(Balkan Studies Library 14) Fatme Myuhtar-May - Identity, Nationalism, and Cultural Heritage Under Siege_ Five Narratives of Pomak Heritage—From Forced Renaming to Weddings-Brill Academic Publishers (

Identity, Nationalism, and Cultural Heritage under Siege
Balkan Studies Library
Editor-in-Chief
Zoran Milutinović (University College London)
Editorial Board
Gordon N. Bardos (Columbia University)
Alex Drace-Francis (University of Amsterdam)
Jasna Dragović-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Christian Voss, (Humboldt University, Berlin)
Advisory Board
Marie-Janine Calic (University of Munich)
Lenard J. Cohen (Simon Fraser University
Radmila Gorup (Columbia University)
Robert M. Hayden (University of Pittsburgh)
Robert Hodel (Hamburg University)
Anna Krasteva (New Bulgarian University)
Galin Tihanov (Queen Mary, University of London)
Maria Todorova (University of Illinois)
Andrew Wachtel (Northwestern University)
VOLUME 14
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsl

Identity, Nationalism, and
Cultural Heritage under Siege
Five Narratives of Pomak Heritage—From
Forced Renaming to Weddings
By
Fatme Myuhtar-May
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Pomak bride in traditional attire. Ribnovo, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria. Photo courtesy
Kimile Ulanova of Ribnovo.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myuhtar-May, Fatme.
Cultural heritage under siege : five narratives of Pomak heritage : from forced renaming to weddings / by
Fatme Myuhtar-May.
pages cm. — (Balkan studies library, ISSN 1877-6272 ; volume 14)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-27207-1 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27208-8 (e-book)
1. Pomaks—Bulgaria—Social conditions. 2. Pomaks—Bulgaria—Social life and customs. 3. Pomaks—
Bulgaria—Case studies. 4. Pomaks—Bulgaria—Biography. 5. Culture conflict—Bulgaria. 6. Culture
conflict—Rhodope Mountains Region. 7. Bulgaria—Ethnic relations. 8. Rhodope Mountains Region—
Ethnic relations. I. Title.
DR64.2.P66M98 2014
305.6’970499—dc23
2014006975
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issn 1877-6272
isbn 978 90 04 27207 1 (hardback)
isbn 978 90 04 27208 8 (e-book)
Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
List of Tables and Figures ix
1 Heritage of Pluralism or Having Cultural Agency:

An Introduction 1
Making Sense of the Past 1
Having Cultural Agency 4
The Role of Heritage Brokers 9
Heritage as Identity 14
1 Heritage as Vernacular (Dissenting) Identity 15
2 Heritage as National (Dominant) Identity 20
Five Case Studies 23
In Conclusion 26
2 Nationalism and Violence: The Case of Pomak
Christianization (Pokrŭstvane) in Bulgaria, 1912–1913 32
The Nationalism Premise 33
The Pomaks 40
War and Pokrŭstvane (Conversion) in 1912–1913 47
1 The Balkan Wars 48
2 The Pokrŭstvane 51
2.1 The Killings in Oral History 64
2.2 The Killings Documented 71
2.3 Humanity and Survival Along the Way 75
2.4 The Pokrŭstvane of Muslim Prisoners of War
(POWs) 82
2.5 The Tide is Turning 85
3 War and Pokrŭstvane No More 91
Conclusion 93
3 The Vŭzroditelen Protses: Identity Crisis and the Forced Renaming
of the Pomaks (1944–1989) 96
Policy and Ideology of the Vŭzhroditelen Protses 96
Bringing about Identity Crisis 104
From Pokrŭstvane to Vŭzhroditelen Protses 110
1 The Rebirth of Organization Rodina 110
2 Mission: “Revival” 120
Turmoil in the (Western) Rhodopes 126
Economic Opportunities in the Vŭzhroditelen Protses 131
vi contents
Conclusion 136
1 External Pressure, Internal Turmoil, and the “Big
Excursion” 136
2 The End Is Near or Is It? 138
3 Implications for Pomak Heritage 142
4 A Pomak Life of Dissent Amidst Cultural Oppression in Communist
Bulgaria 144
Meeting Ramadan 144
Ramadan’s Vŭzhroditelen-Protses Ordeal 145
Trouble in Kornitsa 148
Trouble in Exile 154
Bloody Revival in the Rhodopes 156
Prison Tribulations 161
1 Arrest, Detention, and Trial 161
2 Tortured Prisoner 164
3 Release and Re-imprisonment 168
“Take the Passport or Die” 171
Conclusion 172
5 The Ribnovo Wedding: A Pomak Tradition 175
Introduction 175
Ribnovo: Place and People 178
Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo 181
The Cheiz 199
The Essence of the Ribnovo Wedding 201
Marriage: “The Key Turning Point in . . . Adult Life” 203
Asserting Identity through Custom 208
6 Preserving Historical Heritage: The Case of Salih Ağa of Paşmaklı,
the Pomak Governor of the Ahı Çelebi Kaza of the Ottoman
Empire (1798–1838) 214
Finding Salih Ağa 215
Salih Ağa and His Time 219
Who Wrote about Salih Ağa 223
Salih’s Family Tree 228
Salih, the Family Man 230
1 Mustafa Adzhi Ağa 230
2 Salihağovitsa (the Wife of Salih Ağa) 236
Salih, the Public Man 240
The Death of Salih Ağa 242
Conclusion: Salih Ağa’s Heritage 248
contents vii
Appendices
2.1 Report of Pazardzhik Activists for Pomak Conversion to Archbishop
Maxim 252
2.2 Excerpts from the Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars, 1914 255
3.1A Applications for Emigration Submitted by Pomaks 257
3.1B Number of Passports Issued to Pomaks 258
3.1C Statistics on Pomak Immigration 259
3.2 Statistics on Zagrazhden Municipality 260
6.1 Ballad about the Killing of Salih Ağa 267
Bibliography 270
Index 275
Acknowledgements
In life, one often needs good guidance and sincere encouragement. I am fortunate to
have generously received both from Dr. Brady Banta, Dr. Clyde Milner, Dr. Carol
O’Connor, Dr. Erik Gilbert, and Terry Thomas.
A number of people and institutions deserve special recognition, including Ivan
Terziev, Fikriye Topova, the Rahim family of Istanbul, Mehmed Boyukli, Kimile
Ulanova, Feim “Foxi” Osmanov, Kŭdrie and Feim Hatip, the “Safet” Studio, Dŭrzhaven
arkhiv-Plovdiv, Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Smolyan, lostbulgaria.com, Ramadan Runtov-
Kurucu, Ismail Byalkov, Havva and Mehmed Cesur, Melike Belinska, Mehmed Shehov,
Mehmed Dorsunski, my colleagues and friends at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
(especially Dr. Krassimir Kanev), and many others. My sincerest gratitude also goes
to Balkan Studies Library’s editor-in-chief Professor Zoran Milutinovic, Brill’s Slavic
Studies editors Ivo Romein and Arjan van Dijk, and the two anonymous referees,
whose comments and suggestions greatly improved this work.
I am forever indebted to my parents, Sanye and Mehmed Myuhtar, my husband,
Michael, and my in-laws, Joe and Carolyn May, for everything they have done for and
meant to me.
List of Tables and Figures
Table caption
2-1 Pomak Population within the Provinces of Thrace and Macedonia
at the Time of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 52
3-1 Number of Pomaks with Censored Attire and Changed Names by
Villages and Towns 115
Figure caption
2-1 Map of the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria 56
2-2 Pokrŭstvane in the Village of Devin, 1912–1913 61
2-3 Pokrŭstvane in the Village of Banya, 1912–1913 62
2-4 A Pokrŭstvane Wedding 63
2-5 A Commemorative Water Fountain in Vŭlkossel 67
2-6 A Commemorative Marble Plaque Next to the Fountain 68
3-1 Broken Tombstones from the Old Cemetery in Vŭlkossel 103
3-2 Broken Tombstones from the Old Cemetery in Vŭlkossel 104
4-1 Ramadan Runtov 145
4-2 Ramadan with His Family, circa 1959–1960 152
4-3 A Commemorative Monument in the Village of Kornitsa 158
4-4 At Ismail’s 160
5-1 Ribnovo 179
5-2 Kŭdrie and Feim Hatip from Ribnovo as Bride and Groom in
February 2005 182
5-3 A Happy Bride 182
5-4 Young Women Hold Gifts at Kŭdrie and Feim’s Wedding 183
5-5 The Wedding Begins 184
5-6 Live Music 185
5-7 Kŭdrie’s Father Lifts the Bayrak with One Hand and Drops a Bill
to the Bearer with the Other 186
5-8 Kŭdrie’s Mother and Father Carefully Assist Her Out on the Way
to Her New Life as a Wife 187
5-9 Kŭdrie Wearing Full Bridal Make-up 188
5-10 A Ribnovo Bride Fully Clad in the Traditional Way 190
5-11 Sanie and Mehmed Myuhtar 193
5-12 Wedding of Fatme Aguleva of Kornitsa, Western Rhodopes, 1967 194
5-13 Wedding of Atie Hadzhieva of Vŭlkossel, 1971 194
5-14 Wedding of Atidzhe and Mustafa Chavdarov of Vŭlkossel, 1972 195
5-15 Wedding of Sadbera and Izir Chavdarov of Vŭlkossel, 1968 196
x list of tables and figures
5-16 Wedding of Nadzhibe and Natŭk Dermendzhiev of Vŭlkossel,

Early 1970s 197
5-17 Cheiz Display 200
6-1 The Konak of Deli-Ali Bey in Smolyan 217
6-2 Melike Belinska 218
6-3 The Konak of Salih Ağa in Paşmaklı, circa 1916 227
6-4 Family Tree 231
6-5a–b Salih Ağa’s Seal 232
6-6 Scene from the Play Salih Ağa 240
6-7 Scene from the Play Salih Ağa 241
6-8 The Sycamore in Smolyan 243
CHAPTER 1
Heritage of Pluralism or Having Cultural Agency:

An Introduction
Making Sense of the Past
I grew up in the Western Rhodopes during the 1980s, the last decade of com-
munist rule in Bulgaria. One of my fondest memories from these years is my
father’s telling stories by the flickering candlelight and the gentle crackling of
the fire in the woodstove of my childhood home. His storytelling usually took
place in the fall and winter, when the busy tobacco-harvesting season had
ended and before the new planting season had begun. In those days, I remem-
ber, power outages were a common occurrence either caused by severe weather
or purposely scheduled to save on electricity, a necessary relief measure for the
ailing communist economy. As often as I turn back to these cherished memo-
ries, however, one realization strikes me all over again. As much as I loved lis-
tening to these tales from the local past, they also confused me a great deal. On
a number of occasions my father would talk about “the burning of the village”
and “the fleeing of the people,” phrases that terrified my young mind. “What
burning?”—I would ask—“What fleeing? Who was fleeing from whom? Why
the burning? When did it happen?”
Even though I was just a child, my father would carefully point out that what
he recounted were not mere stories, but the memories of people who had been
long gone by the time I was ten-year old or so. While listening to my father’s
narratives, I vividly remember thinking: “But if something so frightening as
burning and fleeing happened right here—in my village and the neighboring
communities, how come I never heard anything about it in school, from text-
books, television, radio, or newspapers! Why nobody talks about it, except, my
father?” My father’s inquisitive mind as a young boy drove him to pose ques-
tions about the past to his grandfather, to elderly neighbors and relatives, and
to anybody who would care to tell him a story. During the 1960s, when young
Mehmed was conducting his impromptu oral history research, elderly people
were still the foremost repository of knowledge about the local past. On one
occasion, he heard an anecdote about “the corrupted” “Barzev hodzha”1
that went as follows: When Vŭlkossel (my village) was burning, people fled
1 Muslim religious teacher who, in those days, commanded much respect in the community.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi 10.1163/9789004272088_002

2 chapter 1
southward—toward Greece now, from where they were passing into present-
day Turkey. As they were abandoning the village in large numbers, the local
hodzha implored them: “Hear me out, people! The cornfields are heavy with
bread. Are you not going to harvest it? Are you leaving everything behind?”
With heavy hearts, these refugees looked back. They saw their ripened crops,
cast a glance at their empty homes, and faltered. Consequently, many returned
to Vŭlkossel as the will to leave abandoned them. “Now,” my father would add,
“this Barzev hodzha was a collaborator and he was directed by the authorities
to stop the people. They knew that he was hodzha in the village and people
would listen to him.”
This was the story in a nutshell. Plain enough! But it was perplexing to me.
“Who were these authorities? Why was the population fleeing? When did it all
happen?” My questions required answers. I needed additional information to
make sense of the puzzle. The people whom I asked provided it to the best of
their knowledge, obviously not quite comprehending my burning desire to
know. After all, I was just a child supposed to occupy her time playing with
other kids, not to ask impossible questions. “The kaurs [Christians] burned the
village. People fled from them. The year was 1912th.” These answers might have
been sufficient for someone with contextual knowledge or a lifetime of experi-
ence to fit the pieces together, but not for me—a child, growing up in the 1980s,
amid the information blackout of the “Turkish” vŭzhroditelen protses2 (literally
translated as revival process or rebirth).3 What frustrated me above all in those
days, however, was not my own inability to make sense of the bits and pieces,
but that the village adults—including my father—could not make them com-
prehensible to me. It was somewhat distressing to think that the collectivity of
grown-ups either did not care to know or genuinely lacked the essential foun-
dation of historical knowledge to have a coherent picture of the past. Sadly, it
was both. What many people kept, though, were transmitted oral memories.
But, to me, these were so removed from a clear timeline or factual certainty
that the whole situation gave an impression of relatively recent events (as I
2 The forced name changing against the ethnic Turks was just taking place in 1984–1985 and it
was accompanied by an active disinformation campaign, not only censoring literature, but
also re-writing history to deny the existence of an ethnic Turkish minority in Bulgaria. For
more information, see Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New
York: Routledge, 1997), passim. See also chapters three and four of this book.
3 Revival process or rebirth is the literal English translation from Bulgarian of the phrase
“възродителен процес” that has become the accepted academic reference to the forced
renaming of Muslims in Bulgaria by the communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s. The term
revival process or rebirth herein is strictly used in the above sense, without direct relevance to
the standard usage of the words “revival” and “process.”
Heritage Of Pluralism Or Having Cultural Agency 3
would find out), not as dependable, tangible, accurate history, but as distant,
fantastical, obscure folktale.
Only years later, when immersing in an academic research, was I able to get
the full picture of the stories my father had recounted. The one about the “cor-
rupted Barzev hodzha” in particular stuck in my mind partly because the image
of the ripened cornfields, which had broken people’s resolve to depart, follow-
ing the collapse of Ottoman rule in the area, was so vivid in my mind. The story
dates back to the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913, which chapter two describes in
detail. The Christianization of the Pomaks began in late September of 1912,
precisely when the populations of Vŭlkossel, and the neighboring villages,
were trying to escape from the marauding Christian bands that roamed the
Rhodope Mountains, pillaging and slaughtering at will.4 Fearing that the flee-
ing of Muslims would leave a depopulated border region behind,5 the new
Bulgarian authorities tried to contain the lawlessness of the civilian bands and
to curtail the exodus by enlisting the cooperation of Pomak individuals such as
the Barzev hodzha. While it is unclear whether the hodzha was bribed, threat-
ened, or both to collaborate, he certainly knew how to manipulate people’s
deepest emotions in order to make them stay. Those who had originally fled
the advancing Bulgarian forces, leaving all their earthly possessions behind,
were persuaded to look back at the abandoned cornfields and their hearts
wavered at the sight of the gently rolling hills around them. Truly, what mad-
ness possessed them to flee? Where were they going anyway? Could they find
another place to call home? Thus overwhelmed by emotions, the majority of
refugees made their way back to Vŭlkossel (and to villages across the Rhodopes)
to suffer the religious conversion of 1912–1913, and to witness the killing of the
village elders by Bulgarian bands for refusing to renounce their religion.6
Indeed, as my father had said, the burning of the village, the “corrupted
hodzha,” and the killing of people in Vŭlkossel were not some made-up tales.
They were remembered experiences, originating in the pokrŭstvane of 1912–
1913, fragmented by decades of relentless cultural assimilation, and surviving
as scattered oral narratives into the present. More importantly, however, these
experiences form an integral part of a body of historical memory and cultural
tradition, preserved and practiced by the Slavic (Bulgarian)-speaking Muslims
of the Rhodopes, which constitutes Pomak heritage. In the sense that
Pomakness, as distinct heritage, has been fractured beyond cohesiveness, there
4 See chapter two for details.

5 The border between Bulgaria and Greece cuts across the length of the Rhodopes, with the
larger portion of the mountain being on the Bulgarian side of the line.
6 See chapter two.
4 chapter 1
is an enormous need at present to study and preserve the surviving remnants.

Moreover, heritage scholars like me—a cultural insider at that—carry the pro-
fessional and moral obligation to piece the fragments together and, so far as
possible, to create a more complete conception of Pomak cultural identity.
Indeed, in addition to making sense of my own past, the very purpose of
this book is to promote and preserve vital narratives of the Pomak heritage. In
fact, uncovering my personal identity is much the same as uncovering
Pomakness, because the name Pomak is the most immediate and accurate
label that describes me, along with a collectivity of others, as carriers of Pomak
cultural agency.
Having Cultural Agency
The premise of cultural agency bestows the capacity to every member of a

given community to freely profess, organize, alter, or reject any cultural iden-
tity, or elements of it, collectively possessed (or claimed) by that community in
a manner that is physically non-injurious to others. A cultural agent could,
thus, be a person who freely identifies as Pomak, works toward the promotion
and preservation of what he or she perceives to be Pomak heritage, without
forcing others to subscribe to his or her viewpoint. Therefore, to have cultural
agency requires, on one hand, that one has the independent capacity to shape
one’s own and one’s community’s cultural identity, while being able to resist
both internal and external pressure to conform to views one does not necessar-
ily share. Cultural agency, on the other hand, prevents one from imposing an
identity on others who disagree with that identity or position. In the context of
cultural agency then, persons and communities are—or should be—free to
promote cultural narratives of their own making without physically harming
others or being intolerant of them.
An anonymous reviewer of an earlier version of this work spoke of its thesis
as an “activist” approach to heritage, and this was correct. Yet, is there a place
for “activism” in an academic setting? That is, is it permissible to take an
unequivocal stand in favor of one narrative, while still making a legitimate
claim to scholarly objectivity? A concrete example of activism in this sense
would be to argue that the Pomaks have the right to promote a heritage of their
own making, no matter how problematic that may be for the established
national narrative. Clearly, my answer in this particular case is affirmative for it
cannot be otherwise. Where there are no imminent and compelling grounds to
deprive a whole collectivity of people of deciding who they are—somebody’s
dislike for a heritage is neither an imminent, nor a compelling ground—the
premise of cultural agency and activism is (or should be) completely legiti-
mate. Cultural agency then is one’s ability to interpret and promote one’s heri-
tage without the fear of repercussions and/or the power to impose one’s views
on others. The function of cultural activism belongs not only to individuals,
but also to communities or groups. A community needs its heritage because it
is a vital source of identity and dignity for the people comprising it.
This approach to agency is also consistent with the definition of heritage
contained in UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural
Heritage (CSICH). The convention defines intangible heritage as “the practices,
representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments,
objects, art[i]facts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communi-
ties, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural
heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to gen-
eration, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to
their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and pro-
vides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for
cultural diversity and human creativity [emphasis added].” In concluding its
definition, the convention qualifies that its provisions apply only to such intan-
gible cultural heritage that “is compatible with existing international human
rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among
communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.”7
Clearly, this definition treats heritage as a source of identity and continuity
for communities, groups, and even individuals, and, as such, it must be
acknowledged and protected in a manner of “promoting respect for cultural
diversity and human creativity.” This definition of intangible cultural heritage
is fully compatible with the idea of heritage activism or cultural agency.
Communities, groups, or individual members of a community or group, are
entitled to promote and implement such “practices, representations, expres-
sions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, art[i]facts and
cultural spaces associated therewith,” which foster “mutual respect among
communities, groups and individuals.” It is difficult to see how the recognition
of Pomak heritage could truly harm mutual respect and diversity when it
is promoted in the above described manner of cultural agency. Nor does the
convention’s definition preclude the proposed approach of cultural agency. On
the contrary, having a cultural agency is paramount in the case of culturally
7 UNESCO, Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, November 2003.
Available at http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00006. Last accessed
March 27, 2013.
6 chapter 1
disposed communities, whose very identity is at stake as a result of historical

fragmentation of their heritage.
The lack of agency in influencing the public discourse to the effect of pre-
serving one’s heritage is particularly glaring in the Pomak case. An author like
Mary Neuburger, one of the relatively few as yet Western scholars to have
broached the Pomak topic in some detail, clearly observes the problem of
agency. Even though she discusses the issue from a different angle—namely,
in the context of “Bulgarian Socialism” and the Muslim resistance to the
vŭzhroditelen protses in the same period—Neuburger correctly designates the
lack of agency as being a key problem. “Bulgarian and Muslim submission to
the ‘powers that be,’ ” she writes, “dominates both the literature on Socialist
Bulgaria and that on Muslim minorities under Bulgarian Socialism. Neither
group is seen as having agency, an assumption I intend to challenge [emphasis
added].”8 In fact, the whole ideology of the Muslim-directed assimilatory poli-
cies of the communist regime in Bulgaria from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, par-
ticularly in regard to the Pomaks, was built upon assumptions of non-agency.
Thus, in the formal literature of the communist period, the forced renaming of
the Pomaks is customarily proclaimed to be “voluntary” and “spontaneous,”
without so much as hinting about the existence of widespread Muslim resis-
tance to it (except in documents that were meant to remain “strictly confiden-
tial”), as Neuburger aptly observes. To this day, the dominant national narrative
describes the Pomaks as descendants of converted Bulgarian Christians
matter-of-factly, a priori denying them the opportunity to speak for them-
selves. Because of this past and present history of non-agency, writing about
the Pomaks, particularly in regard to agency, must be held to a more rigorous
academic scrutiny. Unlike Mary Neuburger, another Western scholar, Kristen
Ghodsee, neglects to detect the problem of Pomak non-agency within the
dominant cultural narrative. More importantly, Ghodsee’s general approach to
the Pomak case actually contributes to perpetuating the status quo in no small
measure. As I have previously stated,
In Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe, on the other hand, Kristen Ghodsee is

so intently focused on what she terms “orthodox Islam” in the Pomak
context that she nearly essentializes it, making it appear to be the central,
almost inescapable direction that Pomak life is taking in the central
Rhodopes and the small town of Madan in particular, on which her
research centers. Her definition of “orthodox Islam” includes the Arab-
8 Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in
Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 10.
influenced religious tendencies in the Rhodopes, particularly in matters

of Islamic ritual and female dress, observable in Madan and imported
largely via Middle East–educated locals. Against the backdrop of
Ghodsee’s erudite analysis, however, lurks a post-9/11 melodrama domi-
nated by photographs of mosques, rumored to be Arab-sponsored, and
young headscarved women liable to attract the wrong kind of attention.
The book evokes a sense of alarm that “orthodox” Islam could overtake
Pomak communities across the Rhodopes, mass-producing female
veiling and gender segregation—phenomena, atypical of the Pomaks,
according to Ghodsee. The problem with this kind of conjectures—quite
unintentional on Ghodsee’s part, to be sure—is that they in effect deprive
the Pomaks of agency to direct and control the spread of Middle-East
Islamic trends in their midst. That is, they relegate the Pomaks to being
uncritical recipients of foreign influences without active evaluation
and decision-making. It is precisely the matter of agency that drives the
discourse of Pomak heritage today.9
In Imagining the Balkans, Maria Todorova makes the argument that modern
Western academia tends to view Southeastern Europe as the essential, barbar-
ian “Other” in relation to Western Europe. She both laments and rejects the
stereotyping of the Balkans as “tribal,” “backward,” and “primitive,” and for
good reasons.10 It is indeed dangerous and counterproductive to essentialize
“the other,” in this case the Balkans, especially when those who are responsible
for creating such essentialisms represent the dominant discourse. Insofar as
it is not acceptable for the Western discourse to essentialize the Balkans, it
is equally unacceptable for any dominant (Balkan national) discourses to
essentialize minority narratives, while appropriating or suppressing their
expression. In this context, my argument about the necessity of an activist
approach to studying cultural and historical heritage assumes both legitimacy
and relevance.
In light of the statement that everyone’s heritage matters as a source of sta-
ble identity and rootedness, one should be able to explore one’s past in order
to develop a sense of present and future. Because the Pomaks have involun-
tarily lost connection with their history over the last century, their sense of self
and heritage is fragmented. Perhaps, narratives that have been historically
9 Fatme Myuhtar-May, “The Pokrasvane (Christianization) of Pomaks during the Balkan

Wars of 1912–1913,” in War and Nationalism, eds. Hakan Yavuz and Isa Blumi (Salt Lake
City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2013), 317.
10 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3.
8 chapter 1
suppressed are even more important to address because they are at risk.
As practitioner, however, one ought to be mindful of what one’s responsibili-
ties are when interpreting heritage. A heritage practitioner for the purpose of
this work is the historian who writes textbooks or puts together exhibitions,
the archeologist who interprets excavated sites or objects, the cultural anthro-
pologist who studies people, the conservationist who preserves the past for
posterity, and pretty much anyone who is responsible for constructing the
shared narrative in society. So far as I argue in support of pluralistic heritage
presentation in the public sphere, the approach of heritage activism I advocate
stresses the responsibility of cultural interpreters to be educators in society,
rather than creators of exclusionary master narratives.
The concept of cultural agency goes hand in hand with the necessity of a
pluralistic interpretation of heritage in any collective national domain.
Whereas I advance the inclusion argument in the context of Pomak heritage, it
is only fitting to elaborate on what qualifies for pluralistic interpretation and
how to go about achieving it in societies promoting themselves as democratic.
It goes without saying that nation-states which have made claims to—or
declared aspirations for—a democratic rule of Western type, such as Bulgaria
and most post-communist Balkan nations, should also live up to broadly
accepted standards of cultural pluralism in the sense of UNESCO’s convention
(above), here taken to express the prevalent Western discourse of intangible
heritage. Interpreters of cultural heritage in these societies, therefore, must be
held to the same standards of pluralism and cultural inclusiveness as their lib-
eral West European or North American counterparts. The section that follows
elaborates on the role of cultural interpreters in brokering heritage within the
context of a Western heritage discourse. However, my electing to provide
examples from a U.S. or West European background in no way should suggest
an uncritical endorsement of those standards as singularly and universally
valid. Whereas the Western heritage experience is undoubtedly plagued by its
own problems, it certainly bears the closest relevance to my argument of cul-
tural agency. But, as critiquing the current Western standards of plurality
remains outside the purview of my analysis, I only offer here a synthesis of
relevant cases and ideas to make a case for the recognition of Pomak heritage
in Bulgaria. I also take some liberty with generalizing about and interpreting
plurality exclusively in positive terms for the sake of simplicity and in the hope
of receiving the readers’ understanding.
The Role of Heritage Brokers
As a pundit of the prevalent Western philosophy of heritage preservation,

