Turkish Minority In Bulgaria Research Articles

Being Identified as a Double Threat to Communism and Nationalism: Dissidents from the Turkish Minority in Bulgaria During 1984-1990’s and the Archival Resources

Les politiques menées dans la Bulgarie communiste pour créer une société sans classes ont entraîné une fragmentation profonde de la population bulgare. L’identité ethnique et religieuse de la minorité turque a été perçue comme une menace. Aussi, une campagne a été menée pour remplacer les noms turcs par des noms bulgares. Les politiques oppressives du parti communiste bulgare ont créé des sentiments hostiles dans la minorité turque avec le « processus de renaissance ». Les revendications démocratiques n’étaient pas bien accueillies par le gouvernement et certains dissidents furent emprisonné, d’autres envoyés en exil. Les manifestations massives contre le gouvernement communiste ont eu un impact catastrophique sur le régime communiste dans le pays, et ont mis fin au régime totalitaire.

“Sizler de Unutmayın Beni Türkiye’deki Kardeşlerim": Yeniden Doğmak Dizisi ve Duygu Politikası

Bulgaristan, 1984-1985 kışında Türk azınlığa karşı yürüttüğü asimilasyon politikalarını had safhaya vardırır. Halterci Naim Süleymanoğlu’nun 1986 yılında Türkiye’ye iltica etmesi, Bulgaristan-Türkiye ilişkilerini iyice gerginleştirir. Türkiye Radyo Televizyon Kurumu (TRT), 1987 yılında Bulgaristan’ın asimilasyon politikalarını konu edinen Yeniden Doğmak dizisini yayınlamaya başlar. Kızlarını geride bırakarak Türkiye’ye göç eden parçalanmış bir ailenin hikâyesini ön plana çıkaran dizi, Türk halkının milliyetçi duygularını harekete geçirerek iki ülke arasında diplomatik bir krize yol açar. Bulgaristan’la yapılan pazarlıklar sonucu, hikâyenin ilham kaynağı olan Aysel Özgür’ün serbest bırakılması karşılığında dizi yayından kaldırılır. Yeniden Doğmak dizisi aracılığıyla yaratılan duygusal atmosfer, Bulgaristan’ın Türk azınlığa karşı yürüttüğü asimilasyon politikalarının hem ulusal hem de uluslararası ölçekte tartışılmasını sağlar. Televizyonun ve dramanın gücünden yararlanarak gerçekleştirilen bu proje, aslında kitlelerin duygularını manipüle eden politik bir etkinliktir. Dönemin Başbakanı Turgut Özal, tüm siyasi kariyeri boyunca iktidarını tıpkı çağdaşları Ronald Reagan ve Margaret Thatcher gibi duygu politikaları ile sürdürmeye çalışmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Özal’ın Bulgaristan’daki Türk azınlık konusunda yürüttüğü duygu politikasını Yeniden Doğmak dizisi ekseninde incelemektir. Nitel bir perspektifle yürütülen çalışmada, dizinin anlatı analizi gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çerçevede, duygulanımsal medya iktidarına ve duygunun ideolojiden çok daha önemli bir rolü olduğuna vurgu yapan Brian Massumi’nin argümanlarından yola çıkılmıştır.

Discrimination Issue Toward the Turkish Minority in Bulgaria in the Post-1989 Era

Minorities are vulnerable populations that can often be subjected to oppression, assimilation, and discrimination within their countries. The term minorities, as used here, refer to groups that are fewer in number, non-dominant, and have characteristics than differ from the majority in a country. This study aims to analyze the Turkish minority in Bulgaria with respect to the issue of discrimination in the post-communist period, the period after 1989. The framework of discrimination was used to involve legal, economic, and cultural discrimination. As for the methodology, the study relied on in-depth interviews in Bulgaria, based on snowball sampling. In addition, relevant secondary data was also used as needed. The findings of the study show that a certain degree of progress has been made in the positions of the Turkish minority in the post-communist period, but the minority still suffers some degree of legal, economic, and cultural discriminations. Certain suggestions have also identified to overcome the issue of discrimination in concluding the study.

