are shown in yellow The Vallahades were descendants of Greek-speaking
Eastern Orthodox Christians from southwestern
Greek Macedonia, with their conversion to Islam likely occurring in stages between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Vallahades themselves attributed their conversion to the activities of two Greek
Janissary sergeants (
Ottoman Turkish:
çavuş) in the late 17th century who were originally recruited from the same part of southwestern Macedonia and then sent back to the area by the sultan to proselytize among the Greek Christians living there. However, historians believe it more likely that the Vallahades adopted Islam during periods of Ottoman pressures on landowners in western Macedonia following a succession of historical events that influenced Ottoman government policy towards Greek community leaders in the area. These events ranged from the
Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, and especially the repercussions of the
Orlov Revolt in the
Peloponnese, during the period when Albanians exerted significant influence in Macedonia, referred to by some Greek sources as 'Albanokratia', and the policies of
Ali Pasha of Ioannina, who governed areas of western
Greek Macedonia and
Thessaly as well as most of
Epirus in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first who is thought to describe Vallahades was
François Pouqueville, who visited the area in early 19th c. He doesn't mention them as "Vallahades" and he confuses them with Turks from
Vardar. However, those "Turks" are identified as Vallahades from the names of their villages mentioned by Pouqueville. A credible mid 19th c. source is the Greek B. Nikolaides who visited the area and interviewed local Vallahades and recorded oral traditions about their origins, customs etc. His work was published in French in 1859. They are also described by the Greek author and traveller B.D. Zotos Molossos in 1887. The culture of the Vallahades did not differ much from that of the local Christian Orthodox
Greek Macedonians, with whom they shared the same Greek Macedonian dialect, surnames, and even knowledge of common relatives. However, most historians are in agreement with Hasluck, Vakalopoulos, and other modern historians that the Vallahades were indeed of mainly Greek origin. As evidence these scholars cite the fact that as well as the absence of significant Slavic, Vlach, or Albanian elements in the Greek dialect the Vallahades spoke and the surnames they bore, the Christian traditions they preserved reflected Greek rather than Slavic, Albanian, or Vlach characteristics, while the names for geographical features like mountains and streams in the locality of the Vallahades' villages were also overwhelmingly in the Greek rather than Slavic, Vlach, or Albanian languages. Scholars who accept the evidence for the Greek ethnic origin of the Vallahades also point out that Ottoman-era Muslims converts of even part Albanian origin will very quickly have been absorbed into the wider Albanian Muslim community, the most significant in western Macedonia and neighboring
Epirus being the
Cham Albanians, while the descendants of Muslim converts of Bulgarian speech and origin had other groups with which they naturally identified, such as the
Pomaks,
Torbesh, and
Poturs. In any event, Hasluk and other travelers to southwestern Greek Macedonia before the 1923
population exchange between Greece and Turkey often noted the many religious and cultural differences between local Muslims of Greek origin on the one hand and those of Turkish origin on the other, generally characterizing the Greek Vallahades' outlook, way of life, attitude to women, and even house design as more "European", "open", and "inviting", while those of the Turks of
Anatolian origin were considered as more "Asiatic", "closed", and "uninviting", adjectives that clearly reflected 18th and 19th century European tastes and biases. According to Bulgarian geographer
Vasil Kanchov's statistics there was 14,373 Greeks Muslims in southwestern Macedonia at the end of the 19th century. According to Greek statistics from 1904, however, there were at least 16,070 Vallahades in the
kazas of Anaselitsa (Lyapchishta) and
Grevena. The disparity and unreliability of such statistics is partly due to the fact that most
Greek Muslims of Macedonia will simply have been defined as
Turks, since Greek identity was (and still is) seen as inseparable from membership of the
Greek Orthodox church and therefore
becoming Turkish sufficient in-itself to entail a forfeiture of Greek-ness. By the early 20th century the Vallahades had lost much of the status and wealth they had enjoyed in the earlier Ottoman period, with the hereditary Ottoman title of
Bey their village leaders traditionally bore now carried by "simple" peasants. The Vallahades resettled particularly in
East Thrace (e.g. Kumburgaz,
Büyükçekmece,
Çatalca,
Çorlu,
Lüleburgaz, and
Edirne), but also in Asia Minor (e.g.
Honaz,
Manisa, and
Samsun). As of 2003, there were still many Vallahades who were able to speak the Greek language, which they called
Romeïka, and have become completely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim mainstream as Turks. In contrast to the Vallahades, the
Karamanlides who settled in Greek Macedonia following the population exchanges were generally fluent in Turkish. Even after their deportation, the Vallahades continued to celebrate
New Year's Day with a
Vasilopita, generally considered to be a Christian custom associated with
Saint Basil, but they have renamed it a cabbage/greens/leek cake and do not leave a piece for the saint. ==See also==