Robert Archibald skillfully connects pluralism to usefulness. “I have come to
view history,” he writes, “as the construction of useful narrative”11 to everybody
in society. In other words, since heritage interpretation is the domain of
professionals, it is also their responsibility to create “useful narrative.” To
fulfill that duty, therefore, heritage scholars—as the formal community story-
tellers—should strive to create an all-inclusive narrative that is sensitive to the
following: On one hand, it (i) accounts for the existence of a plurality of narra-
tives (vernacular memories), and (ii) acknowledges the right of that plurality
to exist. On the other hand, it (iii) abstains from aggression or disrespect
towards one or many of the existing vernacular (minority) narratives, (iv)
while having no obligation to agree with all of them (as similar goal is realisti-
cally unattainable). The heritage narrative then, by virtue of its inclusiveness,
(v) would furnish common grounds for building shared identity in society.
Thus, the construction of “useful narrative,” in Archibald’s sense, implies some
form of positive inclusion and participation of most (if not all individual)
members of the national polity, because having a stake engages people’s
responsibility and reinforces national identity. What I mean by positive inclu-
sion, especially in the Pomak case, is largely a willing inclusion, or a general
sense of readiness of a group to participate in the heritage discourse under the
existing terms of interpretation.
To nurture such willingness, Clarence Mondale advises that heritage preser-
vationists should consider (any) history inherently problematic because that
would enable them to be more critical of the way they interpret and preserve
public heritage.12 Awareness of the fickle nature of heritage would make them
more sensitive to integrating vernacular cultures into the mainstream heritage.
Heritage, Mondale correctly remarks, is politically charged, first, because of
the frequent opposition of vernacular (minority) to official (majority) heri-
tages, and, second, because the funding for conservation is typically controlled
by elites who tend to support a certain dominant discourse. Thus, it becomes
imperative that cultural conservationists engage in heritage activism to ensure
the construction of useful past—that is, past based on cultural interpretation
that unites rather than divides society. One effective avenue for reconciling
11 Robert R. Archibald, A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (Walnut

Creek: AtlaMira Press, 1999), 29.
12 Clarence Mondale, “Conserving a Problematic Past,” in Conserving Culture: A New
Discourse on Heritage, ed. Mary Hufford (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 15–23.
10 chapter 1
vernacular and mainstream cultures that Mondale offers is through commod-

itization, or developing heritage for tourists. Heritage for tourism naturally
stresses the inclusion of a variety of cultures, including and often mostly ver-
nacular ones, because their exoticism is more likely to attract outside visitors.
In Bulgaria, for example, the legacy of Salih Ağa (chapter six) could benefit
tourism and the public discourse admirably, including through academic and
fictional writing, reconstruction of his konak (a palace complex combining the
functions of a family residence and government headquarters) as a heritage
site, or formally attaching his name to such places as The Waterfall of Smolyan
(still informally called The Gorge of Salih Ağa). Likewise, the colorful Ribnovo
wedding has the potential to attract—as it already does—a number of foreign
and domestic tourists, thereby benefitting both the Pomak and national narra-
tives (chapter five). Yet, Pomak custodianship of both these heritages, among
others, has to be acknowledged and respected in the public domain, not
denied, for there to be proper heritage tourism. After all, it is Pomaks who pos-
sess and can present this heritage to tourists in any authentic form. The con-
cept of heritage custodianship simply requires that Pomaks be able to decide
what their heritage is and how to interpret it.
Fittingly, the authors13 of an article, titled “Traditional History and
Alternative Conceptions of the Past,” insist that the “members of an ethnic or
other community [should be able to] tell about themselves in their own terms
[emphasis added].”14 Allan C. Downer et al., in other words, propose an
approach to heritage interpreted in emic terms—that is, from the point of view
of cultural insiders, not vice versa. The official history, they argue, is not “an
objective chronicle” of bygone events, but historians’ reconstruction of the
past on the basis of known events, surviving historical records, and scientific
findings. Consequently, as all history advances an interpretation, state-
sponsored preservation of history ought to consider vernacular narratives
an authentic source of heritage, too, which merits preservation on an equal
footing with the official (dominant) memory.15
13 Allan S. Downer, Jr., Alexandra Roberts, Harris Francis, and Clara B. Kelly.
14 Allan S. Downer et al., “Traditional History and Alternative Conceptions of the Past,” in
Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage, ed. Mary Hufford (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1994), 42.
15 Downer et al., 39–55. The authors specifically propose ethnographic consultation with
local communities as a useful tool for identifying places of significance to them, which
could then be tergeted for conservation. The authors cement their argument with fur-
nishing a personal example of successfully conducted ethnographic consultation with
the Navajo Indians. Probing the community’s sentiments, the ethnographer-authors
Achieving what Setha Low aptly calls a “cultural mosaic” in any public heri-
tage space is easier said than done. Yet, there are ways to accomplish it while
practicing heritage activism. Low suggests some useful techniques for over-
coming challenges to pluralistic interpretation not only in the US, but also in
traditionally more restrictive public domains. First, cultural conservationists
could conduct good-faith ethnographic consultations with local people in
order to find out what matters most to them and respond to that need appro-
priately. Second, they may consider constituency analysis—that is, probing
the community’s interests and values so as to incorporate the prevalent ones
into the interpretation of a given place or issue. Third, conservationists could
simply be mindful of ethnicity- and class-related symbols of a culturally diverse
place so as to include those—so far as possible—into the landscape’s interpre-
tation. However, the successful implementation of such techniques of heritage
interpretation already presupposes an extant pluralistic society—a public
domain, where pluralism is already the norm. In this sense, like other Western
authors, Low takes it for granted that, because pluralistic interpretation of
heritage is such a public necessity, it only takes the willingness and creativity
of heritage professionals to accomplish it.16 In the Pomak case, one is still in
the initial stage of heritage activism. In other words, one is as yet seeking the
formal recognition of Pomak heritage, before advancing to its active preserva-
tion and tourism commoditization.
In a pluralistic vein of minimal activism, David Glassberg suggests that the
role of heritage practitioners should be that of facilitators of the public narra-
tive rather than of its creators. Stated differently, they should strive to facilitate
public discussion of past and current events, rather than promote a particular
version of history, not necessarily shared by other groups in society. In short,
the professionals’ role is to broker the cultural dialogue in society, not create
it.17 This should make sense in an environment that is traditionally more
restrictive of vernacular heritages, and where practicing minimal heritage
activism could be the path of least resistance to acquiring some cultural recog-
nition. For the Pomaks in Bulgaria, this could mean a degree of acceptance
of Pomakness in the public space (as opposed to none, currently), such as
using the appellation to denote the Muslim population of the Rhodopes or
helped determine which places were sacred to the Navajo, so they could be conserved
under special, federally funded projects for preserving Navajo culture.
16 Setha Low, “Cultural Conservation of Place,” in Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on
Heritage, ed. Mary Hufford (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 66–77.
17 David Glassberg, A Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life (Amherst, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2001).
12 chapter 1
designating songs or stories as “Pomak” without the usual “patriotic” outburst

to follow every mentioning of a “Pomak minority.” Such minimal-activism
approach, however, would not warrant anything close to the full expression
of—far less custodianship over—the perceived Pomak heritage. The whole
issue, therefore, just begs the question: When there are no compelling grounds
for refusing recognition of one’s heritage, is mere toleration of it good enough?
Considering the politically charged realities dominating many public domains,
I agree with Mike Wallace’s assessment that the professionals’ most “funda-
mental mission [should be] to assist people to become historically-informed
makers of history.”18 If interpreters cannot bring heritage activism to its fullest
pluralistic form, then they should at least strive to engender a spirit of under-
standing in society that there is room for everyone’s heritage in the public
domain, that knowledge of another group’s culture can be valuable, and that
respect for diversity is a necessity in civil society. The bare minimum heritage
interpreters could do—on their own—is deploy information in the public
space in an expertly and non-derogatory manner.
Ultimately, what emerges from this highly generalized discussion of Western
heritage interpretation thus far is the need for a public domain in any society
calling itself democratic, at the most basic level, to allow vernacular (dissent-
ing) narratives to exist alongside dominant ones. The ability of any commu-
nity, and its members, to determine what their cultural identity is or how to
organize its preservation should be the minimum prerequisite for accepting a
society as truly pluralistic. In a heritage space where communities are denied
access to the media, textbooks, and civil society on their own terms and for
reasons no other than xenophobic sentiments, there is no true plurality of opin-
ions. So far, the Pomaks in Bulgaria have been refused the opportunity to speak
for themselves, even though theirs is a heritage of potentially vast cultural ben-
efit to society at large. This refusal to recognize Pomak culture has kept such
popular phenomena as the Ribnovo wedding, for example, confined to a mere
“curiosity” status, instead of the full-fledged Pomak cultural heritage that it is.
The cultural agency I seek for the Pomak heritage requires a discussion of
identity as the way dissenting voices negotiate a niche for themselves in public
spaces already claimed by rigid master narratives. Often, as in the present case,
these master narratives are the official, government-promoted, institutional-
ized versions of the past and present, which—to varying degrees—limit or deny
access of vernacular (minority, dissenting) narratives to the public domain.
Historical circumstances, discussed throughout this book, have transformed
18 Mike Wallace, Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory (Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press, 1996), 27.
the Pomak narrative into a dissenting one, and not by Pomak choice. The
Pomaks are a community of people that speak Bulgarian as a mother tongue,
but profess Islam as their religion unlike the country’s Orthodox Christian
majority. Based on the unity of language, the Pomaks have been historically
subjected to recurring forced assimilation since Bulgaria’s independence
from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Already in the early twentieth century, the
nascent and aggressive Bulgarian nationalism sought to convert the Pomaks to
Orthodox Christianity as a way to consolidate territory and forge national iden-
tity. The underlying rationale for the assimilation rested on the claim that the
Pomaks descend from Christian Bulgarians, whom the Ottomans converted to
Islam at a sword point sometime before the 1800s. Even as this narrative has
taken deep roots in Bulgaria’s historical discourse as the single, undisputable
truth, there is an emerging recognition among Bulgarian scholars that conver-
sions to Islam of Slavic populations in the Balkans between the fourteenth and
nineteenth centuries were largely voluntary.19 Nevertheless, the forced-assimi-
lation thesis and the deeply seated anti-Ottoman/Turkish/Islamic nationalism
in Bulgaria (and in the Balkans as a whole) has rendered it impossible for the
Pomaks to stake a claim to Muslimness as the most immediate attribute of their
distinct identity. In the vocabulary of Bulgarian nationalism, Muslim means
“the other,” “the outsider,” “the enemy.” The Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, there-
fore, cannot profess Islam or maintain a separate religious-cultural identity
and still be “true” Bulgarians. Repeatedly harassed to renounce their faith and
traditions, the Pomaks have resisted multiple attempts at conversion or forced
assimilation by various regimes in Bulgaria. In the past three decades, invoking
the country’s claim to democracy, they have progressively insisted on being
able to freely assert a Pomak heritage of their own making.20 Still, remnants of
entrenched totalitarian mentality in Bulgaria’s nationalist ideology nip in the
bud any formal or informal undertaking to that effect.21
19 For details, see chapter two.

20 In this book, the terms Pomaks, Slavic/Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, and Bulgarian
Muslims are used interchangeably as synonymous.
21 One, among many, scandals involves the attempt by the Bulgarian Statistical Institute to
democratically respond to people’s demands for free self-identification by including
“Bulgaro-Mohammedan” and “Macedonian” identities, among others, in the 2011 census
forms. Even though “Bulgaro-Mohammedan” or “Bulgarian-Mohammedan” is the stan-
dard name of reference to the Pomaks in Bulgaria, the ultra-nationalist political forma-
tion VMRO immediately announced this act to be a “monstrous,” “Stalinist” revisionism of
Bulgarian history. The scandal generated a wave of resignations in the Bulgarian Statistical
Institute when seasoned statisticians were accused of trying to create a “Bulgaro-
Mohammedan ethnicity” in Bulgaria. Needless to say, the proposed changes to the census
14 chapter 1
Before moving any further, however, I need to explain what the meaning of
heritage is that I promote here. The next section examines certain aspects
of the generally broad heritage conception that are relevant to my argument of
cultural agency in the Pomak context. Among other things, this part of the
analysis defines heritage as identity on vernacular and national levels, a con-
nection that is necessary to justifying my endeavor to identify, formulate, and
preserve in writing fundamental aspects of the hotly contested, intangible
Pomak heritage. Simply stated, the preservation of Pomak heritage is insepa-
rable from the recognition of Pomak identity, and nationalism should not be
an obstacle to granting that recognition.
Heritage as Identity
Heritage as an academic concept has an amorphous character because it

explores the overlapping sections of various disciplines such as history, eth-
nography, tourism, geography, literature, folklore, archeology, environmental
science, and many others. According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary, heritage is “[p]roperty that descends to an heir, something trans-
mitted by or acquired from a predecessor; a legacy, inheritance, tradition,
something passed on as a result of one’s natural situation or birth.”22 Thus, in
addition to specifying that heritage is an entity that is passed on from one
human generation to the next, the above definition suggests that heritage can
be of both material (tangible) and symbolic (intangible) nature. Material
things that constitute heritage may be family heirlooms (jewelry, china, furni-
ture, art works, etc.), vintage cars, architectural buildings and monuments,
heritage sites, historical records, natural environment, and wildlife. Heritage
that is of intangible or symbolic nature, on the other hand, reflects people’s
sense of identity: their understanding of who they are and their shared memo-
ries of the past as well as aspirations for the future. Although distinct, these
two aspects of heritage are inherently connected through being claimed, pre-
served, and celebrated by people. While physical heritage requires conserva-
tion to endure as material anchors of community identity, spiritual heritage
rests on remembrance to preserve what cannot be rendered into objects: the
form were immediately dropped. Thus, during the 2011 census, the Pomaks’s choice
of identity was again restricted to “Bulgarians,” “Turks,” or “Others.” (Mihail Ivanov,
“Prebroyavaneto dogodina veche e comprometirano,” Mediapool.bg, September 23, 2010.)
22 Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh edition (Merriam Webster Incorporated,
2004), 582.
sense of belonging together as a community or as a nation-state. Ultimately,

however, both forms of heritage are essential for promoting identity as a vital
component of people’s sense of self and place in society. The need for identity
is particularly acute among the members of disposed groups such as the
Pomaks.
1 Heritage as Vernacular (Dissenting) Identity

“Heritage is everywhere,” David Lowenthal proclaims. People cherish their
heritage and so it matters to them.23 When individuals, communities, and even
nation-states assign narratives to places and the past, heritage comes to life
and, in time, transpires as identity. As cultural identities are shaped, heritage
becomes mandatory, and as national narratives are formed, heritage gets insti-
tutionalized. When master narratives dominate public spaces, dissenting
voices inevitably challenge them by seeking inclusion or insisting on their own
versions of history. As the politics of heritage, thus, comes into play, it neces-
sitates the call for pluralistic approaches to brokering heritage so that cultural
narratives, needed by their holders, have a chance to survive.
“[I]t has become conventional wisdom,” W. Fitzhugh Brundage posits, “that
memory [as heritage] is inextricably bound up with group [community]
identity.”24 Both material and symbolic heritage is constructed by people to
indicate their belonging to a community—town, neighborhood, minority
group, nation, region—in a way that reflects their perception of self. Heritage is
always claimed by someone. In the process of appropriating it, people shape
and transform heritage according to their need for an identity that is innocent
and virtuous. Heritage, for its creator, is never vicious or fictitious, but always
good, noble, and—from a nation-state’s perspective—glorious.
As Peter Howard appropriately argues, identity is one of the central compo-
nents of heritage. Heritage, in the author’s opinion, always reflects (i) a person
or group’s search for identity; (ii) that it is people’s interpretation of the past;
and that, (iii) once heritage has entered the public domain, it requires custo-
dial management. As all humans share a drive to preserve things that are of
value to them, heritage becomes the universal human quest for a comfortable
sense of self whereby the members of a given community negotiate their iden-
tity with the rest in society and among themselves. The community then
affirms their constructed identity (i) through symbolic commemoration of
23 David Lowenthal, “The Heritage Crusade and Its Contradictions,” in Giving Preservation a
History, ed. Max Page and Randall Mason (New York: Routledge, 2004), 19–43.
24 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed., Where These Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern
Identity (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 3.
16 chapter 1
heroic events or person(s) from the past, and (ii) through material manifesta-
tions of heritage, including historic buildings and sites, monuments, written
records, public festivities, rituals, and traditions. What is truly important in
this process, however, is the community’s ability to manage the interpretation
of its own tangible and intangible heritage.25
Accordingly, three fundamental techniques of constructing an acceptable
identity can be gleaned from Brundage’s analytical account of Acadian culture
in Louisiana. These are: (1) creating an acceptable past by validating myths
(idealization); (2) authenticating the past by identifying material anchors of
memory (authentication); and (3) promoting heritage by selling it to tourists
(commoditization).26 What drove Louisiana’s Acadians into (re)imagining
their identity during the “revivalist” movement of the 1920s–1960s was the
unflattering Anglo-Saxon perceptions of them as crude peasant “folk.” In this
period, Acadian cultural enthusiasts revived and recreated a heritage that
would evoke a sense of pride in the community, rather than embarrassment
about their rustic origins. Consequently, they authenticated the romantic
myth of a brave and devoted maiden, Evangeline, who spent a lifetime search-
ing for her beloved Gabriel.27 In Evangeline, the “revivalists” found both
(i) desirable identity traits—loyalty, determination, endurance, bravery—to
stress in the construction of heritage, and (ii) a suitable identity icon to epito-
mize the “noble” Acadian character. These narrative creators even provided the
Evangeline myth with a “factual basis” in history by identifying locations in
Louisiana, presumably of significance to Evangeline, including the very oak
tree under which she cast a first glance at Gabriel. These physical attributes
then not only became the material anchors (authenticators) of the constructed
Acadian identity, but subsequently emerged as great tourist attractions.
Ultimately, the “revivalists” successfully imagined a culture of their liking that
satisfied both the Acadian people’s need for a dignified identity and Louisiana’s
eagerness for tourist money, all with no harm to society at large.28
That all heritages have elements of cultural invention is beyond any doubt,
even if those are based on “indisputable truths” in the eyes of the heritage
beholders. Both people and nation-states need heritage to survive and thrive.
In a fundamental way, heritage becomes a need that has to be satisfied through
25 Peter Howard, Heritage: Management, Interpretation, Identity (London: Continuum

International Publishing Group, 2003), passim.
26 Brundage, 271–298.
27 The couple tragically lost contact during the “Great Exile,” i.e., Acadian migration from
Nova Scotia, Canada, to Louisiana.
28 Brundage, 271–298.
(re‑)invention, which is not an easy undertaking. In Southern Heritage on

Display, ten case studies reveal that the construction and promotion of cul-
tural identity can be a difficult process of negotiating, borrowing, and resisting
cultural notions (stereotypes, imposed identities) even in a public domain
with strong pluralistic traditions such as that of the Unites States.29 Kathryn
VanSpanckeren, for example, describes how the black Creoles of Louisiana
assume the identity and costume of the Plains Indians when performing in
Mardi Gras, thus, effectively authenticating a claim to Native American lin-
eage. In analyzing the structure of the urban Indian Song Cycle, VanSpanckeren
depicts two distinct types of performances—those of the black and white
communities in Louisiana, clearly projecting both groups’ sense of identity.
Thus, the singing, dancing, and costuming of the black community are mark-
edly warlike, heroic, and enacting mock battles that express rejection of white
control, whereas the white performances are less concerned with emblems of
oppression and resistance.30 This status quo highlights at least three crucial
aspects of asserting heritage as identity. First, negotiating a desirable identity
within the public space is important to previously marginalized groups
(African Americans). Second, the process of constructing a desirable identity
often involves defiance of the mainstream (white) culture, and borrowing from
other vernacular cultures (from Native Americans) to dignify one’s heritage.
Third, the group negotiating its identity through defiance and borrowing feels
the need to affirm this constructed self-image in the public domain (via Mardi
Gras performance).
In “Melungeons and the Politics of Heritage,” Melissa Schrift further elabo-
rates on the complexities of negotiating a cultural identity. Similarly to
Brundage’s Acadian stipulation, she suggests that the term Melungeonness in
eastern Tennessee constitutes an imposed identity that originally was rejected
by the majority of those whom it concerned. For the Appalachian population,
known to outsiders as Melungeon, the notion evoked popular racial slurs of
“dark-skinned,” “dirty,” “untrustworthy” people—epithets originating in out-
side perceptions of the locals as being of mixed African American, Native
American, and European American pedigree. Negotiating an acceptable
Melungeon identity, therefore, has become paramount for the Melungeon
community of Appalachia. It stems from their need to attain a heritage of their
29 Celeste Ray, ed., Southern Heritage on Display: Public Rituals and Ethnic Diversity with
Southern Regionalism (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003).
30 Kathryn VanSpanckeren, “The Mardi Gras Indian Song Cycle: A Heroic Tradition,” in
Southern Heritage on Display: Public Rituals and Ethnic Diversity with Southern Regional-
ism, ed. Celeste Ray (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003), 57–78.
18 chapter 1
own making and to find a safe niche within the mainstream cultural discourse,
where Melungeonness can be both distinct and respectable. As local Melungeon
enthusiasts put themselves to the task of constructing a desirable identity,
Schrift observes how at reunions and on internet forums lively discussions
ensue about physical characteristics that set the Melungeons apart in a digni-
fied way.31
In a similar fashion, the Pomaks of Bulgaria strive to disassociate their image
from that of “forcibly converted Christians” or “traitorous Bulgarians,” partly in
defiance of the historical assimilation and partly in search for a new, respect-
able identity for themselves. However, as a growing number of community
members organize themselves to promote Pomak identity and to push for its
recognition, the Pomak discourse in Bulgaria becomes more aggressively polit-
icized. The recently registered “European Institute-Pomak” has been virtually
subjected to state harassment since its inception. As late as August 2013, all
thirteen of its founding members had been summoned “for a conversation” to
the police headquarters in Gotse Delchev—which also happen to be the
regional office of DANS (Dŭrzhavna agentsia za natsionalna sigurnost/State
Agency for National Security), without formal subpoena. When Kŭdri Ulanov
of Ribnovo, one of the founders, declined to appear, he was threatened with an
arrest over the telephone. “As I found out,” he told journalists later, “DANS sum-
moned us for interrogation based on the complaint of one dotsent [academic
title] Evgeni Getchev—whom none of us knows—filed with the Chief
Prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, following a publication in Duma, the mouthpiece
of BSP [the Bulgarian Socialist Party]. The publication in question is from
14 November 2012. Its author, Todor Koruev, alleges that the ‘European Institute-
Pomak’—that is us—engages in anti-Bulgarian and anti-state activities.
Another reason for our being called in [for questioning] is the report we sent
to the European Commission [for Human Rights] and to the embassies of
31 Melissa Schrift, “Melungeons and the Politics of Heritage,” in Southern Heritage on Display:
Public Rituals and Ethnic Diversity with Southern Regionalism, ed. Celeste Ray (Tuscaloosa,
AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003), 106–129.
Claiming Mediterranean ancestry—Portuguese and/or Turkish—these Melungeon
activists have elaborated a whole list of traits (among those are the “Anatolian bump,” the
“sleepy eyes,” and the Familial Mediterranean Fever), purportedly typical of their Euro-
Mediterranean forefathers. Thus, at Melungeon gatherings, members of the community
meticulously examine their bodies in search of characteristics that unite them. The act of
discovering shared physical features, then, provides the descendants with the comforting
reassurance of clean origins, respectable identity, and sense of rootedness.
foreign countries where Pomaks live, detailing the factual [from the group’s
perspective] status of the Pomak community in Bulgaria in 2012.”32
The “European Institute-Pomak” is the first—and so far the only—organiza-
tion using the word “Pomak” in its name that has been allowed to formally
register in Bulgaria. Previous attempts to establish Pomak organizations,
including by seeking formal registration, had proven unsuccessful because
various populist politicians and their following had managed to project such
activities as “un-Bulgarian” and “anti-constitutional.” The existing constitu-
tional prohibition to form political parties on “an ethnic, racial, or religious
basis” has provided an ample justification for arbitrary attacks against any
entity attempting to promote Pomak heritage in Bulgaria, with or without
legitimate reasons.33
What this latest case demonstrates is that (i) a simple complaint to the chief
prosecutor (ii) by a person believing that “European Institute-Pomak” engages
in “anti-Bulgarian and anti-state activities,” (iii) based on the allegations of an
article published nine months earlier, (iv) in a medium already serving a par-
ticular ideology, can become a reason for political harassment. Given the his-
tory of forced assimilation and the ongoing censoring of Pomak identity in
Bulgaria, it is not difficult to imagine what the actual purpose of this police
conduct is—to scare. Not being legally able to shut down the organization—
be it as unconstitutional since it is not a political party (“Pomak” is now an
officially registered political party, with membership opened to all Bulgarian
citizens) or as an entity engaged in “anti-state activities” as there is no proof of
32 Infomreja.bg, “DANS privika na razpit rŭkovodstvoto na institute ‘Pomak,’” Infomreja.bg,

