The Gagauz (; ) are an Oghuz Turkic ethnic group native to southern Moldova (Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. and some references use Gagauzy (from Ukrainian) or Gagauzi.
According to Astrid Menz:
The Gagauz people are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Moldova. During the Russian colonization of southern Bessarabia (Budjak), in the early 19th century, the Gagauz people moved from the eastern Balkans, beginning to stabilize their presence on the future territory of the Republic of Moldova. The Gagauz are not equally distributed on the territory of Moldova, living primarily in the southern part of the country, particularly in the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia. They follow a primarily rural lifestyle.
The Gagauz are the third minority ethnic group in the Republic of Moldova, counting 126,010 people according to the 2014 census, i.e. 4.57% of the total population (without Transnistria). Their share in the ethnic composition of the country is gradually increasing. They are the majority of Gagauzia's population (83.8%), while in Taraclia District, which is inhabited primarily by Bulgarians, they comprise 9.0% of the total population. In Basarabeasca District they are 7.4% of the district's population, but gradually declining. In Cahul district, they have a small presence (2.7% of the district's population). In the rest of Moldova their share is lower than 1%. The internal migration of Gagauz in Moldova is low. Most Gagauz who leave Gagauzia migrate to Russia.
Due to their concentration in the areas around the border between Moldova and Ukraine, modern Gagauz people marry primarily with other Gagauz; thus keeping a high degree of ethnic stability. However, in the recent past, the situation was somewhat different. In the early 20th century, the ratio of Gagauz and Bulgarians in the population of Comrat was approximately 2:1. In the late 20th century, due to assimilation and higher fertility rates within the Gagauz, the ratio was 1:14. Nowadays, similar ratios between Gagauz and Bulgarians are preserved in some villages. For practical reasons, a contemporary Gagauz usually speaks at least two languages. In their daily life they use Gagauz and Russian, but many can speak Romanian as well.
History
Origins
The origin of the Gagauz is obscure. In the beginning of the 20th century, a Bulgarian historian counted 19 different theories about their origin. A few decades later the Gagauz ethnologist M. N. Guboglo increased the number to 21. In some of those theories the Gagauz people are presented as descendants of the Pechenegs, the Cumans-Kipchaks or a clan of Seljuk Turks or a mix of all. Others doubt altogether that the Gagauz are of Turkic origin at all and claimed that they are of Turkified Bulgarian or Greek origin. The fact that their religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity may suggest that their ancestors already lived in the Balkans before the Ottoman conquest in the late 14th century. After the death of Sarı Saltık, part of the Turkomans returned to Anatolia and became the ancestors of the Karamanlides, while others remained and became Christians. According to A.F. Bajora, this event was a myth brought into Dobruja by the Tatars and not a true historical event. The Seljuk theory has been criticized because archaeologically no "secular and compact" presence of Seljuks has been confirmed. It is also hard to believe that Seljuk Muslims converted to Christianity when their fellow Muslim Tatars lived in the North.
Steppe hypothesis
The Steppe hypothesis suggests that the Gagauz may be descendants of other Turkic nomadic tribes than Seljuks: Bulgars and Cumans-Kipchaks from the Eurasian steppes. In the 19th century, before their migration to Bessarabia, the Gagauz from the Bulgarian territories of the Ottoman Empire considered themselves Bulgarians. Ethnological research suggests "Gagauz" was a linguistic distinction and not ethnic. The Gagauz at that time called themselves "Hasli Bulgar" (True Bulgarians) or "Eski Bulgar" (Old Bulgarians) and considered the term Gagauz to be demeaning when applied to them by the Slavic-speaking Bulgarians.
