BULGARIAN-SPEAKING MUSLIMS - Lalev

historical discourse as the single, undisputable truth, there is an emerging recognition among
Bulgarian scholars that conversions to Islam among the Slavic population of the Balkans between the
fourteenth and nineteenth century were largely voluntary. 2 Nevertheless, the forced-assimilation
thesis and the deeply seated anti-Ottoman/Turkish/Islamic nationalism in Bulgaria (and the Balkans
as a whole) render it impossible for the Pomaks to stake a claim to Muslimness. In the vocabulary of
Bulgarian nationalism, Muslim means “the Other,” “the Outsider,” “the Enemy.” The Bulgarianspeaking
Muslims, therefore, cannot profess Islam or maintain a separate religious identity and still
be “true” Bulgarians. Repeatedly harassed to renounce their faith and traditions, the Pomaks have
resisted every attempt at conversion or forced assimilation by various regimes in Bulgaria. Today,
taking advantage of the country’s democratic rule, they insist on being able to freely assert a Pomak
heritage of their own making. 3 Still, remnants of entrenched totalitarian mentality in Bulgaria’s
official nationalist ideology nip in the bud any formal undertaking to that effect. 4
In view of the Pomak case, this introduction links heritage to identity and the way dissenting
voices negotiate a niche for themselves in public spaces already claimed by rigid master narratives.
Often these are the official, government-promoted, institutionalized versions of the past and present,
which – to varying degrees – limit or deny access of vernacular (minority, dissenting) narratives to
the public domain. Drawing from my own research and case studies furnished by others, I strive to
understand of what constitutes heritage and how to promote and preserve dissenting narratives.
Five stories regarding Pomak identity serve as my analytical frame of reference and constitute a
premeditated effort to identify, formulate, and preserve in writing fundamental aspects of a highly
2 For details, see Chapter II of this dissertation.
3 In this dissertation, the terms Pomaks, Slavic/Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, Bulgarian Muslims are used
interchangeably as synonymous.
4 The latest, among many, scandals involves the attempt of the Bulgarian Statistical Institute to democratically
respond to people’s demands for free self-identification by including “Bulgaro-Mohammedan” and “Macedonian”
identities, among others, in the 2011 census forms. Even though “Bulgaro-Mohammedan” or “Bulgarian-
Mohammedan” is the standard name of reference to the Pomaks in Bulgaria, the ultra-nationalist political
formation VMRO immediately declared this act “monstrous,” “Stalinist” revisionism of Bulgarian history. The
scandal generated a wave of resignations in the Bulgarian Statistical Institute as seasoned statisticians were
accused of trying to create a “Bulgaro-Mohammedan ethnicity” in Bulgaria. Needless to say, the proposed
changes to the census form were immediately dropped. Thus, during the forthcoming 2011 census, the Pomaks’s
choice of identity is already restricted to “Bulgarians,” “Turks,” or “Others.” (Mihail Ivanov, “Prebroyavaneto
dogodina veche e comprometirano” / “Next-Year’s Census Has Already Been Compromised”/ in Mediapool.bg of
23 September 2010).
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