The Myth of Ethnic Conflict: Chap 13 - Diplomatic Institute

476 Maria Todorova
in the province of Eastern Rumelia, which was to be ruled by a
Christian dignitary. About twenty Pomak villages refused to recognize
this authority, forming the so-called “Pomak republic.” This
lasted for about eight years until 1886, when, one year after the
unification of the Bulgarian principality with Eastern Rumelia, the
frontier with the Ottoman Empire was finally demarcated and these
villages were included in the Ottoman Empire until the Balkan
wars. 11
The alienation of the Bulgarian-speaking Muslim population
was compounded by the fact that the newly created Bulgarian nation-state
did not attempt to integrate it but instead treated it as
indistinguishable from the larger Muslim group. Thus in all censuses
of the late nineteenth century (1880, 1885, 1888) the Bulgarian-speaking
Muslims were entered under the heading “Turks.” It was only in
the 1905 census that a separate group—“Pomaks”—appeared. 12 During
the 1920s and especially during the 1930s a sustained campaign
began in the press urging public opinion to discriminate between
religious and ethnic allegiance and to accept the Pomaks as part of
the Bulgarian nation. This idea was most intensely espoused by the
small educated elite among the Pomaks (principally teachers) who
strove to elevate the economic and cultural level of their group and
to rescue it from its ever-growing marginalization.
In 1937 the organization Rodina (Motherland) was formed. Its
principal aim was to foster a Bulgarian ethnic consciousness among
the Bulgarian Muslims. Its activities covered mostly the Central and
Western Rhodopes; it proved unsuccessful in the Eastern Rhodopes.
In the course of seven years the organization introduced Bulgarianlanguage
worship in the mosques, translated the Qur’an into Bulgarian,
created a Bulgarian Muslim establishment separate from the
Turkish, and promoted the creation of a local elite by enrolling Bulgarian
Muslims into secondary and higher education establishments.
It also attempted to reform everyday life by casting away
the traditional costume, improving the lot of women, and ceasing
the practice of circumcision. 13 Most important, in 1942 it embarked
on a campaign to change the names of the Bulgarian Muslims to
Bulgarian, although not Christian, names. It has been estimated that
by September 1944, two-thirds of the Pomak population in the Central
Rhodopes had changed their names. 14 Immediately after the war,
Rodina was dissolved on the grounds of being a nationalistic Bul-