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DOI: 10.34298/9788677431488227

UDC: 322:27-767(=214.58)(497.11)“18“

pp. 227–238

language: serbian

Јоvana Šaljić Ratković

THE CONVERSION OF THE “TURKISH GYPSIES” IN THE EPARCHY OF ŽIČA, TIMOK, ŠABAC, NIŠ AND BELGRADE IN LIBERATED SERBIA

Summary

During the 19th century, a number of Muslim Roma lived in the territory of the Principality and then the Kingdom of Serbia. At that time, they were usually called Turkish Gypsies. From the emigration of the Turks in 1867 until the liberation of the country in 1878, according to population censuses, Turkish Gypsies were practically the only residents of the Muslim religion in Serbia. After that, Roma Muslims from the new districts of the Principality of Serbia joined them along with other members of the Muslim faith – Albanians, Turks and the Islamised Slavic population. Even then, the Roma, especially those of the Muslim faith, belonged to the lowest stratum of society in terms of their economic and educational status. Even the Muslim priests in Serbia did not take care of them, considering them not to be true Muslims. Poor, uneducated, and even “unsettled in faith”, they were not in the focus of interest of Turkey and the Great Powers even though the protection of the rights of minorities was guaranteed under the Treaty of Berlin. That fact was used by the Serbian political and church authorities at the time for their more massive conversion to Orthodox faith, from which the ethnic Turks, Albanians and the Serbian Islamised population were completely exempted. In addition to a general statistical review of their numerical status as well as the statistics of conversion, the paper also outlines the reasons and circumstances that led to the mass conversion of Turkish Gypsies in the Kingdom of Serbia in the late 19th century.

Keywords: Roma, Muslims, Turkish Gypsies, Serbia, Christianisation.