What is it about?
Roma tobacco workers participated in the Turkish labour force after the Turkish– Greek population exchange in the 1920s. They had already been well represented in the labour organisations of Ottoman Macedonia and had developed relations with the Jewish, Greek and non-Roma, Muslim tobacco workers. They had a political culture and experience with labour organisation, which would form the basis for their struggle after they came to Turkey. Up until the 1980s, they and their descendants were a considerable part of the Turkish left. However, today their important contribution to the labour movement and leftist politics in Turkey is almost forgotten.
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Why is it important?
The Roma tobacco workers who came from Greece to Turkey during the 1924 Turkish–Greek Population Exchange (a significant historical incident in which almost 1,700,000 people had to leave their homelands) deserve special attention for their critical role both in working life and in the development of leftist political movements in Turkey. Social historians in Turkey, however, have neglected the Roma tobacco workers’ contributions to these movements. There are few references to the trade-union history of Roma tobacco workers in the written sources about the Turkish left. This article intends to create the groundwork for further research into the history of Roma tobacco workers.
Perspectives
Roma tobacco workers participated in the Turkish labour force after the Turkish– Greek population exchange in the 1920s. They had already been well represented in the labour organisations of Ottoman Macedonia and had developed solid relations with the Jewish, Greek and non-Roma, Muslim tobacco workers. They had a political culture and experience with labour organisation, which would form the basis for their struggle after they came to Turkey. Up until the 1980s, they and their descendants were a considerable part of the Turkish left. However, today their important contribution to the labour movement and leftist politics in Turkey is almost forgotten.
Professor Egemen Yılgür
Yeditepe Universitesi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ethnicity, class and politicisation: Immigrant Roma tobacco workers in Turkey, Romani Studies, December 2015, Liverpool University Press,
DOI: 10.3828/rs.2015.7.
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