Muslim minorities in Bulgaria and the Balkans

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Recently, the issue of human rights and fundamental rights and freedoms has gained
importance on an international scale. This situation is directly proportional to the fact that
the issue of human rights has grown out of the scope of pure domestic law and has gained a
universal look. International independent civil society organizations on human rights and
developed countries, as well as institutions such as UN and the European Union have
published country reports on the subject regularly. Human rights violations taking place in
any country in the world today arouse interest and provoke reaction not only in that country
but all over the world, and can be questioned. In particular, the rights of minorities living in
a country and their benefiting from the rights of citizenship have become a universal value.
Significant changes have occurred in Bulgaria in the structural sense, which entered
into a democratization process following the downfall of the Zhivkov regime in 1989. The
mentioned amendments have brought about various developments related to human rights
in the country. While various arrangements were being made on the issue in this regard, the
human rights violations taking place in the country, in particular those of minorities were
intended to be prevented in the new period. It is seen that adherence to the arrangements on
human rights, defined in the country's constitution by various parties and totalitarian
regimes in power, had remained on a symbolic level since Bulgaria became an independent
country splitting from the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, the human rights
conventions of the international organisations such as the United Nations and the OSCE,
which Bulgaria was a party to especially during the communist regime, were not much
binding for the government in Sofia.
As a democratic regime was facilitated with the constitution of 1991 in the country,
the issue of human rights also emerged as an important topic. Since the goal of being a
member of Euro-Atlantic organisations became a foreign policy priority for the Sofia
government in 1990's, this situation ensured Bulgaria to move in a more sensitive way to
human rights. Additionally; Bulgaria, a member of the Council of Europe, became a party
to the framework Convention on the protection of national minorities in 1999. In the
context of EU accession talks particularly in the 2000‟s, it put signature to various reforms
in the country on human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In the light of the issues mentioned, this report approaches the issue of fundamental
rights and freedoms in 2014. In the report; an objective assessment is aimed with the titles
of Overview of the country, Political Rights and Freedoms, Economic Rights and
Freedoms, Organization Rights and Freedoms, Cultural Rights and Freedoms, Educational
Rights and Freedoms, Religious Rights and Freedoms, as well as has tried to make an
objective assessment scanning, and by scanning the media in the country.
As known, Bulgaria is demographically diverse. We aimed to determine the
progrees made by Bulgaria, having problems regarding humans rights, in particular, the
Muslim Turkish minority in the international arena Prior to 1989, on the 25th anniversary
of the over throw of the Zhivkov regime. The current status of the issue has been
investigated in Bulgaria, who became a member of the leading organisations on human
rights such as the EU, the EC, the UN and the OSCE during the intervening 25 years.

This article discusses important policy shifts concerning the education of Turks in the mother tongue in Bulgarian schools during the socialist and post-socialist periods and the consequences of these policy shifts for the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

Wer sich mit der ethnischen Struktur der südlichen Balkanhalbinsel zur Zeit der Balkankriege beschäftigen möchte, hat bei der Quellenwahl zwischen höchst widersprüchlichen Karten und Statistiken zu wählen. Die meisten Darstellungen jener Zeit diskutieren die Statistiken und versuchen, eine bestimmte nationale Perspektive zu stützen und andere zu schwächen. Nur wenige bemühen sich um Neutralität. Die Betonung von Statistiken und Verbreitungskarten, die von den nationalen Historiographien immer wieder nach Bedarf zitiert werden, verstärken den Betrachter in der Wahrnehmung von Nationalvölkern und führen ihn zu einer mangelnden Auseinandersetzung mit Identitäten, die sich nationaler Zuschreibungen entziehen. Da während der Balkankriege die bis dahin zum Osmanischen Reich gehörende Region Makedonien auf Griechenland, Serbien, Bul-garien und Albanien aufgeteilt wird, nimmt man in der Regel die Na-tionalvölker der Osmanen/Türken, Griechen, Serben, Bulgaren und Albaner wahr (in der makedonischen Frage oft sogar nur die Bulgaren, Serben und Griechen; s. DEHN 1909: 38), ohne die Minderheiten zu berücksichtigen, vor allem aber ohne zu beachten, dass die genannten Gruppen bezüglich Sprache und Konfession alles andere als homogen waren und sind. Es soll daher im Folgenden versucht werden, statistische Verhältnisse und Verbreitungskarten weitgehend beiseite zu lassen, um aus qualitativer Perspektive auf die ethnographische, sprachliche und konfessionelle Ausgangslage während der Balkankriege ein Licht zu werfen. Dadurch soll der Blick für die komplizier-ten ethnischen Strukturen der Region geschärft werden, der man erst dann einigermaßen gerecht wird, wenn man sich neben den nationalen Kategorien mir den regionalen, sprachlichen und konfessionellen Identitäten beschäftigt.

