Talking War, “Seeing” Peace: Approaching the Pilgrimage of Krastova Gora (Bulgaria)

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the pilgrimage of Krastova Gora, in the Rhodopes mountains, which is by far the most popular Christian Orthodox pilgrimage in post‐communist Bulgaria. It delineates how a contested area, where Muslims and Orthodox Christians have lived side‐by‐side for decades, was constructed as the regional holy place and a sort of national “Jerusalem”. We show how this pilgrimage, triggered by the visions of an Orthodox visionary man in the 1930s, developed during the first post‐socialist decade to become a hallmark of the religious revival and religious cohabitation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted throughout the 1990s, we however focus on the messages of peace that coincided with the most dramatic time of the Yugoslav crisis, the war in Bosnia 1994–1995. Scrutinizing the multiple imaginings of Krastova Gora as a “haven of peace” and a source of divine grace, we unveil the impact of political events, social change and a certain vision of history in the construction of the pilgrimage site as a place of individual and national salvation.

Keywords:

• Ottoman Balkans
• Rhodopes
• Pomaks
• Conversion
• Orthodoxy
• Nationalism and Religion

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefited from the exchange with numerous Bulgarian colleagues who have shared observations and recorded material. We are grateful to W. A. Christian Jr., B. Lory and K. Kehl‐Bodrogy for commenting on the final draft.

Notes

[1] This paper is partly based on some preliminary results of field research programme “Krastova Gora: The Three Roads to the Top” (hereafter referred to as the KG Project) realised between 1993 and 1996 by a team of Bulgarian ethnographers and historians, with the support of the International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, Sofia, Bulgaria. As member of the team, M. Karamihova draws mainly on her own fieldwork, which is, however, difficult to dissociate from data resulting from the team's work, subsumed in Ivanova (2000). G. Valtchinova draws upon personal fieldwork done during two annual pilgrimages, in 1997 and 1999, and a few Friday pilgrimages.

[2] See all the contributions in Ivanova (2000). Other publications with extensive quotes of unpublished materials are Ivanova (1995, 2001); Grigorov (1998); Karamihova (1999) and Valchinova (1999).

[3] The name is derived form the river Jordan. In recent years, the name and every detail related to the visionary's life and personality are increasingly subject to manipulation and reinterpretation, in a distinctive hagiographic tonality.

[4] The mixed ethnic background, complementary local economies and changing political history of the region for the medieval period lato sensu (sixth to fourteenth century) are examined by Asdracha (1976). It should be remembered that the presence of Armenians and Paulicians (a dualist Christian sect), as well as of a small number of Catholics, in the religious landscape of the area is prior to the Ottoman period (Asdracha 1976: 71 sq., 143 sqq.).

[5] The evidence about heterodox Islam in the Rhodopes, perhaps among the Pomaks of the area is discussed in Gruev (2000); see also Karamihova (2002: 18).

[6] The first Bulgarian Constitution (1879) proclaimed Orthodoxy the official state religion. It was a top–down reversal of the legal status of Muslim population in the newborn Bulgarian Principalty, from a privileged class to a minority. The change led to a massive flight of the Muslim population and the loss of their lands and property during and in the aftermaths of the Liberation war (1878–79); the growing pressure of the Bulgarian Christian population vis‐a‐vis the Muslims living in towns and mixed rural areas, especially when land property issues were at stake; the progressive displacement of Bulgarian Pomak population to the Ottoman empire and to Turkey. These movements, not necessarily forced, were what R. Brubaker called “the unmixing of peoples” (Brubaker 1996: 148–178, especially 152–56). A specific reaction was the creation of a Pomak Republic in the authonomous region of Eastern Rumelia, in 1879. It remained a burning issue until 1886 and continued, in one form or another, until 1912 (Lory 1989).

[7] The issue of the clashes between Bulgarian and Greek nationalisms in the area, which are concentrated in the town of Assenovgrad and its area, is discussed in Baeva and Valtchinova elsewhere in this issue.

