{{Short description|Armed Anti-Ottoman band in Ottoman Empire}} {{hatnote| This article concentrates on Ottoman-era groups - compare also Chetniks (disambiguation)}}A '''cheta''' ({{langx|sq|çeta}}; {{langx|rup|ceatã}}; {{langx|bg|чета}}; {{langx|el|τσέτης}}; {{langx|mk|чета}}; {{langx|ro|ceată}}; {{langx|tr|çete}}; {{langx|sr|чета|translit=četa}}), in plural '''chetas''', were irregular armed bands present throughout the 19th-century and very early 20th-century Ottoman Empire, particularly in Anatolia and the Balkans.

== Context and terminology == In the late Ottoman Empire, armed rebellions became common occurrences. These rebellions often saw irregular armed bands of rebels, known as chetas, take on the Ottoman Army. Cheta ({{lang |sr | četa}}) is a Slavic word meaning 'troop', with a proto-Slavic origin; cognate words exist in most Slavic languages.<ref>{{cite web | title=Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/četa | date=23 December 2024 | url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/četa }}</ref> The term was also used as a synonym for members of the Special Organization in the Ottoman empire.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner |title=Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey |journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |date=2008 |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=111–145 |doi=10.3138/gsp.3.1.111}}</ref>

The leader of Slavic chetas were generally referred to as a voivoda. Leaders of Greek chetas referred to them as the kapetan or kapetanios. The members of chetas were generally called 'chetniks', though members of Bulgarian chetas were known as Komitadjis, while members of Greek chetas have been referred to as Armatoles, Klepht, Andartes, or Makedonomachoi (in the period of the Macedonian Struggle)<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=tEJmenVPZ-IC&dq=Chetnik&pg=PA227 ''The war correspondence of Leon Trotsky: The Balkan Wars 1912-13'', Author: Leon Trotsky, Publisher Resistance Books, 1980, p. 227.], {{ISBN|0-909196-08-7}}</ref><ref>Handan Nezir-Akmese: ''The Birth of Modern Turkey. The Ottoman Military and the March to WWI'', I.B.Tauris, 2005, {{ISBN|1850437971}}, p. 52.</ref>

== Notable occurrences == During the Macedonian Struggle of 1893 to 1912 chetas of Bulgarians,<ref>"The IMARO activists saw the future autonomous Macedonia as a multinational polity, and did not pursue the self-determination of Macedonian Slavs as a separate ethnicity. Therefore, Macedonian was an umbrella term covering Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Vlachs, Albanians, Serbs, Jews, and so on." ''Historical Dictionary of Macedonia'', Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, {{ISBN|0810862956}}, "Introduction".</ref><ref>The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard the call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians.[...] (They) never seem to have doubted "the predominantly Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia". ''The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world'', Princeton University Press, Danforth, Loring M. 1997, {{ISBN|0691043566}}, p. 64. </ref> Greeks, Serbs,Aromanians and Albanians fought against each other and against the Ottoman Army, vying for ideological and ethnic dominance in the territory. This was during 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.<ref>Vickers, Miranda (2011). [https://books.google.com/books?id=vtQABAAAQBAJ&dq=Albanian+cheta&pg=PT49 ''The Albanians: A Modern History'']. I.B. Tauris: 28 January 2011.</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Vulturii Pindului – 13. Luptele fârșeroților cu antarții | url=http://www.armatolii.org.ro/vulturii-pindului/13 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913202602/http://www.armatolii.org.ro/vulturii-pindului/13 | archive-date=13 September 2021 | website=Armatolii | language=ro}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=LBYriPYyfUoC&dq=cheta+armed+band+ottoman&pg=PA135 ''The establishment of the Balkan national states, 1804-1920'', Volume 8 from ''A History of East Central Europe'', Barbara Jelavich, University of Washington Press, 1986, p. 135.], {{ISBN|0-295-96413-8}}</ref>

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 {{circa | 1913}} to {{circa |1924}}.<ref name="Kevorkian">{{Cite book | last=Kevorkian | first=Raymond | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mZ33AgAAQBAJ | title=The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History | date=2011 | publisher=I.B.Tauris | isbn=978-0-85773-020-6 | language=en}}</ref><ref name="Shirinian">{{Cite book | last=Shirinian | first=George N. | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SlwEDQAAQBAJ | title=Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923 | date=2017 | publisher=Berghahn Books | isbn=978-1-78533-433-7 | language=en}}</ref> The term was also used as a synonym for members of the Ottoman Empire's Special Organization<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Akçam | first1=Taner |date=2008 | title=Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey | journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |volume=3 | issue=1 | pages=111–145 | doi=10.3138/gsp.3.1.111}} </ref> (active {{circa | 1913}} to 1920).

== Gallery == <gallery> File:24mart Sborna Cheta Kiustendil.jpg|Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization cheta in Osogovo (March 1903). File:Phocaea massacre Sartiaux.jpg|''Çetes'' parading with loot in Phocaea (modern-day Foça, Turkey) on 13 June 1914. In the background are Greek refugees and burning buildings. File:Tsaras andart band.jpg|Kapetan Tzaras and his cheta during the Macedonian Struggle File:Serbian Chetnik fighters, 1908.jpg|Serb chetniks in 1908 </gallery>

== See also == {{Div col|colwidth=30em}} <!---♦♦♦ Please respect alphabetial order ♦♦♦---> * Albanian revolutionary organizations * Armenian fedayi * Bashi-bazouk * Hajduk * Kachaks * Kuva-yi Milliye * Serbian Chetnik Organization * Serbian nationalism * Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee * Zeybeks {{div col end}}

== References == {{Reflist|2}}

Category:Guerrilla organizations Category:History of the Balkans Category:Rebels from the Ottoman Empire Category:Macedonian Struggle