The Pomaks are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims living in Southern Bulgaria and Northern Greece. Both countries developed different strategies to deal with the minority. While Bulgaria's policy aimed at both the cultural assimilation into the Bulgarian nation and the socio-structural integration into the Bulgarian society, Greek policy resulted in the assimilation of the Pomaks into the Turkish minority of Greece.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the old multi-ethnic and multiconfessional Eurasian empires-the Ottoman, the Russian, and the Austro-Hungarian-had to contend with grave challenges to the dynastic order of things from modernizers and nationalists espousing ideas of popular sovereignty and representative government. 1 By the century's end, imperial reforms, geopolitical rivalries, nationalism, and ideas of representative government had forced the Ottoman Empire to regard its subjects through a political lens that proved to be the precursor to national identity, one of corporate, ethno-religious identification. Ottoman reforms had the unintended consequence of prompting non-Muslims to seek equality and rights as groups and in relation to Muslims, and increasingly, by the end of the century, to Turkish Muslims. The integrity of the Ottoman Empire seemed to rest on the government's ability to control the competing claims of ethno-religious groups, and, by demonstrating the success of reforms, to prevent Great Powers from intervening on behalf of its Ottoman Christian subjects. 2 In Acknowledgments: The research and writing of this article was supported by the Max Weber Postdoctoral Programme and the Summer Fellowship Research Program (Old Dominion University). Parts were presented at ASEEES and ICOSEH, where I benefited from questions and suggestions. I am truly grateful to Eran Livni, Brett Bebber, and the anonymous CSSH reviewers for their comments and criticisms. Andrew Shryock offered invaluable support from the beginning, and David Akin graciously guided me in the last stage.

The paper shows an image and functions of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish languages among Jewish Diaspora groups – the Balkan Sephardim and the Ashkenazim (the Ostjuden group) – in the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the outbreak of World War II. The study is based on the articles from Jewish weeklies, magazines and newspapers from prewar Bosnia and Hercegovina and from Germany/Poland. It demonstrates a double-sided attitude towards the languages. On the one hand – an image of the languages as determinants of Jewish identity. Touching on this theme, the authors of the paper also try to highlight the images of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish and as determinants in a narrower sense – of the Sephardi/Ashkenazi identity in that period. On the other hand, the paper shows a tendency to treat the languages as " corrupted " and " dying " languages, and as factors slowing down the assimilation of Jewish groups and also as an obstacle for Zionist ideologies.

The Functioning of the Mufti Institution in Bulgaria at the Beginning of the 20th Century. A Case Study, „Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej \ Studies into the History of Russia and Central-Eastern Europe” 2018, vol. 53 (Special Issue), pp. 217–232. | The author analyses the functioning of the muftis in Bulgaria, one of the most important institution of the Muslim religious-administrative autonomy in that Balkan country during the Third State period (1878–1944). The presented three cases of Afiz M. Mustafow, Afiz Suleymanov, and Sali Effendi illustrated series of phenomenon linked to the functioning of mufti and Muslim autonomous institutions in Bulgaria in the turn of the 19th and 20th century. The case studies are based on the materials from the Central State Archive of Bulgaria in Sofia.