Inclusion and Exclusion: Image and Perceptions of Turkish Migrants in Bulgaria and Turkey

This paper deals with the image and perceptions that Turkish migrants from Bulgaria had about the Turks in Turkey, the Turkish state, Bulgarians, and the Bulgarian state both before and after 1989. Perceptions of the Turkish minority among the Bulgarian communist elite are analysed according to published reports and statements made by Bulgarian Communist Party members. The perceptions that Turkish migrants had about Bulgaria and Turkey are the main focus of this study which is based on field research and interviews conducted with Turkish migrants from Bulgaria now living in Turkey. This article shows that these migrants held both positive and negative perceptions of Bulgaria and Turkey, largely depending on the context. The Turkish minority in Bulgaria was regarded as a problem for the Communist government and as an in-ternal enemy to the Bulgarian state. Moreover, the locals in Turkey regarded the Turkish migrants from Bulgaria as “Bulgarian migrants” who possessed a non-Muslim or “liberal” culture. In this way, they experienced exclusionary attitudes from their neighbours both in Bulgaria and in Turkey. The Turks of Bulgaria perceived the Communist regime as oppressive and as a threat to their Turkish identity. Despite their dislike of the regime, prior to the period of forced assimilation that began in 1984, they still possessed a relatively positive perception about the Bulgarian people. Interestingly, while they perceive Turkey as their homeland, they nonetheless held certain prejudices against the local population in Turkey. All of these various interaction helped to strengthen their group identity as migrants from Bulgaria.This paper deals with the image and perceptions that Turkish migrants from Bulgaria had about the Turks in Turkey, the Turkish state, Bulgarians, and the Bulgarian state both before and after 1989. Perceptions of the Turkish minority among the Bulgarian communist elite are analysed according to published reports and statements made by Bulgarian Communist Party members. The perceptions that Turkish migrants had about Bulgaria and Turkey are the main focus of this study which is based on field research and interviews conducted with Turkish migrants from Bulgaria now living in Turkey. This article shows that these migrants held both positive and negative perceptions of Bulgaria and Turkey, largely depending on the context. The Turkish minority in Bulgaria was regarded as a problem for the Communist government and as an internal enemy to the Bulgarian state. Moreover, the locals in Turkey regarded the Turkish migrants from Bulgaria as “Bulgarian migrants” who possessed a non-Muslim or “liberal” culture. In this way, they experienced exclusionary attitudes from their neighbours both in Bulgaria and in Turkey. The Turks of Bulgaria perceived the Communist regime as oppressive and as a threat to their Turkish identity. Despite their dislike of the regime, prior to the period of forced assimilation that began in 1984, they still possessed a relatively positive perception about the Bulgarian people. Interestingly, while they perceive Turkey as their homeland, they nonetheless held certain prejudices against the local population in Turkey. All of these various interaction helped to strengthen their group identity as migrants from Bulgaria.

Partie tworzące koalicję Zjednoczonych Patriotów (2016− 2019) wobec mniejszości tureckiej i Republiki Turcji

The aim of this paper is to identify the individual political elements of the United Patriots’ coalition. The nationalist electoral alliance formed in 2016 by Attack, the IMRO -Bulgarian National Movement and National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria took a part of the third Boyko Borissov government. Starting this new partnership with the populist radical right, the GER B has resigned from promoting EU values, including minorities’ rights, much more than before. This coalition established xenophobia and making racists statements as a standard of Bulgarian parliamentary discussion. Its attitude towards the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and the Republic of Turkey shows hostility and prejudice.

The Labyrinth of Genealogy: Poetry of Mehmet Karahüseyinov (1980-1990)

The article analyzes poems written by Mehmet Karahüseyinov (1945-1990) in the context of socio-political phenomena in Bulgaria of the 19980s and 1990s. In Karahüseyinov’s poetry, echoes are found of both the “Revival Process” and the “Big Excursion”, as well as of the fall of communism in Bulgaria as a point in history. Autobiographical perspective is of equal importance in the poems: in 1985, in the wake of the last stage of the “Revival Process”, the poet attempted self-immolation. This liminal experience, set in a wider context of what it means to be a representative of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the late socialist period, permeates all of Karahüseyinov’s poetry at the time. The article’s methodological axis is a genealogical approach as formulated by Michel Foucault, who, informed by Nietzsche’s thought, wrote of an image of the body utterly marked by history. The body is thus an area which – also in the non-figurative, material dimension – enters the gears of history and where history leaves its marks, and the scarred bodily area becomes a map of a personal and entangled genealogy.