Agust 13, 2013. Available at http://infomreja.bg/nova-ataka-sreshtu-institut-pomak-dans-
privika-rykovodstvoto-na-razpit-13176.html. Accessed August 23, 2013. The original quote
from the same source reads:
“Разбрах, че предприетите от ДАНС разпити са във връзка с жалба на доц. Евгени
Гечев, когото никой от нас не познава, до главния прокурор Сотир Цацаров след
публикация в официоза на БСП—вестник ‘Дума.’ Статията е от 14 ноември 2012
година. В нея авторът Тодор Коруев твърди, че Европейски институт «Помак», тоест
ние, извършва антибългарска и антидържавническа дейност. Другата причина
за привикването ни е изпратеният от нас доклад до Европейската комисия и
посолствата на държавите, в които живеят помаци. В него сме изложили
фактическото състояние на помашкото население в България през 2012 година,”
подочи [Kъдри] Уланов.
33 Article 11.4 of Bulgaria’s Constitution reads: “Political parties may not be formed on an
ethnic, racial, or religious basis, nor [shall it be permissible to form] any parties which
make it their object to seize state power by force.” Available at http://www.vks.bg/english/
vksen_p04_01.htm#Chapter_Two_. Accessed September 23, 2013.
20 chapter 1
that—the authorities, both police and DANS, resort to “proven” communist

methodology—harassment—to stop the formalization of Pomak identity.
It is through such indiscriminate forms of harassment that the development
of Pomak heritage in Bulgaria continues to be frustrated. What is more, the
prevalent excuse for this arbitrariness is usually of the most base and offensive
kind: Accusations of “un-Bulgarian” activities, “Islamic fundamentalism,” and
“terrorist” intents, filed by any ill-intentioned person with the police or the
chief prosecutor will usually suffice. In the context of historical abuses, this
treatment instills a sense of powerlessness and cultural dispossession among
the Pomaks in Bulgaria that cannot possibly be conducive to pluralism. As the
Pomaks strive for some form of empowerment, including recognition of their
heritage, they face indomitable obstacles. But a community’s need for identity
and cultural respectability cannot simply be dismissed on grounds of irratio-
nal intolerance. As a group, the Pomaks are yet to successfully negotiate and
affirm an identity of their own making in the public domain. It will take a great
deal of inside cultural activism, on one side, and a receptive socio-political
environment, on the other, to salvage the remnants of Pomak heritage. Much
like the Acadian “revivalists” of Louisiana in the 1960s, cultural activists
must piece the fragments together and create a more coherent picture of
Pomak identity.
The need for cultural respectability is universal and does not solely belong
to historically marginalized people. Individuals, communities, and countries
alike feel the need for a dignified heritage. Nation-states, too—especially pre-
viously subjugated ones—aspire to venerable origins and claim glorious antiq-
uities. States, moreover, seek to affirm narratives of “golden ages” via aggressive
nationalism. It is important to analyze the concept of heritage as national
identity because it is in this context that vernacular heritages emerge, to sur-
vive or die. The next section discusses identity on the national level, arguing
that if nation-states could construct narratives of their own, so should vernac-
ular communities dwelling within.
2 Heritage as National (Dominant) Identity

In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson forcefully argues that nation-
ness, nationality, and nationalism are not some preexisting pillars of social
order, but cultural construct, which ruling elites invented in response to press-
ing social needs.34 Thus, the phenomenon of nation-state is an ideological
product that superseded the older feudal state structure once it became
34 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991), 4.
obsolete, rather than being a predetermined order of things.35 The modern

concept of the nation as a community of people sharing culture and territory,
therefore, is not preordained. Rather, in Andersonian terms, it is an imagined
entity, which has been (re-)invented by elites under critical socio-cultural and
political circumstances.
Following Anderson’s line of reasoning, Hugh Trevor-Roper famously reveals
(employing a controversial language one should add) that the proverbial
“ancient” tartan-and-kilt costume of Scotland is an eighteenth-century
invention.36 Therefore, every time Scotsmen come together to celebrate their
national heritage, imposingly dressed in patterned tartans and adorned by
kilts and bagpipes, they are not re-enacting a tradition from antiquity, but a
cultural construct from modernity. Shaped by the extreme political circum-
stances of the 1700s, the distinguishable tartan and kilt had come to epitomize
the dignified Scottish identity by the late eighteenth century. Well into the
1700s, Scotland essentially existed as two detached portions, having very little
in common: namely, the “civilized,” English-and-French-influenced Lowlands
and the “barbarian,” “roguish” Highlands, as the author puts it. Whereas the
Saxon Lowlanders followed European fashions of waistcoat and breeches,
the Celtic Highlanders wore the tartan—attire highly adapted to the rocky and
boggy terrain of the Scottish mountains, as well as cheap to obtain. Not only
did the tartan37 firmly connect the Highlanders to Ireland, whence they had
come from, but the large majority of Scotchmen considered it “a sign of bar
barism; a badge of roguish, idle, predatory Highlanders . . . a nuisance . . . to
civilized, historic [Lowland] Scotland.”38
By the mid-eighteenth century, however, England had crushed the last of
the pro-independence Jacobite Rebellions in Scotland (1745), subdued the
population, and outlawed the Highland dress with an act of Parliament (1746).
Thereafter, the tense relationship between England and Scotland provoked
many a Scottish nobility to adopt the tartan in symbolic resistance to English
oppression. Ironically, while powerful Lowlanders elevated the Highland dress
to an emblem of Scottishness, the Highlanders themselves substituted the tar-
tan for breeches during the thirty-five-year English prohibition (the 1746 ban
was later lifted) never to reconstitute its former omnipresence. Ultimately, it
35 Ibid., passim.
36 Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland,” in
The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 15–41.
37 Tartan is a cloth woven in geometric patterns of color (Trevor-Roper, 18–19).
38 Trevor-Roper, 15.
22 chapter 1
was the need of Scotland to resist subjugation and promote a dignified national
identity that transformed the tartan-and-kilt dress from “a badge of barbarism”
into a symbol of heroic heritage. Neither the tartan nor the kilt, however, pos-
sessed the ancient pedigree they were purported to have, but rather sprang
from the Scottish drive to assert a distinctly noble identity. In the end,
Highlanders and Lowlanders forged their sense of belonging together, as
Scotsmen, in opposition to English tyranny and adopted the tartan and kilt39 as
the national costume of Scotland. Simply stated, in the turbulent, modern age
of nationalism, symbols of national identity have been abundantly and con-
tinuously (re-)imagined as ancient in a manner of state prerogative and to the
exclusion of many dissenting narratives.
Extremely aggressive nationalisms are particularly visible in previously sub-
jugated nation-states. Among these are most southeast European states,
including Bulgaria, which rose to nationhood only after the disintegration
of the last surviving multiethnic empires—Habsburg Austria-Hungary and
Ottoman Turkey in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nation-
building within these states was a fairly sudden and violent process. With no
foundation of sovereign government or tradition in democratic rule, the newly
independent Balkan peoples adopted the kind of romantic nationalism that
imposed—what was perceived as—the collective will of the leading ethno-
religious communities.40 As nationalism equated aggressive dominance of the
ethno-cultural majority, violence against diverging groups—especially those
perceived as a threat to the nascent nation-state—was rife. Violence, there-
fore, became an integral part of the process of nation-building and affirming
national identity. In defiance of the Ottoman Islamic dominance, the young
nation-states of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, among others,
embarked on an ideology of nationalism meant to ensure the political suprem-
acy of the culturally prevalent Christian majority, at all cost.
All in all, the Balkan states at the turn of the twentieth century tended to be
overly concerned with securing the dominance of the ethno-religious majority
vis-à-vis the former “oppressor.” The politics of coercion these new nations
often exerted took the forms of exclusion (expulsion), intimidation, and/or
forced assimilation of religiously, ethnically, or linguistically differing groups
within the national community. Whereas exclusion permanently placed
39 The kilt was invented by the Englishman Thomas Rawlinson, an ironsmith, to serve the
practical purpose of holding the tartan of his Highland workmen in place while they
operated his furnaces in the eighteenth century.
40 Hans Kohn, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand
Company, Inc., 1955), 87.
certain segments of the population outside of the identity discourse, ruling

elites also resorted to coercive assimilation to enforce, solidify, and maintain
uniformity among the people of the nation-state they controlled. In the sense
that assimilation of minority groups proved crucial to the successful consoli-
dation of the national state and to the continuing process of popular solidarity,
ruling elites first attempted to assimilate diverging communities, including by
force. When assimilation failed to produce results, exclusion and marginaliza-
tion supplanted it. This scenario certainly fits the historical treatment of the
Pomaks in Bulgaria, whose heritage continues to be heavily censured.
Five Case Studies
With the concept of cultural agency in mind, this book sets out to make a first
contribution to the process of claiming a Pomak heritage. By formulating and
preserving in writing engaging and pivotal aspects of it, I strive to bring what is
a contested narrative at present to the forefront of legitimate debate. As no
single issue of the Pomak story is more important than the rest, I felt justified
in my freedom to select specific cases to study. In the process of research,
I identified, analyzed, and narrated five separate stories with the help of archi-
val documents, oral narratives, available literature, and compelling imagery.
Each of these case studies not only contains a fascinating storyline (indepen-
dent of my storytelling ability), but also belongs among the most prominent
identifiers of Pomak history and culture, in my opinion. Specifically, they
relate to (i) the Pomak Christianization (pokrŭstvane) of 1912–1913 (chapter
two); (ii) the communist vŭzhroditelen protses (revival process or rebirth) of
1972–1974 (chapter three); (iii) Ramadan Runtov’s life of political dissent
against the forced assimilation (chapter four); (iv) the elaborate wedding ritu-
als of Ribnovo (chapter five); and (v) the forgotten legacy of the Ottoman gov-
ernor of Pomak origin, Salih Ağa of Paşmaklı (chapter six). All five narratives
constitute a remarkable Pomak heritage in themselves, and pertain to the past
and present of the Muslim, Bulgarian-speaking community of the Rhodopes,
jointly known as Pomaks. Most of the analysis in all five chapters rests on oral
history and archival documents. The former evidence stems, in largest part,
from personally conducted interview and from oral history recorded by others.
The later derives from archival documents housed in the Central State
Archives-Sofia (hereafter, Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, or TsDAS),
Regional State Archives-Plovdiv (hereafter, Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plo-
vdiv, or ReDAP), and Regional State Archives-Smolyan (hereafter, Regionalen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Smolyan, or ReDAS).
24 chapter 1
Formulating a comprehensive narrative of the Pomak heritage is a daunt-

ing—and presently impossible—task because of the historical fragmentation
of the collective Pomak story, among other factors. Therefore, such an approach
is beyond the scope of this book as similar over-ambitiousness would nearly
amount to academic arrogance. Instead, my more modest goal—as well as
obligation as a cultural insider and heritage practitioner—is to document and
preserve Pomak stories as a kind of initial stage in the emergent, continuous,
and more comprehensive process of negotiating the Pomak heritage.
Chapters two, three, and four of this book deal with the most dramatic and
visible part of the collective Pomak existence in Bulgaria: the various forced
conversions/assimilations which ultimately defined the community’s sense of
self. The pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913 was the first attempt at comprehensive reli-
gious conversion of the Pomaks as citizens of the new Eastern Orthodox
Christian nation-state of Bulgaria. As a divergent group, affiliated with the for-
mer Ottoman “oppressor” by religion, and as a Slavic (Bulgarian)-speaking
minority, they were immediately singled out for assimilation within the
broader context of territorial, political, and cultural consolidation of the coun-
try. The Balkan Wars of 1912–191341 provided the “opportune moment,” in the
words of one priest, for Bulgaria’s ruling elite to launch the brutal business of
pokrŭstvane.42 The plethora of existing records reveal that not only all levels of
state and church authorities were involved in the pokrŭstvane, but also insur-
gent bands which facilitated the conversion through violence and murder of
Pomak civilians. The Christianization of 1912–1913 took place in the context a
powerful and violent nationalist ideology.
Chapter three explores the impact of the vŭzhroditelen protses on Pomak
life during the communist period in Bulgaria (1944–1989). In particular, I pro-
vide an overview of the last significant Bulgarianization of Pomak culture
using archival documents as well as first-hand witness accounts. The compos-
ite evidence suggests that the vŭzhroditelen protses was not a sudden and cha-
otic affair as ideologically implied. Rather, it was a meticulously planned and
coldly executed strategy that faltered at times upon encountering resistance,
but never paused—no matter the cost—until coming to full fruition in 1985
with the renaming of the Turkish minority. Although the term vŭzhroditelen
protses is generally associated with the communist campaign against the eth-
nic Turks, the ordeal of the Pomaks is no less significant. In fact, because the
41 See chapter two for more details.

42 See footnote 32 of chapter two.
Note: All archival documents and interviews used in this book are the author’s translation
from Bulgarian.
violence against them drew surprisingly little international attention in com-

parison to that against the Bulgarian Turks, studying the Pomak vŭzhroditelen
protses seems even more compelling. The interviews I conducted with former
victims serve as a powerful, direct testimony to what occurred during the 1960s
and 1970s. In particular, this chapter examines the policy and ideology of the
vŭzhroditelen protses, the Pomak identity crisis it generated, and the political
resurrection of the notorious organization Rodina, which served as the revival-
ist propaganda machine.
Chapter four narrates the life story of Ramadan Runtov, one of the most
active Pomak anti-revivalists in Bulgaria from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. For
over thirty years, Ramadan’s life had been a sequence of economic hardship,
political persecution, imprisonment, and torture. Because of his vocal opposi-
tion to the vŭzhroditelen protses, the regime arrested Ramadan and tried him
on bogus treason charges (i.e., conspiring the overthrow the “people’s regime”),
for which he faced the possibility of death penalty. The gravity of the charges,
however, was largely a ploy to scare him into silence. Consequently, Ramadan
spent over a decade behind bars as a political prisoner, where he endured a
regimen of harassment, starvation, and sleep deprivation.43 In the end, the
regime rounded up Ramadan and his family and summarily expelled them
from Bulgaria in May 1989, just six month before the collapse of communism
in the country. The Runtovs eventually settled in Istanbul (Turkey), where
I interviewed the then seventy-seven-year-old Ramadan in the summer of
2007. The chapter argues that the life stories of exiles like Ramadan are not
only an engaging narrative of dissent, but also an essential component of the
Pomak heritage.
Chapter five paints the portrait of a beautiful wedding ritual within the con-
text of Pomak heritage. The event occurs seasonally in a remote corner of
southwest Bulgaria, in the village of Ribnovo. The Ribnovo wedding is an age-
old local tradition, typical of the Rhodopean Muslim community, which has all
but disappeared elsewhere. The elaborate colorfulness of the bridal make-up
not only has put Ribnovo on the map of Bulgarian national and international
cultural phenomena, but also has raised questions about Pomak identity.
Ribnovo is a Pomak community; identified by its members as Pomak and
known by the outside world to be Pomak. In this chapter, I introduce the reader
to the village of Ribnovo as I saw it in 2004, 2009, and 2013, in its isolated loca-
tion, narrow winding roads, and clustered layout. I also provide a detailed
description of the traditional Ribnovo wedding as an event in the course of
43 Ramadan Runtov, interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 21, 2007; Ismail Byalkov,
interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 20, 2007.
26 chapter 1
which the entire community celebrates, putting a particular emphasis on the

bride’s adornment and cheiz (dowry) arrangement—by far, the two most
attractive and well-known features of the Ribnovo wedding. Above all, how-
ever, I wish to project the Ribnovo wedding as a distinctly Pomak tradition—
that is, typical of the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims of the Rhodopes.
Chapter six revives the memory of Salih Ağa of Paşmaklı, the Pomak gover-
nor of the Ottoman kaza of Ahı Çelebi between 1798 and 1838. He was a remark-
able person who not only secured stability in Ahı Çelebi in turbulent times for
the Ottoman Empire, but also established a social order of a new type—one
based on equality between Muslims and Christians despite a discriminating
Shari’a (the normative law of the Ottoman Empire).44 As Nikolay Haytov—
despite being one of the most nationalistic Bulgarian writers—sums it up, the
governor’s most remarkable legacy lies in “the fact that he elevated the status
of the Christians to that of the Muslims in both civil and political aspect[.]”45
To this day, however, the heritage of Salih Ağa remains obscure and unrecog-
nized in local public history, because he was a bureaucrat of the former
Ottoman “oppressor,” and, moreover, a Pomak. This chapter recreates the life
story of a remarkable person, whom the annals of Ottoman imperial history
overlook as petty local governor and Bulgarian historiography neglects quite
purposely as “Turkish tyrant.”
In Conclusion
Whereas Acadian, Melungeon, or Pomak heritages, among others across the

world, may be cultural inventions, the process of constructing a dignified self-
image is a legitimate way for communities to contest identities that have been
imposed on them by outsiders in a disparaging manner. The ability of vernacu-
lar cultures to reject demeaning notions as a matter of right becomes even
more compelling when the imposer is the nation-state, or at least a majority-
endorsed one. Nation-states and national identities, too, have been forged in
opposition to imperial master narratives as the case of Scotland illustrates.
However, while no nation-state is immune to constructing and imposing mas-
ter narratives in (what should constitute) shared cultural domains, it behooves
44 See chapter two and six for details.

45 Nikolay Haytov, “Smolyan: Tri vŭrha v srednorodopskata istoria”/“Smolyan: Three
Pinnacles in the History of the Middle Rhodopes”/ (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na Natsionalnia
Sŭvet na Otechesvenia Front/National Council of the Fatherland Front Publisher,
1962), 27.
a society projecting itself as democratic, at the very minimum, to foster a pub-

lic space free from suppression of dissenting (minority) narratives.
After all, heritage is socially constructed to serve the need of its creator for
an acceptable identity, not some immutable natural law. Heritage depends on
the prevalent social norms of the day, which (i) if marked by intolerance, sup-
port the heritage of the dominant group, and (ii) if promoting inclusion, keep
the governing elites in check. It is the responsibility of heritage professionals to
work towards brokering pluralistic collective heritage in the public domain
that provides grounds for integration, rather than separation, of all members
of society.
Whereas, theoretically, it is easy to argue in favor of pluralism, reality pres-
ents many, seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a holistic heritage interpre-
tation. Vicious nationalism and stubborn determination to keep a single
master narrative in place among previously subjugated nations or young
democracies can be particularly crippling to inclusiveness. In Bulgaria, as in
other nation-states, the definition of nationalism is effectively reduced to
narod, meaning that nation and people are one and the same thing. This entails
the restrictive equalization of the nation-state with the values and sentiments
of the dominating ethno-cultural majority in palpable disregard for the needs
of diverging groups. This sort of ideology, which has historically been a power-
ful tool for assimilating the Pomaks, is very much alive and working in Bulgaria.
As a result, efforts to promote a Pomak heritage—one that is separate from
the ethnic Bulgarian (Christian) narrative—in the official public domain have
consistently turned into frustration for interested professionals as well as
amateur enthusiasts.
As culture is the lifeblood of every identifiable human group, however, peo-
ple need identity and a sense of rootedness to achieve fulfilling existence. The
Pomaks—among other communities—feel the need to establish a heritage
that will provide them with a stable sense of self. Having been consistently
denied access into the official domain, they have sought other outlets to
express themselves. A curious phenomenon is happening lately. The inability
to freely promote the culture as Pomak via publications, museum exhibits,
heritage sites, and narratives has prompted a growing number of people to use
the Internet, including social networking sites like Facebook, to voice their
opinion and express their creativity. Passionate heritage amateurs have cre-
ated websites, opened forums, published photographs and stories, and formed
interest groups to keep in touch and exchange information nation- and region-
wide regarding Pomak identity and culture. Considering the continuing and
unfortunate censorship of Pomak identity in Bulgaria, it seems almost miracu-
lous to me to simply Google “Pomak,” “Ribnovo” and suchlike terms to be able
28 chapter 1
to read stories about the vŭzhroditelen protses or peruse through myriad of

photographs of exquisitely decorated Ribnovo brides, including on informally
established Pomak heritage websites.
Because Pomak culture has much to offer in the way of enrichment and
little in the way of harm, I have made it my academic mission to work for its
survival. Whereas the lack of reliable literature on the subject matter inevita-
bly cost me much frustration at the initial stage of this research, it ultimately
proved a blessing. As early as my preliminary investigation, I encountered so
many good stories in the form of fascinating personalities, traditions, and
events that it would have been extremely difficult to try to concentrate on one
instead of several narratives. But even as I expanded from the legendary Salih
Ağa of the Ottoman past to the colorful Ribnovo wedding today and from
the 1912 pokrŭstvane to the communist vŭzhroditelen protses, I have barely
scratched the surface of what is yet to be defined as Pomak heritage. Doubtlessly,
historians, ethnographers, and folklorists will find Pomak culture to be an end-
less source of fascination and enjoyment once they have won the hearts of
their target communities. For me, however, the issue of exploring Pomakness
has a deeply personal dimension, too.
Beyond fulfilling academic obligations, this research has enabled me to
make sense of childhood memories as well as of my own perception of self and
belonging. Growing up and into young adulthood, I remember being utterly
uneasy to declare myself a Pomak. The discomfort came not from some shame-
ful past or unclean identity of the collectivity of Pomak people. Rather, it origi-
nated in Bulgarian nationalism and the brutal propaganda that accompanied
the nation-state’s struggle for self-determination following the country’s inde-
pendence from Ottoman rule in 1878. In the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth century, Bulgaria was still a fledgling national state just emerging from the
chaos of the disintegrating Ottoman realm. Forced into a savage competition
for land and resources with other newly forming Balkan states, Bulgaria had to
quickly forge a national identity in order to survive. Since Bulgaria defined
itself as a Christian nation,46 it waved the banner of anti-Muslimness to distin-
guish itself from its former Islamic Ottoman “oppressor” and to stake its own
claim to a dignified existence. One speedy and effective way to that end was
the assimilation of the Pomaks, who spoke the Bulgarian language, compactly
inhabited the disputed realm of the Rhodope Mountains, but problematically
professed the Islamic faith. The leaning to convert the Rhodopean Muslims to
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, therefore, became a determined policy almost
immediately. Accordingly, state ideology duly labeled the Pomaks “pure-blood”
46 Not unlike its neighbors Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania.

Bulgarians to justify the conversion, as if identity ran in the DNA and not in
historical circumstances. Thus, from Ottoman Muslims until the Balkan Wars
of 1912–1913, the Pomaks became “Bulgarians” overnight, and they were hard
pressed to switch religious affiliation in order to fit their new label.
Whereas the Balkan Wars pokrŭstvane was the first sustained religious con-
version of the Pomaks in Bulgaria, it was only the beginning of a long and gru-
eling process of cultural assimilation. The legacy of religious suppression and
forced name changing made a derogatory term of the name “Pomak,” explain-
ing it to mean “pomŭchen,” or “tortured” into becoming Muslim.47 Thus, from
a name describing the collectivity of Slavic (Bulgarian)-speaking people of the
Islamic faith in the Rhodopes, “Pomak” came to be associated with “descen-
dants of Bulgarian Christians who had been forcedly Islamized by the Turks,”
as if “Bulgarian” was some preexisting identity. Moreover, especially with the
vŭzhroditelen protses, Pomak not only became synonymous with “tortured,” but
also developed the damning connotation of “traitorous.” That is, because of
their stubborn resistance to the forced assimilation, the Pomaks were gradu-
ally assigned a kind of collective guilt for the presumed failure of their “forefa-
thers” to die for the Christian faith instead of succumbing to Islam. These two
words, therefore—“tortured” and “traitorous”—held the key to my (and other
people’s) uneasiness to call themselves Pomak. I used to feel—rather, I was
made to feel, as so many still are—a profound sense of shame for belonging to
a people who had turned themselves into historical outcasts because of a pur-
ported inability to stand up for themselves. But even believing so, I was strug-
gling with a dilemma: “If the Pomaks could succumb to Islamization so easily,
how is it that they have not reconciled with Bulgarianization (to be understood
forced assimilation) yet?” As this book will point out, they did not succumb in
the sense, which Bulgarian nationalism puts into the term. Rather, Rhodopeans
accepted conversion for various reasons. In later years, more Bulgarian histori-
ans have begun to concede that conversions to Islam across the Ottoman
Balkans were voluntary rather than forced. Ottoman subjects of various cul-
tural and religious backgrounds adopted Islam for prestige and socio-political
opportunity prior to the nineteenth century, because—contrary to the
Romantic nationalism’s propaganda—they lacked a sense of national belong-
ing. Thus, Greek, Bulgarian, or Serbian national identity was only cultivated in
the nineteenth century when the ideology of nationalism penetrated the
47 It is a widely known thesis; freely floating within Bulgaria’s public domain, and still vigor-
ously defended by the official historiography, despite the lack of evidence to suggest that
the Pomaks were forced to convert to Islam (for details, see Anton Minkov, Conversion to
Islam in the Balkans (Leiden: Brill, 2004), passim).
30 chapter 1
Balkans and imbued the subjugated Christian populations of the Ottoman

Empire with aspirations for independent statehood after the example of
Western Europe.48
Considering that the community of Bulgarian-speaking Christians within
the Ottoman Empire only developed a collective self-consciousness in the later
nineteenth century, could the Pomaks feel Bulgarian in the seventeenth cen-
tury, when their purported Islamization occurred? Is it possible to talk about
Bulgarianness at all before such national identity was forged? Can one be trai-
torous to a national identity or culture even before one has one? Quite simply,
the whole contemporary debate about Pomak identity is a modern predica-
ment generated in the age of nationalism and driven by the nascent nation-
state’s need to affirm sovereignty. The problem, however, lies not in the
need—or even innate right—of the nation-state to survive, but in its inability
to give up its coercive ways long after the need has been met and stable national
society has been established. Considering the modern discourse of democracy
and plurality, it should no longer make sense to practice counterproductive
coercion. Yet, the exclusion of Pomak identity from the public domain in
Bulgaria remains remarkably aggressive. Because it is narrowly defined to
mean the community’s rejection of their Bulgarian origins, the concept
“Pomak” is simply unacceptable outside of the officially endorsed meaning of
the term. Ironically, this stance stems not from a legitimate concern about frag-
mentation of the national identity—for nothing is more contributive to it than
violence—but from the irrational fear of losing control should plurality gain
acceptance. Such fragile state of national self-confidence, however, is consis-
tent with the nation-state’s history of prior subjugation, authoritarian (com-
munist) government, and lack of truly democratic values.
In this sense, beyond fulfilling academic, professional, or moral require-
ments, this book has given me the courage to explore my cultural roots without
cringing at the thought of what I might find out there or how my conclusions
would be received in an environment of still fervent nationalism. The goal of
this research throughout has not been to maliciously antagonize peoples and
narratives, but to put across the message that everyone’s heritage matters. That
everyone should be able to explore, maintain, and preserve their identity in a
dignified and constructive way without fear of censorship or retribution.
Insofar as I believe that fashioning one’s outlook is first and foremost one’s
own prerogative, I also claim that a group’s identity should be the group’s
own domain before it is someone else’s. In other words, the Pomaks—or any
48 See the relevant sections of chapters two and three.

community, anywhere—need not be told—much less forced into—what to

think of themselves.
It is important that Pomak heritage exists and for many reasons. On the
most technical level, such narratives as the Ribnovo wedding, Salih Ağa, and
Ramadan Runtov make for an exciting academic storytelling likely to appeal to
many and diverse audiences. On a more substantive level, the ability of a com-
munity to express and take pride in their heritage provides its members with a
sense of rootedness and empowerment. The need for a cultural agency is par-
ticularly acute among the members of a historically dispossessed group like
the Pomaks, who continue to face prejudice and intimidation in their daily
efforts to express Pomak identity. An acknowledgement of Pomak heritage in
Bulgaria—and of vernacular heritages across the globe—needs to happen as a
matter of basic human right. The chief mufti of Bulgaria Mustafa Hadzhi for-
mulated it very appropriately in a speech delivered on March 28, 2013, during
the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the vŭzroditelen protses in
Kornitsa: “We are in Kornitsa. There is a church in front of us and a mosque
behind us. But neither the church, nor the mosque bother any of us. I am a
good Muslim citizen of this country and I want the same rights that Christo
and George have to be given to me and Ahmed, too.”49 In light of the argument
that there is Pomak heritage, this book is an example of what may qualify for
such. It is also an expression of the cultural agency I claim for myself, as a
member of the Pomak community, to formulate a version of the Pomak story
without harming anyone. All along, I have been mindful that cultivating toler-
ance in any heritage discourse is the precondition for moral success.
49 “S vŭzpomenatelen miting DPS otbelyaza 40-godishninata ot sŭbitiyata v gotsedelchevs-

koto selo Kornitsa,” Dvizhenie za prava i svobodi, March 3, 2013. Available at: www.dps.bg/
news/events/2234/s-vazpomenatelen-miting-dps-otbelyaza-40-godishninata-ot-
sabitiyata-v-gotsedelcheskoto-selo-kornitsa.aspx. Accessed April 3, 2013.
CHAPTER 2
Nationalism and Violence: The Case of Pomak

Christianization (Pokrŭstvane) in Bulgaria,
1912–1913*
The history of forced assimilation is the defining aspect of Pomak heritage in

Bulgaria, and it is the ideology of violent nationalism that underwrote it. The
young nation-state’s need to affirm sovereignty and forge respectable national
identity required the rejection of the Ottoman-Islamic past, as well as the
purging of everything reminiscent of the former “oppressor’s” dominance over
the perceived Bulgarian “homeland.” In unison with this sentiment, Bulgaria
immediately singled out the Muslim Pomaks for conversion to Orthodox
Christianity during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 because, as a sizable minority
group, their assimilation fulfilled two vital objectives. On one hand, it enabled
the fledgling nation-state’s claim to all territories settled by Bulgarian-speaking
Muslims based on language commonality. On the other hand, it helped diffuse
the freshly forged Bulgarian-Christian national identity to newly conquered
populations, notably to the Pomaks. Ultimately, various Bulgarian regimes, like
many others, consistently and effectively exploited the ideology of nationalism
to achieve political and cultural consolidation, including though violence.
This chapter enfolds the historical picture of the pokrŭstvane based on two
primary sources: existing documents dating back to the time of occurrence,
and surviving Pomak oral histories. Much of the first-hand evidence I draw
from the collection of archival records published under the editorship of the
Bulgarian scholars Velichko Georgiev and Stayko Trifonov, as well as from the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Report on the Balkan Wars
of 1914 (hereafter, the Carnegie Report). Organized in chronological order,
Georgiev and Trifonov’s volume effectively reveals the pokrŭstvane as a pre-
meditated and hushed affair in which ecclesiastical, state, and military author-
ities participated directly. The Carnegie Report, on the other hand, illuminates
the broader Balkan conflict and reveals the picture of violence committed by
all belligerents against civilian populations. (Controversial today for its politi-
* Reprinted, with important additions and modifications, from Fatme Myuhtar-May, “The
Pokrasvane (Christianization) of Pomaks during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913,” in War and
Nationalism, eds. Hakan Yavuz and Isa Blumi, pp. 316–360 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 2013).

