Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria

ELENA MARUSHIAKOVA & VESSELIN POPOV Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria Historical background Historians usually associate the entry of Islam in the territory of Bulgaria and the subsequent emergence of Turkish and other Muslim minorities with the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, when the country was incorporated into the Empire. There is no doubt, however, that the much-disputed roots of the ethnic and religious mosaic of present day Bulgaria are older than that. We have to emphasise the fact that, in the Balkans, history is not so much a science as a constructive element in the process of nation formation and an essential struc- ture of national consciousness. Various scholary theories are often embedded into specific national doctrines and we should not be surprised at the radical discrepancies in eve- ry historical explanation of the same events or processes. The different periods in Bulgarian historical science are dominated by two extremely contradictory theories about the Ottoman invasion and the origin of the Turkish population in Bulgaria (Zheliazkova: 1997, 14). The contradictory policies of the Bulgarian state with respect to the Turkish and the other Muslim minorities in the different historical periods were based on these major theories. According to the first theory, the cruel genocide of Bulgarians after the Ottoman invasion was followed by intensive colonisation of the population in Anatolia (Asia Minor). This population was linked to the Ottoman mili- 1 tary invasion and was an important element in the coloni- tradition associates the Kizilbash with various Sufi broth- sation policy of the invaders. After invading the Bulgarian erhoods, among which the most important is the Bektashi lands, the Ottoman administration, military garrisons and order. Due to their close relation with the Janissary corps, the official religious authorities moved into the conquered the Sunni Muslim state tolerated the Bektashis until 1826, towns. This military and administrative invasion, which when Sultan Mahmud II dismissed the Janissary corps is typical of any territorial conquest, was combined with (Eminov: 1997, 72–74). other forms of migration within the Empire. ‘Free’ Turk- At the time of the Ottoman Empire, people from other ish and other related rural nationalities from Asia Minor, nations that were part of the Empire also came to the Bal- nomadic shepherd tribes (Yürüks), dervishes spreading kans. Gradually, they lost their identity and merged with various religious cults, and others, all headed for the new the Turkish community, leaving no significant traces of territories. In the course of time this migration became the their presence. The histories of the Gypsies and Tartars are basis for the establishment of the Turkish population of the rather different and we will discuss them later.1 We will Empire, whose descendants now form the contemporary also talk about the Bulgarian Muslims (Pomaks)... Turkish minority in Bulgaria. The second theory completely rejects any large-scale Please refer to our forthcoming publication “Migration and Po- colonisation of the population of Anatolia. The Turkish litical Intervention. Diasporas in Transition Countries” for the community in Bulgaria is considered to be a result of complete text. large-scale forced conversions to Islam of the local population, forced intermarriages (kidnapping of maidens for the Turkish harems), or voluntary conversion to Islam of Muslims in the new Bulgarian state (1878–1944) parts of the Bulgarian population due to economic or administrative benefits. Gradually, the large-scale conversion The Turkish minority in Bulgaria emerged gradually as an to Islam (be it forced or voluntary) caused people to forget isolated community after the war between Russia and Tur- their Bulgarian language and Bulgarian ethnic identity. key in 1877–1878 and the end of Ottoman rule in Bulgarian Thus, a new Turkish community was formed which stood territory. The Turks, who only shortly before the end of apart from the ‘real’ Turkish nation and had little in com- the war had been dominant in the state and political life of mon with it (Zheliazkova: 1997, 14). the Ottoman Empire, remained within ‘another’ , ‘foreign’ These two basic theories and their variants include state, surrounded by a population with a new social status, some more specific issues, such as the origin of the rela- separate from the development of the mother-state, where tively less numerous community of Alevis (often called the process of new national consolidation had begun with Kizilbash in Bulgaria), who are a modification of Shiite the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment Muslims. The popular belief is that the majority of their of the new state of Turkey. forefathers migrated (or were forced to migrate) from Iran After the end of Ottoman rule in Bulgarian territory, and Asia Minor between the 15th and 17th centuries. One the new Bulgarian state was obliged