[8] For the Bulgarian–Greek border in post‐Ottoman times (since 1913) and the changes of the borderline in 1919/20, see Drury (1991: 9–16, Fig. 2); for the contemporary state of the border in its central section, see Drury (1991: 6–7, 20–21, Fig. 3). For the discourses developed among Pomak on the “border” and “isolation”, in the socialist and post‐socialist period, see Mihaylova (2003: 49–54).

[9] For the repartition of the Pomak group over Bulgaria, see Konstantinov and Alhaug (1995: 114–115). Around 85% of this group is concentrated in the western and central part of the Rhodopes mountains, where compact Pomak villages intermingle with Christian villages; for details see Apostolov (2001: ch. 2); Gruev (2003: 56–60). In the geographical and cultural continuity of this core Pomak group we find a smaller one in northern Greece: see Tsibiridou (2000). The Pomak populations of the Rhodopes have been concerned in a variety of ways by the Greek–Bulgarian territorial dispute of 1945–47: see Gruev (2003: 65–81). For a comparison of the perceptions of the Pomaks in both countries see Brunnbauer (2001).

[10] The obsession with the issue of conversion and its extreme ideological and political manipulations have led to the birth of alternative “theories” of the origins of Pomaks in post‐socialist times; for the different perspectives see Georgieva and Zhelyazkova (1994), with the widest range of identity options coupled with a careful ethnography, Konstantinov (1997), Todorova (1997).

[11] According to Bulgarian historians and ethnographers, kinship ties between Muslim and Christian families can be deduced from “technical” relationships such as the common use of meadows or of fruit trees. Such data have been recorded mainly by local historians, see Kanev (1973). It should be noted, however, that intermarriages between the Christian and Muslim Bulgarian‐speaking populations have remained extremely rare.

[12] Here we hint at the domestic theory of the “Bulgarian ethnic model”—or pattern of peaceful ethno‐religious cohabitation—which is supposed to be grounded on the traditional institution of the neighbourhood, the Ottoman komşuluk. This theory was promoted in the early 1990s by historians (see Georgieva [1994]) and sociologists (see Mitev [1994]) and enjoyed substantial scientific and political backing in the last decade.

[13] This assertion counters the current tendency to present Pomaks as always the “weak” group and the “Bulgarian majority” as always the strong and oppressive group; the “weapons of the weak” (in the sense of J. Scott [1985]) have been much more varied and inventive than some would have it.

[14] For the policies of “Rodina” towards the Pomaks in the Rhodopes, see Neuburger (2004: ch. 2); see Mancheva (2001) and Gruev (2003: 8–9, 91–95) (with literature) for a well‐balanced vision of domestic scholars.

[15] The facets of Bulgarian integrationist and assimilationist policies vis‐à‐vis the Pomaks are discussed by Konstantinov and Alhaug (1995); Konstantinov (1992, 1997); Gruev (2003); Karamihova (1999); Neuburger (2004).

[16] We hint at the campaign (1984–1989) of forced assimilation of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, popularly known as “the baptism of Turks”: see Poulton (1991: 129–151). Its impact for the change of political regime in the autumn of 1989 is recognized mostly by foreign scholars, see Poulton (1991: 159–161); Krasztev (2001: 204).

[17] It should be stressed, however, that this vision was shared by both Christian Bulgarians and Turks—the two communities with which Pomaks intermingled and were in continuous interaction—but for the opposite reasons: “imperfect Bulgarians” because Muslim for the former, they were “imperfect Turks” because Bulgarian‐speaking for the latter.

[18] For the shattered Pomak identity in Bulgaria as a result of contradictory policies see Brunnbauer (2001), Gruev (2003: 39–196); Karamihova (1999).

[19] On the new identifications and post‐socialist identity shifts among Bulgarian Pomaks see Konstantinov (1997), Balikci (1998), Todorova (1997). For a similar process observed among the Greek Pomaks, see Michail (2003).

