Balkan Muslims Research Articles

Unearth Not

This essay explores how denial of the Srebrenica genocide against the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks in Srebrenica, committed in 1995, is still lived as an everyday reality in present-day Serbia. It argues that this denial comprises various performative and narrative levels, which all stem from the unique acts of hiding and disguising on behalf of the state and individual perpetrators. The essay follows several levels of concealment and denial of the Srebrenica genocide in Serbia: the socio-political one, best palpable in Radovan Karadžić’s hiding and disguising as a healer after the war (up to 2008), and the artistic by which the reality becomes disclosed in the fictional world of the theatre play Srebrenica. When we the murdered rise by Zlatko Paković (2020). The play exposes a phenomenon of a well-trained performance of denial designed by the distinguished members of the Serbian intellectual elite. In this vein, it ventures into the intellectual evolution of the genocidal attitude towards Muslims in Yugoslavia, from pre-war times to actual executions during the dissolution of Yugoslavia (1991–5). The perception that the Balkan Muslims were disloyal members who had converted from the Serbian Orthodox religion to Islam prevails throughout the century and shapes the way people write, read and stage history in Serbia. Therefore, it follows the genocide denial in exploring how concealment strategies work as they are re-actualized by ordinary people in their personal, everyday performances.

Attitudes toward Bosniak Muslims and Kosovar Albanians and historical revisionism in the Serbian media

For this paper, we monitored three daily newspapers in Serbia, Politika, Novosti and Informer, for issues of direct relevance to the lives of Balkan Muslims. We identified three dominant topics: 1. Undermining the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina and (re)affirming the expansionist politics of Serbian nationalism; 2. “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” and (Kosovar) Albanians are consequently an existential threat; and 3. Ideological treatment of the politics of remembrance and historical revisionism of crimes committed by Serb forces during the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo in order to reaffirm the Greater Serbia project.

Współczesna polityka Turcji wobec Bałkanów Zachodnich

The author analyzes Turkey’s foreign policy since the Second World War, focusing primarily on the departure from the principles of Kemalism that have been taking place in the last 40 years. The best example of this is the diplomatic activities undertaken by the Justice and Development party, which won power in this country at the beginning of the 21st century and continues to enjoy the support of the majority of Turkish society. One of its political goals is to rebuild the country’s economic potential on the grounds that once belonged to the Ottoman Empire. For its implementation, it uses the tools of the soft power policy, based on the sentiment towards history among Balkan Muslims.

Settlement Law of 1934: Turkish Nationalism in the Age of Revisionism

There is a strong tendency in Turkish historiography to approach Kemalist policies as purely domestic affairs that emanate from the centre in a top-down manner, reflecting the clear ideological positions of Ankara. The existing scholarship on the Settlement Law (1934), too, has read the development of Kemalist demographic policies in ideological terms, framing them in top-down modernist trajectories that were long in the making since the late Ottoman times. These perspectives often remained analytically singular and nation-centred, failing to engage with the broader transnational developments that were in fact crucial to the making and timing of a range of Kemalist policies. As such, the processes of demographic engineering are framed as devoid of historical conjuncture and immune from unintended consequences or the constraints presented by state capacity. In this article, I seek to overcome such limitations by situating the Settlement Law within its due transnational context of heightened interstate rivalries since the 1930s. Unfolding in myriad ways across the borderlands of Eastern Europe, the complex dynamics of interstate competition created the necessary push and pull factors that started dislodging the Balkan Muslims from those areas coveted by various territorially revisionist states in the region. The demographic engineering their arrival triggered in Turkey, I argue, was therefore as much national as international.

