[12][13] Most Pomaks today live in Turkey, where they have settled as muhacirs as a result of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.

[27] The name "Pomak" first appeared in the Bulgarian Christian-heretical language surroundings of North Bulgaria (the regions of Loveč, Teteven, Lukovit, Bjala Slatina).

According to one theory,[citation needed] it comes from the expression "по-ямак" ("more than a Yemek", "more important than a Yamak", similar to "пó юнак", i.e. "more than a hero").

It has also been argued that the name comes from the dialectal words "помáкан, омáкан, омáчен, помáчен" (pomákan, omákan, omáčeen, pomáčen), meaning "tormented, tortured".

[38][41] A specific DNA mutation, HbO, which emerged about 2,000 years ago on a rare haplotype is characteristic of the Greek Pomaks.

[44] Pomaks are today usually considered descendants of native Orthodox Bulgarians and Paulicians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the Balkans.

show that not only Islam has been spread in the area at that time, but that the Pomaks participated in Ottoman military operations voluntarily as is the case with the village of Shahin (Echinos).

[48] In North Central Bulgaria (the regions of Lovech, Teteven, Lukovit, Byala Slatina)[49] the Ottoman authorities requested in 1689, after the Chiprovtsi Uprising, for military reasons[clarification needed] Bulgarian Paulicians (heterodox Christian sect) to convert to one of the officially recognized religions in the Ottoman Empire[citation needed].

According to the Codes of Bishop of Philippoupolis and the Czech historian and slavicist Konstantin Josef Jireček in the middle of the 17th century, some Bulgarian provosts agreed to become Muslim en masse.

According to the verbal tradition of the Greeks of Philippoupolis[citation needed], a large ceremony of mass circumcision took place in front of the old mosque of the city, near the Government House.

[50][51] According to recent investigations the theory of forced conversion to Islam, supported by some scientists, has no solid grounds with all or most evidence being faked or misinterpreted.

After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Pomaks in the Vacha valley, apprehensive of retribution for their role in the bloody suppression of the April Uprising two years earlier, rebelled against Eastern Rumelia and established an autonomous state, called Republic of Tamrash.

[clarification needed][55][56][57][58] Bulgaria, after a brief period of control over the area, passed the sovereignty of Western Thrace at the end of World War I.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, the religious millet system disappeared and the members of the Pomak groups today declare a variety of ethnic identities, depending predominantly on the country they live in.

As part of the wider Pomak community, the Torbeshi and Gorani in North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo speak Macedonian or Torlakian dialects (incl.

[71] Recently the Community of the Pomaks of Xanthi, has announced its request to be treated equally and therefore to have the right of education in Greek schools without the obligation of learning the Turkish language.

[72][73] The Pomaks in Bulgaria are referred to as Bulgarian Muslims (българи-мюсюлмани Balgari-Myusyulmani), and under the locally used names Ahryani (pejorative, meaning "infidels"[74]), Pogantsi, Poturani, Poturnatsi, Eruli, Charaklii, etc.

The campaigns were carried out under the pretext that the Pomaks as ancestral Christian Bulgarians who had been converted to Islam and who therefore needed to be repatriated back to the national domain.

[78] Pomaks in Turkey community is present mostly in Eastern Thrace and to a lesser extent in Anatolia, where they are called in Turkish Pomaklar, and their speech, Pomakça.

German sightseer Adolf Struck in 1898 describes Konstantia (in Moglena) as a big village with 300 houses and two panes, inhabited exclusively by Pomaks.