Sürgün

Sürgün

Sürgün or verb form sürmek (to displace) was a practice within the Ottoman Empire that entailed the movement of a large group of people from one region to another, often a form of forced migration imposed by state policy or international authority. The practice was also a form of banishment or exile often applied to the elites of Ottoman society, the Pashas. It was most famously used as a method of ethnic cleansing in the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk government in 1915, in order to deal with a perceived threat from Armenian nationals receiving military support from the, Ottoman hostile, Russian Empire. The practice was also used to enforce population exchanges such as the Balkan population exchanges in 1913 and the periodic exchanges between the new Republic of Turkey and Greece in 1923.

Update this biography »
Complete biography of Sürgün »