Accommodation of Minorities in Nation-States during the Twentieth Century: The Turkish Minority in Bulgaria and the Policies of Communist Rule between 1945 and 1989

Accommodation of Minorities in Nation-States during the Twentieth Century: The Turkish Minority in Bulgaria and the Policies of Communist Rule between 1945 and 1989

THE CLASH BETWEEN LATIN AND ARABIC ALPHABETS AMONG THE TURKISH COMMUNITY IN BULGARIA IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

In this article, I will address the topic of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the interwar period through the interpretive lens of the “linguistic” or better “alphabetic” rights,[1] placed in the context of the “Latinization” processes taking place in the wide Eurasian space, as well of the post-imperial sociopolitical dynamics.[2]To this aim, I describe the interesting and little known case of the writing practices of the Turkish community in Bulgaria in the period between the two world wars. In particular, I take into account the repercussions of Atatürk’s alphabetical reform in Bulgaria, demonstrating how the adoption of the Latin alphabet in Turkey represented a significant challenge for the country, triggering the fears of both the Bulgarian authorities and of the more conservative factions of the local Turkish community. In this context, I analyze the attitudes towards the Arabic and the Latin alphabet employed to write the Turkish language in the Balkan country, illustrating the reasons for the prohibition of the Turkish Latin alphabet, in an unprecedented combination of interests between Bulgarian authorities and Islamic religious leaders. I will try to show how in that specific historical moment, writing systems, far from being “neutral” communication elements, lent themselves to various manipulations of an ideological and political nature.My paper does not intend to represent a comprehensive contribution to the analysis of the complex subject of this community’s religious or political identity, but it rather aims to shed light on the limitations faced by the Turks of Bulgaria in terms of their linguistic rights in a period when other communities in Southeast Europe were encountering similar difficulties.[3] [1] See on the topic Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination, (ed.) Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 1994. [2] See Valeri Stoyanov, “Die Türkische Minderheit Bulgariens bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges”, ВАЛЕРИСТИКА ПОЛИХИСТОРИКА-2. Избрани приноси към гранични области на историята, Институт за исторически изследвания при БАН, Sofia 2011, pp. 349-373. [3] As in the case that I will later discuss of the education policies for the Slavophone minority in Aegean Macedonia, Greece in the 1920s.

Forgotten Three Great Political Assassinations Towards Turkish Minority in Bulgaria

After leaving the administration of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish population in Bulgaria had encountered a variety of oppression, intimidation and displacement methods during the separation process during the Ottoman Russian War of 1877- 1878 and later on. The situation of Turkey, which was relatively good in the early years of the Republic of Turkey after World War I, began to deteriorate from the late 1920s on account of the hostile aggressive attitudes of the ultra- nationalist Bulgarian organizations. In this period, especially the leaders of the Turkish minority were targeted and numerous assassinations took place. However, when we look at today, about most of these murders have not received enough information. It was possible to conduct research about three assassinations we investigated in our work, because of the presence of archival materials and, in part, their reflection on the press. In addition, these assassinations took place in the Rhodopes region in southern Bulgaria, where the mojority of the Turkish population is located. Hasan and Fevzi Beyler, who are in the position of the head of the township, and Hüseyin Galibov a deputy in the Bulgarian parliament of the time, were tried to be illuminated in the direction of the sources of return.

TURKISH MINORITY IN BULGARIA: MAIN STAGES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION

The Balkan region, known as the «powder keg of Europe», is one of the most controversial regions with complex tangle of ethnic groups and religions. The problem of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria has its roots directly in the creation of the Bulgarian nation-state in 1878. Initially, the Turks had sufficiently broad rights, but after World War II, their situation has steadily deteriorated. The reasons are linked with the international situation of Cold War — where Bulgaria and Turkey belonged to opposing blocs — and internal political and ideological factors. Broad criticism on the part of the international community has undergone so called «Revival Process» — a large-scale campaign of assimilation of Turkish and Muslim population in Bulgaria 1984–1989. Today Turkish ethnic group enjoys broad rights in education, religion,politically represented in parliament and is an integral part of Bulgarian society. In terms of the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans of the 1990s, Bulgaria has demonstrated striking example of the successful integration of ethnic minorities into society.

Ethnocultural Voting? Explaining Ethnic Minority Preferences in Bulgarian Elections

Conventional models of electoral choice explain the ethnic minority vote as a product of nonideological factors, primarily ethnic identities. However, the voting preferences of the minority electorate based on their policy and attitudinal dimensions have not been systematically studied. How are minority interests represented in politics? Although their culturally based proximity to ethnic parties and minority representatives is well established, may we expect the electoral preferences of minorities to also reflect policy positions, economic concerns, or political attitudes? This article sets out to examine the sources and intensity of the electoral preferences of minority voters on the example of electoral support for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), a party traditionally regarded as a representative of the ethnic Turkish minority in Bulgaria, a less conventional case of minority participation in politics. Based on analysis of survey data, the article demonstrates that the preferences of the ethnic minority electorate are also the product of policy positions, economic interests, and political attitudes overlapping with social identities. It concludes that the representation of the ethnic minorities through an ethnopolitical party is a stable outcome reflecting the interests of minority voters.

