REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
After the signing of the Paris peace treaty in 1947, the Government of Georgi Dimitrov
received a full opportunity to decide on religious matters. The first step was the adoption
in December 1947 of the new Constitution (the so-called Dimitrov’s Constitution). The
paragraph 78 says: "The legal status of the religious communities, their maintenance
issues, as well as the right to establish their internal organization and government, is
regularized by a special law." That law was promulgated on the 09.01.1949 [2].
Since 1956 a drastic change began in the policy towards the Turkish population. It was
reported that tolerating and enhancing its cultural and religious characteristics led to its
closure, isolation and alienation that was dangerous for the unity of the nation and of the
country. Along with the period of Stalinism the understanding of the Bulgarian governing
for “multinational character" of the country adopted by the USSR was also gone. In
parallel with the promotion in power of Todor Zhivkov a new line to the Bulgarian Turks
was adopted, which focused on the fact that their home country was Bulgaria and they
were "an integral part of the Bulgarian nation" [1]. This was connected with the other
direction in the policy towards them – the restraint and the gradual overcoming of those
religious, linguistic and national - household characteristics that distinguish them from
the Bulgarians and whose culmination is the so-called Renaissance in the late 80s. The
changes were interpreted by a part of the Turkish population as the beginning of a cultural
assimilation. Many rituals and activities directly related to the Muslim faith were
prohibited: in 1959 the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare decreed that for
"humanitarian reasons", circumcision could be performed only by qualified physicians.
This decree was the nature of prohibition, because at that time there was almost no
Muslim doctors. Also traditional Islamic funeral on a wooden stretcher was banned due to
hygienic reasons [2]. Even in the spring of 1951 by decision of the Politburo a special
attention to medical care was paid. The Ministry of Public Health was required within
three months to fill "all vacancies and other locally health services in the districts of
Turkish population." The construction of new health centers and maternity homes was
also provided for [11].
In his book Revival process in Bulgaria (1992), the author Stoyan Mihaylov argues that
among the Ottoman Turks mortality was much higher than among the Bulgarians. Here the
author even reaches the "enlightenment" that poor hygiene and unhealthy lifestyle of the
Ottoman urban population - polygyny, buggery, consumption of tobacco, opium and coffee -
were related to religion and made the Turks more susceptible to plague epidemics.
What actually is the hygiene, the circumcision and the traditional burial practice for the
Muslims, and what is the emotional significance for them of those prohibitions imposed
by State authority? One of the main principles and doctrinal foundations of Islam
enshrined in the Koran is: the purpose of the hygiene, the physical and the spiritual one, is
the removal of negative external effects and the prevention of corruption because
"cleanliness is half of faith" [10].
According to the Islamic religion, circumcision is one of the ten personal-hygiene
Commandments that were imposed on the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) by Allah and
subsequently according to the Sharia’s law of Mohammed. They were turned into
prophetic orders i.e. syunnet ii . The first circumcised man was Ibrahim, who circumcised
himself at the age of 120. Then he circumcised his son Ismail (Isaac) at the age of 13. The
Islamic theology accepts Ismail as one of the 28 major prophets, from who originates the
whole family tree of Mohammed. In order to prove the divine predestination of the
religious faith and uniformity of the Muslim blood, theologians argue that in ethnic origin