Nationalism And Violence 33
cally incorrect language, my use of the Carnegie Report is limited to its well-
documented witness reports of violence committed by the nationals of all
belligerent nations against “enemy” nationals.) Surviving Pomak oral stories,
for their part, attest to the widespread murder of Pomaks in the (Western)
Rhodopes, committed mostly by insurgent Christian bands with the active
support of the regular army. Ultimately, even though direct admission of kill-
ing is conspicuously absent from the communication exchange and docu-
mented meetings of ecclesiastical authorities, religious missions, and military
officials in available Bulgarian sources (for reasons explained in this chapter),
evidence to that effect could be gleaned from the Carnegie Report and from
existing oral histories.
The chapter further analyzes this first comprehensive Christianization
(pokrŭstvane) of the Pomaks in Bulgaria on the premise of nationalism and
violence (the same as nationalism of violence), which sets the ideological con-
text for the rest of this book. The nationalism premise, however, first and fore-
most requires an explanation of just what accounts for the preponderance
of violence in the Bulgarian (and Balkan) national context. The next several
pages will explore the definition of nationalism and its specific Balkan applica-
tion before detailing the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913 as the first comprehensive
step in Bulgaria’s attempt to appropriate Pomak heritage in the process of
nation-building.
The Nationalism Premise
What I have come to regard as the classical definition of nationalism, estab-

lished by twentieth-century theoreticians, describes the phenomenon as eigh-
teenth-century, West-European popular struggle against dynastic absolutism
and revolutionary drive for increased participation of the people in state gov-
ernment.1 The early stages of nationalism were marked by civil revolutions in
two of the most preeminent West European monarchies, England and France.
While the English Civil War of the mid-seventeenth century, whereby
Parliament challenged and effectively curtailed the authority of King Charles I,
1 For more details on the above definition of nationalism, as well as on its projection from
Europe to the rest of the world, read, among others, Carlton J.H. Hayes, The Historical
Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1931); Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso,
1991); and Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992).
34 chapter 2
in effect set the wheel of nationalism into motion, it was the French Revolution
of 1789 that made it spin to its fullest capacity. In the sense that popular revolt
in both England and France brought royal tyranny to its knees, one may argue
that nationalism was a sort of democratic movement projected at enhancing
personal liberties and limiting the absolute powers of monarchal regimes.
This initial meaning of nationalism as an engine of liberty, however, changed
as the phenomenon began to move eastward on the European continent and
beyond. The countries of central, eastern, and southeastern Europe, where
nationalism—more or less—turned into exclusionism and violence during
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, lacked the hard-won historical
traditions of England and France in liberal government and statehood.
One pivotal factor that determined the type of nationalism to develop in the
Balkans was the movement of Romanticism that emerged in Germany during
the late eighteenth century and quickly spread to the rest of the continent
(and beyond). The nations that embraced Romantic ideology were, for the
most part, young, somewhat lacking in national pride, and in desperate need
of a dignified collective identity. Even more crucially, they did not have the
time and opportunity to “experiment” with nationalism in order to develop
their own adequate philosophy of the “liberal” nation-state, as England and
France (among others) had done. Thus, because of both sudden independence
and the kind of “inferiority complex” that most of the countries of central and
eastern Europe had as previously subjugated nations, they tended to embrace
the more restrictive Romantic concept of nationalism rather than the more
evolved, Enlightenment-driven version, typical of “older” nation-states.
Romanticism called for the celebration of vernacular (domestic) values as
an alternative to the dominant Western ideology of Enlightenment. Whereas
Enlightenment political philosophers (such as John Locke) held the rights and
happiness of the individual—viewed for the first time as the basic building
block of society—paramount, their Romantic counterparts (such as J.G.
Herder) stressed the preponderance of collective will in society. While the
Enlightenment upheld universal values, Romanticism proclaimed the suprem-
acy of culture-specific ones. For example, unlike Enlightenment philosophers
who expressed themselves in the classical languages of Latin and Greek or
other “trendy” languages (such as French), Romantics underscored the impor-
tance of native tongues and strove to preserve them.2
2 George W. White, Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identities in Southeastern

Europe (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), 52.
While Enlightenment put emphasis on reason, Romanticism exalted in the spontaneity of
human nature. While “Enlightened” philosophers preferred the urban environment as the
It was the “founding father” of Romantic nationalism, Johann Gottfried

Herder (1744–1803), who most significantly influenced the Balkan form of
nationalism which rejected the tenets of universality and individual freedoms
in favor of the glorification of domestic values and the enforcement of collec-
tive (the cultural majority’s) will. Herder’s own ideas were shaped by the cul-
tural status quo of his native Germany during the second half of eighteenth
century. In that period, the local aristocratic and artistic circles chose to fash-
ion themselves according to French perceptions of refinement, casting off the
vernacular language and folk traditions as crude, boorish, and embarrassing.
To elevate the vernacular culture, Herder declared that the German-speaking
peasants were the true keepers of ancient Germanic values. Putting ideology to
practice, he undertook to record and preserve as much of the folklore as he
personally could, charging other Germans with the same responsibility. For
Herder, upholding the nation-state and preserving the national character went
hand in hand, and he turned that ideal into the patriotic duty of every member
of the national German polity.3
One of the leading current theoreticians of nationalism, Benedict Anderson,
continues to analyze the emergence of nationalism in predominantly positive
terms—namely, as a unifying force within the nation-state. Anderson’s signa-
ture argument is that nationalism, “nation-ness,” and national state—taken as
synonyms—are “cultural artifacts”4 which ruling elites formulated in response
to pressing socio-political needs at certain points in history to consolidate the
masses under one leadership and under common ideology. But Anderson’s
concept of the socially constructed nature of the phenomenon also condones
the negative notion of nationalism as oppressive and violent ideology. On one
hand, Anderson says, the very idea of nation-state evokes the image of (imag-
ined) community, i.e., an entity of fraternity or comradeship based on equality
among people from within. It is this notion of imagined (socially constructed)
egalitarian fraternity among the (majority) members of the national state that
makes people willing to fight and die for an ideal.5 On the other hand, the
national ideal makes people willing to mutilate or kill for it. This proves to be
particularly true for the people of those budding nation-states which just
locus par excellence for scientific thought, the Romantics declared rural settings as the ideal
of human existence (ibid.).
3 William A. Wilson, “Herder, Folklore, and Romantic Nationalism,” Journal of Popular Culture
6 (1973): 819–35; White, 50–60.
4 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991), 4.
5 Ibid., passim.
36 chapter 2
emerged from increasingly oppressive foreign rule in the nineteenth and early
twentieth century. For previously subjugated people, the ultimate goal of
nationalism was the fulfillment of a national state of their own, regardless of
means. As a result, diverging cultural groups that remained within the territo-
ries claimed by newly emerging nations, particularly such groups affiliated
with former “oppressors,” became the first victims of a nationalism of forced
assimilation or exclusion. For these fledgling entities, nationalism equated to
absolute dominance of the ethno-cultural majority, rather than respect for
individual freedoms and democracy.
Violence against diverging groups, especially those perceived as threat to
the nascent nation-state, was rife. Violence, consequently, became an integral
part of the process of constructing and affirming the majority’s sense of collec-
tive self, or cultural identity, within the nation-state. In his book, Nationalism
and Territory, George W. White explains how the concept of national identity
is defined by place and territory. On a basic level, territory as a physical entity
provides a group with natural resources for sustenance. But on a more sym-
bolic level, territory becomes the embodiment of “motherland” (“fatherland”)
that provides a collectivity of people with a sense of shared history and
belonging.6
White further analyzes the significance of place and territory to national
identity via three fundamental factors: (1) site identification,7 (2) landscape
description,8 and (3) tenacity.9,10 It is precisely the “tenacity factor” that mea-
sures the degree to which a people is prepared to exert violence in order
to defend (or take) given territory. Whatever the intensity of aggression
(violence), protecting the perceived “homeland” is always expressed in posi-
tive terms, i.e., protecting, liberating, or fighting for “our” land, but never seiz-
ing, invading, or occupying it. Because place and territory, in a way, emerge as
the essence of identity construction, the need to protect and exert control over
the perceived “homeland” often results in conflict between different commu-
nities having aspirations to the same territory. The conflict arises between the
6 White, passim.
7 I.e., the location of national institutions such as seat of government, various religious and
educational institutions, and historic sites (battlegrounds, places of birth, and events
related to revered national figures).
8 I.e., natural formations such as mountains, rivers, valleys, lakes, and seas.
9 I.e., the intensity or strength of a group’s determination to protect or seize a place they
perceive as “homeland.”
10 White, 6.
protectors of the territory and its invaders; and whether one is a protector or
occupier depends on one’s point of view entirely.
According to White, the strong attachment to “homeland,” and the procliv-
ity to defend it, is particularly pronounced in the Balkans. “In southeastern
Europe,”11 he observes, “many nations feel that their identities have been vio-
lated because their territories have been continually transgressed by other
nations. Not surprisingly, conflict has been persistent in this region.”12 Indeed,
from the late nineteenth until mid-twentieth century, the southeast-European
nations were young, unstable, relatively small, and only semi-independent. On
at least four occasions, following momentous regional (and global) conflicts—
the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, the First
World War, and the Second World War—these young nation-states were
reduced to hapless spectators of their own partitioning by the powerful of the
day.13 This was particularly true of the young Balkan nation-states, including
Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Turkey. All of these countries incurred heavy
human losses while fighting for the territories they perceived as “homeland”
only to have it redistributed at the will of the politically dominant nations.14 In
this sense, White properly concludes that the new nation-states of southeast-
ern Europe repeatedly felt their sense of identity and security violated as a
result of the constant interference of outside forces.
This reality of helplessness generated fear and mistrust within these nation-
states. Henceforth, they embarked on an ideology of nationalism meant to
ensure the political dominance of the culturally prevalent majority—or at
least of those who ruled on the majority’s behalf—at all cost, without much
regard for individual liberties. Thus, the original Western idea of liberal nation-
alism was gradually supplanted by an ideology of violence as the nation-state
phenomenon swept into the Balkans by the late nineteenth century. In the
light of this nationalism-of-violence idea, my argument is that, while the con-
cept of nationalism, notably in older nation-state regimes, may have been con-
cerned with citizens’ (individuals’) rights and popular cohesion, in the case of
younger and previously subjugated countries nationalism remained by nature
more antagonizing than unifying of its national c itizenry. The ultimate agenda
11 White’s notion of “southeast Europe” includes Hungary, Romania, and Serbia, while my
own mostly refers to the Balkan nations which I associate with Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece,
(European) Turkey, and others.
12 White, 6.
13 The Western powers (England, France, Germany, Italy, USA, etc.) and Russia—later, the
Soviet Union—for the most part.
14 For more details, read further in the chapter.
38 chapter 2
of the nationalism of violence was to consolidate territory and national iden-

tity in a union of congruence and indivisibility. The fledgling nations of the
Balkans at the turn of twentieth century tended to be more concerned with
securing the dominance of the ethno-religious majority vis-à-vis former rulers
and affiliated with them local segments of the nation, rather than with observ-
ing the liberties of citizens. The politics of violence these new nations often
exerted took many forms, including purging or forced assimilation of reli-
giously, ethnically, or linguistically different groups within the national com-
munity. However, while established national polities like the afore-mentioned
England and France, among others, were long past violence in dealing with
their diverse citizens, these new nation-states were just embarking on this
road.
As Anthony W. Marx effectively posits, nationalism as a political process
was initially rooted in exclusion regardless of where it occurred—Western or
Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas.15 In other words, each nation-
state began its nation-making by excluding (or coercing into assimilation) cer-
tain minorities from citizenship which they either could not or did not want to
assimilate. But, in addition to exclusion, ruling elites also resorted to violent
assimilation to enforce, solidify, and maintain uniformity among the people of
the nation-state they controlled. Exclusion and integration (inclusive of forced
assimilation), therefore, became two sides of the same process of nation-
making, wherein the two could operate independently or jointly. In the sense
that assimilation of diverging groups proved crucial to the successful consoli-
dation of every early nation-state, and subsequently to that nation’s continu-
ing process of popular solidarity, ruling elites generally attempted to assimilate
such groups, including by force. Ultimately, the use of one or another form of
violence in achieving national cohesion seems to have been a constant in the
process of nation-making, especially in the Balkans.
In the sense that nation-states have utilized violence in the name of territo-
rial and cultural consolidation, I propose the following premise of nationalism
that would become operational within such previously subjugated nations as
Bulgaria, in regard to one or more of their differing minorities like the Pomaks:
(1) Nationalism in a previously subjugated nation originates in exclusion
or forced assimilation of dissimilar minorities as a way to affirm sovereignty.
(2) The policy of exclusion or assimilation is particularly directed at communi-
ties affiliated with the former “oppressor” in some way. (3) Nationalism in such
15 Anthony W. Marx, Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003), passim.
a newly independent nation asserts identity that distinguishes it from the

former “oppressor” in terms of religion, language, race, and/or ethnicity,
whereby, (4) in the process of nation-making, the nation-state’s majority glori-
fies its own (imagined) identity and denigrates that of the “oppressor.” (5) If the
divergent groups share identity traits with the dominant cultural community
in the nation such as language, race, or religion, the efforts are directed toward
assimilating these minorities rather than excluding them; and (6) the more
closely shared such traits are, the more likely the attempted assimilation will
be. As a rule, however, (7) divergent groups, affiliated with former “oppressors”
in whatever ways, are generally kept in check and treated with a degree of sus-
picion at all times, regardless of shared ties.
This chapter studies the pokrŭstvane of the Pomaks in Bulgaria at the height
of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 in the context of nationalist violence. The
Balkan Wars formed a crucial period, when the nascent Bulgarian nation-state
was still in the process of intensive territorial and cultural consolidation fol-
lowing five centuries of Ottoman-Islamic domination. It is critical to stress at
this point that, in the process of analysis, I do not attempt to denigrate nation-
alism’s consolidating power, nor do I suggest that there is some inherent Balkan
predisposition to violence. In fact, as Maria Todorova has already brilliantly
put it, the Balkan peoples “certainly have no monopoly over barbarity [i.e., vio-
lence],” as generally implied by previously prevalent discourses.16 Instead, I
intend to point out that violence is inherent in the definition and essence of
nationalism regardless of where it takes place. However, nationalism’s aggres-
sive nature has tended to be more pronounced in young and previously subju-
gated nation-states, largely because of their immediate need to survive.
Precisely such is the case of the new Balkan states at the turn of the twentieth
century. Ruling elites there generally pressured certain diverging segments of
society into assimilation (and its milder connotation, integration) to forge and
strengthen national unity. However, when violence took place, the result
was often the opposite of the intended: namely, involuntary alienation and
(self-)exclusion replaced cohesive inclusion. The historical situation of the
Pomaks in Bulgaria is markedly a case in point. There have been at least three
major attempts to coerce the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims into violent reli-
gious and/or cultural assimilation since Bulgaria’s independence of 1878: the
pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913, the pokrŭstvane of 1938–1944, and the vŭzhroditelen
protses of the 1960s and 1970s. While the two pokrŭstvane affairs were in essence
religious conversion, the vŭzhroditelen protses was religious suppression and
16 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 6.
40 chapter 2
compulsory substitution of the Pomak Turkish-Arab names with Christian-

Bulgarian ones by the atheistic communist regime (1944–1989).17 In this open-
ing chapter, I specifically focus on the 1912–1913 Christianization as the first
comprehensive, forced assimilation of the Pomaks, which took place at the
zenith of Bulgaria’s struggle for self-determination.
The Pomaks
The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 were a critical period for Bulgaria. The nascent
nation-state was still in the process of intensive territorial and cultural consoli-
dation following five centuries of Ottoman domination. The enormous territo-
rial expansion during the First Balkan War incorporated new and significant
Muslim population into Bulgaria, most of which spoke Slavic (Bulgarian) lan-
guage. Even after the loss of the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria held on to most
of the Rhodope Mountains, a territory compactly settled by Slavic-speaking
Muslims (Pomaks). To legitimize its claim over these freshly acquired Ottoman
territories, Bulgaria’s first order of business following the conquest was to pro-
claim the Pomaks “Bulgarian,” based on language commonality, and to attempt
to convert them to Orthodox Christianity. The Balkan Wars’ pokrŭstvane
marked the beginning of a sustained assimilation of Pomaks in Bulgaria.
Since the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913, the state-endorsed historiography has
maintained that the Pomaks descend from Christian Bulgarians, forcibly con-
verted to Islam by the Ottoman Turks somewhere between the late seven-
teenth and early eighteenth century. In five centuries of Ottoman rule in the
Balkans, however, many adopted Islam voluntarily for both personal convic-
tion and socio-political gains. Still, historians are yet to determine authorita-
tively and conclusively how or when the Pomaks of the Rhodope Mountains
became Muslims.18 This dispute over the Pomak cultural identity continues to
17 For details on the pokrŭstvane of 1938–1944 and the vŭzhroditelen protses, see chapters
three and four.
18 For evidence of (voluntary) conversion to Islam, see Anton Minkov, Conversion to Islam in
the Balkans (Leiden: Brill, 2004). See also Maria Todorova, “Conversion to Islam as a Trope
in Bulgarian Historiography,” in Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory, ed. Maria Todorova
(New York: New York University Press, 2004), 129–57; Maria Todorova, “Identity (Trans)
formation among Bulgarian Muslims” (Location: Global, Area, and International Archive,
1998), at: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8k7168bs. Accessed November 20, 2009;
Ulf Brunnbauer, “Histories and Identities: Nation State and Minority Discourses—The
Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks,” (Karl-Franzens-University of Graz, 1997). Available at
www-gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/csbsc/ulf/pomak_identities.htm. Accessed November 30, 2009;
pose problems for the community. The official political discourse is one of
actively discouraging the Muslim Rhodopeans from pursuing a cultural image
of their own because of the presumption that, as offspring of converted
Bulgarians, they are part of the Bulgarian ethnicity and, hence, cannot have a
separate heritage. The double standard of publicly commemorating the
nation’s triumph over the “dark” Ottoman past, while omitting the nation-
state’s own violence against its Muslim population has heightened the Pomaks’
(and Turks’) sense of cultural dispossession in Bulgaria. The status quo is fur-
ther exacerbated by the strongly subjective and divisive language of the official
historiography, describing everything Bulgarian (hence Orthodox Christian) as
“sacred” and “inherently good,” and most things Muslim (hence Ottoman and
Turkish) as “immoral” and “backward.” Consequently, the academic credibility
of some works treating Pomak issues, especially from the communist era
(1944–1989), is seriously undermined by the high degree of politization and
nationalistic propaganda in the analysis.
Thus, for instance, the statement about the Pomak forced conversion to
Islam is extensively grounded on the chronicle of one Priest Methody Draginov,
who authored it sometime during the late seventeenth century, when the
alleged mass Islamization was taking place. However, some of Bulgaria’s most
renowned nationalist writers such as Nikolay Haytov, who makes references to
the document, recognize that the so-called “Historical Diary” has been long
lost to history, and that the only evidence of its existence are surviving pas-
sages, reportedly copied by dedicated patriots.19 Ulf Brunnbauer, however,
directly dismisses the chronicle as “a fake” and goes on to specify that “it was a
common practice [in communist Bulgaria] not to quote original sources, but
to take them uncritically from other authors[,] [whereby] [o]ne author after
the other perpetuated the quotation of the source without the slightest attempt
at verification.”20 Maria Todorova, for her part, authoritatively argues that the
chronicle is a nineteenth-century “creation” of Stefan Zakhariev, with possible
basis in some earlier works. In support of her conclusion, Todorova cites the
Antonina Zhelyazkova, Bozhidar Aleksiev, and Zhorzheta Nazurska, Myusyulmanskite

obshtnosti na Balkanite i v Bulgaria (Sofia, Bulgaria: IMIR, 1997); Vera Mutafchieva, “The
Turk, the Jew and the Gypsy,” in Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility between
Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria, ed. Antonina Zhelyazkova (Sofia, Bulgaria: PHARE,
1994).
19 Nikolay Haytov, “Smolyan: Tri vŭrha v srednorodopskata istoria” (Sofia, Bulgaria:
Izdatelstvo na Natsionalnia Sŭvet na Otechestvenia Front, 1962), 6–13.
20 Ulf Brunnbauer, “Histories and Identities: Nation State and Minority Discourses—The
Case of the Bulgarian Pomaks” (Karl-Franzens-University of Graz, 1997). Available at
www-gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/csbsc/ulf/pomak_identities.htm. Accessed November 30, 2007.
42 chapter 2
careful authenticity analysis of the historian Iliya Todorov who judges

the chronicle to be inauthentic on the grounds of linguistic and historical
discrepancy.21 In conjecture to Stefan Zakhariev’s motives to create a forgery,
Todorova observes:
He [Zakhariev] was working in a period when the cultural struggle for

emancipation among the Bulgarians had reached a critical degree, and
he was totally engrossed in this struggle. The 1860s, in particular, saw the
culmination of the ecclesiastical conflict with the Greek Constantinople
Patriarchate, and all intellectual efforts were directed at proving the
“rights” of the Bulgarians to an independent church. . . . [An] indepen-
dent church for the Bulgarians meant independent national exis-
tence. . . . It was also a time when history was the foremost legitimizer of
nationhood in terms of “historic” versus “non-historic” nations. Zakhariev
himself lamented in 1860s [that] “we do not have antiquities from which
we can explore our bygone deeds so as to put together a detailed and true
history of our past life.”22
Forgery or not, Bulgarian historiography continues to formally describe the

