Cheta (armed group)

This article concentrates on Ottoman-era groups - compare also Chetniks (disambiguation)

A cheta (Albanian: çeta; Aromanian: ceatã; Bulgarian: чета; Greek: τσέτης; Macedonian: чета; Romanian: ceată; Turkish: çete; Serbian: чета, romanized: četa), in plural chetas, were irregular armed bands present throughout the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, particularly in Anatolia and in the Balkans. The members of the chetas were called "chetniks".^[1][2]

Çetes parading with loot in Phocaea (modern-day Foça, Turkey) on 13 June 1914. In the background are Greek refugees and burning buildings.

Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization cheta in Osogovo (March 1903).

In the late Ottoman Empire, armed rebellions became a chronic feature during the struggle for Macedonia of 1893 to 1912 as armed groups of pro-Bulgarian,^[3][4] as well as pro-Serbian, pro-Greek, Aromanian and Albanian formations fought against each other as well as against the Ottoman troops, trying to impose their nationality on the territory's inhabitants at a time when increasingly harsh Ottoman crackdowns indicated that reform and reconciliation of the Ottoman state with the various nationalist groups seemed increasingly less likely.^[5][6][7] The cheta was usually led by a leader, called a voivoda.

The Serbian word četa ("troop") has a proto-Slavic origin; cognate words exist in most Slavic languages.^[8]

Muslim chetas were active in Asia Minor after World War I. They were notorious for their assaults on Christian Orthodox Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians during the late Ottoman genocides of c. 1913 to c. 1924.^[9][10] The term was also used as a synonym for members of the Ottoman Empire's Special Organization^[11] (operative c. 1913 to 1920).

See also

• Macedonian Struggle
• Albanian revolutionary organizations
• Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee
• Serbian nationalism
• Hajduk
• Chetniks
• Kachaks
• Bashi-bazouk
• Armenian fedayi
• Komitadji
• Kuva-yi Milliye
• Zeybek