[20] The issue of land property in an area of mixed population, very close to a “dangerous” national border, is more important than it seems; see Gruev (2003: 83–91). In recent years, it has been instrumentalized by nationalists of each side in a logic that D. Kaneff (1998) described by a happy formula, “When ‘land’ becomes ‘territory’”.

[21] Mechit: a small religious school in which men can pray except on Fridays. In contrast to what has been recorded elsewhere, the Pomak villages in the neighbourhood of the Cross Mountain had no mosques; most of the Pomak informants interviewed had no memory of the existence of village mosques. The lack of visible signs of Islam in these Pomak villages is an issue that requires a special study.

[22] Field data suggest that Yenihan baba is a legendary saint, imagined as a model for pious and ascetic Muslim and revered as a saintly protector of the area from disasters of all kinds. For the legends and beliefs about this saint, see Grigorov (1998: 554–558). It seems that its relationship to the legendary history of the Ottoman penetration in the Rhodopes, as well as the nickname of “Rhodopes' Mecca”, have been invented as responses to the nationalist struggles which have locally accompanied the transformation of Bulgarian‐speaking Christians into Bulgarians with a strongly affirmed national consciousness.

[23] See Grigorov (1998). In recent years, the restoration of Yenihan baba tekke patronized by the Turkish‐oriented party MRF (see note 41) has become a highly politicized issue, used by various nationalist groups.

[24] Another legendary Muslim saint, Sari baba, is one of the most popular figures of Muslim holy man in the Ottoman Balkans: tekkes dedicated to him can be found in a large area from Albania and western Macedonia to Bulgaria and south‐east Romania: see Clayer and Popovic (1995). For the tekke in question, see Grigorov (1998) and Ivanova (2001).

[25] Ethnographers who have done fieldwork before the mid‐nineties were regularly told by local people that “Krastov, Yenihan and Sari baba were brothers”: see Ivanova (1995); for other figures of kinship relating only Muslim saints venerated in various tekkes, see Grigorov (1998: 554).

[26] Here the concept of communitas is used with caution; we share the reserves put forth by more recent anthropology of pilgrimage: Eade and Sallnow (1991) and Morinis (1992). It should be noted, howeve,r that our case followed Turner's suggestion almost literally. The road in question was used during the years of communism, when access to the hill was banned, and the walk (especially by pious women from Stanimaka/Asenovgrad; see Baeva and Valtchinova elsewehere in this volume) created a feeling of shared danger and “happiness”, a kind of communitas‐like experience. Even in recent years [1998/99; Galia Valtchinova], with a good road to the pilgrimage site, people from this town considered that a “true pilgrim” had to walk through Mostovo.

[27] See infra; the choice of 14 September (Invention of the Holy Cross) as the day of the annual pilgrimage goes in the same direction.

[28] The story was told first by a late nineteenth‐century Bulgarian poetess, an activist of the Bulgarian Revival and of the regional movement of reinforcing Orthodoxy in the Rhodopes. The events dated back to the late 1830s–1850s, when the struggle for the Bulgarian Church took a decisive turn in this area. The “civilizing” activities of monk Gregory the poetess has reported of (from hearsay) included teaching to the local population of hygienic rules, new techniques for agriculture, food storage and conservation, alongside basic religious educations and developing skills of writing and reading.

[29] The theme of “ruins of Christian shrines” destroyed during the Ottoman invasion was largely exploited by both the scholarship concerned with the reconstruction of the past, and by local and regionalist mythologies. For the Ottoman policy toward church building, see Gradeva (1994); see Lory, elsewhere in this issue. The KG Project paid special attention to such claims (coming especially from the religious entrepreneurs), and to information about “ruined churches”. According to aged Pomak informants, there were no traces of a church, or any building whatsoever, on the cultivated land: local people had no memories about ruins detected while tilling the soil. Similarly to oral data, no building is shown on the most detailed maps of this time, the military ones.

