The Orient within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria by Mary s> Neuburger (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 383 of workers' (p. I35). The Russian financial meltdown of I998 was another consequence of the country's exposure to transnationalmarkets. Instead of large-scaleforeigninvestmentsleading to an industrialrenaissance,the region actuallyunderwentlarge-scaledeindustrialization. If these are indeed the effects of integration into a global marketplace, the Belarusian strategy of economic isolation begins to look attractive. As Julia Korostelevashows in her chapteron Belarus,under PresidentAlexander Lukashenko economic stability depends on continued policies of 'financial repression' and Russia's direct and indirect subsidies. But the preservation of native industries and protection of living standards in Belarus compare favourablywith the developmentsin neighbouringUkraine that are discussed in Marco Bojcun'schapter.Although Ukraine has highly developed aeronautical and machine-building sectors, its emerging global trade profile is that of a supplier of cheap metals, chemicals and food products. The country also suppliesarmsto Asia and servesas a majortransitcorridorto Europefor Russian oil and gas. But during the I990S Ukraine experienced large-scale deindustrializationand registered a record ten consecutive years of output decline to the total of 59 per cent of its GDP. As Nadia Lisovskayashows in her chapteron foreigntrade,Ukraine did manage to redirectits exportsfrom Russia and other Soviet successor states to partnersin Europe and beyond, but over 50 per cent of Ukraine's exports are of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. With Russia and Ukraine establishingtheir niche in the world market as suppliersof raw materials,their economic health becomes increasinglymore dependent on world prices and continued demand. It is a pity, therefore,that most of the authors of this volume do not discuss the spectaculareconomic growth that took place in the region during the firstyears of the twenty-first century. The volume's overarchingtheme is explainingthe failureduringthe I990S, not making sense of the boom during the 2000S. One wishes to see the elaboration of Robinson's promising thesis that Russia gained from the coincidence of its I998 financial crash with the rise in world oil prices. Perhaps,reintegrationinto the global economy finallypaid some dividends? Departments of Histogy SERHY YEKELCHYK andGermanic andRussianStudies University of Victoria, BritishColumbia Neuburger, Mary. The OrientWithin:MuslimMinornties and theNegotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria.Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2004. XV + 223 PP. Maps. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography. Index. $42.50:?25.50THE wars in the formerYugoslaviaraisedthe questionof the Muslim peoples of the Balkans, and of their relationship to the Balkan states. As Mary Neuburger shows in this excellent, well-researchedmonograph, the question is not limited to the former Yugoslavia, but has been central to the issue of nationhood in at least one other state in the region throughoutthe twentieth 384 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 century. She traces the relationship of Bulgaria to its Turkish and Pomak (Bulgarian-speaking Muslim)minorities,from the achievementof autonomous statehood in I878 to the post-Communistperiod in the I99os, with particular emphasis on the Communist era. Neuburger describes how Bulgarianpolicy ebbed and flowed in a wavelike manner between alternate policies of toleration, forcible assimilation and expulsion. For Bulgarian statesmen since I878, the Muslim element in the nation-state'sethnic mix was identifiedwith the 'backward'legacy of the Ottoman 'yoke', a legacy that they wished to shed in the interestsof developing a 'modern', 'European' image, and this led to periodic attempts to Bulgarianizethe Muslims, through changing their dress, names and gender imagery. The Communist seizure of power in 1944 resultedin the establishment of a more modern, all-encompassing state, one that interfered more directly in the lives of its citizens, so that the traditional quest for a more homogenous version of Bulgariannationhood actually acceleratedunder the supposedly internationalist Communists. Yet the Bulgarian assimilationist drivewas periodicallyinterruptedand reversedby externalor internalupsets: defeat in the Second BalkanWar; the overthrowof the pro-German government in World War Two; and the fall of Communism all resultedin renewed periods of toleration,the last of which is hopefully lasting. One of the most interestingaspectsof this process, revealedby the author, is the diametricaldifferencein the treatmentmeted out by successiveBulgarian regimes to the two differentMuslim minorities.For while the Turkswere long accepted as ethnicallyalien and separate,the Pomakswere from earlyon treated as a part of the Bulgariannation that needed to be reclaimed. Thus, for most of the interwar period, the regime promoted the 'modernizing', pro-Bulgarianelements among the Pomaks...