Pomaks as “Bulgarian Mohammedans” or “Bulgarian Muslims” to reflect the
21 Todorov dismisses the chronicle as a fake based on three main reasons. First, the language
of the document “was too remote from the language of seventeenth century documents,”
and, moreover, the language “reflected nineteenth century forms and conventions.”
Second, he determined that there are apparent factual discrepancies between the chron-
icle and Ottoman government documentation from the same time period. According to
Ottoman sources, the Chepino Valley villages—the arena of purported Islamization—
were part of a vakıf (charitable religious foundation in Islam)” from the mid-1500s
onwards, not a “voynuk ([communities of] peasants, serving as soldiers in an auxiliary
military corps of the Ottoman army, usually recruited from among the Bulgarians),” as the
chronicle describes them. Third, according to Iliya Todorov, there is a clear anachronism
in the chronicle stemming from the strong “anti-Greek feeling emanating from the docu-
ment.” The Bulgarian struggle for religious independence from the Greek Orthodox
Church and the fervent anti-Greek sentiment, the author justly stipulates, only date back
to the middle of the nineteenth century, and certainly not to any period of the eighteenth
century, when the supposed conversion took place. (See Maria Todorova, “Conversion to
Islam as a Trope in Bulgarian Historiography, Fiction and Film,” in Balkan Identities:
Nation and Memory, ed. Maria Todorova (New York: New York University Press, 2004),
129–57).
22 Maria Todorova, “Conversion to Islam as a Trope in Bulgarian Historiography, Fiction and
Film,” in Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory, ed. Maria Todorova (New York: New York
University Press, 2004), 134–135.
institutionalized viewpoint that they are descendants of Bulgarian Christians,

whom the Ottomans Islamized by force.23 As the Bulgarian historian Vera
Mutafchieva posits, the violence-ridden “forced Islamization” thesis has played
a prominent role in the national history and folklore, being the subject of
rather emotional interpretations by generations of Bulgarian historians.24
Even though, in recent years, many Bulgarian academics have at least con-
ceded the possibility of voluntary conversion, the strongly negative “forced
Islamization” thesis still dominates the national narrative.
Whatever the case regarding Pomak passage into Islam, the Bulgarian
authorities and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church effectively used the “forced
Islamization” claim to impose another conversion on the community—this
time to Christianity—under the cover of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Even
though the proclaimed aspiration of the pokrŭstvane was to bring the Pomaks
back to the religion of their forefathers, most certainly its real objective was to
consolidate the fledgling Bulgarian nation both territorially and culturally,
thereby affirming the state’s sovereignty and its claim over the newly acquired
territories of Thrace, the Rhodopes, and eastern Macedonia—all with sizeable
Pomak population.
Thus, the act of pokrŭstvane was essentially a way to assert sovereignty by
the forced assimilation of the Pomaks as a divergent minority in the fledgling
nation-state of Bulgaria for two fundamental reasons: First, of all minority
groups within the new state, the elites perceived the Pomaks to be the most
closely associated with the national majority by language and ethnicity.25
23 The term “Islamization” has two important connotations in the language of Bulgarian
nationalism: “forced” and “voluntary.” The “forced Islamization” thesis promotes the idea
that the formerly Christian population of the Rhodopes accepted Islam during different
periods between the 1400s and 1800s through various forms of coercion. One way of con-
version to Islam reportedly occurred through the institution of slavery whereby the invad-
ing Ottomans turned part of the subjugated indigenous population into slaves, who were
subsequently emancipated and given land upon becoming Muslims (the atik/muatik
practice). Another form was by taking local women for wives, who were then converted
to Islam. A third yet way, much touted by Bulgarian historians, was the forced recruitment
of Christian boys for training and service in the yeniçeri ( janissary) institution (from
Turkish “yeni çeri,” “new soldier”), elite Ottoman military units (the devşirme practice)
(Mutafchieva, 9–10).
24 Mutafchieva, 10.
25 For example, the ethnic Turks, who commonly speak Turkish language, were not to be
directly assimilated, according to the internal instructions of the pokrŭstvane. A letter of
Maxim, Archbishop of the Plovdiv Diocese, to the Orthodox clergy, in charge of the
pokrŭstvane of Haskovo, Stanimaka, Pazardzhik, Panagyurishte, and Peshtera, reads:
44 chapter 2
Second, the Pomaks were also affiliated with the former Ottoman-Turkish
“oppressor” by the religion of Islam, and that was a problem.
The nation’s ruling elite, therefore, not only considered the assimilation of
the Pomaks desirable and necessary, but also possible based on shared-lan-
guage claims. The resolve to action by the young country was additionally bol-
stered by the Romantic perception of language as the defining characteristic
of national identity. Although in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire language
was not of essence to identity, in the era of Romanticism language became a
major driving force in the subjugated people’s struggle to define themselves,
along with ethnicity, religion, and shared history. When Romantic ideology
began to take hold in the Balkans in the early nineteenth century, developing
well into the twentieth century, vernacular languages indeed became a promi-
nent factor in claiming territories and building identities among the new
nations.26 It was on the premise of common language that Bulgaria was able to
validate its claim over most of the Rhodope Mountains after the Balkan Wars.
Complicit with Romantic nationalism, the Slavic-speaking Pomaks were recast
as “pure-blood” Bulgarians who spoke the “purest” Bulgarian language and
preserved the “truest” Bulgarian traditions. Initially, Bulgaria’s Christian major-
ity perceived the Pomaks merely as “Turks.” In confirmation of this, Maria
Todorova writes:
The social context for this [the promotion of the “forced Islamization”
thesis] was the process of nation-building, specifically the attempts at
integration and homogenization of the population. It concerned first the
Bulgarian-speaking Muslim population (. . . Pomaks), and its place in the
newly independent state which at first did not attempt to integrate it but
treated it as indistinguishable from the larger Muslim group. In all cen-
suses in the late nineteenth century (1880, 1885, 1888) the Bulgarian-
speaking Muslims were entered under the heading “Turks.” It was only in
the 1905 census that a separate group—Pomaks—appeared. Beginning
with the 1890s but especially during the 1920s and 1930s a sustained cam-
paign in the press urged public opinion to discriminate between religious
The conversion of pure Turks is not absolutely prohibited. But they can only be baptized
if they have wished to do so, and only after they have partly learned the [Bulgarian]
language.
Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 115, page 464.
26 White, 180.
and ethnic allegiance, and to accept the Pomaks as part of the Bulgarian
nation. This idea was most intensely espoused by small educated elite
among the Pomaks[.]27
Indeed, within the Ottoman Empire, prior to the rise of nationalism, language
and ethnicity were factors with little meaning. The existing millet system in the
empire categorized all Ottoman subjects into semi-autonomous religious com-
munities (millets) which were free to organize and carry out their religious,
educational, and legal affairs with their own resources. This status quo enabled
the millets to preserve their religious and/or ethnic identities under the leader-
ship of their established religious institutions. Thus, all Eastern Orthodox
Christians—Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and others—were categorized as Millet-
i-Rum, i.e., people belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Muslim mil-
let (Umma), on the other hand, consisted of the totality of Muslims in the
Ottoman Empire (and beyond) with no reference to defined territory, language,
or race. The latter held a status of superiority over the non-Muslim millets, the
rayah (or raya).28
Since language in the Ottoman Empire was not a basis for identity prior to
the rise of Romantic nationalism, the young Balkan nations, freshly out of sul-
tanic grip, struggled to define themselves. In Bulgaria, patriotic literati such as
Georgy Rakovsky, Petko Slaveykov, Lyuben Karavelov, and the Miladinov
Brothers, similarly to Herder in Germany earlier, “began to study the history of
the Slavic languages, to compile bibliographies, to write grammars, to collect
archeological remnants and medieval manuscripts, to publish folksongs and
fairy tales, to collect artifacts with ethnographic value and exhibit them in
museums.” In the period 1850–1900, these intellectuals helped establish univer-
sities where a range of academic disciplines were taught, including political
history, “philology (the historical study of language and literature), ‘national’
27 Todorova, 138–139.
28 White, 180.
White, for instance, writes:
“All Eastern Orthodox Christians were the same to the Ottomans. The Ottomans made no
attempts to distinguish one Orthodox Christian from another, whether they were
Russians, Bulgarians, Serbian, Greek, or others. Ethnicity was irrelevant, and modern
nationhood had no meaning. (Ibid.)”
Also Christopher Cviic, Remaking the Balkans (New York: Council of Foreign Relations
Press, 1991), 7.
46 chapter 2
folklore (its literary and linguistic history), and traditional culture (clothing,
architecture, food, holidays)[.]”29
Nor were the Bulgarian patriots alone in promoting language commonality
as a cause for territorial and cultural consolidation. In fact, their Slavic coun-
terparts from already independent Serbia first immersed into Herderian activ-
ism towards strengthening Serbian nationalism. Like Herder in Germany, the
intellectual Vuk Stefanoviċ Karadžiċ (1787–1864) laid the foundations of
national identity in Serbia. He classified everyone who used the štokavian dia-
lect (spoken by the Serbs as well) as a Serb by applying the Romantic notion
that nations were defined by language.30 “Because some štokavian speakers
were Roman Catholic,” White notes, “Karadžic labeled them as Roman Catholic
Serbs, and because some štokavian speakers were Muslims, Karadžic classified
them as Muslim Serbs [largely Bosnians]. Significantly many of these people
whom Karadžic classified as Serbs did not consider themselves to be Serbs.”31
Just as Karadžic in Serbia classified the Slavic-speaking Bosnians as “Serbs,” the
patriotic intelligentsia in Bulgaria, including some Pomaks, promoted the
community of Slavic-speaking Muslims as “forcibly Islamized Bulgarians.”
Unlike the Slavic-speaking Muslims in former Yugoslavia today, however, who
have clearly set themselves apart as Bosnians (or Bosniaks), largely following
the bloody conflicts of the 1990s, the Pomak identity in Bulgaria continues to
be hotly debated.
The Christianization of 1912–1913 is the first case study in this book because
it was the first comprehensive religious conversion of Pomaks in Bulgaria that
set the precedent for a sustained assimilation process reverberating in
Bulgaria’s cultural and political discourse to this day. During the Balkans Wars
and via the pokrŭstvane, the Bulgarian nation asserted an identity which dis-
tinguished it from its former “Turkish oppressor” in the strongest terms possi-
ble. The language of Bulgarian nationalism described everything “Christian”
and “Bulgarian” as “glorious” and “liberating,” while everything “Islamic” and
“Turkish” as “barbaric” and “oppressive.” The Pomaks, as newly imagined
Bulgarians, to borrow from Anderson (above), could have nothing to do with
Islam, so their conversion to Christianity became a pressing concern for the
Bulgarian authorities, consolidating a nation-state amidst war. Despite the
fervent proclamations of kinship and brotherhood, though, the ruling elites
29 Alexander Kiossev, “The Dark Intimacy: Maps, Identities, Acts of Identification,” in Balkan
as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation, ed. Dusan I. Bjelic and Obrad
Savic (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002), 175.
30 White, 180.
31 Ibid., 182.
continued to discriminate against the Pomaks and treat them in such a way
that alienated, rather than integrated, them into the Bulgarian nation-state.
War and Pokrŭstvane (Conversion) in 1912–1913
The pokrŭstvane was one of the hardest moments for the Pomaks as citizens of
the new Christian state of Bulgaria. As a divergent group, affiliated with the
former Ottoman “oppressor” by religion and as a Bulgarian-speaking minority,
they were immediately singled out for assimilation within the broader context
of territorial, political, and cultural consolidation of the country. The Balkan
Wars provided an “opportune moment,” in the words of one church official, for
the brutal business of religious conversion, which the state authorities
intended to explain, if post-war implicated, as a sad concomitant of war.32 The
available records from the 1912–1913 Christianization of the Pomaks include
protocols from regular and ad-hoc sessions of the Holy Synod (the highest
ecclesiastical authority) of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, reports of mission-
aries, priest, and teachers who were part of the regular conversion missions, as
well as letters and reports of private individuals, or religious- and state officials
who directly enforced the pokrŭstvane.33 The combination of written evidence,
photographic imagery, and surviving oral histories unequivocally reveal that
not only all levels of state and church authorities were implicated in the
pokrŭstvane, but also that insurgent bands and the army “facilitated” the con-
version through abuse and killing of Pomak civilians.
According to a document, at least 150,000 Pomaks in the Rhodopes alone
were affected by the Christianization.34 The total number, however, is perhaps
32 Ibid., Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 13. This phrase is used by Jeromonk Pavel, Protosingel of
the Plovdiv Diocese, in a letter to Stoyu Shishkov from 24 November 1912. The excerpt
reads:
“Can we count on a more or less en mass conversion of the Pomaks (in the Rhodopes)?
What do you think would be the best time to start proclaiming them in the Christian faith
and baptism: right now or after our relations with Turkey have been reestablished? I am
afraid that if we wait until the conclusion of the peace treaty, this opportune moment
would be irrevocably lost [emphasis added].”
Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 52к, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 818, pages 1–3.
33 Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., passim.
34 Ibid., Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 157–171. Confidential report sent to Maxim, Archbishop
of Plovdiv, and to several ministers of the Bulgarian government by a civilian committee
from Pazardzhik engaged in the conversion of Pomaks in the Chepino valley, 22 February
1913. Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67 к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 107, pages 79–85.
48 chapter 2
more than double, because a sizeable Muslim population resided in the

Rhodopes, Thrace, and Macedonia—territories which Bulgaria held between
the fall of 1912 and the fall of 1913. It was precisely at this time when the author-
ities carried out the pokrŭstvane.35 Although the exact number of affected
population remains unknown, it is safe to conclude that about 300,000 Slavic-
speaking Muslims suffered the abuse of regular troops, church authorities, and
paramilitary bands for the duration of the conversion. Records set the begin-
ning of the campaign around October 1912, which peaked in the first three
months of 1913, and gradually subsided by the fall of 1913 when Bulgaria con-
clusively lost the Second Balkan War. The outbreak of the Balkan Wars, how-
ever, did not happen in vacuum. Rather, the conflict came about as a direct
result of historical processes taking place in the context of European national-
ism and the Balkan people’s aspiration to emulate the nation-state example of
Western powers.
1 The Balkan Wars

Effectively influenced by the ideal of nation-state, especially following the suc-
cessful unifications of Italy and Germany by the early 1870s, the Christian pop-
ulations of the nineteenth-century Balkan Peninsula revolted against their
imperial masters almost in common agreement. In the spirit of all-pervading
agitation in the Ottoman realm, the Bulgarians rebelled in April 1876. The bru-
tal suppression of the uprising generated international sympathy and support
for the cause of Bulgarian independence. Taking advantage of the crisis, Tsarist
Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877, partially in support of its
Orthodox Slavic brethren’s struggle for independence and partially in fulfill-
ment of its own ambitions for dominance in the Balkans. The Treaty of San
Stefano of March 1878 concluded the Russian-Turkish War and created a large
Bulgarian nation-state in the heart of the peninsula.
The combination of a strong Bulgaria and potent Russian influence in the
region, however, did not square well with the interests of Great Britain, France,
Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Italy. This new nation-state, under the pro-
found sway of Russia, incorporated territory that stretched from the Danube
35 According to Stoyu Shishkov, who was directly involved in the conversion and later pub-
lished a book about them, the Pomaks inhabiting European Turkey on the eve of the
Balkan Wars (the early fall of 1912) numbered 400,000 people and were distributed in 500
towns and villages. By regions, the distribution was the following: Edirne (Odrin)—131,455
people in 207 towns/villages; Thessalonica (Solun)—98,297 people in 190 towns/villages;
Bitolya—36,669 people in 93 towns/villages; Skopje—13,114 people in 23 towns/villages.
Stoyu Shishkov, Balgaro-mohamedanite (Pomatsite) (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: 1936), 34.
River in the north to the Aegean Sea in the south, dwarfing all its neighbors
except—what was left of—the Ottoman Empire. Responding to a general
sense of urgency, Otto von Bismarck, first chancellor of Germany, convened a
congress in Berlin in 1878, where the powerful of the day duly partitioned
Bulgaria, reducing it to a hapless principality under the suzerainty of the
Ottoman Empire. Most of southern Bulgaria, better known as Eastern Rumelia,
became a semi-independent province under Ottoman authority, while
Macedonia (west of Eastern Rumelia) was restored to direct sultanic rule. By
partitioning the country, the Berlin Congress portended disaster for Bulgaria.
So powerful was the sense of loss among the Bulgarian nation that in coming
years it stimulated the emergence of an especially aggressive nationalism.
Bulgaria’s neighbors Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro felt similarly cheated by
the standing Berlin Treaty.36
As the party most aggrieved by the Berlin agreement, Bulgaria was the first
to act against it. In September 1885, the Bulgarian Principality unilaterally pro-
claimed its unification with Eastern Rumelia. Because none of the Western
powers took direct action to enforce the Berlin decision, they implicitly vali-
dated the unification. Unable to reverse the course of events on its own, the
Ottoman Empire had formally recognized united Bulgaria by 1908. This devel-
opment notwithstanding, the emerging Balkan nation-states still felt victim-
ized by the Berlin Congress of 1878. They all had aspirations to territories
remaining within the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarians desired Thrace, the
Greeks coveted Aegean islands, and the Serbs and Montenegrins aspired to
annex Bosnia-Herzegovina and parts of Albania respectively. All four, however,
harbored ambitions to dominate Macedonia, a fertile region in the heart of the
Balkan Ottoman Empire. Thus, by the first decade of the twentieth century,
Macedonia had become the pivot of territorial ambitions for the most power-
ful Balkan nations.37
Apart from common territorial interests, one particular political develop-
ment, according to Richard Hall, compelled Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and
Montenegro to work together against their common Muslim adversary. That
spark came from the Young Turk revolution and the Ottoman Empire’s own
attempt at espousing the ideology of nationalism. In July 1908, a cabal of junior
officers staged a coup d’état in Constantinople, seizing control of government
and immediately launching political reforms. The group called itself Committee
36 Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913: Prelude to the First World War (New York:
Routledge, 2000), 1–21; R.J. Crampton, Bulgaria (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007),
23–95.
37 Hall, 1–21; Crampton, 97–188.
50 chapter 2
for Unity and Progress, popularly known as the Young Turks ( Jön Türkler), and
their prime objective was to unify Turkey and to prevent its further disintegra-
tion. In resonance with the Christian nationalists in the Balkans, the Young
Turks sought to instill a sense of Ottoman identity among the various peoples
of the empire. To prevent a further loss of territories to rebellious subjects,
however, they set out to reform the army. The Young Turk revolution had a
ripple effect in the Balkans and beyond, causing nation-states and empires
to be nervous about achieving their territorial ambitions at the expense of
the Ottoman realm. Whereas Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece feared their ability
to withstand a potentially more powerful Ottoman military, the Habsburg
and Romanov dynasties had aspirations, respectively, to control Bosnia-
Herzegovina and the Straits of Bosphorus. As Hall aptly observes, “[t]he Young
Turk revolt and the celebration of Ottoman nationhood raised concerns in the
Balkan capitals [and beyond] that the Balkan populations in a reformed Turkey
would be less susceptible to their nationalistic blandishments.”38
Both Bulgaria and Serbia felt the need to act together in defense of their
shared interests before the Young Turks’ reforms could produce any meaning-
ful results. Russia, for its part, desired a Balkan alliance against the Austrians
and the Ottomans in order to bolster its own position on the peninsula. Thus
pressured by nationalist concerns, on one side, and by Russia, on another,
Bulgaria and Serbia finally signed an agreement in March 1912. Bulgaria and
Greece agreed upon a separate treaty of cooperation two months later. Whereas
Bulgaria took care to formalize its alliance with Montenegro as with Serbia
and Greece, the relationship among the later nations stood largely on oral
agreements. This uncertain and complex political dealing, then, set the foun-
dation for the Balkan League that would fight the Ottoman Empire in the
First Balkan War.39
Thus, in the fall of 1912, shared interests of territorial expansion induced the
four nascent Balkan nations to fight their common enemy, Turkey—the natu-
ral successor of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. On October 4, the
so-called Balkan League declared war on Turkey, beginning the First Balkan
War. The alliance—albeit an uneasy one—soon paid off, and by the spring of
1913 Turkey was defeated. As a result, most of the European territories of the
former Ottoman Empire passed into the hands of the victorious foursome.
Quarrels over territorial distribution, however, soon broke out among Bulgaria,
38 Hall, 7. For details on the Young Turks and Turkish nationalism, see Erik Jan Zürcher, The
Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Ataturk’s Turkey
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
39 Hall, 1–21; Crampton, 150–219.
Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. Bulgaria harbored ambitions to annex the

former Ottoman provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, where significant
Bulgarian-speaking population lived. But this ran counter to the aspirations of
the other three countries, particularly Serbia and Greece which sought the
same lands. As the territorial disagreements escalated, Bulgaria invaded
Thrace, eastern Macedonia, and the Rhodopes, immediately imposing military
control over them.40
By the summer of 1913, Bulgarian troops occupied the better part of the for-
mer Ottoman territories on the Balkan Peninsula. Unwilling to accept this
dominion, on June 16, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece declared war on
Bulgaria, thus, initiating the Second Balkan War. While Greece attacked from
the south, Serbia and Montenegro advanced from the west. Completing the
vice that squeezed Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey opened fronts to the north
and southeast respectively.
Even though Bulgaria did not hold the provinces of Macedonia and Thrace
for more than a few months, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, actively assisted
by the army and paramilitary formations, succeeded in launching a massive
and violent conversion of the Pomak population within these territories. These
provinces (Thrace and Macedonia) were home to a sizeable Pomak population
(Table 2–1) who soon found themselves part of a brand new nation. The Pomak
stronghold, the Rhodope Mountains, fell into Bulgarian hands, too.
The Treaty of Constantinople of September 29, 1913, not only ended the
Balkan Wars, but also reaffirmed the annexation of the (greater part of the)
Rhodope mountain range to Bulgaria. This was a turning point in the life of
the prevalently Muslim Rhodopean population, the Pomaks, who changed citi-
zenship almost overnight (from Ottoman to Bulgarian). They spoke Bulgarian
as their mother tongue, but unlike Bulgaria’s majority, professed Islam rather
than Orthodox Christianity as their religion.
2 The Pokrŭstvane
All areas with heavily concentrated Pomak population were violent combat
zones for the duration of the Balkan Wars. The civilian population consisting
mainly of women, children, and elderly men (the Turkish army had con-
scripted the younger males), bore not only the brunt of war and an unusually
cold winter, but also suffered the abuse of religious conversion. Between
October 1912 and September 1913, the advancing and retreating Bulgarian
troops and paramilitary bands plundered and burned hundreds of Pomak
40 Crampton, 190–219. See also The Carnegie Report, 49–70.

52 chapter 2
Table 2-1 Pomak Population within the Provinces of Thrace and Macedonia at the Time of the
Balkan Wars of 1912–1913
Province of Thrace
Number of towns, Number of

District villages, and hamlets people
Ahı Çelebi 32 35,000

Dövlen 30 26,810
Egridere 24 20,000
Darıdere 26 16,990
Gümürcina 34 10,625
Xanti 6 4,500
Koşukavak 13 3,757
Soflu(?) 7 3,570
Baba Eski 5 3,385
Hayrobolu 7 3,205
Üzünküprü 11 1,200
Total 195 129,04241
Province of Macedonia
Number of towns, Number of

District villages, and hamlets people
Nevrokop 74 26,962
Drama 31 11,179
Kavala 6 2,710
Razlog 7 8,870
Petriç 3 865
Melnik 3 700
Eski Cumaya 6 3,900
Doyran 2 1,270
Total 132 56,45642
41 Shishkov, 32–34.
42 Ibid., 30–31.
villages, turning thousands of people into refugees. Waves of Muslim civilians

pressed southward, following the withdrawing Ottoman army, after having
abandoned all their earthly possessions. The constant swap of territories
between the warring parties, however, threw the civilian population into utter
confusion and rendered it unable to decide whether to permanently stay or
leave. Many of the Rhodopean Pomaks, who had originally fled, returned to
their villages only to find themselves homeless and robbed of all food and live-
stock, in the middle of severe winter. Dispossessed, malnourished, and without
basic medication, people soon succumbed to epidemics of typhoid, cholera,
and scarlet fever. By January 1913, the new Bulgarian regime had launched a
large-scale Christianization in the Rhodopes.
In a letter to his friend Ivan Shishmanov of January 26, 1913, Stoyu
Shishkov—a patriotic writer and fervent pokrŭstvane crusader—attested to
the dismal position of the Pomak population:43
It has been a week since I am in this untamed and beautiful Tŭmrŭsh

region [Middle Rhodopes]. I serve in the commission for aid distribution,
and while I am witnessing exceptional and glorious historical events [the
pokrŭstvane], I am also faced with unspeakable misery. Semi-clad, fam-
ished, and emaciated families of five to ten members live in cramped,
half-destroyed shacks, with not even a tin can in sight for water and cook-
ing. But they line before the cross, the gospel, and the holy water en mass,
in acceptance of Christ, which should provide them with relief from fear
and torment. I took a photographer with me. As missioners, we are trying
to instill peace and comfort in this unfortunate population.44
In his capacity of a police commandant in the village of Ustovo (Middle

Rhodopes), Shishkov stood at the core of Pomak Christianization in the
Smolyan area. While his official function was to ensure that an orderly assump-
tion of power was taking place in the region, his personal mission was to see
to the successful conversion of the local Muslim population. Instead of merely
applying brute force to that end, however—as it would usually happen—
Shishkov was also concerned about the lasting impact of the conversion.
43 Note: When so indicated (in brackets), the information stems from the volume of original
documents edited by Dr. Velichko Georgiev and Dr. Stayko Trifonov and titled
Pokrŭstvaneto na Bulgarite Mohamedani 1912–1913 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Prof. Marin Drinov
Publ., 1995), passim.
44 Dŭrzhaven arkhiv—Bulgarian Academy of Science, Fond 11к, Inventory 3, Archival Unit
1676, pages 2–3. (Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 65.)
54 chapter 2
Thus, in a statement of December 2, 1912, he expressed anxiety that the com-

plete devastation of the region, after Bulgarian troops and Christian civilians
swept through it, would adversely affect the pokrŭstvane. “Hungry and ragged
women [refugees] are coming back to their torched villages,” he wrote. “All
food, livestock, and movable property have already been stolen from
them. . . . Since war and army mobilization prevented harvest, the crops are
rotting under the rains. . . . The winter in the mountain is harsh, and . . . starva-
tion is present in all its horror, wreaking sickness and death.” Quite apart from
starvation, Shishkov worried that the rampant corruption and arbitrary vio-
lence against Muslim civilians would obstruct the conversion effort as well as
the prospect of effectively administering control over the territory. “The whole
country [here] is in a state of complete lawlessness,” he lamented in the same
report. “Banditry and looting have reached unprecedented levels. The need for
troops and administrative authority to intercept the situation is eminent.” As
police commandant of Ustovo, Shishkov felt responsible for what was happen-
ing, yet, he did not have the resources to prevent it. Thus, the purpose of his
report—just one of many—was to convince the higher authorities of the dire
necessity to amend the situation in order to ensure the lasting effect of the
pokrŭstvane and efficient government in the region. “The [Christian] posses
and various such thugs roaming the area with the sole purpose of plunder
must be disbanded, disarmed, and ordered back to their places of residence,”
he proposed. “All Bulgarian [Christian] villages in the vicinity45 must be thor-
oughly searched, for even the women there have partaken in the plunder of
Pomak villages. . . . [Also,] a doctor is urgently needed to help prevent the out-
break of disease epidemics due to the horrific famine and poverty.”46
As one of the chief local executives of the pokrŭstvane, Stoyu Shishkov
accounted for every development on the matter to the higher church authori-
ties, among others. In one of his communications with Archbishop Maxim of
Plovdiv, dated January 30, 1913, he reported how “out of the 33 villages [in the
Smolyan region], 3,970 homes have been torched,” and how “several families
are [now] crowding in a single room.” Shishkov’s biggest concern, however,
continued to be that corrupt officials and marauding Christian bands could
hamper “our holy mission” in the Rhodopes:
45 “. . . of Stanimaka, Ahı Çelebi, Darıdere, and Skeçe, and—above all—Chepelare, Shiroka
Lŭka, Alamidere, Turyan, Arda, Raykovo, and Paşmaklı . . .” (ibid.)
46 Report on the Situation in the Districts of Ahı-Çelebi, Egridere, and Skeçe after the
Bulgarian Troops Passed through the Region from 2 December 1912. Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-
Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 121, pages 12–13. (Georgiev and Trifonov, eds.,
17–18.)
[T]he Pomak population continues to be victimized by various thugs

who arrive here from different places, go from village to village, attack the
people in their homes and rob them of the last piece of clothing, imple-
ment or livestock; many engage in ugly acts of violating people’s dignity
and honor. The terrified population takes everything timidly with no
courage to complain, and there is no one to complain to anyway. Self-
appointed tax collectors have plagued the villages of Beden, Trigrad, and
some others, tormenting the population terribly. The very war govern-
ment in Dövlen, on all levels, has been appallingly abusive of the popula-
tion. I fear that after the relief commission leaves, the authorities
themselves would rob the people of the little aid they’ve received. The
state must not only stop these practices, but also must order an investiga-
tion into them, and punish those responsible with all the severity of the
law. The state needs to appoint as regional administrators persons of
moral integrity to take control of the anarchy. Without such measures our
holy mission of bringing the Pomak population into the Christian faith is
doomed to fail; the national prestige would be irreparably compromised,
and the results would be devastating [emphasis added].47
Nor was Stoyu Shishkov alone in his reportage of misery, corruption, and abuse
in the Rhodopes during the Balkan Wars. Orthodox Church clergy, sent to bap-
tize the Pomak population, painted a picture in the same gloomy colors. Priest
Dimitŭr Kutuev, a member of the conversion mission in the village of Yakoruda,
delivered a particularly poignant message of children’s suffering to Archbishop
Maxim on May 9, 1913:
The village of Babek has been burned by the bands . . .