[30] Such claims could not be credited because of the lack of ruins; shortly after the renewal of the pilgrimage, archaeological excavations were undertaken to find the traces of the Christian sanctuary. The only evidence about “the old monastery” come from these excavations, the materials of which (mainly ceramics, according to local archaeologist N. Damjanov [personal communication], which is rather poor support for the existence of a church) have never been published.

[31] Details about Father Vasilij's activities are available from the booklets for pilgrims, including a collection of narratives of healing miracles he compiled himself. The project comprised the construction of a new church with several hotel rooms in its basement (completed 1995), of twelve chapels on both sides of the road to the Cross (finished by 1999), as well as the task of “restoring the old monastery Holy Trinity” (still under way in 2001). The priest's entrepreneurial efforts were crowned by the construction of a wide asphalted road leading up to the hilltop.

[32] It might be argued also that Our Lady was much closer to common people, better integrated both in “high” and in “popular” religion. The opposite of what one observes in Catholic cultures, where powerful cults have developed around the suffering of Jesus Christ and the symbols of the Passion, in Eastern Orthodoxy Jesus and the Cross have attracted modest devotion, compared to the cult of the Holy Mother of God (Sveta Bogoroditsa).

[33] A night mass on Friday is peculiar to some Byzantine Orthodox feasts, namely Pokrov, which, becoming very popular in Russia, reached back the Balkan Slavic Orthodox areas under its Russian name. It originated in the Vision of a holy fool, St. Andrew, in the church of Blachernae (see Rydén [1976: 69–71]), a fact that neither the priest nor the most fervent and most educated believers have ever shown awareness about.

[34] The interaction between oral techniques and the written in the construction of the core legend of Krastova Gora pilgrimage is explored in Valtchinova (1999). Here we touch on the more general issue of the prevalence of oral transmission—and not of books—in the “return of religion” in post‐communist Bulgaria, especially in what concerns Eastern Orthodoxy.

[35] This story, as well as the following ones, is reproduced in different versions in the booklets written for pilgrims, which were first published in 1994. It should be noted that materials of ethnographers and interviews with historians have served to compile the two most popular such booklets quoted above, especially Krastova Gora 1994 (1994).

[36] See Valtchinova (2000: 124–126) for an analysis of cunning as a “strategy of the weak” and of the role of women in this “holy enterprise”.

[37] This quote was recorded during the shooting of a short documentary film by M. Karamihova, in August 1994. It is repeated in a slightly different way in Arininski 2000: 14, 17.

[38] For a detailed description see Karamihova 2007:238–39; we are grateful to Dionigi Albera for having attracted our attention to the importance of space, movement, and gender roles in this episode.

[39] For Vanga, see Valtchinova (2004); for a similar reference to Vanga for legitimizing other visionaries' revelations or Apocalyptic predictions, see Baeva and Valtchinova elsewhere in this issue.

[40] By this time, the Bulgarian army was still based on the principle of conscripts and the two‐year military service was an obligation for every male Bulgarian citizen aged eighteen and over. During socialism, various strategies had been developed to circumvent this obligation, making for the perversion of the system and the multiplication of hidden forms of violence and harassment. The sensibility of Pomaks to this issue might also be due to disclosures that people from minority groups suffered much more frequently than majority Bulgarians from the hidden forms of discrimination in the army. On the army issue in the early 1990s, see Ragaru (2001b).

[41] Here we mean the special place of Yugoslavia in the world view of communist Bulgaria: for the average Bulgarian born and grown up under communism, Tito's Yugoslavia was seen as being contrary to “communism”. Until the late 1980s, “Yugoslavia” was a synonym for freedom, openness, and ethnic diversity that has never been achieved home.

[42] The political orientations of the MRF around this period are discussed by Kaneff (1998); Ishijama and Breuning (1998: 21–50) and Ragaru (2001a).

[43] The separation of the pilgrimage sites in plural societies, where each linguistic or ethnic group—all the more, each religious group—has its favoured pilgrimage places, is suggested by Turner and Turner (1978: 6).