The Gagauz called their language "Turkish" and claimed descent from then-Turkic-speaking Bulgars who in the 7th century established the First Bulgarian Empire on the Danube. Indeed, one modern Gagauz surname is Qipcakli. The Russian Empire Census of 1897 did not distinguish the Gagauz as a specific group, but it reported the existence of 55,790 native speakers of a "Turkish language" (presumably the Gagauz language) in the Bessarabia Governorate. According to historian A.F. Bajora, although this theory has many convincing arguments, the main counter-argument to this theory is that the Cuman language and the Gagauz language were languages belonging to different branches of Turkic. According to another version, the Ottomans found a native Greek population in Dobruja in the 14th century and, due to their population being lower than the number of Turkish settlers, this Greek population, too, kept their Greek Orthodox religion but got linguistically assimilated (Turkified). In this vein of linguistic assimilation, the Gagauz have been compared to the Karamanlides.
An argument that favors the Greek hypothesis is given by genetic research, which shows that the Gagauz are genetically European. During the Greek War of Independence the Gagauz in Bessarabia and Bulgaria enlisted in the armies of Alexander Ypsilantis and fought for the Greek side in the war.
Bulgarian hypothesis
Bulgarian sources argue that the Gagauz are Turkified Bulgarians because most of the Gagauz people in Bulgaria consider themselves natives ("Erli") meaning real natives. According to this theory, the Gagauz are either direct descendants of the Medieval Turkic Bulgars, or of Slavic Bulgarian origin, being no different than the rest of the Bulgarians, before the Turkic language spread among them. According to A.F. Bajora this theory has many strong arguments, but states that the fact that Ottoman Turks did not force their subjects to accept their language and only compelled them to convert to Islam, and that not all Gagauz in Bulgaria consider themselves Bulgarians, are strong counter-arguments.
With the exception of a six-day independence in the winter of 1906, when a peasant uprising declared the autonomous Comrat Republic, the Gagauz people have mainly been ruled by the Russian Empire, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Moldova.
The wave of Stolypin agrarian policies carried some Gagauz to Kazakhstan between 1912 and 1914, and later yet another group settled in Uzbekistan during the very troubled years of initial collectivization. So as not to lose their civil rights, they called themselves Bulgarians in the 1930s; the Gagauz of the village of Mayslerge in the Tashkent District retain that designation to this day. In November 1989, the Gagauz ASSR within Moldova was declared.
Gagauz nationalism in independent Moldova
In August 1990, Comrat declared itself as the Gagauz Republic, an autonomous Soviet republic separate from the Moldavian SSR, but the Moldovan government annulled the declaration as unconstitutional. The Gagauz were also worried about the implications for them if Moldova reunited with Romania, as seemed increasingly likely. Support for the Soviet Union remained high, with a local referendum in March 1991 yielding an almost unanimous "yes" vote to stay in the USSR; Moldovans in Gagauzia, however, boycotted the referendum. Many Gagauz supported the Moscow coup attempt, further straining relations with Chişinău. However, when the Moldovan parliament voted on whether Moldova should become independent, six of the twelve Gagauz deputies voted in favor. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Gagauzia became a de facto independent state.
thumb|right|265px|Flag of [[Gagauzia]]
In February 1994, President Mircea Snegur, opposed to Gagauz independence, promised a Gagauz autonomous region. Snegur also opposed the suggestion that Moldova become a federal state made up of three "republics": Moldova, Gagauzia, and Transnistria. In 1994, the Moldovan parliament awarded "the people of Gagauzia" the right of "external self-determination" should the status of the country change. This means that in the event that Moldova decided to join another country (by all accounts this referred to Romania), the Gagauz would be entitled to decide whether to remain or not a part of the new state by means of a self-determination referendum.
As a result of a referendum to determine Gagauzia's borders, thirty settlements (three towns and twenty-seven villages) expressed their desire to be included in the Gagauz Autonomous Territorial Unit. In 1995, Gheorghe Tabunșcic was elected to serve as the Governor (Bashkan) of Gagauzia for a four-year term, as were the deputies of the local parliament, "The People's Assembly" (Halk Topluşu) and its chairman Petru Pașalî.