by international trea- 2 3 ties (in particular the decisions of the Berlin Congress) to Despite the decisions of the Berlin Congress of 1878, they recognise and respect the major civil and political rights of did not allow the administrative body of Eastern Rumelia the Turkish and other Muslim minorities. The free Bulgar- to control them. The so called ‘Pomak republic’ did not ian state voted for the Constitution of Turnovo, which de- receive legal recognition, but it remained in existence until clared that “voters are all Bulgarian citizens of 21 or more the unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern years of age in full possession of their civil and political Rumelia in 1885 when the Tumrush region became part of rights” (Article 86). Since then, Turks have been members Turkey due to the new agreements between Bulgaria and of all the Bulgarian parliaments. The religious Muslim Turkey. courts continued to exist, the state treasury supported the During the Balkan wars (1912–1913) there was a new 12 Muslim muftis and funded the religious and cultural flood of Turkish emigrants from Bulgaria. This time they activities of Muslims. In 1885 a law was passed giving Bul- were not leaving the old Bulgarian lands but the former garian Turks autonomy in education, which allowed them territories of the Ottoman Empire, which had become part to preserve their own schools in which the language of in- of Bulgaria. During the wars the situation of the Bulgar- struction was Turkish. In the beginning of the 20th century ian Muslims (Pomaks) in the Rhodope Mountains became there were more than 1,300 such schools in Bulgaria. critical. Towards the end of 1912, almost simultaneously Immediately after the liberation of Bulgaria and the with the beginning of the Balkan wars and the advance of establishment of an independent Bulgarian state, the Ot- the Bulgarian armies in the Rhodope Mountains, the Bul- toman Empire and Bulgaria signed several treaties whose garian authorities undertook a massive conversion of the purpose was to guarantee the rights of their respective Pomaks. This conversion is known as Pokrustvane (which Bulgarian and Turkish populations in the territories of carries the meaning of both ‘christianisation’ and ‘baptism’ each country. Turks who remained in Bulgaria retained ), a term which has henceforth remained in popular usage, their lands and properties. The situation was more com- since adopting the new Christian religion was accom- plicated for the Turkish population who had left Bulgaria panied by the change of Turkish and Arabic names into together with the withdrawing Turkish army during the ‘Christian’ (i.e. Bulgarian) names. The conversion affected war between Turkey and Russia. Although according to some 150,000 people in parts of the western, central and the Berlin Congress they were to retain ownership of their eastern Rhodopes. It was coordinated by a special state properties, in reality this problem was very difficult and committee. The initial concept was that voluntary baptism slow to resolve. should be carried out by the Bulgarian Church, but in re- Some Turks and Pomaks who did not want to or were ality it was accomplished with the active participation of unable to adapt to the new reality, emigrated from Bul- the local administration, voluntary armed forces and even garia. The number of emigrants in the period from 1878 army divisions, which led to cruel and bloody pogroms to 1912 was estimated to be about 350,000. The Pomak against Bulgarian Muslims (Pomaks) in many villages. population of the Rhodope Mountains, in the Tumrush After Bulgaria’s defeat in the Balkan wars and additional region, did not accept the existing new political realities. negotiations with Turkey about the situation in Aegean 4 5 Thrace (already part of Bulgaria), and due to the influence ented entirely towards overcoming the treaty’s restrictions. of some internal political factors (the upcoming parliamen- When the government of the Bulgarian Agricultural Peo- tary elections), the government of Vassil Radoslavov took ple’s Union (BAPU), led by Alexander Stamboliiski, came the following decision: as of autumn 1913, all Bulgarian into power, a twice defeated Bulgaria tried to improve the Muslims (Pomaks) were allowed to revert to their Muslim situation of the Turks and other Muslims in hope that its religion and to restore their former names (which they did neighbours would respond accordingly in their treatment only too quickly, thus demonstrating the falsehood of the of Bulgarian minorities (cf. Moutafchieva: 1995, 24). In sup- ‘voluntary’ baptism theory). port of this policy, a Muslim religious college was estab- As a result of its participation in World War I Bulgaria lished in Shumen at the beginning of the 1920s. A similar suffered another national catastrophe, which ended with college opened in Sofia (until then such religious education signing of the Neuilly Peace Treaty of 1919. Article 54, Sec- was only available in Istanbul).

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