Publication Cover
Nationalities Papers
The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity
Volume 28, 2000 - Issue 1
337
Views
11
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

The muslim experience in the Balkan states, 1919‐1991

Pages 45-66 | Published online: 19 Aug 2010

References

  • Poulton , H. and Taji-Farouki , S. , eds. 1997 . "Islam, Ethnicity and State in the Contemporary Balkans" ” . In Muslim Identity and the Balkan State , London : Hurst . This paper is a thoroughly revised version of
  • Kunz , D. 1994 . "Greece Accused on Minorities' Rights" . Le Monde , 14 December In Greece today the Muslim populations are regarded as suspect and are not considered to be true citizens of the state. Furthermore, this also applies to non-Orthodox Christian groups, like Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Jehovah's Witnesses. This is clear from statements like that of the public prosecutor of Naxos, who described Roman Catholic Greeks as "foreigners getting their orders from the Pope." It is also illustrated by the arrest of large numbers of Jehovah's Witnesses for proselytising: 67 have been sentenced to between four and six months' imprisonment since 1983
  • Norris , H. 1994 . Islam in the Balkans: Religions and Society between Europe and the Arab World , London : Hurst .
  • Poulton , H. 1993 . The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict , London : MRG . Vlachs were prominently pastoral peoples living south of the Danube who practised transhumance and spoke a form of Romanian. While some were Islamicised, most remained Orthodox. Many were prominent supporters of Hellenism. They remain especially evident in the Pindus mountains in Greece and in southern Albania
  • Poulton , H. 1995 . Who Are the Macedonians? , London : Hurst . This was most noticeable in the competition for Macedonia at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. For a full study of the Macedonian Question
  • Braude , Benjamin and Lewis , Bernard . 1982 . Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire , 72 – 82 . New York : Holmes & Meier . Uncertainty remains uncertainty over the origins of this system. Many trace the system back to the appointment by Mehmed II, conqueror of Istanbul, of Patriarch Gennadias, Bishop Yovakim of Bursa, and Rabbi Capsali as presumed hereditary leaders of the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities, respectively. In contrast, other scholars (including Benjamin Braude) maintain that the term millet was used to refer to various mainly local arrangements which differed from one place to another. They point to the substantial evidence suggesting that the authority vested in the leaders of the millets was personal (rather than hereditary/institutionalised), and varied significantly in its territorial extent. Thus, the Greek Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch retained their autonomy at least in canon law, while for the Armenians the see of Istanbul became "over the centuries … a sort of de facto patriarchate, but its ecclesiastical legitimacy was grudgingly recognized, if at all."
  • under , M. 1961 . "Türkçenin Devlet Dili Ilanini Yildönümü" . Turk Dili , 10 : 507 At least as far as Anatolia is concerned, modern scholarship gives credit to the Karamanids for the first establishment of Turkish as the basis of the official language. In the thirteenth century the Karamanids created a strong polity on the ruins of the Seljuk Sultanate
  • Panaiotova , Boriana and Bozeva , Kalina . 1994 . "The Bulgarian Muslims ('Pomaks')" ” . In The Committee for the Defence of Minority Rights, Minority Groups in Bulgaria in a Human Rights Context , Sofia : The Committee for the Defence of Minority Rights .
  • Ibid.
  • Mango , Andrew . 1985 . "Remembering the Minorities" . Middle Eastern Studies , 21 ( 4 ) : 118 – 140 . and the review article by
  • Kushner , David . 1977 . The Rise of Turkish Nationalism 1876-1908 , London : Frank Cas . footnote to p. 90. However, this was not the same as the demotic Turkish spoken by the mass of the population
  • Gellner , Ernest . 1983 . Nations and Nationalism , Oxford : Blackwell Publishers .
  • Ibid. p. 140.
  • Ibid. pp. 57.
