Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation

Köksal, Yonca

doi:10.1080/14683850601016390

Cited by 47 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Whereas Muslims were a privileged group during the Ottoman era, which lasted between 1396 and 1878, they were excluded from the modernizing nation-building that followed Bulgarian independence (Neuburger 2004, 3). The reconstruction of the religious boundary between Christians and Muslims along linguistic lines during post-Ottoman nationalization (Todorova 1998, 476; Köksal, 2006, 507) produced a Muslim, Turkish-speaking “other” in the then young nation-state, where Bulgarian was the official language and Orthodox Christianity the state religion. While the new focus on language did not erase the religious boundary between Christians and Muslims (Todorova 1997, 177), it added a central identity marker that came to be targeted politically alongside religion.…”

Section: Boundary Processes Toward Minorities In Bulgariamentioning

confidence: 99%

Boundaries and Belonging Among Settled Minorities and Refugees in Bulgaria

Carlsson

2022

Nationalities Papers

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The importance of settled minorities for facilitating refugee belonging is seldom discussed in research on refugee integration. Drawing on scholarship on belonging, boundary-making, and bordering, this study investigates how boundaries are drawn between settled minorities and refugees in Bulgaria. Based on interviews with integration workers and organizations of settled minorities in a state with the largest historically present Muslim minority in the EU, an Arabic-speaking diaspora settled decades ago, and with minimal state involvement in refugee integration, the study shows how spatial, linguistic, and religious boundaries separate settled minorities from newly arrived refugees. Arabic-speaking diasporas are nevertheless witnessed to overcome the boundaries through geographical proximity, a shared language, and shared countries of origin, whereby they have functioned as facilitators of refugee belonging and inclusion. Furthermore, Muslim institutions led by Bulgarian Turks have functioned as spaces for refugee belonging. The study finds that settled minority communities have, despite multiple boundaries and some assimilatory discourses, contributed to refugee belonging in ways that in part has compensated for the state absence. The study calls for further research investigating the role of settled minorities in inclusionary processes in society.

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Section: Boundary Processes Toward Minorities In Bulgariamentioning

confidence: 99%

Boundaries and Belonging Among Settled Minorities and Refugees in Bulgaria

Carlsson

2022

Nationalities Papers

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“…Köksal (: 517), for example, treats the millet system as an important factor, especially in the early years of state formation. The Ottoman millet system according to this view operated as a critical antecedent that combined with factors such as ruling elite competition, responses of minority groups, legal definitions and international pressure to shape the later trajectory of government policies towards minorities.…”

Section: Varieties Of Ottoman Legacy Claims Concerning Nation‐buildinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nation‐building policies in the Balkans: an Ottoman or a manufactured legacy?

Mylonas

2019

Nations and Nationalism

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Are post‐Ottoman nation‐building policies in the Balkans a legacy of the millet system? Some contend that the discriminatory nation‐building policies along religious lines employed by Balkan nations ruling elites are a legacy of the Ottoman era millet system (administration by religious affiliation); others argue that the Ottoman legacy is palpable in the millet‐like features preserved in the minority rights protection system resulting from World War I, and yet other scholars see the millet system as a critical antecedent. Studying closely the policies towards non‐core groups in the post‐Ottoman Balkans, one finds that the ‘Ottoman legacy’ is much more differentiated than is commonly assumed and that effects vary widely from place to place. Moreover, I argue that the persistence of certain features from one period to another may be an actual legacy in some cases, but there is also a possibility that we are dealing with a manufactured legacy, where elites choose to intervene and perpetuate an institution or a particular feature of it. I empirically demonstrate this distinction in a crucial case using archival sources.

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“…These earlier treaties also show a great degree of continuity with Ottoman imperial practices (Köksal 2006). The millet system, which gave local autonomy to religious communities in religious practice, endowments, education and justice in the Ottoman Empire, was emulated for the Muslim minorities both in Greece and Bulgaria.…”

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confidence: 95%

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

Barlas

Köksal

2014

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

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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.

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Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation

Cited by 47 publications

References 14 publications

Boundaries and Belonging Among Settled Minorities and Refugees in Bulgaria

Boundaries and Belonging Among Settled Minorities and Refugees in Bulgaria

Nation‐building policies in the Balkans: an Ottoman or a manufactured legacy?

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

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