Postmemory After Deportation: Intergenerational Memory and Belonging Among Ahıska Turks in Türkiye and Kazakhstan

This article examines how descendants of a deported community relate to a displacement they did not experience directly and how that inherited past acquires different meanings across settlement contexts. Focusing on Ahıska (Meskhetian) Turks in Türkiye and Kazakhstan, the study uses postmemory to examine intergenerational transmission and interpretation. The study draws on eleven semi-structured oral-history interviews conducted in Türkiye and Kazakhstan in 2024–2025, contextualized through published historical scholarship and documentary studies. The analysis considers narration, silence, selective uptake, material mediation, and commemorative performance as different forms through which descendants encounter the deportation past. Within this small comparative sample, accounts from Türkiye highlighted linguistic and cultural affinity and public commemoration, while accounts from Kazakhstan drew attention to local belonging, assistance received from Kazakh neighbors, and memories of historical injustice. Generational position influenced participants’ access to family memories, although direct conversations with older relatives, photographs, and commemorative events remained relevant across generations. The findings highlight how uneven family transmission, generational position, and individual circumstances shape descendants’ interpretations of the deportation past. They also show that attachment to Ahıska can coexist with a strong sense of belonging to the country of residence, without necessarily involving an intention to return to the ancestral homeland.