In 1952 Turkey became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It thus became a threat to the security of its northern neighbor, the Soviet Union, during the Cold War. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, a buffer zone of newly independent states has separated Turkey from Russia. However, relations between the two powers are still weak. Turkey has reason to fear Russian nuclear power, and Russia has reason to fear Turkish influence on other Turkic-speaking peoples such as the Azeris. Arguments over the placement of oil pipelines also separate the two powers.
The antagonism between Turkey and Russia is long-standing. Russia was one of the allies that defeated Turkey in the Crimean War of the 1850's. Later in the nineteenth century czarist Russia backed its fellow Slavs in the Balkans as they sought independence from the Ottoman Empire. Russia also supported nonSlavic Christians such as the Armenians against the declining sultanate in an era when the Ottoman Empire was the "sick man of Europe." Many Turkish-speaking individuals were expelled from Eastern Europe as state after state gained independence.
Since Turkey's economy is undeveloped in comparison to that of Western Europe, Turks sought employment abroad from the 1950's until the oil crisis during the 1970's. More Turks settled in Germany than in any other Western European country. They were called gastarbeiters (guest workers), and all parties concerned initially expected that they would return to Turkey after relatively limited stays abroad.
Germany continues to have a gastarbeiter problem. Neither these workers nor their children have returned in significant numbers to Turkey. Many German-born Turks are becoming culturally alienated from their homeland. Still, no matter how well they assimilate into German culture, these individuals are excluded from a German citizenship that still emphasizes blood ties to Germany. With high unemployment in a newly unified Germany, anti-Turkish incidents have risen. Many of these incidents are instigated by neo-Nazis. By the early twenty-first century, both Germany and Turkey were beginning to give serious consideration to the future of these individuals and their descendants.
World History
