most important changes in the demographic structure of the society during the last 40 years. I mention its characteristics along with a brief look at the effects on the demography of Istanbul.

While there are no less than 51 ethnic groups in Turkey according to a recent and comprehensive study (Andrews 1989b, pp.53-178), there is little that is demonstratively known on their present numbers and spatial distribution. Even on the size of the second largest ethnic group, the Kurds, the estimates vary between 3 to 20 million (Özsoy, Koç and Toros 1992, pp.101-114; Abramowitz 1993, p.174; Dickey 1993, p.33; Pelletiere 1985, pp.15-16, 28-31; Bayrak 1993, p.585; van Bruinessen 1992, p.35; Burkay 1992, pp.22-25). Yet knowledge of the sizes of ethnic groups and their geographic location, especially of the Kurds, is of immediate public interest from the standpoint of search, design and implementation of policies towards the solution of what has come to be called the Kurdish or the Southeastern problem, depending upon the protagonist's ethnic affiliation or sympathies.

One of the important consequences of the end of the Cold War has been the growing impact that ethnicity has had on the domestic politics of countries as well as international politics. An area that has been deeply affected by ethnopohtics is the Balkans. The collapse of communism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia have led to tremendous instability and ethnic strife in the Balkans. Turkey's domestic politics as well as its foreign policy have been deeply affected by these developments. One reason for this can be attributed to the fact that in Turkey there are large numbers of people of Balkan descent.

As the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans began to contract, large numbers of people who identified themselves with the Empire steadily migrated to Thrace and Anatolia. They were mostly the descendants of Turks who had settled in various parts of the Balkans during the past centuries (Karpat 1985, ch.4). Although there are no exact figures, one source puts the size of this migration between late 1870s and early 1920s at as high as 1,445,000 (Eren 1993, p. 298). In spite of this massive migration many Turkish and Muslim communities were left behind in various parts of the Balkans after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The modern Turkish State has continued to allow members of these communities to migrate and settle in Turkey.

Theorizing about nationalism must now incorporate phenomena brought about by the break-up of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of formerly socialist states and the emergence of so-called “ethno-nationalisms”. Previously, nationalism was mostly addressed in terms of modernization, nation-building and post-colonialism. In these interpretations, the presence of a modernizing state was a given, although the success or failure of these states in mobilizing the loyalties of their populations was seen to vary. What is now troubling to the older paradigms is how to interpret the phenomenon of nationalism sans state, or at least in the absence of the political, economic, ideological construct of the nation-state.

Bulgarian historiography began to professionalize itself after the creation of an independent Bulgarian state (de facto in 1878, de jure in 1908), and the foundation of scholarly institutions. Until then historical writing had been dominated by enthusiasts (clergymen, teachers, local dilettanti), passionately serving the ideas of cultural revival and political independence through historical knowledge. Thus, Bulgarian historiography at its inception was shaped both by its romantic predecessors, whose noble (and only) aim was to stir national consciousness and legitimize national aspirations, and by the influence of the positivist and romantic historiographies then prevalent in Europe.

Students of Eastern European affairs have pointed out that this part of the world shares in considerable measure the historical mode of thinking about itself; its self-perception is, in part at least, provided by its historical awareness and a tradition of historiography, that is, the past as organized and interpreted by the historian (Roberts, 1970). Unlike other societies, in which the historical component of self-identification is not at all prominent, its place being taken either by a set mythology or by all-embracing religious or legal norms, Eastern European societies have developed a historiographical tradition. It can truly be said that they have been obsessively preoccupied by history and the main reason for this obsession is that for over four hundred years these societies were an integral part of the Ottoman empire.

During the final centuries of Byzantine rule, the city of Constantinople, unable to recover completely from the effects of the Fourth Crusade (1204) and continuously challenged from two directions by the western world and the Ottomans, could no longer live up to its former glory and reputation as the magnificent capital of a powerful empire. Yet, surprisingly, the critical circumstances of the late Byzantine period that negatively affected almost every aspect of life in the city did not affect its commercial function to the same extent. Hence, despite persistent political, social, economic, and demographic problems during the last fifty years preceding the Ottoman conquest, Constantinople still continued to function as a lively commercial center where Byzantine merchants operated side by side with foreigners, including Italians, Catalans, Ragusans, Ottomans, and others. But the most active group of foreign merchants operating in Constantinople were the Italians, particularly the Venetians and the Genoese, who had established more or less autonomous trade colonies in the city and enjoyed commercial privileges (most importantly exemptions from customs duties) since the eleventh-twelfth centuries. Amplified and made more extensive during the Palaiologan period (1261-1453), these privileges pushed the native merchants of the Byzantine capital into a clearly disadvantaged position vis-à-vis their foreign competitors.