A historical review of Mevlud, the most popular poem of Alhamiado literature

Mevlud is a poem on the birth of Muhammed, the Prophet. The first Mevlud poem was written by Sulejman Celebi, in 1409, under the title ?Vesiletu?n Nedzat? in Bursa, meaning the ?The Means of Salvation?. The word mevlud (Ar. mawlid) means ?a place or time of someone?s birth?. This expression has acquired different meanings in time, as ?the birth of the Prophet Muhammed? and ?the celebration organised on this occasion?, or during more significant events in life of the Muslims and their families. The Mevlud celebration i.e. the Mevlud poem as its central part, can be considered as a cultural form preserving the tradition of love towards the Prophet Muhammed, love towards God, and certianly, the tradition of mutual love among people. With this paper, we want to present the most beautiful Mevlud poems in our language and their significance in the life and culture of the Balkan Muslims. The paper is interdisciplinary and it shall follow the historical development of Mevlud, its literature-historical position within the Alhamiado literature, and the custom practice of Mevlud, as a celebration with its ethnological significance.

The Balkan Wars: An Expected Opportunity for Ethnic Cleansing

The Balkan states in 1912 created a system of alliances ultimately aimed at the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkan territory and from Europe. The changes that happened during the Balkan wars in the Macedonian territory were far-reaching. Balkan Muslims largely left the areas that they had settled for centuries. The Christian population that was part of the Ottoman Empire before the wars, having certain rights and customs and a large amount of problems (lingering Ottoman feudalism, the non-existence of security, be it from the Komitadji groups of the neighboring countries, or from the vengeful Turkish persecutions), had hoped for the war to bring liberation and better life conditions. The initial enthusiasm was very quickly replaced by the fight for mere survival as well as the loss of rights and customs that the “millet” system has continuously nurtured under the Ottoman Empire. The “liberators” were often wrong (the others), which led to large migrations among the Christian population of the Balkan states. The ethnic image of the Balkans changed completely and those who remained in their homes and survived the war most often did not have any minority rights and were subjected to assimilation. The situation was most drastic in Aegean Macedonia, which in a little more than a decade changed from multinational environment to an area almost completely inhabited by the Greeks.

Između deosmanizacije i balkanizacije: muhadžirske dionice bošnjačke historije

The past and the present are inseparable, one interprets the other. Many "long-lasting" processes go beyond local frameworks and regional borders. This also applies to the complex "Eastern question", as well as the problem of the deosmanization of the Balkans, whose political geography in the 19th and 20th centuries was exposed to radical overlaps. Wars and persecutions are important factors in the history of Balkan Muslims. In the seventies of the XIX century, they constituted half of the population in the Ottoman part of the Balkans. With war devastation, a considerable part was killed or expelled to Anadolia between 1870 and 1890. The emergent "Turkish islands" in the Balkans after 1878 were increasingly narrowed, or disappeared due to the displacement of Muslims. Multiethnic and religious color of the Balkans disturbed accounts with simple categorizations. The term "balkanization" signified, after the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, "not only the fragmentation of large and powerful political units, but became synonymous with returning tribal, backward, primitive, and barbaric." The Balkanization of "Ottoman Europe" and the violent changes in its ethnic-religious structure led to discontinuity, the erosion of history, as well as fragmentation of the minds of the remaining Muslims and their afflicted communities, the lack of knowledge of the interconnectedness of their fates. The emigration of Bosniaks and other Muslims of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds from the Balkans to various parts of the Ottoman Empire, and then to Turkey, during the XIX and XX centuries, had a number of consequences.

The Balkan Jihad: Recruitment to Violent Extremism and Issues Facing Returning Foreign Fighters in Kosovo and Southern Serbia

Abstract The participation of predominantly young, Balkan Muslims in the Syrian and the Iraq conflict has become a dangerous trend. Equally alarming is the fact that many youth in the region continue to separate themselves from the mainstream religious community and move to supporting conservative Islamic ideas that cater to jihadist narratives. Drawing from the authors' recent fieldwork in the Balkans, this article addresses the issues of radicalization leading to violence and suggests ways to strengthen current counter radicalization and reintegration policies, including improving the community's resistance in Kosovo and the Southern Serbian Sandjak region. The authors highlight that while “hard” power measures that focus on intelligence activities and attacking extremist ideologies are important, other counterterrorism programs that address prevention, intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration of those already on the extremist trajectory must also be considered.