The population . . . is utterly poor, sick, and famished. The epidemics of
disease have hit this area harder than any other. Small children are forced
to travel to distant villages to beg; they come back to their sick families
bringing them a meager something to eat. A number of starving and
ragged children surrounded me here, one day, and with tears in their
eyes, they begged: “Give us some bread, grandpa priest!” The picture of
small, hungry, and tattered children with prematurely withered faces is
horrible to behold. This one child begged me: “Give me some bread,
grandpa priest, because I am hungry from earth to heaven.” Since this vil-
lage was completely destroyed, no livestock and food has been left for
47 Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 123, pages 145–9. (Ibid.,
88–91.)
56 chapter 2
this famished population. . . . In Babek, as well as in the neighboring ham-

lets, people die every day.48
Because of the heavy winter, lack of roads, and naturally difficult terrain, the
Pomak villages in the Rhodopes were largely cut off from access by humanitar-
ian agencies such as the Red Cross that distributed life-saving food and medi-
cal supplies. The Bulgarian authorities and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church,
which channeled the supplies, used the aid provided by humanitarian organi-
zations and foreign embassies as a method of inducing conversion. Thus, much
of the initially declared “success” of the pokrŭstvane stemmed from the fact
that the starving Pomak population was given food rations, some cash, and
basic clothing in exchange of formal baptism.49
Figure 2-1 Map of the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria

(Courtesy of Michael May)
48 Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 116, pages 239–241. (Ibid.,
289.)
Whereas the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was formally in charge of the

pokrŭstvane, the army, paramilitary formations, patriotic civilian organiza-
tions, local military governments, and private individuals rendered support to
the conversion effort. The church dispatched special missions composed
of church-appointed clergy and state-appointed educators to all the Pomak
areas in the Rhodopes, Thrace, and Macedonia. Their task was twofold: (1) to
turn the Pomaks into Christians and (2) to educate them in patriotism and
national loyalty (Appendix 2.1). Whenever and wherever eloquence failed, the
“crusaders” administered brute force to achieve the desired effect. From the
volume of documents published under the editorship of Velichko Georgiev
and Stayko Trifonov, it is clear that the Plovdiv Diocese of the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church, headed by Archbishop Maxim, played a pivotal role in the
pokrŭstvane. This is understandable, since the territories most densely popu-
lated by Pomaks—the Rhodope Mountains, Thrace, and part of Macedonia—
were under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Plovdiv and Archbishop Maxim.50
Nor did the Bulgarian military authorities delay supporting the “holy mis-
sion.” As soon as Thrace, Macedonia, and the Rhodopes came under Bulgarian
control, the pokrŭstvane began. While the campaign started in the fall of 1912
and continued through the summer, it peaked during the harshest winter
months of January, February, and March, when the population was most vul-
nerable. Usually, conversions took place en mass. Soldiers would round up
entire village populations and huddle them together in an open space, because
there were no buildings sufficiently large to accommodate hundreds of people
at once. Men, women, and children—by family—were forced to stand in line
before one or more Orthodox priests for baptism. After receiving the sign of
the cross from the priest(s), the (male) adults of each family would have their
heads immersed in water while the children would be quickly sprinkled for
reasons of efficiency. If their time and resources allowed, the “crusaders” would
force Pomak converts—particularly elderly male heads of family—to eat a
piece of pork as a final act of denouncing Islam, following which the baptizing
priest(s) would formally proclaim them Christian. The Pomaks would next be
required to make verbal declaration of rejecting Islam and accepting
Christianity, whereafter they received new Bulgarian-Christian names (Figures
2-2, 2-3, and 2-4). To complete the humiliation, men were forced to surrender
their fezzes (headdress) and put on hats with crucifixes affixed to them as a
blatant reminder of their pokrŭstvane. Women, for their part, had to substitute

58 chapter 2
the yashmak (a type of veil) for simple headscarves.51 With the population
thus formally converted, each village mosque and mekteb (Muslim school)—
provided they had survived the burning—would reopen as a church and
Sunday school respectively. These two institutions, then, indoctrinated
“the new Christians,” from children to adults, in “Christian virtues” and patri-
otic loyalty.52
In large part, the pokrŭstvane was conducted by Christian civilians from the
Rhodopes or surrounding areas. This is abundantly clear from the lengthy
“confidential” report of civilian patriots from Pazardzhik to the Holy Synod
and Archbishop Maxim of Plovdiv, informing the latter of “the citizens’ ” forth-
coming “initiative” to convert the Chepino Valley’s population (Middle
Rhodopes, Figure 2-1).53 The document is particularly valuable because it
sheds a detailed light on how the pokrŭstvane was carried out by civilian zeal-
ots with the blessing of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the active support
of high-ranking military and political officials. Thus, the general pattern of the
affair, as gleaned out from the report, appears to be the following: Having
decided to Christianize the local Muslim population, Christian civilians from
Pazardzhik and its vicinity proceeded to organize a “Committee for Assistance
of the Newly Converted Christians” even before the conversion took place. This
committee’s purpose “[wa]s to promulgate the idea about Christianizing the
[local] Pomaks.” To implement their plan, these Bulgarian patriots organized
themselves in “committees for conversion,” each assigned to specific Pomak
village in the Chepino Valley. As the document stipulates, the pokrŭstvane ini-
tiative was to be first announced to the Pomaks, then publicized among the
broader Christian population in the region, and finally enforced, “village by
[Pomak] village,” starting on an appointed date. Thus, on December 29, 1912,
conversion activists “marched into [the village of] Lŭzhene where [they]
encountered a convention of local mayors and Pomak dignitaries from neigh-
51 In another letter to Ivan Shishmanov from 10 February 1913, Stoyu Shsishkov writes:
“It has been a week already since the Pomaks in Chepelare have been converted as well,
and they are so enthusiastic as if they have never been Mohammedans. The men wear
hats with crucifixes on them—a sign testifying to the fact that they are no longer
Mohammed’s followers—and the women, who have thrown the veil, are lighting candles,
kissing the icons, and crossing themselves admirably.”
Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Bulgarian Academy of Science, Fond 11, Inventory 3, Archival Unit 1676,
pages 6–11. (Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 135–6.)
52 Ibid. Also, see Figs. 2-2, 2-3, and 2-4.
53 For further reference, a slightly abridged version of the above document is enclosed in
Appendix 2.1.
boring villages gathered to hear [them].”54 Henceforth, a succession of “patri-

otic citizens” took turns to deliver fiery speeches about the virtues of
Christianity and the decadence of Islam, to be only occasionally interrupted by
the nervous attempt at dissent of a beleaguered Pomak population. Below is a
telling excerpt from the report:
. . . Mumdzhiev spoke first. . . . [He told the gathered Pomak elders] . . . that

the Quran obstructs their progress, that their forefathers had been
Islamized by force, . . . that the faith of Mohammed resembles a tattered
coat which cannot warm the soul or soften the heart; that Christianity
brings high moral virtues and gives freedom of conscience; that they are
a compact mass of about 300,000 who speak the pure Bulgarian language
so dear to us; that their folklore is ours, and so on. . . .
Molla Mustafa Kara-Mehmedov from Rakitovo spoke on behalf of the
Pomaks—a wealthy, intelligent, sixty-year old person, who had served as
a district councilor and who can read Bulgarian excellently. He literally
said the following: “Gentlemen, what the people from Pazardzhik said is
just; but what can be done when there are 2,000 behind us (speaking of
his village) who are simple and ignorant people and they do not under-
stand how they could change their faith? It all seems to us like impenetra-
ble forest, how can we find our way out of it? Anything is possible, but we
ask to be allowed some time?” To that, the citizens . . . objected: “. . . You
must convert now” [emphasis added].55
So, the pokrŭstvane of the Chepino Valley proceeded accordingly. On the

appointed day, gendarmerie and soldiers—“stationed in these villages from
mobilization time to disarm the Pomaks”—drove together the entire popula-
tions of Lŭzhene and Kamenitsa to facilitate the baptism. According to the
document, more than 1,300 Pomaks were formally converted the same day. In
the villages of Rakitovo, especially recruited photographers “captured the
moments when the converts were sprinkled with water, and when they were
kissing the cross and the priest’s hand.” After the formal baptism, “[t]he crowd,
54 Confidential report of the Pazardzhik activists on Pomak conversion to the Holy Synod, to
Archbishop Maxim of Plovdiv, and to several Ministries, including the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of
Justice, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of War, and others from 22 February 1913.
Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 107, pages 79–85.
(Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 157–71.)
55 Ibid.
60 chapter 2
including the new converts, saluted the general, the local governor, and shouted
three times: ‘Long live the King and Great Bulgaria.’ [emphasis added].”56 Just
like that, the civilian Pazardzhik “crusaders”—with the blessing and support of
the Bulgarian state and church—delivered “a population of about 150,000
[Pomak] people . . . to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and to the Bulgarian
nation,” boasted the report.57
Even euphemistic, the wording of the above document is clearly the lan-
guage of coercion (Appendix 2.1). The ultimate goal of the pokrŭstvane was not
to “warm the soul” or “soften the heart” of the Pomak population, as phrased in
the report, but to “deliver” “to the Bulgarian nation” a compact mass of “300,000”
people in order to consolidate national sovereignty. The “soldiers,” “the gen-
eral,” and “the local governor” were there to ensure that full control over the
newly acquired territories, a fundamental part of which was the Chepino
Valley of the Rhodopes, would be achieved absolutely and definitively via the
forced conversion of the local Muslims. The recurring stipulation that the
Pomaks “speak the pure Bulgarian language” was, in effect, a legitimization of
Bulgaria’s claim over the Rhodopes, as well as over all territories settled by
Pomaks (Appendix 2.1).
The report’s authors, however, similar to the communiqués of many other
pokrŭstvane enforcers, took special care to avoid direct references to violence.
But, as one might conclude from Figures 2-2, 2-3, and 2-4, the motley crowd of
Pomak men, women, and children were hardly the willing participants in an
affair that forced them out in the bitter cold, in the middle of severe winter, to
accept the faith of their wartime enemy. Were the pokrŭstvane truly “volun-
tary,” as alleged in much of the archival evidence, at least a portion of the
Pomaks would have certainly opted out of swearing allegiance to symbols—
the cross and pork meat—totally foreign and even repugnant to them as
Muslims. In fact, the Rhodopean Pomaks were just emerging as Bulgarian sub-
jects during and following the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, and they still perceived
themselves as Ottoman Muslims. Moreover, when the Turkish Empire broke
down, the Pomaks’ Islamic religion became the sole anchor of palpable iden-
tity for them. Thus, they were even more likely to adhere to their Muslimness
(Arab-Turkish names, conservative attire, and Muslim traditions) in the midst
of political chaos than ever before. In effect, for the first time, the pokrŭstvane
threatened to annihilate the deeply-rooted sense of Muslim self of the Pomaks,
while seeking to replace it with customs new and hostile to them.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
Figure 2-2 Pokrŭstvane in the Village of Devin, 1912–1913

Priest Iliya Dzhodzhev sprinkles water over the head of an elderly looking Pomak
person before proclaiming him “Christian.” The whole village is gathered in an open
area to witness the baptism and endure the humiliation collectively.58
(Courtesy of Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv)
Ultimately, the Christianization of 1912–1913 emerged as the beginning of an

end to many prominent Pomak traditions, which would be consistently sup-
pressed by subsequent Bulgarian regimes. Figure 2-4 provides an example of
just such suppressed cultural practice. It depicts a Pomak wedding performed
in the Christian tradition during the pokrŭstvane. Instead of the customary
(red) veil draped over her face,59 however, the bride is crowned with a wreath,
branching over her head in the form of cross. Noticeable also is the groom’s
lack of fez, broadly targeted for replacement with hats during the pokrŭstvane.
Still, the bride’s and groom’s “crossed” wreaths are the sole observable i ndicators
58 Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 959k, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 902, page 3. Photography
Collection no. 15532 (date unspecified).
59 It should be noted, however, that not all Pomak women traditionally wore the veil. The
bridal veil—as far as it existed—has been gradually substituted for a peculiar make-up,
covering the bride’s face like a mask, which is still practiced in the village of Ribnovo (the
Western Rhodopes). For details on Pomak wedding traditions, read chapter five.
62 chapter 2
Figure 2-3 Pokrŭstvane in the Village of Banya, 1912–1913

The same priest Iliya Dzhodzhev (left), and another one, Khariton Nikolov, are
baptizing the population of Banya. There is a table with kupel (a pail containing
water) on it. Each of the Muslims, waiting in the background (left), would pass before
the kupel to have his or her head sprinkled with water, thus, being formally baptized
and reborn as “Christian.” The woman in the left (as well as the man with fez) is
readily identifiable as Muslim, because she is trying to cover her face. A Bulgarian
gendarme in uniform, there to ensure an orderly pokrŭstvane, is clearly visible in the
right, behind one of the priests. The thick blanket of snow in the photograph is a vivid
reminder of the severely cold winter that year. The ceremony of baptism in this
particular photograph was probably done at the beginning of 1913.60
that this Pomak couple has been baptized since the rest of their attire remains
in typically Pomak style, visible to this day on many elderly women and men
in the Rhodopes. The same photo also reveals another, more intimate aspect
of the Balkan Wars pokrŭstvane. According to the archival description of
the photograph, Khristo Karamandzhukov (back row, in the middle) served
as the best man of the newlyweds. Considering that he was one of the most
notorious campaigners for the second Pomak pokrŭstvane of 1938–1944,61
60 Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 959 k, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 902, page 2. Photography
Collection no. 15531 (date unspecified).
61 See chapter three, especially the sections concerning Organization Rodina.
Figure 2-4 A Pokrŭstvane Wedding

A snapshot from the wedding of a newly converted Pomak couple in the village of
Kestendcik, conducted in the Christian tradition by the same priest Iliya Dzhodzhev,
1912–1913. A witness to this ceremony is Khristo Karamandzhukov, a fervent
pokrŭstvane activist (back row, in the middle).62 The writer and historian Vassil
Dechov, who collected the earliest oral history about Salih Ağa, is also captured in
this photograph (back of the picture, right upper corner, next to an elderly, bearded man).
62 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 959k, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 902, page 1.
Photography Collection no. 15530 (date unspecified).
64 chapter 2
Karamandzhukov appears to have been quite involved in the Christianization

of the Rhodopes since the beginning. One can only speculate how he might
have invited himself as the “best man” in this particular—and perhaps other—
wedding(s) in much the same way in which other “crusaders” became the
loathed “godmothers” and “godfathers” to freshly baptized Pomak families (see
Appendix 2.1, middle of the document).
2.1 The Killings in Oral History

Clearly, the purpose of the pokrŭstvane was to consolidate state sovereignty by
ensuring national and territorial unity. The Pomaks, linguistically related to
Bulgaria’s majority, were the most obvious candidate for assimilation. What
stood between the dream of building a strong nation-state and reality was the
Pomaks’ problematic religious affiliation with Islam, the faith of the former
Ottoman “oppressor.” To Bulgaria’s ruling and religious authorities it was a sur-
mountable obstacle that could be overcome by conversion, both religious and
national. Undoubtedly, the authorities intended to implement the pokrŭstvane
as bloodlessly as possible because violence would neither nurture Bulgarian
patriotism among the Pomaks nor enhance Bulgaria’s international image
after the war. On the unsettling road to nation-making, however, violence not
only took place, but much blood was spilled as well.
The scores of original documents, though, only hint at the killings that took
place in many Pomak villages during the pokrŭstvane. This was in consequence
of the purposeful misinformation policy applied by state and church authori-
ties alike.63 The Bulgarian government was concerned about the country’s
image abroad, since much of the current war’s outcome depended on the
favorable disposition of the Great Powers, which would certainly condemn any
atrocities committed against Muslim—or other—minorities.64 Similarly, the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church did not wish to attract any criticism—in the words
of Archbishop Maxim—for “resort[ing] to uncharacteristic to its nature

64 The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the other Western Christian
Powers were sympathetic to the self-determination cause of the newly emerging Christian
nation-states in the Balkan Peninsula after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, as
suggested in a document cited in this chapter. However, the Great Powers were also con-
cerned with the humanitarian situation of the Muslim population that remained within
these nation-states. For instance, there were special provisions in a number of peace trea-
ties signed between Bulgaria and the Great Powers that guaranteed certain minority
rights, including religious freedom (See 3.3. War and Pokrŭstvane No More). The
pokrŭstvane, a clear breach of these provisions, was unwelcomed by the Western Powers.
means” in making converts.65 Whereas the torture and killings were not neces-
sarily committed by the Bulgarian ecclesiastical or military authorities, their
inability or reluctance to stop the Christian bands’ pogroms against the
Muslims makes both parties complicit in the atrocities.
Because the surviving Bulgarian sources are at best suggestive of the cases
of murder that accompanied the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913, it is all too easy to
dismiss it as conjecture. Clues, however, can still be found and verified with
vernacular history, preserving vivid memories of bloodshed. For instance, a
coded telegram of the Bulgarian regional governor in Drama (now in Greece),
Mr. Dobrev, to Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Ivan Ev. Geshov of November 26, 1912,
reads:
With a posse of fifteen (15) people, [Khristo] Chernopeev departed for

the Pomak villages to the north—north-west of Drama to Christianize
the Pomaks.66
The Burning of Vŭlkossel

Posses committed the worst atrocities. Under a sycamore tree in the village of
Vŭlkossel, Western Rhodopes, there is a water fountain. A marble plaque dedi-
cates this fountain “to our 95 Muslim brothers who gave their lives for their
faith.” According to the story I heard from Mehmed Shehov in the summer of
2007, a learned seventy-six-year-old retiree, on February 22, 1913, Bulgarian
troops, accompanied by irregular militiamen, arrived in Vŭlkossel after burn-
ing the neighboring village of Zhizhevo. At first they wanted the village elders,
gathered in the mosque for their regular prayer, to turn over someone by the
name of Salyu Mizinev, apparently a “troublemaker” for the Bulgarian authori-
ties. The person in question was hiding under the floor, inside the mosque.
“Tell Salyu to come out, or all of you will go up in flames!,” the men were told.
65 Words of Maxim, Archbishop of Plovdiv, on the margins of a report sent to him by Sv. V.
Iliev from 30 January 1913. Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67, Inventory 2,
Archival Unit 123, page 39. (Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 87.)
Note: In the document, Maxim wrote: “Съобщи му се устно . . . да не ходи с войници ни
със стражари, за да не се петни св. Дело и се дава повод за обвинения, че църквата
си служи с несвойствени ней средства.” (Ibid.) (Author’s translation: “He was orally
told . . . not to go around with soldiers and gendarmes for that would sully our holy mis-
sion [of pokrŭstvane] with accusations that the church resorts to uncharacteristic to its
nature means [to convert the Pomaks].”)
66 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 568, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 766, page 4.
(Ibid., 14.)
66 chapter 2
“[Salyu] was a maverick, a rebel of sort,” Mehmed told me. “[And] [w]hen he
heard that the mosque and the people in it were going to be burned because of
him, he came out on his own.” Thereafter, two gendarmes rounded up Salyu—
one in front of him and one behind him—and led him into a narrow side
street, by the mosque. It was winter time and there was a lot of snow on the
ground. Salyu, according to my interviewee, had a good pair of shoes on. So
while the posses were taking him away to shoot him, he made a daring bid for
escape. Pretending to be tying his shoe cords, he dealt a kick to the face of the
hind gendarme and to the head of the front one, and darted running downhill,
to the south. Apparently, the posses could not open fire immediately, because
their own people were standing in the way. “They were shooting at Salyu from
two sides,” Mehmed said, “but he zigzaged to avoid the bullets. . . . Then a small
cloud of fog hid him. He never came back, this man. He fled to Turkey.”67
The very same day, the Christian posse drove all village elders out of the
mosque, lined them up, and marched them a short distance toward—what is
today—the Vilievs’ house, While being led away, the men were calling tekbir
(prayer). When the tobacco pipe of one of the Muslim man, with last name
Khalachev, fell to the ground, he bent down to pick it up and lagged a little
behind from the group. A nearby Bulgarian gendarme used the moment to
whisper in his ear: “ ‘Run, run while you can!’ ‘No, I won’t!’ replied Khalachev
stubbornly, ‘Wherever everybody goes—I go.’ ” This man would come to regret
his foolhardiness soon enough. A few moments later the men reached the
Vilievs’ house and the posses began to stab them with bayonets. Whoever fell
was quickly picked up by the hands and legs and thrown inside. According to
Mehmed Shehov, there were 106 men who were butchered and pushed into the
Viliev’s house. The Christians then poured gasoline on the building and set it
on fire. Ninety-five men perished in the flames, many still alive from the stab-
bing. About eleven of the total, however, managed to crawl out of the inferno
and lived. Among the survivors was Mehmed’s step-mother’s father, Assan
Kalvichev. “One day, while he and I were tending the sheep together,” Mehmed
recounted, “he lifted his shirt and showed me seven scars left by the bayonets.
How he survived such horrific wounds, I have no idea!”
Mehmed’s own grandfather, Mustafa Shehov, burned in the fire. He was
hodzha (hoca) or religious teacher who had graduated from the medresse
(madrassa, a Muslim school of higher learning) in Thessalonica, now in Greece.
Mehmed related to me a story about his grandfather’s last living moments:
67 Mehmed Shehov, interview by author, Vŭlkossel, Bulgaria, June 24, 2007.

All men wore fezzes [at the time], and while they were marched toward
the Vilievs’ house, the comitas [civilian posses] knocked their fezzes down
and tramped them in the mud. When my grandfather’s fez fell, my grand-
mother—his wife—tried to pass her apron on to him so he could cover
his head. One comita snatched the apron from my grandmother and
hit her. Pushing her aside, they dragged my grandfather, bareheaded,
with the rest of the group. Exactly how he died, we don’t know. But obvi-
ously the same happened to him as to all the others; he was stabbed and
pushed into the house, where he died from his wounds, burning or
suffocation.68
After looting Vŭlkossel and killing the village elders, the posses set the village
ablaze and proceeded for the next Pomak village, Ablanitsa.
Figure 2-5 A Commemorative Water Fountain in Vŭlkossel

A simple water fountain in Vŭlkossel, which dries out in the hottest summer days, is
dedicated to the 95 souls who perished on a cold February day in 1913, because they
refused to convert to Christianity. A combined force of civilian militias and troops
rounded up all Muslim men they found in the mosque for prayer that day, marched
them a short distance down to a wooden house, where they butchered them with
bayonets before pushing them into the house and torching them.
68 Ibid.
68 chapter 2
Figure 2-6 A Commemorative Marble Plaque Next to the Fountain

It reads: “In memory of our 95 Muslim brothers who gave their lives for their faith on
22 February 1913, Vŭlkossel.”
The Killings in Ablanitsa

Ibrahim Imam and Senem Konedareva offer a rare glimpse at the events that
took place in nearby Ablanitsa in their concise history of the village, Ablanitsa
through the Centuries.69 Relying on surviving testimonies, most transmitted
through the descendants of survivors, the authors provide a detailed descrip-
tion of what happened in mid-February 1912, and again in 1913. “Upon cleans-
ing the Struma River valley and crossing the Ali Botush Mountain between the
villages Lŭki and Teshovo,” the authors write, “the band of Munyo Voyvoda (his
real name is unknown . . . ) reached Ilinden[.] [F]illing his band with volun-
teers from Singartiya (now Handzhidimivo) and the nearby [Christian] vil-
lages, he took the road to Ablanitsa reaching the village around 4–5 pm . . . on
February 12, 1912[.]”70 Knowing beforehand that the village was Muslim, the
band surrounded it. In the eve of February 13, Munyo Voyvoda’s posse rounded
up forty-six of the most prominent residents of Ablanitsa, tied them together,
and dragged the men in the direction of Singartiya. Among the captives was
Hadzhiyata, a wealthy and respected member of the community. On the way
out of Ablanitsa, “one of the chetniks [comitas] had a mind for spoils and told
Hadzhiyata to go home and bring all valuables he could find in order to ransom
his life.”71 After refusing to do so, however, Hadzhiyata was crucified on a wild
pear tree along the trek to teach the others a lesson. According to the authors,
he was the first victim of the Balkan Wars pokrŭstvane from Ablanitsa. One of
the survivors from the same group of captives, Mehmed Konadov, later
recounted that Hadzhiyata was nailed alive to the pear tree, as a result of which
he died. This terrified the rest of the Muslim men who, thereafter, put their
resourcefulness to the task of escaping.
Imam and Konedareva describe how Mehmed Konadov remembered the
pocketknife he usually kept in his woolen waistband, and, under the cover of
darkness, he managed to cut the cord of the person tied in front of him, Yusuf
Shamov. Thus freed, Yusuf in turn cut Mehmed loose and passed the knife on
to the Lapantov brothers, roped before them. Aided by darkness and the
thicket along the way, several people managed to escape. As they were tied at
the rear end of the rope, their absence went unnoticed by the chetniks for a
while. The posse men only realized that the number of captives had dwindled
after checking the line upon getting ready to cross the bridge over the Mesta
River into Singartiya. As the discovery was made, one of the chetniks proceeded
to strike the rearmost prisoner, who promptly jumped into the river dragging
69 Ibrahim Imam and Senem Konedareva, Ablanitsa prez vekovete (Ablanitsa, 2008).
70 Ibid., 42.
71 Ibid., 43.
70 chapter 2
the posse along. In the ensuing chaos, two other Pomak men broke loose and
survived by jumping into the water. After that, the remaining prisoners were
most carefully guarded. Once in Singartiya, they were locked in a barn near the
mill in the outskirts of the village. There, the chetniks butchered them one by
one, discarding the bodies into the open sewer by the mill. Ibrahim Havalyov
and Ibrahim Kambin, however, miraculously survived the ordeal to tell the
story. Despite the horrific wounds both sustained, they managed to drag
themselves out of the ditch and to crawl near the road in the hope of being
rescued. This was the first attack by Christian bands on the village during the
tumultuous Balkan Wars, according to the authors, but it was not going to be
the last one.72
The second raid on the village by the chetniks of Mikhail Markov took place
within days of the first one. Markov’s band “was a collection of civilian volun-
teers from Gŭrmen and the neighboring [Christian] villages,” Imam and
Konedareva claim. These “revolutionaries” embarked on a deliberate march
through the Muslim villages in the area while pillaging, burning, and murder-
ing people as they went. Markov’s comitas arrived in Ablanitsa on February 13,
1913, after ravaging Kribul and Vŭlkossel. Upon entering the village, coming
from Vŭlkossel (eastwards), they posted sentinels at all entry points to prevent
anyone from passing in or out of Ablanitsa. The villagers somewhat naïvely
thought that they would escape the worst if they welcomed the chetniks, but it
was not the case. By the time people realized their precarious situation, it was
too late. No one could exit the besieged village any longer. Ibraim Bektash, who
first tried to break through the blockade, was shot dead at the site Prèoda.
Thereafter, the chetniks entered Ablanitsa and, going from house to house, they
rounded up the men and locked them in the village mosque. It was then that
Markov made his notorious offer, still seared in the collective memory of
Ablanitsa and the neighboring communities: “Do you choose the cross or the
cannon?” (“Do you choose conversion or death?”). While the village elders des-
perately attempted to negotiate some deal with the leader, the chetniks went
about plundering the houses and terrorizing the population. After the men
refused to accept conversion, the comitas selected thirty-five of the youngest
and strongest Pomaks among those detained in the mosque and told them
they would be released. Instead, they roped the men together and led them
away, to “Ra[v]no Livade [Flat Meadows],” a site outside the village, “with large,
water-filled pits, created by landslides.” They were all killed and discarded in
those pits.73
72 Ibid., 42–44.
73 Ibid., 45.
The remaining group of about fifty—mostly elderly and feeble—men, still

locked in the mosque, was convoyed to Gŭrmen (a Christian village near
Ablanitsa) the next morning. Two of them, Yussein Mustafa Hassanov and
Mustafa Ibrahim Hassanov, according to Imam and Konedareva, were killed as
they marched, because they could not keep up with the rest. Relatives later
retrieved the bodies from a ditch and buried the men on the site. The other
men were driven some distance further, butchered in a gully near the old vil-
lage of Debren (adjacent to Gŭrmen), and abandoned there. People from the
nearby Pomak villages of Debren, Krushevo, and Oreshe later interred the
remains in a common grave, naming the site the Ablanitsa gully.74
2.2 The Killings Documented