Turkey’s foreign policy towards Bulgaria and the Turkish minority (1923–1934)

This article sets out to study relations between Turkey and Bulgaria during the Inter-war period of 1923–1934 and its effects on the Turkish minority living in Bulgaria. In bringing international, national and community level dynamics together, it will attempt to show how the relations developed between the Republic of Turkey and Bulgaria affected the conditions of the Turkish minority. Once the diplomatic relationship was established between the two states, Ankara and Sofia made efforts to constrain deliberately the influence of the minority issue on these relations. Consequently, this article asserts that the Turkish minority in Bulgaria constituted rarely, if ever, a factor in its own right that could influence the nature and the direction of the two countries’ bilateral relationship for much of the Inter-war era. However, the Bulgarian government began to exert pressure on the Turkish minority, when bilateral relations showed signs of deterioration. Additionally, this article also demonstrates how the reaction of other Balkan countries to regional and international developments had an impact on Turkish–Bulgarian relations and made minorities susceptible to ebbs and flows in bilateral relations.

Transnational networks and kin states: the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, 1878–1940

This paper focuses on the development of national identity and the formation of political organizations in the Turkish minority in the early years of the formation of the Bulgarian state from 1878 to the 1940s. It studies transnational aspects of nationalism, which is usually considered territorially bounded, by studying the impact of connections between the Turkish minority and the Ottoman Empire and later with Turkey. In addition to studying inter-state relations and their reflection in the legal and political sphere, this paper studies the flow of ideas across borders, transnational networks among political activists, and the resulting cleavage formation. Findings show that transnational connections and actors played dual roles. The circulation of political activists, contributed to the formation of national organizations which played a crucial role in (re)formulating national identity. Transnational connections increased political activity in the name of the Turkish minority. Through these organizations the community was able to make collective demands from the Bulgarian state. However, transnational connections carried debates and divisions in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. By dividing the community, they decreased the capacity for collective action.

Education and Turkish communities in Bulgaria in the years of transformation (1989–2007): a negotiated formal balance of educational outcomes

This paper on the education of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the years of transformation (1989–2007) aims to discuss the perceptions and experiences of minority members in schooling. After a succinct introduction into the historical development of minority education, the article focuses on research conducted among the Turkish communities in south‐east Bulgaria. This adopts as a theoretical starting point John Ogbu's cultural ecological theory of students' school achievements, and works with the methods of educational anthropology. On the basis of the collected field material, the article discusses the perceptions of the minority group about education and Turkish as the language of instruction, as well as the patterns of victimisation displayed by the three groups involved in schooling: teachers, parents and children. I conclude by stating that an apparent negotiated balance of educational outcomes is achieved between the groups, which addresses their short‐term interests. In the long run, however, minority children experience difficulties and are discriminated against. But despite all this, there are no open conflicts or protests on the side of the community, mainly because of the constant negotiating process taking place at the micro level.

Ambiguous nationalism? Explaining the parliamentary under-representation of Roma in Hungary and Romania

This article explores why Roma are under-represented in the national assemblies of Central and Eastern European states, using Romani political parties in Hungary and Romania as case studies. Specifically, I ask whether the absence of a clearly defined conception of Roma nationalism at the national and transnational level accounts for the under-representation of Roma in the Hungarian and Romanian parliaments. This ambiguous nationalism stands in contrast to invocations of nationalism by other minorities in the region, notably the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and the Hungarian minority in Romania, whose electoral support is contiguous to their respective demographic weights. Both of these minorities link nationalism to specific cultural interests whereas the interests of Roma tend to relate to socio-economic and political factors. Whilst many factors conspire to impede the appropriate political representation of Roma across Central and Eastern Europe, this article seeks to shed light on the oft-neglected impact of Roma nationalism.

