Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Following the 1918 annexation of Bessarabia to Romania, the Gagauz minority remained disconnected from centers of knowledge because of linguistic and institutional barriers. In this context, Mihail Çakir, an Orthodox priest of Gagauz origin, manifested a rare capacity of introducing the Gagauz people to Romanian- and Gagauz-speaking audiences through his multilingual work on the history and the culture of the Gagauz. This article embarks from Anthony Smith’s work on ethnicity and nation-building and Benedict Anderson’s work on imagined communities to explore Çakir’s two main works and their contribution to the crystallization of Gagauz ethnic identity and its eventual transformation to a national one.
Authors: Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Evgeniia Shahin
Institution: Bilkent University
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1420718649, Knowledge Exchange and Academic Cultures in the Humanities: Europe and the Black Sea Region, late 18th – 21st Centuries, G2989866493, G3345895242, G5237714278, Knowledge Exchange and Academic Cultures in the Humanities: Europe and the Black Sea Region, late 18th – 21st Centuries, G8512683158
OpenAlex ID: W3044545715