This ethno-economic mosaic was further enhanced in the late nineteenth century, when the deteriorating Ottoman Empire lost the Balkans, the Crimea, and the Caucasus region.  As a consequence, many Muslims fled these areas, seeking refuge in Asia Minor. 

From the Balkans came Muslim Albanians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Gypsies; from the Crimea came Turkish Tatars; and from the Caucasus came Muslim Circassians, Georgians, Dagistnis, and Turkish Nogays.  These immigrants were assigned to areas throughout the remaining Ottoman Empire.  Some of them ended up in Susurluk.

Although all of Susurluk’s Christians had left for places in Europe by the end of World War I, their cultural legacy remained.  By 1970, the populations of Susurluk town and the forty-seven villages in Susurluk district were 12,360 and 27,800 respectively.

This colorful blend of peoples could only have enriched the oral and ritual folk traditions of the area.  Given this historic background, it is little wonder that many of the stories told to me in Susurluk have their mates in the Balkans and other parts of the Middle East.

Anecdotes (fikralar) exist for practically any occasion.  They provide humor and wit, while offering various perspectives on life’s situations.  Each has several levels of meaning.  The largest single group of Turkish folk anecdotes relates the trials and tribulations of Nasreddin Khoja, a mythical figure who purportedly lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. 

The Khoja (meaning religious teacher) is both wise and naive, shrewd yet gullible, and always a comical figure.  All Turks know, and practically all love, this famous character whom they usually depict on his favorite donkey.  He is also popular in one form or another throughout the Middle East and the Balkans.

No one has ever counted all the Nasreddin Khoja stories; however, the European folklorist, Albert Wesselski, collected over five hundred such tales in his two volume Der Hodscha Nasreddin.  The first anecdote of those which follow addresses the materialist aspects of human nature.