Europe’s Balkan Muslims. A New History. By Nathalie Clayer and Xavier Bougarel. Translated by Andrew Kirby

Europe’s Balkan Muslims. A New History. By Nathalie Clayer and Xavier Bougarel. Translated by Andrew Kirby

Europe’s Balkan Muslims: A New HistoryBy Nathalie Clayer and Xavier Bougarel, translated by Andrew Kirby

Europe’s Balkan Muslims: A New History By Nathalie Clayer and Xavier Bougarel, translated by Andrew Kirby

Modern Muslim Thought in the Balkans: The Writings of Mehmed ef. Handžić in the El-Hidaje Periodical in the Context of Discrimination and Genocide

The withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries left a significant impact on the population of the region, especially on the Muslims. Muslim intellectual life was strongly influenced by the arrival of a new political and social order and cultural and religious value system. During this period, Balkan Muslims painfully and irreversibly became an administrative part of Europe. The aim of this paper is to examine the main themes which characterized the writings of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals in the post-Ottoman period, particularly on the eve of and during the Second World War. This work examines the writings of Mehmed Handžić, a prominent Bosnian scholar that were published in the El-Hidaje Periodical from 1939 to 1945. The paper brings the scholar's views and commentaries on a variety of topics such as the impoverished Muslim state, the history of Islam and Muslims, and patriotism and nationalism from the Muslim point of view. In most ofHandžić’swritings the focus is on Muslim intellectual responses to the new political and social changes as well as challenges of the ongoing Second World War. However, hiswritings and reflections continue to have far-reaching effects on Bosnian Muslims and remain relevant to the Bosnian Muslim situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century as the world observes the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in 2015.

Islamic factor in the West Balkans in geopolitical concepts of western powers and Islamic centers of power

Civilizational stereotypes of the ideological incompatibility and traditional discord of Christian and Islamic civilizations cannot explain the occasional partnership arrangements in the Balkans between the great powers of Western (post)Christian civilization and religious and political centers of Islamic civilization, as well as the Western powers' assuming the role of protector of Balkan Muslims in conflicts with local Christians. This phenomenon is still evident in a specific Balkan territorial whole called the 'Western Balkans'. It is populated with substantial and influential Muslim minority, and is characterized by its political, economic and security instability. Acknowledging the civilizational postulates in explaining the social phenomena, the explanation of this phenomenon should, however, be looked for in the sphere of rational and piercingly realistic geopolitical views of great Western powers directed towards the Balkans, as well as the role of the Islamic factor in their geopolitical concepts. Therefore, this paper, through an analysis of the impact of certain aspects of the Islamic factor on the most important features of the geopolitical position of the 'Western Balkans', seeks to more closely, through the prism of geopolitical observations, explain and predict further courses of development of the civilizationally inconceivable geopolitical alliances in this area.

The Balkans and Syria’s Civil War: Realities and Challenges

The prime objective of this research paper is to look at the realities and challenges confronting the Balkan states and societies in light of Syria’s civil war. By examining the mobilization process of Balkan militants who are joining Syria’s rebel cause, especially the Islamic radical groups linked to al-Qaeda, this paper proposes a model that explains why and how Balkan militants are joining the fight in Syria. Drawing upon reliable media reports, personal observations, academic accounts, and other consistent sources, this paper argues that Balkan militants are joining Syria’s rebel cause because foreign Islamic radical groups (that have been operating in the Balkans since the early 1990s) have successfully indoctrinated them. This paper challenges the argument that Islam in the Balkans is a threat to the region, and the claim that Balkan Islam and Muslims in the region are becoming an increasing threat to the West. The central findings of this paper exemplify that the future of Balkan militants is bleak and that they will be confronted with a massive modern and democratic resistance that offers them nothing but reintegration into Balkan Islam, their natural “religious nest.” Notwithstanding the trends related to Syria’s civil war, Balkan Muslims belong to the West, culturally and mentally.

