The great earthquake that occurred in Erzincan on December 27, 1939 had profound effects not only on the people of that period but also on the future of Turkish society. This disaster caused the migration of thousands of Erzincan people and caused permanent changes in the demographic structure of Burgazada in particular. Today, we are happy to live together with our Erzincan friends who are a part of the multicultural structure of Burgazada.
In order to commemorate the more than 33,000 lives we lost, I am sharing with you a selection from the archive that documents the support activities of the Anglo-Turkish Relief Fund, which I recorded from a past auction catalogue. Among these frames is an impressive photograph taken during the visit of the then President İsmet İnönü to Erzincan.
If you want to discover the effects and traces of this migration on Burgazada, I recommend you watch the documentary Women of the Island.
Documentary link: https://www.burgazisland.com/post/adan%C4%B1n-kad%C4%B1nlar%C4%B1
Documents on Demographic Structure
As a supporting document, I would like to share the following interview from my archive, which I think provides a nice summary of the demographic structure of Burgazada.
The same document summarizes the demographic structure as follows. Until the 1950s, the population of the island was predominantly Greek. Apart from this, there were Jews, a small Muslim and Armenian community. With the migration from Eastern Anatolia in the 1950s, Burgazada began to experience socio-spatial change. Today, approximately 90% of the winter population of approximately 1000 people consists of Alevis who came after the 1950s. The vast majority of them were Alevis who came from the high villages of Erzincan - later from Sivas and Tokat.(1)
I also really liked Murat Küçük's article on Cem in Burgaz (2) published on www.alevibektasi.org. Sometimes the links to websites cannot be accessed later, so I am adding it as a pdf file.
References
(1) Atayurt, U. ve Morgül, T. (2006). “Burgazada’da Alevi Cemaati”, İstanbul Dergisi, İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 56, 88-93.
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