A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation by Eric D. s> Weitz (review)

REVIEWS 779 regard to questions of identity. ProfessorEberhardtdemonstrates that he is aware of these issues, but it could be argued that they are not examined in sufficientdepth. In termsof itsorganizationalstructure,the main body of theworkis divided into geopolitical sections, on a north-southcontinuum. So we begin with the Baltic states, and end with the Balkan countries. Each section contains an overview of the region, and the ethnographic composition of each country is then assessed. The initial assessment is of the situation at the turn of the twentieth century. The second examines the situationbetween the wars, and the third and final section looks at the post-war scenario. In all instances the text is complemented by a rich mixture of figures and tables. Unfortunately the concluding chapterswhich I had hoped would contain some substantive analysisof the natureand consequencesof themassivepopulationmovements, campaigns of ethnic cleansing and outright genocide that marred the region throughout almost the entire course of the twentieth centurydo not reallydo that. Instead, more than anything else they are summaries of earlier observationsand findingswith some additionalbriefcomment. Each region receives appropriatetreatment, and in general is dealt with in an even-handed manner. Neither nations as collective entities, nor followers of given ideologies are singled out eitherfor specialpraise, or are condemned for having perpetratedparticularexcesses. Of all the geopolitical areas under consideration, only with the section on the Balkans, and in particular the former Yugoslavstates did I feel uncomfortable. It simply is not sufficientto say that 'The immediate causes of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina were ethnic conflicts' (p. 395). In addition, the author seems to be unaware of the mass conversion of the Bogomils to Islam, and of the ambiguous relationship between Christianity and Islam in southern former Yugoslavia that until recently meant that in some areas individuals could effectively practice versionsof both faithswithout any apparentcontradiction.His understanding of the pressures faced by the Turkish minority in Bulgaria throughout the entireperiod of Communist ruleseems similarlyslight(pp. 4'5- I6). We should, however, close on a more positive note. This work constitutes an invaluable resource for political scientists, students of international relations, political geographers, ethnographers and those with a particular interest in the study of nationalism. Finally, the generally superb translation on the partofJan Owsinskideservesthe praisethat it is due. School ofSociology, PoliticsandLaw KARL CORDELL University ofPlymouth Weitz, Eric D. A Centugy of Genocide: Utopiasof Race andNation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2003. vii + 360 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?I9.gs. THEtwentieth centuryis commonly regardedas a centuryof genocide. Yetas a field of comparative analysisit is still in its relative infancy. Pioneer studies notably by Leo Kuper, and Helen Fein in the I980s, in some respects, have not been notably superseded, though the weight of scholarly works on 780 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 genocide, as opposed specifically to the Holocaust, is now beginning to burgeon. In thisrespectEricWeitz'scontributionis a very significantone. His four primary case studiesjuxtapose Nazi Germany with Communist states, more specificallyStalinistRussia, Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the Serbia of Milosevic. And Weitz goes to considerablelengthsto show how these all were or became state-societies notably fixated on the creation of homogeneous Utopias, thusby implicationaccounting at least in considerablepart for their tendencies to mass purge population groups who did not fit their homogenizing criteria. Within this frame Weitz develops a very tight, cogent and unusuallyfluent analysisfounded on very well researched but judiciously selected secondary sources and with results which repeatedly highlight the parallels as well as provide a markedcounterpointbetween his examples. He furtheranchorsthis argumentby creatinga general methodology within which each case-studyis developed, resulting in each chapter in sections on 'Power and Utopia', 'Categorising the Population', 'Population Purge', including 'The Ultimate Purge' and finallythe 'Rituals'of the process. This last section is particularly instructive as it aims to demonstrate that while genocide might be on one level in Weitz's view the product of 'totalitarian', even specifically 'revolutionary' states, it also has strong demotic undercurrents. Genocide, implies Weitz, embraces, involves and enthuses ordinary people to become participants.In otherwords, to actuallysucceed genocide can never be only a top-down affair or some product of state ideology pure and simple; on the contrary its drive and extraordinary violence reflects the ambitions and aspirations, sometimes...

Democratic transition in the Balkans: Romania's Hungarian and Bulgaria's Turkish minority (1989–99)

This article is a comparative analysis of the Hungarian minority in Romania and the Turkish minority in Bulgaria during the first ten years of their transition to democracy. Despite austere assimilationist campaigns during the communist‐era and the unstable political region of the Balkans in its post‐communist‐era, both countries have avoided protracted, inter‐ethnic violence. This article examines three internal factors that have played an instrumental role in facilitating democratic transitions in these plural societies: (i) state control of minorities; (ii) political institutions chosen for their nascent democracies; (iii) and the accommodative role of each minority's ethnopolitical party.