Oral history is not the sole source of knowledge about the murders that
occurred during Bulgaria’s attempt to convert the Pomaks. Although it is diffi-
cult to find direct confirmation of the killings in the surviving Bulgarian
records, an important foreign source of information does exist. It is the “Report
of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of
the Balkan Wars” published by the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in 1914. The Carnegie Report resulted from the Great Powers’ post-war
investigation into the conduct of the warring parties in the Balkan Wars. The
investigation was entrusted to several prominent individuals acting as the
Balkan Commission of Inquiry (BCI).75
The Carnegie Report is very useful in highlighting the complexities of a war
which left no Balkan people unscathed, including the warring nation-states’
majority groups. In the mayhem of the Balkan Wars initially the victims of
abuse and murder were predominantly Muslim. The allied Christian Greeks,
Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bulgarians were slaughtering Muslims and ravaging
their towns and villages almost in common agreement, but when the Second
Balkan War began, the former allies became enemies and their respective pop-
ulations turned on each other. Now the Bulgarians were equally violating
Muslims, Greeks, and Serbs. The Serbs, on the other hand, were attacking
74 Ibid., 46–47.
75 Among the members of the BCI were: Dr. Joseph Redlich, professor of public law in the
University of Vienna, (Austria), Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, senator, and M. Justin
Godart, lawyer and Member of the Chamber of Deputies (France), Dr. Walter Schuecking,
professor of law at the University of Marburg, (Germany), Francis W. Hirst, Esq., editor of
The Economist, Dr. H.N. Brailsford, journalist, (Great Britain), professor Paul Milioukov,
Member of the Douma (Russia), and Dr. Samuel T. Dutton, professor in Teacher’s College,
Columbia University (United States).
72 chapter 2
Bulgarians and Muslims with the same ferocity, and the Greeks were victimiz-
ing Muslims as well as Christians of Slavic (Bulgarian) descent. Often Slavic-
Christian bands of Bulgarians and Serbs operated together against the
Turkish-Muslim- and Greek populations, while common interests temporarily
united Bulgarians and Muslims against Greeks. Ultimately, however, the
Muslims remained the main target of violence due to their affiliation with
the former Ottoman “oppressor” in the eyes of all Bulgarian-, Serbian-,
Montenegrin-, and Greek Christians.
Attached as Appendices to the Carnegie Report, under heading “The Plight
of the Macedonian Moslems during the First War,” are many testimonies given
to the BCI commissioners by witnesses, direct participants, and survivors of
the atrocities of diverse ethnic and religious background.76 Thus, Rahni Effendi
of Strumnitsa, a Muslim, described what took place within the former Province
of Macedonia under Bulgarian and Serbian occupation:
The Bulgarian army arrived on Monday, November 4, 1912. . . . On entering

the town, the Bulgarians disarmed the Moslem inhabitants, but behaved
well and did not loot. Next day, a Bulgarian civil authority was estab-
lished, but the Ser[b]ians had the military control. The Bulgarian army
marched on to Doiran; on its departure looting and slaughter began. I saw
an old man of eighty lying in the street with his head split open, and the
dead body of a boy of thirteen. About thirty Moslems were killed that day
in the streets—I believe by the Bulgarian bands. On Wednesday evening,
an order was issued that no Moslem might leave his house day or night
until further notice. A commission was then formed from the Bulgarian
notables of the town; the Ser[b]ian military commander presided, and
the Bulgarian Civil Governor also sat upon it. A local gendarmerie was
appointed and a gendarme and a soldier were told to go round from
house to house, summoning the Moslems, one by one, to attend the com-
mission. I was summoned myself with the rest.
The procedure was as follows: The Ser[b]ian commandant would
inquire: “What kind of a man is this?” The answer was simply either
“good” or “bad.” . . . [I]f one member of the commission said “bad,” that
sufficed to condemn the prisoner. Each member of the commission had
his own enemies whom he wished to destroy, and therefore did not
oppose the wishes of his fellow members. When sentence was pro-
nounced the prisoner was stripped of his outer clothes and bound, and
his money was taken by the Ser[b]ian commander. I was pronounced
76 For further testimonies see Appendix 2.2.

“good,” and so perhaps were one-tenth of the prisoners. Those sentenced

were bound together by threes, and taken to the slaughter house; their
ears and noses were often cut off before they were killed. This slaughter
went on for a month; I believe that from three to four thousand Moslems
were killed in the town and the neighboring villages.77
Rahni Effendi’s testimony, according to the Carnegie Report, was confirmed by

Abdul Kerim Ağa (a Muslim) of Strumnitsa, who described to the commission-
ers how he lost his own son. That man’s son was apparently held hostage by
someone called “Toma, the chief of the Bulgarian bands,” who demanded a
ransom from Kerim Ağa. “Toma demanded a hundred pounds;” according to
the report, “he [Kerim Ağa] had previously paid on two different occasions £50
and [£]170 to save this same son. He told Toma that he had not the money
ready, but would try to sell a shop if the Bulgarians would wait until evening.
Toma refused to wait and his son was shot.”78
As the Carnegie commissioners visited the Muslim refugee camp outside
Thessalonica (now in Greece), they learned from the refugees that the
Bulgarian bands arrived in Yedna-Kuk, a village near Strumnitsa, before the
regular army. Thereafter, they “ordered the whole male population to assemble
in the mosque,” had them shut in and robbed of all money (about £300 in
total). Then they selected “[e]ighteen of the wealthier villagers,” tied them up,
and took them to Bossilovo, “where they were killed and buried.” The commis-
sioners recorded that the villagers could recall the names of nine of the mur-
dered people.79
The Carnegie Commission further registered the report of the Catholic
priest Gustave Michel, “superior of the mission at Kukush,” given to a Le Temps
correspondent about the gruesome events in Kukush and its vicinity (now in
Macedonia). The account reads:
A Bulgarian band led by Donchev shut all the men of the place in the
mosque, and gathered the women round it, in order to oblige them to
witness the spectacle. The comitadjis [comitas, chetniks] then threw
three bombs’ at the mosque but it was not blown up; they then set fire to
it, and all who were shut up in it, to the number of about 700 men, were
burnt alive. Those who attempted to flee were shot down by comitadjis
posted round the mosque, and Pere Michel found human heads, arms,
77 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 278 (Appendix 2.2: Appendix A, No. 1).
78 Ibid., 278–279 (Appendix 2.2: Appendix A, No. 2).
79 Ibid., 279 (Appendix 2.2: Appendix A, No. 4).
74 chapter 2
and legs lying about half burned in the streets. At Planitsa, Donchev’s
band . . . first drove all the men to the mosque and burnt them alive; it
then gathered the women and burnt them in their turn in the public
square. At Rayonovo a number of men and women were massacred; the
Bulgarians filled a well with their corpses. At Kukush the Moslems were
massacred by the Bulgarian population of the town and their mosque
destroyed. All the Turkish soldiers who fled without arms and arrived in
groups from [The]Salonica were massacred.80
It was not simply Muslims and occasional foreign observers who testified
before the commissioners about the atrocities against Muslims during the
Balkan Wars. Christian Bulgarians, frequently mortified by what was happen-
ing, provided their accounts as well. Vassil Smilev, a Bulgarian Christian teacher
at Uskub, for example, stated before the Carnegie inquirers that upon entering
the village, the Serbian army attempted “to persuade all the Bulgarian teachers
to join the bands which they were forming in order to pursue the Turkish
bands.” After going with the band “for twenty or thirty days,” however, Smilev
left because “it was continually engaged in burning, torturing and killing.”
Thus, he “witnessed the slaughter of eighteen Turks [Muslims] who had been
collected in the Bulgarian school of the Tchair quarter of the town. They were
killed in the open and their bodies thrown into a well near the brickworks.” He
was able to name four of the murdered persons. Smilev also testified that it was
the Serbian chief of police, Lazar Ilyts, who had been responsible for the mas-
sacre in Uskub and for the pillage of the village Butel. The Bulgarian teacher
recounted how near Butel they met a number of Albanian villagers fleeing
from the bands. “A Ser[b]ian major unveiled and kissed a young girl among
them. Her father killed him on the spot. Thereupon the Ser[b]ian band mas-
sacred the whole body of fugitives, men and women, to the number of sixty.”
After witnessing this massacre, which he subsequently reported to the Russian
consulate, Vassil Smilev “refused to have anything further to do with the
Ser[b]ian bands. He was expelled afterwards from Uskub with the other
Bulgarian teachers.”81
That the massacre of Muslims by Bulgarian (as well as Serbian and Greek)
troops and irregulars during the Balkan Wars and pokrŭstvane occurred is
beyond any doubt. But the question why insurgent Christian bands targeted
their Muslim neighbors so fanatically is important and not easy to answer. Part
of the reason may be attributed to the fact that thirty-five years earlier, in 1876–
80 Ibid., 279–280 (Appendix 2.2: Appendix A, No. 6).

81 Ibid., 282 (Appendix 2.2: Appendix A, No. 11).
1878 (as mentioned in Appendix 2.1), the Bulgarian Christian population rose
against the Ottomans in a wave of organized revolts for independence. When
the uprising was quashed, however, scores of civilian Christians, including in
the Rhodopes, were killed. Many civilian Muslims, among them Pomaks, par-
took in the violence against Christian “rebels” ostensibly in defense of the
“mother country.” Consequently, even as (Christian) Bulgarians committed
equal (and often worse) atrocities against Muslims, the official historiography
proceeded to interpret these events as “proof” of Bulgarian-Christian heroism
and virtue and of Islamic-Turkish cruelty and barbarism.82 Undoubtedly,
assigning a collective guilt to all Muslims, the insurgent bands felt justified in
punishing them not only for the brutal Ottoman suppression of the Bulgarian
rebellions, but for the five centuries of “Turkish yoke”—to use a Bulgarian cus-
tomary expression—as well.
2.3 Humanity and Survival Along the Way

The massacre narrative of the pokrŭstvane, however, would not be complete
without the other half of the story: namely, the testimony to human decency
and compassion, not only to cruelty and murder. My informant Mehmed
Shehov recounted a celebrated local story about a Bulgarian officer, Ivan
Tikvarev, who was stationed some distance down south from Vŭlkossel, in
Seress and Kavala (now in northern Greece). He came just in time to stop the
bands and perhaps save from certain devastation the remaining Pomak vil-
lages in the area (the Western Rhodopes). This happened for a reason. Ivan
Tikvarev was the husband (or son?) of a Christian woman by the name Maria.
When the Bulgarians rebelled against the Ottomans in 1876, the Muslims retal-
iated by killing a large number of Christians from Batak (Figure 2-1) and the
surrounding villages. Likely as a result of these events, three girls—Maria,
Elena, and an unnamed third—were orphaned and living in the woods around
Batak. As it happened, a party of Pomak men was passing through the area and
stumbled across the children. Eventually, these people took the orphans under
82 See Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York: Routledge,
1997).
Conclusions to the same effect may be gleaned from the following works, among others:
Nikolay Haytov, “Smolyan: Tri vŭrha v srednorodopskata istoria (Sofia, Bulgaria:
Izdatelstvo na Natsionalnia Sŭvet na Otechestvenia Front, 1962) and Rodopski Vlastelini
(Sofia, Bulgaria: Fatherland Front Pbl., 1976); Petŭr Marinov, Salih Ağa, Rodopski voyvoda i
deribey: Cherti iz jivota i upravlenieto mu—Dramatizatsia po ustni predaniq i legendi v pet
deystvia (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Collection Rodina, 1940); Salih Bozov, V imeto na imeto (Sofia,
Bulgaria: Fondatsia Liberalna Integratsia, 2005); Ibrahim Imam and Senem Konedareva,
Ablanitsa prez vekovete (Ablanitsa, 2008).
76 chapter 2
their wing. The Barutev family from Ablanitsa adopted Maria, a family from
Dryanovo took Elena, and the third orphan went to a family from Ossina.83
What happened with the other two girls, Mehmed Shehov could not tell me,
but when Maria became of marriageable age, her foster parents decided it was
best to try to reunite her with surviving kin in Batak. Maria was a Christian and
the Barutevs believed she should marry a man of her own faith. One day, her
foster father told Maria: “ ‘Listen, you are old enough to marry now. I think it is
time for you to go back to Batak; to your own people. Do you remember where
you lived?’ ‘I do,’ she said.” Then her foster father loaded her dowry onto a
mule, and Maria, herself, onto another, and successfully escorted her back to
Batak. In time she (either) married a man by the name Ivan Tikvarev (or that
was her son). He was a military man, according to my informant Mehmed.
Maria told her husband (or son) the story of how she had grown up in Ablanitsa
and extracted a promise from him: “If you should happen to pass through
Ablanitsa, I have some very dear people there, the Barutevs. Be good to them as
they had been to me.” When Bulgaria took these lands from Turkey in 1912,
bands of Christian chetniks plagued the (Western) Rhodopes killing scores of
civilians and torching village after Muslim villages.84
In Mehmed Shehov’s account, Tikvarev was “the officer who ordered the
withdrawal [from Vŭlkossel, Ablanitsa, Satovcha, and the other neighboring
villages] of the başibozuk [civilian militias]. He was stationed somewhere in—
what is now—northern Greece. And when he heard that Zhizhevo and
Vŭlkossel were burning and the population was being murdered, he jumped
on his horse, and rode, and rode . . . The horse dropped dead with fatigue some-
where near Hadzhidimovo [formerly, Singartiya], but he found another one
and continued to gallop.” Finally, Tikvarev arrived in Ablanitsa. Fully armed,
he walked in the mosque, and asked: “Who is Ismen Barutev?” When people
pointed at Ismen, the latter was frightened to death thinking that this Bulgarian,
armed to the teeth, was looking for him to no good end. Ultimately, Tikvarev
tipped off the population about the approaching bands, so they were able to
evacuate the village and avoid the killing for the time being.85
Ibrahim Imam and Senem Konedareva, however, paint a very different—far
less heroic—picture of Ivan Tikvarev. While the general storyline remains the
same, essential elements of it diverge significantly from Mehmed’s narrative.
The two authors’ account appears to offer a more accurate representation of
Tikvarev and the events surrounding him for two reasons. First, the source of
83 Three nearby villages.

84 Mehmed Shehov, interview.
85 Ibid.
Imam and Konedareva’s knowledge is more closely based on the eyewitness

testimony of immediate descendants than that of Mehmed Shehov. Moreover,
as Ablanitsa natives, the authors must have had the opportunity to do a more
thorough research of the story by talking to more people over a period of time.
In any event, they provide the following narrative of how Mustafa Barutev
found the young girl Maria (apparently called Fatme while in Ablanitsa) and
how Tikvarev came to be associated with Ablanitsa, and the Western Rhodopes,
during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913:
The person we would like to tell you about is Mustafa Mehmedali

Barut[ev] and the story happened in the immediate aftermath of
the Batak events [the Batak massacre, above][.] [A]s we explained earlier,
Batak stood at a crossroad of a major international trade and transporta-
tion artery that connected the plains of the Danube River with the Aegean
coastal region, as well as the valley of Thrace and the city of Plovdiv[.]
Mustafa Barut[ev] was a youth of about 19–20 years of age at the
time. [He] was returning home [to Ablanitsa], through Batak, from
Tatarpazardzhik [Tatar Pazarcik], where he attended the medresse
[madrassa] and studied the Quran to become hodzha [hoca.] [T]o stay
out of harm’s way in those tumultuous times, he decided to bypass
Batak86 and skirt through the woods around it[.] [I]n the forest, he
86 Batak was a Christian village standing on the main artery that connected the Rhodope
Mountains with Plovdiv, a large provincial center. According to Pomak oral history, many
Muslims, who would pass through the village on their way to the Pomak heartland during
the 1870s (and possibly earlier), often disappeared without a trace. These were mostly
students attending schools of higher learning in Plovdiv and Tatarpazardzhik (now
Pazardzhik) who traveled regularly—alone or in small groups, on foot or horseback—
through Batak on the way to their native villages in the Western Rhodopes or back.
Ahmed Ağa of Barutin—the person whom Bulgaria’s history ascribes atrocious acts of
massacre in Batak—had two sons who studied in Plovdiv. One day, they embarked on a
trip to Barutin (the Western Rhodopes) from Plovdiv, through Batak, never to be seen
again. When his sons failed to return home, Ahmed Ağa began an investigation into their
disappearance. Eventually, he heard the story of someone who had recently traveled
through Batak with two other men. What he learned, according to local lore, was the fol-
lowing: Three young men from Barutin (or the broader area) traveled on foot through
Batak, where they decided to stop for the night and continue on the following morning.
Some local Christians offered to rent them a room. They agreed and were shown into a
room with no windows or other outlets to the outside, except the door. After leading them
into the room, the landlords immediately locked the door behind them. The Pomak men
immediately realized that they had walked into a trap. Believing to be in mortal danger,
they started tearing a hole in one of the walls by loosening the mortar and chipping away
78 chapter 2
stumbled across a little girl of 4–5 years of age who seemed scared, alone
and crying, with no adult to be seen around. Mustafa assumed [correctly]
that the girl must be from Batak, but he could neither venture into the
[Christian] village to look for her parents, nor leave her alone in the forest
at the mercy of predatory animals[.] [I]nstead, he decided to take her
with him. Thus, Mustafa brought the girl home to Ablanitsa, much to his
young wife’s delight at the sight of this living gift. The Barut[ev] family
[re]named her Fatme and raised her as their own.
When she reached young adulthood, Mustafa told Fatme how he had found
her and let her decide whether to remain in Ablanitsa or search for her roots in
Batak. She said she wished to find her family, but all she remembered from her
former life was one name—Tikvarev. Respecting Fatme’s wishes, Mustafa
Barutev determined to locate her kin. The next morning, he loaded her belong-
ings onto a mule, and they set off for Batak. Upon arriving, Mustafa inquired
about the name Tikvarev. After a confirmation that such a family indeed
existed, he was directed to a house. When an elderly woman answered his call,
Mustafa found out that the same family had lost a little girl fifteen years prior,
whom they thought long dead. He was happy to tell the woman that he had
found the little girl in the woods, and—not knowing what else to do—he had
taken her with him. With tears of gratitude in her eyes, the woman quickly
spread the news to neighbors and relatives. Subsequently, the family invited
rocks. Luckily, it was an outside wall of the house. Soon, the opening was wide enough to
try to get through it. By the time the first youth squeezed out, the “landlords”—apparently
Bulgarian comitas (“revolutionaries”)—had returned for them. Ultimately, the two young
men still inside were murdered, but the third one escaped. He later reported the case to
Ahmed Ağa, the chief Ottoman official in the region. Thus, Ahmed Ağa concluded that his
two sons were probably murdered in the same way. When no one in Batak answered his
call for information about them, he laid siege on the mutinous village, taking many lives
as a result. Moreover, as the local administrator (Ağa), he was under orders to quell the
1876 Christian rebellion in the area, especially strong in Batak. Unfortunately, Ahmed Ağa
mixed duty and personal vendetta in dealing with Batak. Because Batak was a village of a
few hundred at the time, the victims could not have been more than that even if every-
body was killed in the village, which was not the case. Nonetheless, later Bulgarian histo-
riography inflated the number of killed to thousands, a historically unsustainable count.
Moreover, it demonized Ahmed Ağa, hence all Muslims, while transforming the Batak
massacre into the ultimate symbol of Bulgarian martyrdom and Turkish barbarity. The
scores of Muslims who died during and following the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878,
on the other hand, were never mentioned. (Mehmed Shehov, interview; Mehmed
Myuhtar, interview by author, Vŭlkossel, Bulgaria, June 2007.)
Mustafa Barutev into their home, where he safely spent the night. In those
tense times of religious antagonism (late nineteenth century), however, the
family had to guard the house through the night to prevent hostile Christian
neighbors from harming their Muslim guest. Early the next morning, they
speedily escorted Mustafa out of Batak. The two families—the Barutevs of
Ablanitsa and the Tikvarevs of Batak—kept close friendship ties for many
years afterwards.87
Decades later, in early 1913, when the bands of Munyo Voyvoda and Mikhail
Markov were plundering the Western Rhodopean villages and decimating
their population, a third band headed by Ivan Tikvarev set out for the Pomak
villages to the south, from Batak. Driven by bitter vengefulness since the 1876
Batak massacre,88 according to Imam and Konedareva, Tikvarev’s band
destroyed the small Muslim village of Yenimale, just above Batak, before mov-
ing toward Dospat, Zmeitsa, Lyubcha, and Brŭshten. Ravaging these villages,
they unleashed a veritable hell in Barutin (Ahmed Ağa’s former stronghold,
footnote above) looting everything, killing indiscriminately, and ultimately
setting the whole village ablaze. After similar fate befell Kochan, the chetniks
besieged Zhizhevo (east of Vŭlkossel), where they lined the captured Muslims
along a stone wall and offered them to be Christianized. As the villagers refused
87 Imam and Konedareva, 34–35.

88 According to the official version of the events, hundreds or thousands of Bulgarian
Christians were massacred by Muslims during a wave of rebellion in 1876—known as the
April Uprising—in and around Batak, including children, women, and men. The main
responsibility for the massacre is laid on Ahmed Ağa of Barutin, a local Ottoman admin-
istrator and supposed leader of the başibozuk (Muslim civilian bands) that largely carried
out the murders (details in a footnote above).
Today, the skeletal remains of the victims are prominently displayed in the church of
Batak, where they reportedly met their end. In the years after Bulgaria’s independence of
1878—what came to be known as—the Batak massacre transpired as the quintessential
symbol of Muslim savagery and Bulgarian heroism. There is one serious problem, how-
ever. It is not yet clear how many exactly died and whether or not all skeletal remains
preserved in the church belong to actual victims. In 2006, the Austrian academic Ulf
Brunnbauer and his Bulgarian colleague Martina Baleva made an effort to initiate a pub-
lic debate in Bulgaria about the Batak massacre. Their attempt to re-evaluate the scope of
this tragedy by stating that it was not as significant at the time of occurrence as it was later
portrayed, caused such a nationalistic frenzy in the Bulgarian public space that the schol-
ars were forced to terminate their project. Moreover, patriotic organizations and media
accused them of being “paid agents” of some external “enemy” seeking to re-write
Bulgarian history. Baleva, an (Orthodox Christian) Bulgarian, was declared “a national
traitor.” The affair also resulted in the resignations of museum curators and Cultural
Ministry’s officials who initially collaborated with Brunnbauer and Baleva’s work.
80 chapter 2
to convert, the chetniks demanded gold or whatever valuables they might have
in exchange for their lives. Even after people gave them all the gold they could
find, Tikvarev’s comitas executed all the men. An eyewitness, Ressim Zhizhevski,
who was a small child at the time, reminisced how they spared no one but old
women and children and that they torched the village at the end. This account,
according to Imam and Konedareva, was further confirmed by an elderly
woman from Zhizhevo—affectionately known in Ablanitsa as Nene
[Grandmother] Zhizhka—who witnessed these events as a child and later
married into the Mollov family of Ablanitsa. From Zhizhevo, Tikvarev’s chet-
niks passed through Vŭlkossel, partially destroying it before withdrawing hast-
ily. On February 14, 1913, just two days after Munyo Voyvoda’s band had
despoiled the village, they surrounded Ablanitsa.89
Hereafter, Imam and Konedareva revive the story of Mustafa Barutev, his
foster daughter Fatme (Maria), and Tikvarev:
As it turned out, the leader of the band, Ivan Tikvarev, was that girl’s
(Fatme’s) son, and when his chetniks came south to cleanse the area of
“Turks, Pomaks, and fezzes,” she had him promise not to harm the
Baltachitsa neighborhood of Ablanitsa, where she had grown up in the
Barutev’s household. Consequently, although most of the population had
already fled Ablanitsa after seeing Vŭlkossel in flames, Tikvarev’s band
did not ravage the village in the usual chetniks’ fashion. He had instructed
his chetniks not to touch any place where his white horse would be sta-
bled. Thus, during the last and final raid on Ablanitsa by the [Christian]
bands, Baltachitsa was spared because of the white horse of Tikvarev
stabled in the courtyard of the Barutev’s house. The rest of Ablanitsa,
however, was scoured for valuables by the chetniks, and after finding
nothing and no one, save for a few elderly women and children, they
torched several houses in the center of the village, including the home of
Mehmed Dzhinaliyata [italics added].90
Thus, according to Imam and Konedareva’s sources, Tikvarev was not an army
officer at all, but a chetniks’ leader who—like many others—engaged in loot-
ing Pomak villages, forcing people into conversion, and killing many others in
the chaos of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Tikvarev, however, spared Mustafa
Barutev’s descendants from harm on account of his mother’s wishes. The dis-
parity in oral history’s accounts about him only demonstrates people’s pro-
89 Imam and Konedareva, 48–49.