  • Hobsbawm , Eric . 1983 . The Invention of Tradition , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
  • Poulton , Hugh . 1997 . Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic , London : Hurst . The role of Turkey thus as a potential kin state for Muslims of different ethnic groups in the Balkans and Cyprus, and the relationship between Muslim Turkish workers in western Europe and Turkey is discussed in
  • Poulton , H. 1995 . Who Are the Macedonians? , 141 – 143 . London : Hurst .
  • Poulton , H. Who Are the Macedonians? 22 – 23 . The same applied in the case of Jewish minorities; many of the Jews in the Balkans had fled to the Ottoman Empire from persecution by intolerant regimes in western Europe. While Jews had lived in the Balkans since antiquity, Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in central and western Europe fled to the Balkans even before the Ottoman period. These new arrivals tended to overwhelm the ancient original Jewish population, but were in turn overwhelmed after 1492 by Ladino-speaking Jews expelled from Spain, who made Salonika the spiritual and economic metropolis of the Jews in southeastern Europe
  • Poulton , H. 1997 . "Changing notions of National Identity among Muslims in Thrace and Macedonia: Turks, Pomaks and Roma" ” . In Muslim Identity and the Balkan State , Edited by: Poulton , H. and Taji-Farouki , S. London : Hurst . On the Pomaks of Bulgaria see Yulian Konstantinov, "Strategies for Sustaining a Vulnerable Identity: The Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks," and on the pressures on the smaller Islamic groups, like the Pomaks of Greece, the Muslim Roma, and non-Albanian Muslim groups in Macedonia to assimilate into larger cohabiting Muslim groups see
  • Doina , Robert J. and Fine , John V. A. 1994 . Bosnia-Hercegpvina-A Tradition Betrayed , 96 London : Hurst .
  • Banac , Ivo . 1984 . The National Question in Yugoslavia; Origins, History, Politics , Ithaca , NY : Cornell University Press .
  • Duijzings , Ger . Religion and the Politics of Identity in the Balkans , London : Hurst . forthcoming), although Duijzings warns that this is somewhat simplistic, and is careful not to fall into the trap of ethno-reductionism
  • Sorabji , Cornelia . 1996 . "Islam and Bosnia's Muslim nation" ” . In The Changing Shape of the Balkans , Edited by: Carter , Frank and Norris , Harry . 57 – 58 . London : UCL .
  • Bougarel , X. 1996 . Bosnie: anatomie d'un conflict , 87 Paris : Editions la Decouverte .
  • 1983 . South Slav Journal , Spring For the full text see
  • Poulton , H. and Vickers , M. 1997 . "The Kosovo Albanians: Ethnic Confrontation with the Slav State" ” . In Muslim Identity and the Balkan State , Edited by: Poulton , H. and Taji-Farouki , S. London : Hurst .
  • Their relationship with the new Macedonian state, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), itself based on the relatively new concept of a separate Macedonian nation fostered by the Tito regime, is explored in H. Poulton, Who Are the Macedonians?, Chapters 7 and 9.
  • Duijzings , Ger . Religion and the Politics of Identity in the Western Balkans: The Case of Kosovo , London : Hurst . Sheikh Xemali of the Rifai tarikat in Prizren has been a key figure in this. See; forthcoming).
  • Poulton , H. Who Are the Macedonians? 187
  • Poulton , H. The Balkans 155
  • Smith , Anthony . 1971 . Theories of Nationalism , London : Duckworth . Likewise France, which represents the classic model of "territorial" or "civic" nationalism as opposed to the German "ethnic" model
  • Miall , Hugh , ed. 1994 . Minority Rights in Europe: The Scope for a Transnational Regime , London : Chatham House Papers, RIIA, Pinter . also refuses to recognise minorities within its borders and even refused to sanction Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which deals with guaranteeing minority rights (and which Greece has not ratified). However, citizens in France do not face the same penalties for declaring themselves separate from the majority as they do in Greece. For a discussion of minority rights in Europe see
  • Poulton , H. Who Are the Macedonians? 165 – 171 .

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.