Turkish-Bulgarian relations in the post-c old war era the exemplary relationship in the Balkans

Turkish-Bulgarian relations have been full of fluctuations throughout the history, and they reached lowest point in the second part of 1980s. The assimilation campaign against Turkish minority in Bulgaria, which peaked in 1989 when Bulgaria forced hundreds of thousands of Turks to migrate to Turkey, caused a serious crisis in relations with Ankara. The assimilation process led to isolation of Bulgaria in the international arena, thus leading to overthrow of the Zhivkov regime. This was the turning point both in the modern history of Bulgaria and also Turkish-Bulgarian relations. The country entered a new era both in its domestic and foreign policies. With the end of the Cold War, it turned its face toward West and began to take steps to establish democratic political system and free market economic model. Similarly, its foreign policy priorities became integration to Western instituitions, especially NATO and the EU. Ali these changes in domestic and foreign policies have reflected in Turco-Bulgarian ties: The bilateral relations experienced an unexpected boost and the two countries become partners in many areas. Accordingly, this article tries to shed light on the changing state of Turkish-Bulgarian relations after the collapse of the bipolar vvorld order. It argues that the changes in Turco-Bulgarian relations prove the falsity of the ethnic-hatred theory often attributed to the Balkans. The improvement in ties between Ankara and Sofia shows that when there is an appropriate state of international affairs and rational leaders, Balkan countries can also achieve friendly relations

TURKISH-BULGARIAN RELATIONS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA : THE EXEMPLARY RELATIONSHIP IN THE BALKANS

Turkish-Bulgarian relations have been full of fluctuations throughout the history, and they reached lowest point in the second part of 1980s. The assimilation campaign against Turkish minority in Bulgaria, which peaked in 1989 when Bulgaria forced hundreds of thousands of Turks to migrate to Turkey, caused a serious crisis in relations with Ankara. The assimilation process led to isolation of Bulgaria in the international arena, thus leading to overthrow of the Zhivkov regime. This was the turning point both in the modern history of Bulgaria and also Turkish-Bulgarian relations. The country entered a new era both in its domestic and foreign policies. With the end of the Cold War, it turned its face toward West and began to take steps to establish democratic political system and free market economic model. Similarly, its foreign policy priorities became integration to Western instituitions, especially NATO and the EU. Ali these changes in domestic and foreign policies have reflected in Turco-Bulgarian ties: The bilateral relations experienced an unexpected boost and the two countries become partners in many areas. Accordingly, this article tries to shed light on the changing state of Turkish-Bulgarian relations after the collapse of the bipolar vvorld order. It argues that the changes in Turco-Bulgarian relations prove the falsity of the ethnic-hatred theory often attributed to the Balkans. The improvement in ties between Ankara and Sofıa shows that when there is an appropriate state of international affairs and rational leaders, Balkan countries can also achieve friendly relations

Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity

Dr. Akbar S. Ahmed is probably the most published author in Pakistan. His pub­lished works, some of which have earned excellent reviews, make a fonnidable list. Asperhaps the best known contemporary Muslim anthropologist, his commitment to the discipline,despite his avocation of being an administrator, is the key to his success. Whatsets Ahmed apart from most Pakistani authors is that his writings are informed by theoreticalconsiderations and anchored in empirical data. He exudes easy familiarity withmethodology, is creative and imaginative in his approach, and can conceptualize.Moreover, he can intellectu.alize problems and issues. As with his earlier writings, his presentwork is marked by these characteristics.
 The work is structured around one major theme (Jinnah), and the subthemes of thenature of nationhood, Islam, ethnic and religious identity, the problems of minorities, andthe pervasive and ubiquitous influence of media, race, empire, and other factors. Usingthe methodologies of cultural anthropology, semiotics, and media studies, Ahrnedexplores old ground with new insights and interpretations. What we have here is neitherbiography nor history per se; it is part biography, part history of partition, an explorationof Muslim nationhood and Pakistani statehood, and part the Muslim search for identity, aquest that not only inspired the Muslim struggle for Pakistan during the 1940% but whichis still relevant (e.g., northern Cyprus, Bosnia, Chechnia, Kashmir, Kosovo, Mindanao[the Philippines], Pattani [Thailand], and even for the Turkish minority in Bulgaria).All said and done, it was the critical problem of identity to which Jinnah addressedhimself in the Indian context of the 1930s and 1940s. Thus he represents not onlyPakistan, but also a manifestation of the very search for identity in the present largerMuslim world context. His solution to the problems of marginalization, alienation, andeven exclusion of Muslims from the corridors of power serves as a beacon to Muslimcommunities struggling for identity, self-expression, and self-realization. Hence the relevanceof Jinnah to the modem Muslim world ...