Muslims' support for European integration: the role of organizational capacities

What explains Islamic organizations' differing support for European integration and the democratic reforms that it entails? The question is highly relevant in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans as well as theoretical debates on reasons and forms of Islamic moderation. Yet, almost no comparative research has been done on Balkan Muslims' support for European integration with the exception of the Turkish case. This article explores the role of interest- and belief-related factors in explaining Muslim organizations' differential support for the EU accession project in Albania and Turkey. The comparison of the most powerful Muslim organizations in both countries enables a most similar cases research design – our cases are similar in all aspects of the identified theoretical framework except for organizational capacities, which we argue explain the difference of attitudes towards the EU.

Anti-Turkish obsession and the exodus of Balkan Muslims

ABSTRACT Drakulic examines the socio-historical grounding of Christian Slavs’ prejudices against their Muslim ethno-linguistic kin in the Balkans, manifested in attempts at the latter's eradication in the region. His focus is on former Yugoslav republics, and his main argument is that Slav Muslims were ostracized due to a coalescence of ethnic and religious identities that transformed them from indigenous Slavs to quasi-Turks, repugnant to their Christian neighbours, and to political reversals that demoted them from ethno-religious majority to a regional minority. Their association with the Ottoman theocracy—perceived as oppressive, discriminatory and intolerable by the Balkan Christians—thus made them appear as ethno-religious quislings, to be eradicated in the struggle for liberation from Turkish rule.

La magie parmi les populations balkaniques : convergences et divergences

There is still a lot to do in the field of research on magic in South-Eastern Europe. In generai, the Muslim world shows a complexity incomparably larger than what one can observe among Christians. This is as well the case among Balkan Muslims because, among Muslims, magic rests on a literature, at the same time old and abundant, and on very varied and elaborate practices, linked in particularto beliefs in the numerical value of the letters and to the existence of the djinns. However, there are similar elements between Muslim and Christian practices. It is indeed not exceptional to see the faithful of one religion coming to consult specialists of another religion. This article undertakes a comparison of magie practiced among Muslims and Christians of the former Yugoslavia. Two kind of magie are studied : on one side, the non-religious magie (the « evil eye » and the use of non-religious amulets and talismans) and, on the other side, religious magie.

Aftermaths of Empire and the unmixing of peoples: Historical and comparative perspectives

Abstract This article provides a historical and comparative analysis of post‐imperial migrations of ethnic unmixing. It examines the post‐Soviet migration of ethnic Russians to Russia in the light of the migrations of other once‐dominant ‘new minorities’ engendered by transitions from multinational empire to incipient nation‐states: Balkan Muslims during and after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Hungarians after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and Germans after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the German Kaiserreich.

Religious and national identity among the Balkan muslims : a comparative study on Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Kosovo

In cases where the religion of the dominant nation is different than that of the dominated, the religion of the latter contributes to comforting its nationalism or at least its national identity. This is proven by the experience of the Turks in the Balkans. Using the Islamic religion, the Turks, who are by far the most numerous and prosperous Muslim minority in Greece and Bulgaria, have successfully attempted to assimilate the Pomak minority in Greece and, to a certain extent, in Bulgaria. On the other hand the Albanians, by far the most numerous Islamic element in Macedonia and Kosovo, are assimilating the Turks in the former and even more so in the latter by using religious affinities.

Religious and national identity among the Balkan muslims : A comparative study on Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Kosovo

In cases where the religion of the dominant nation is different than that of the dominated, the religion of the latter contributes to comforting its nationalism or at least its national identity. This is proven by the experience of the Turks in the Balkans. Using the Islamic religion, the Turks, who are by far the most numerous and prosperous Muslim minority in Greece and Bulgaria, have successfully attempted to assimilate the Pomak minority in Greece and, to a certain extent, in Bulgaria. On the other hand the Albanians, by far the most numerous Islamic element in Macedonia and Kosovo, are assimilating the Turks in the former and even more so in the latter by using religious affinities.