Dość powszechnie spotykaną tendencją w programach ugrupowań skrajnej prawicy jest otwarta niechęć względem postaw, zachowań i systemu wartości odmiennych, niż ogólnie przyjęte w danym społeczeństwie. Stąd obywatele danego państwa, którzy od ogółu różnią się religią, językiem bądź narodowością, przez nacjonalistów są uważani zazwyczaj za realne zagrożenie dla porządku publicznego. Według takiego rozumowania element różnorodności etnicznej jest przeszkodą w procesie całkowitego zjednoczenia społeczeństwa. Drugą cechą ugrupowań o skrajnej orientacji prawicowej, chociaż nie jest to reguła, jest negatywne postrzeganie narodów i państw sąsiednich, głęboko uwarunkowane przez względy historyczne. Większość ugrupowań skrajnie prawicowych w swoich programach wysuwa roszczenia terytorialne lub innego rodzaju pretensje skierowanych w kierunku sąsiadów. Generalizując, te postawy nacechowane ksenofobią, bądź popularnymi resentymentami, gwarantują ultraprawicy trwałe lub tymczasowe poparcie elektoratu 1 . Jeżeli odnieść powyższą charakterystykę na grunt bułgarskiego nacjonalizmu, można zauważyć, iż jest ona w pełni uzasadniona. W niniejszym artykule skupiono się jedynie na kwestii, jak Turcję i mniejszość turecką w Bułgarii postrzegają przedstawiciele bułgarskiej skrajnej prawicy. By odnaleźć fundamenty, na których funkcjonuje dzisiejszy ruch narodowy, należy sięgnąć do okresu, kiedy w XIX w. na okupowanych ziemiach bułgarskich zaczęły rozwijać się organizacje społeczno-oświatowe. Rodzimi działacze zachęcali nie tylko do kształcenia się, poznawania własnej tożsamości, ale również do walki zbrojnej, która zakończyłaby kilkuwiekowe panowanie Porty na tym terytorium. Publicyści i literaci otwarcie nawoływali do powstania i wyzwolenia spod władzy osmańskiej. Turcy oraz Imperium Osmańskie w bułgarskiej publicystyce i literaturze tego okresu byli przedstawiani w jak najgorszym świetle. By to uzasadnić, wystarczy zacytować fragment tekstu Lubena Karawełowa: "(…) Turek jest Turkiem, z niego ani Bóg, ani diabeł człowieka nie zrobi. Okrucieństwo, fanatyzm, nienawiść do giaurów -oto zalety tureckie" 2 . Nie inaczej ten sam autor charakteryzuje Turków w Zapiskach o Bułgarii i Bułgarach: "(…) Ci rozpustni do szpiku kości tureccy obywatele nie mają ziemi, a gdyby nawet ją posiadali, leżałaby odłogiem… ich 1 D. Kasprowicz, Skrajna prawica w Europie Środkowej -wybrane czynniki wpływające na status partii, [w:] Przeszłość -teraźniejszość -przyszłość. Problemy badawcze młodych politologów, D. Mikucka-Wójtowicz (red.), Kraków 2010, s. 68. 2 L. Karawełow, List do Serbów, Bułgarów, Rumunów i Greków, [w:] Naród i kultura. Antologia esejów i artykułów o narodzie i kulturze bułgarskiej, wyb. i oprac. W. Gałązka, Kraków 1985, s. 28.

Existing studies of paramilitarism and the deep state focused on the far-right organisations that operated between the early 1950’s and the late 1960’s. Scholars have produced contriving accounts of the origins and function of deep state networks. Some saw them as semi-independent entities formed under American tutelage to stem the communist threat while others described these groups as the long arm of the Greek state and the ruling conservative faction. However, they all agreed that these groups represented a novel phenomenon whose roots could be traced in the period of the Greek civil war. 
The paper will challenge these interpretations and argue that deep state networks and practises were the product of a long process of post-imperial state building that was initiated during the Balkan Wars. Taking Epirus as a vantage point the paper will explore the role played by paramilitary networks in the long and violent transition from empire to nation state. However, I am not interested in the military exploits of these groups, my aim is to explore the processes by which outlaws like Oikonomou were transformed to ‘men of the state’ and the role they played in the nationalization of the north-western borderlands. The paper will map the trajectory of these groups from their inception during the early 20th century to the post-civil war period. It will discuss the practises and role of these networks in local and national politics and explore how the experience of the borderlands shaped Greek political culture and prompted the formation of deep state structures.