90 Ibid., 49–50.
found appreciation of his singular act of clemency by choosing to remember

him as a hero rather than a villain.
While narratives of heroism might largely be the product of faulty or exag-
gerated memory today, acts of common human decency were certainly not.
The stories of Christians who risked much to help their Muslim friends and
neighbors during the dark days of early 1913 abound. When the chetniks of
Munyo Voyvoda rounded up the men of Ablanitsa and brought them to
Singartiya (the Western Rhodopes) in ropes, the very Christian inhabitants of
the village did not venture out of their homes for fear of the bands’ lawlessness.
But not all of them cowered. Imam and Konedareva recount how, upon hear-
ing rumors that Munyo Voyvoda had slaughtered Pomak prisoners somewhere
around the mill in the outskirts of Singartiya, the wealthy Christian Tasso
Chorbadzhi went out of his way to investigate the matter. When he arrived at
the mill, he stumbled upon the bloody bodies of the two survivors who had
crept out of the sewage and onto the road hoping to be found by good people.
In one of the wounded, Tasso Chorbadzhi recognized his long-time friend from
Ablanitsa, Mehmed Havalyov. Subsequently, he took both men to his home
and nursed them back to health. As Mehmed had sustained more severe inju-
ries, Tasso Chorbadzhi kept him hidden for nearly a month before sending him
home. The second wounded man, Mehmed Kambin, was smuggled back to
Ablanitsa on the following day. Later in the Balkan Wars, when Greek forces
briefly occupied the valley of Nevrokop (now Gotse Delchev, map above), they
killed the notorious Munyo Voyvoda.91
Another survivor of the Ablanitsa massacres of 1913 was Ibrahim Yusseinov
Hassanov, nicknamed Kabadaiyata. The story of his survival, retold by Imam
and Konedareva, is a remarkable testimony to the human will to live and
resourcefulness. Having survived Munyo Voyvoda’s raid, Kabadaiyata was
weary of Markov and his band, so he did not go out to greet them as most
people did. Moreover, he had already noticed that Markov was positioning his
comitas at all entry points to the village. But, Kabadaiyata, a young man at the
time, was determined to escape with his life again. Putting a plan to action, he
draped a veil over his face, slipped on a ferezhe, and, chasing after a few sheep,
he hurried toward the streams of Studeneka. The chetnik, on guard at Studeneka,
paid little attention to the drab Muslim shepherdess, apparently on a business
of watering her herd. As the girl reached the shallow brook, however, she
suddenly darted right past it and made a run for the nearby river. By the
time the comita reacted, the supposed shepherdess—now racing full speed
downhill—had put a considerable distance between them. Before long, the
91 Ibid., 42–47.
82 chapter 2
thicket of the river bank swallowed her. Reluctant to abandon his position in
pursuit of a harmless girl, the chetnik let her escape. The Kabadayata eventu-
ally found shelter in a cavern overlooking the river, where he hid for three days.
By then the bands had withdrawn and his life was saved.92
2.4 The Pokrŭstvane of Muslim Prisoners of War (POWs)

As the bands’ brutality yielded few results for the pokrŭstvane effort, the
Bulgarian military and church authorities sought other ways to Christianize
the Pomaks. One efficient way of inducing bloodless conversion was the com-
pulsory baptism of Pomak POWs. During the Balkan Wars, Turkey conscripted
most able-bodied Pomak men. But in consequence of the country’s defeat in
May 1913, the Bulgarian army took Muslim prisoners of war by the thousands.
The Slavic-speaking Muslims were immediately separated from their Turkish-
speaking comrades, and transported to camps deep inside Bulgaria so they
could be converted to Orthodox Christianity and given Bulgarian names. The
capture of Pomak soldiers proved very useful to the pokrŭstvane, because it
allowed for the conversion not only of the POWs, but also of their families.
When younger Pomak men were drafted in the Ottoman army, many left
behind vulnerable wives, children, young siblings, and elderly parents. In cap-
tivity, the Bulgarian military gave these soldiers the choice to accept Christianity
or never see their loved ones. At the same time, the POWs’ families were told
that solely on their conversion depended the life and speedy release of their
husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. Thus pressured, whole households
accepted Christian baptism in exchange for their family members. Before
setting Pomak captives free, however, the Bulgarian authorities properly sup-
plied them with identity papers indicating the men’s new Christian names
and religion.93
To obtain release, Muslim POWs petitioned the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
for conversion by the hundreds. The Bulgarian government and ecclesiastical
authorities insisted on the submission of formal petitions to make the conver-
sions appear voluntary. Below is an example of an individual petition, filed by
the POW Eyub Syuliev, and addressed to Archbishop Maxim of Plovdiv of
January 25, 1913:
92 Ibid., 47–48.
93 Inferred from the totality of records published in Georgiev and Trifonov’s volume.
Through the Commanding Officer

of Second Division of Thrace
To His Holiness
The Archbishop of Plovdiv
PETITION
From Eyub Mustafov Syuliev [a POW]
Your Holiness,
Bearing in mind that only the Gospel can uplift the human spirit and lead
it to progress and culture, I obediently beg permission to join the
[Bulgarian] Orthodox Church and, by so doing, to set an example for
other Muslims to follow.
The Town of Pazardzhik With Reverence,

25 Jan. 1913 Eyub Syuliev94
Petitions of such nature were frequently signed by hundreds and even thou-
sands of Muslim prisoners of war. As with the en mass baptism of villages, the
collective conversion of Pomak captives saved time, effort, and resources. As a
result, group petitions among the available records outnumber individual
ones. The highly partisan language of these petitions, however, strongly
suggests that they were neither voluntary nor authored by the POWs them-
selves. In all likelihood, patriotic officers, priests, or civilians prepared those in
advance and presented them for signatures to the POWs. To be sure, military
staff itself initiated the conversion of Pomak captives. For example, the com-
mandant of Panagyurishte, Sapundzhiev, sent the following telegram to
Archbishop Maxim on 30 January 1913, thereby arranging the conversion of
hundreds of prisoners:
There are 550 prisoners of war in the town [Panagyurishte] and its vicin-
ity. They wish to voluntarily pass into the midst of the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church, to which their forefathers belonged but were torn from in
94 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67 k, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 123, page 32.
(Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 58.)
84 chapter 2
c onsequence of the Turkish barbarism. . . . Hereby I ask Your Holiness to

announce their baptism [emphasis added].95
No matter how carefully the state and church authorities phrased their com-
muniqués, or how often they used “voluntary,” the coercive nature of the
pokrŭstvane is plainly visible in the records. In a telegram to the mayor of
Kaloffer, Archbishop Maxim instructed: “The valley of Chepelare has been
Christianized; the valley of Rupcha—half-way. The Pomak prisoners of war in
Kuklen, Perushtitsa, Brestovo, Bratsigovo, Panagyurishte, and Golyamo Konare,
exceeding 1,000 in number, have accepted the faith. It is now time that you, the
citizens of Kaloffer, fulfill your sacred duty to faith and fatherland.”96 The
“sacred duty” that Maxim conferred on the government and citizens of Kaloffer
was nothing short of command to convert the Muslim prisoners in town by any
means necessary. Although Maxim’s language is intentionally elusive, the
meaning is apparent within the broader context of pokrŭstvane. In yet another
telegram, Maxim triumphantly announced that another group of “[a]round
1,000 prisoners of war within the Plovdiv Diocese have been converted and set
free to return to their families.”97
Formal conversion to Christianity not only shielded Muslim prisoners from
torture, but in most cases it was the key to their release and safe return home.
Converts were not only treated differently, but also provided with basic cloth-
ing and food. The report of priest Pavel Dimitrov to Archbishop Maxim from
February 14, 1913, describes the special attitude towards prisoners of war who
had converted or petitioned for conversion. Upon arriving in Pazardzhik under
convoy,
they are accommodated in a hotel specifically appropriated for that

purpose, given bread, and—those who need—shoes as well. The
[pokrŭstvane] committee provides the new converts with the necessary
95 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 123, page 10.
(Ibid., 85–86.)
96 Telegram of Maxim, Archbishop of Plovdiv, to the mayor of the town of Kaloffer from
3 February 1913. Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival
Unit 123, page 57. (Ibid., 110.)
97 Telegram of Maxim, Archbishop of Plovdiv, to Yossiff, Bishop of Darıdere, from 3 February
1913. Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 123,
page 62. (Ibid., 111.)
food rations and, under the protection of the military authorities, they
are sent home to their families.98
But Pomak prisoners and their families only accepted conversion out of des-
peration, and as a measure of last resort. On January 15, 1913, for instance, one
pokrŭstvane mission informed Archbishop Maxim that the populations of
Nastan, Breze, Beden, and Dövlen were only inclined to convert if “their sons,
husbands, fathers, and grandsons would be released from captivity[.] [W]ith
out the prisoners’ release,” the missioners pointed to Maxim, “their families are
reluctant to accept Christianity.” Thus, they “implore[d]” “[His] Holiness” to
order the release of all prisoners from the district of Dövlen . . . ; [and] to speed
up the supply of material aid in the form of food and clothing, for these are the
greatest incentives for conversion among this devastated population.”99
2.5 The Tide is Turning

The official Bulgarian position on the forced Christianization of the Slavic-
speaking Muslims was one of complete denial or insistence that the whole
affair was voluntary. Indeed, the language of available primary records tends to
be euphemistic and defensive, carefully avoiding admissions of wrongdoings,
and suspiciously overstating the “voluntary” nature of the conversion. Bulgaria’s
government, for one, was not interested in attracting foreign criticism, when a
new peace treaty and another territorial redistribution in the Balkans were
about to happen. Despite all efforts to keep the act of pokrŭstvane secret, how-
ever, news of the violence committed against the Muslims began to leak out by
the spring of 1913 and to raise international concerns. Thus, the London-based
Balkan Committee addressed the then Bulgarian Prime Minister, Ivan Geshov,
on May 1, 1913, in the following manner (originally in English):
We feel it our duty to direct your attention to certain rumours that are
being spread in this country as to forcible conversion of Moslem inhabit-
ants in the districts conquered by the Allied armies—rumours which, we
have reason to know, tend to alienate sympathy from the Balkan cause and
peoples, and render more difficult the task of those who, like us, are anxious
to assist in healing the grievous wounds which this terrible war has inflicted
upon the country.
98 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 124, pages 137–
38. (Ibid., 142.)
99 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 125, pages
22–23. (Ibid., 35.)
86 chapter 2
We beg you, Sir, to believe that our sole motive in drawing your atten-
tion to this matter is solicitude for the future welfare and happiness of
your nation, and we would be glad to receive from you assurances that
would enable us to contradict and refute the charges to which we have
alluded [emphasis added].100
The leaking of “rumours” about the conversion was due in large part to the
growing resistance of Pomaks, lodging complaints of brutality against them to
both foreign embassies and internal government institutions. From Protocol
no. 11 of the Holy Synod101 it emerges that by mid-February 1913, the frightened
Muslims had begun to recuperate and to fight back. In particular, the
pokrŭstvane missions in Seress and Nevrokop were reporting to the ecclesiasti-
cal authorities that “Pomak villages in Nevrokop have returned to the Muslim
faith,” and that “instructors were going among the Pomaks to instigate them to
rebel.”102 As the conversion violence escalated during the first three months of
1913, Pomak resistance intensified. Indeed, in the same Protocol no. 11, the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church expressed fear that “the holy mission” might fail
due to two reasons: (1) the bitter winter that hampered the missionaries’ ability
to move about; and (2) the growing defiance of the Muslims.103 For the first
time since the beginning of the pokrŭstvane the church went on the defensive
by denying all “allegations” of violence and by continuing to insist that “the
conversion of the Pomaks was voluntary.” As the number of complaints grew,
however, it became increasingly difficult to dismiss them as “rumours.”
Consequently, Bulgaria’s political and military regime began to distance itself
from the religious authorities. Henceforth, fending for themselves, church offi-
cials proceeded to blame the noxious “rumours” on Protestant jealousy of the
Orthodox Church’s success in gaining converts.104
Meanwhile, the Muslim protests against the pokrŭstvane continued. In a
telegram to the Bulgarian Legation in London of January 7, 1913, Prime Minister
Geshov complained:
100 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 586, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 1014, Page 1. (Ibid.,
278.)
101 The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s highest authority.
102 Protocol no. 11 of the Holy Synod from the session of 12 February 1913. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven
arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 791, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 24, pages 114–121. (Georgiev and Trifonov,
eds., 137–40.)
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid., Western Protestant missions were also active in the conversion of Muslims in the
Balkans, so there was a kind of competition for converts between them and the Eastern
Orthodoxy, dominating most Christian nations in the Peninsula.
Today, the English Consul handed me a memorandum, turning my atten-

tion to some alleged abuse against Muslims, and hoping that we would
take all measures to stop it and punish the culprits. In response, I said
that a month earlier I had talked to General Savov [deputy-commander
in chief of the Bulgarian army] about the situation and he had autho-
rized . . . an investigation of these crimes and punishment for the
perpetrators.105
Further, a protocol of the Holy Synod refers to a letter of the Ministry of

Denominations106 from January 18, 1913, which clearly points to the state’s
complicity in the pokrŭstvane. Apparently, the letter in question was intended
to alert the church officials to the fact that Pomak delegations had been lodg-
ing complaints of “abuses and forced Christianization” not only with foreign
consuls, but with the Ministry itself, and even with King Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
“His Majesty’s Chief of Staff informed the King,” a quotation goes, “that the
same delegation [which had complained to the Ministry of Denominations]
appeared in the royal palace to complain of abuses during the Christianization
of the Pomaks.”107
As evident from the communication of St. Kostov, secretary of the Holy
Synod, to Stoyu Shishkov, the Muslims were taking action against the
pokrŭstvane as early as December 1912. In the letter, Kostov notified Shishkov, a
participant in the conversion missions, that Archbishop Maxim had been
aware of “some Pomaks from the Peshtera district” complaining of torture and
forced conversion to the Turkish mufti (the regional Muslim religious leader).
Then, joined by the mufti himself, these Pomaks even brought their case before
“the Police Commandant in Plovdiv.” “The Commandant [, however,] issued
them with a warning to produce factual evidence before complaining of tor-
ture or else they would be prosecuted for slander.”108
Nor did threat and intimidation discourage the Muslims. Voicing their col-
lective protest, on February 4, 1913, the population of three Rhodopean villages
addressed the Chairperson of the Bulgarian Parliament in the following letter:
(Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 28.)
106 The state organ in charge of religious affairs.
107 See Protocol 2 of the Holy Synod from its session on 19 January 1913. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven
arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 791, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 24, pages 11–14. (Georgiev and Trifonov,
eds., 62.)
108 The letters is dated 31 December 1912. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 568,
Inventory 1, Archival Unit 800, page 16. (Ibid., 21.)
88 chapter 2
Mr. Dr. Danev,
We are Bulgarian Mohammedans from the villages of Dryanovo,

Er-Küpria, and Bogutevo, Stanimaka District[.] [T]he terror, violence, and
sword over our heads to become Christians has reached its highest
point[.] [W]e truly believe that our sacred Constitution permits not that
we be humiliated and beaten in order to abandon our religion. We are
born in it, and we want to remain in it. If you could only bear witness to
the sobs and suffering of us, the defenseless, you would know that the
conversions are not voluntary, but produced by violence[.] To this
bespeaks the fact—known to the whole world—that if we wanted to
convert, we would have done so 35 years ago when Russia came,109 not
now, when we should enjoy freedom in the embrace of Great Bulgaria.
We place our faith in you[;] in your ability to . . . put an end to our suf-
fering, so that we, and our whole nation, may see that the hopes we had
vested in you, upon electing you to that titanic office, to work for Bulgaria’s
greatness, have not been betrayed.
02/04/1913 Reverentially,
The residents of Er-Küpria, Dryanovo, and Bogutevo
[The letter is anonymous.]110
Effective Pomak protest was often enabled by sympathetic Christian Bulgarians.

For instance, the teacher in the village of Oreshets, Mr. Kodzhabashov, appar-
ently loathing the whole conversion affair, encouraged the people of Er-Küprü
to resist the conversion. Moreover, he admitted “a Pomak deputation from
Er-Küprü to his home” and advised them “how to file a complaint.” This infor-
mation was transmitted to the Holy Synod by Archbishop Maxim, who warned
this supreme body of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church that “other teachers and
clerks are telling the Bulgarian-Mohammedans not to accept baptism, advise
them how to complain from abuse, submit protest notes, and even write those
for them.” In conclusion, Maxim asked the Holy Synod to take measures against
109 Referring to the Russian-Turkish War of 1876–1878 as a result of which Bulgaria gained its
independence. The Russian imperial troops invaded the Ottoman Empire and fought
most of the war within the territory of modern-day Bulgaria.
110 Protest-letter from the population of Er-Küprü, Dryanovo, and Bogutevo to the
Chairperson of the Parliament from 4 February 1913. National Library-Bulgarian Historical
Archives. Fond 15, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 1832, page 22. (Georgiev and Trifonov,
eds., 113.)
individuals who thus thwarted “the holy mission” and went against the inter-
ests of “the church and the fatherland.”111
By the spring of 1913, the Pomak community had been actively engaged in
systematic acts of defiance, both individually and collectively. Entire villages,
for instance, refused to attend church or further submit to Orthodox Christian
baptisms, burials, and weddings. Much of this courage stemmed from the real-
ization that, scared by the growing publicity, the Bulgarian government was
withdrawing its support for the pokrŭstvane. Thus, the church stood fending
for itself. Also, by the fall 1913, Bulgaria had already been losing the Second
Balkan War. With defeat came demoralization, as well as waning of the national
zeal to Christianize the Pomaks. The religious missions and their civilian aides
carried out the pokrŭstvane for a while longer, but without the intimidating
presence of the military, their efforts soon fizzled. By September 1913, the mis-
sionaries were transmitting discouraging news to Archbishop Maxim and the
Holy Synod. Priest Nikola Stamenov, a missionary in the village of Dorkovo,
included the following news in his report to Maxim:
During the last three weeks—15, 22, 29 September—everyone, men as

well as women, refuse to come to church. On Sundays the men plow their
fields and the women do their laundry, while you can rarely see a man
plowing or a woman washing any other day. Since September 25 [1913]
there is commotion among them; 5–6 new Christians from other villages
come here every day under the pretext of visiting relatives, but they
gather together for counsel; they put a deliberate person on watch for
when I approach; in my presence, they switch to talking about other,
insignificant matters. The coffee shops are full of people these days and
stay open through the night[.] I’ve tried to tell them many times to close
the shops and go home, but they don’t listen to me[.] I informed the
police about all that already. There are seven (7) newborns due for baptiz-
ing[.] I’ve warned the parents four times already to bring them [to the
church] for baptizing, but they refuse[.] I reported it to the municipal
authorities, but no cooperation from there either. Everyone is selling
goats, sheep, cattle, houses, whatever property they have, saying they’ll
be leaving soon for Asia [Turkey], where they’ve purchased land already.
They don’t let me call them by their new names. Boys 15–16 years of age
wear fezzes again, telling me they’ve worn out their hats already. Women
111 Letter of Archbishop Maxim of Plovdiv to the Holy Synod from 5 February 1913. Regionalen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 123, page 117. (Ibid., 289.)
90 chapter 2
started covering their face a hundred times harder than they did in
Ottoman times.112
From Er-Küprü, priest B. Khristov reported nearly the same story: “For two
weeks already there is great excitement among the new converts[.] . . . [T]heir
insubordination is growing, too[.] [T]hey respect nothing related to the church
anymore; and no one listens to my counsel. . . . Already, some of them are
openly saying, ‘We are Turks [Muslims], and we’ll remain Turks, because our
rights will be restored.’ ”113 Such tales of frustration for the missionaries and of
emerging hope for the Muslims were abounding by the fall of 1913. In a report
of October 1, Atanass Zlatkov, priest in Banya-Chepino, related to Archbishop
Maxim that “[o]ne of the old Christians, Miko Akev, had said to the new con-
vert Miladin Tumbev, ‘Good evening, Miladine!’ to which the latter rejoined,
‘Don’t call me Miladin! I have a name.’ ” The same priest also reported how he
asked the “convert Assen Trenov, ‘Why aren’t you coming to church?’ He said
he didn’t have any money to light a candle in the church. I told him that . . . if
he had money for cigarettes, he should have for candles, too. . . . [T]o this he
replied he was European and he did not need to go to church.”114
Another missionary, Toma Belchev, serving in the Pomak village of
Chepelare, wrote to Archbishop Maxim on December 24, 1913:
I saw this person from Güzdünitsa wearing fez:

“Where are you from?,” I asked.
“From Güzdünitsa.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hassan.”
“Aren’t you baptized?”
“Yes, you baptized me, but with baptizing alone, you can’t take my faith
away.”
“You must know that once you’ve been baptized, you can’t wear the fez
anymore?”
“That time is over. It used to be dark, but now it’s light again,” he said to me.115
112 The report is dated 30 September 1913. Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к,
Inventory 2, Archival Unit 117, pages 69–70. (Ibid., 415.)
113 Report of B. Hristov, priest in Er-Küprü, to Archbishop Maxim from 14 October 1913.
Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 117, pages
83–84. (Ibid., 419–20.)
114 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 117, pages
74–78. (Ibid., 416–17.)
115 Ibid., pages 207–8. (Ibid., 456.)
Indeed, by the end of 1913 the pokrŭstvane was a dead affair and the Pomaks
were free to restore their Muslim faith and identity. However, the excesses and
killing that accompanied the conversion went unpunished. Moreover, the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church took steps to reward the leaders of insurgent
bands who carried out some of the bloodiest pogroms against the Pomak pop-
ulation. For example, in Protocol no. 44 of the Holy Synod from October 24,
1913, one reads:
[During this session, the Holy Synod] dealt with the matter of rewarding
Tane Nikolov and his comrades for their contribution to our mission of
converting the Pomaks from the Gümürcina [Gumurdzhina] district. . . .
Wherever he acted on this holy mission with his 22 comrades, Tane
Nikolov had shown great diligence, loyalty, tact, wisdom, and unques-
tionable selflessness from the moment of his arrival in Gümürcina.
Tane Nikolov and his group had been dispatched [there] by the district
government, and [had acted] with the consent of the Chief Army
Quarters, to assist the church missions [in converting the Pomaks] . . .
For this, the Holy Synod will plead with the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and Religious Denominations to award Tane Nikolov and his comrades
the amount of 20,000 leva for their selfless- and very valuable to the State,
Nation, and Church contribution. . . .116
In the course of the same session, the Holy Synod formally aborted the
pokrŭstvane campaign after having lost the support of the army and state
authorities. Accordingly, the session’s protocol reads: “It has been decided that
the missions for conversion of the Pomaks are henceforth revoked and relieved
of their duties until further notice when our work could resume . . .”117 And the
next forced Christianization of Pomaks would not take place until three
decades later.
3 War and Pokrŭstvane No More

As early as July 1913, Bulgaria was losing the Second Balkan War. While Greek
troops were taking away Macedonia from the south, Turkey was recapturing
Thrace from the southeast. That same month, the coalition government of
Stoyan Danev—which carried out part of the pokrŭstvane—fell and King
Ferdinand appointed a new cabinet headed by Vassil Radoslavov as Prime
Minister. Bulgaria’s conclusive defeat in the Second Balkan War forced the
116 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 791, Inventory 1, Archival Unit 24, pages 579,
581–82, 587–88, 598. (Ibid., 421–22.)
117 Ibid.
92 chapter 2
Radoslavov government to accept the terms of the Bucharest Peace Treaty

(August 10, 1913), followed by the Treaty of Constantinople a month and a half
later. The Treaty of Constantinople allowed Bulgaria to retain control over
most of the Rhodope Mountains (the rest remained in Greece), a territory
densely populated by Pomaks. However, Bulgaria was also bound to honor a
number of provisions related to the protection of Muslim rights and freedoms.
Article 7 of the treaty established that all Muslim (and other) persons living on
former Ottoman territories, presently annexed to Bulgaria, were to become
full-fledged Bulgarian citizens. Those wishing to retain their Ottoman citizen-
ship, however, could immigrate to Turkey within the next four years with all
their movable property. Article 8 of the treaty guaranteed to all Muslims living
in Bulgaria the right to equality before the law, freedom of conscience, and
freedom to profess and practice their religion. It further mandated that Bulgaria
recognized and respected the right of Muslim parishes to own property, as well
as to maintain and regulate their own hierarchical structure. Articles 9 and 10
of the Treaty of Constantinople additionally decreed that all rights and privi-
leges—including property rights—acquired by persons and/or entities, estab-
lished under valid Ottoman laws, were to be retained and respected likewise.
A separate provision, binding to Bulgaria and Turkey alike, guaranteed that
Christian and Muslim burial grounds would be respected. Article 16 estab-
lished the right to free movement of nationals of both countries within the
territory of the other.118
Following the Balkan Wars, Bulgaria embarked on a process of restoring its
relationship with Turkey and improving the treatment of its Muslim minori-
ties. The Cabinet of Vassil Radoslavov played a pivotal role in the post-war
healing. On October 16, 1913, for example, the government published a deliber-
ate “Manifesto to the Population from the Newly Liberated Territories,” pro-
claiming its commitment to respect the rights and freedoms of the Bulgarian
citizens from the new territories.119 Consequently, the Rhodopean Pomaks
expressed their appreciation for the government’s reversal of the conversion
by voting en mass for Radoslavov’s Liberal party, effectively aiding his re-
election on February 23, 1914.
118 Fatme Myuhtar, “The Human Rights of the Muslims in Bulgaria in Law and Politics since
1878” (Sofia, Bulgaria: Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, November 2003), 16–17.
119 “Manifesto to the Population from the Newly-Liberated Territories,” Official Gazette
no. 329, October 1913.
Conclusion
The brutal pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913 was a move towards territorial, political,

and cultural consolidation of the Bulgarian state and nation. Bulgarian author-
ities, supported by the church, hoped for a quick and efficient national unifica-
tion through conversion of a significant segment of the population—a step
deemed necessary to thwart potential territorial claims by Turkey. Dictated by
national ideals, fashioned by the ruling elites and the intelligentsia, and fed to
the masses, the politics of coercive assimilation inspired the dominant ethno-
religious group to accept and execute the pokrŭstvane.
The spirit and letter of Bulgarian nationalism was one of a young nation-
state, emerging out of foreign rule. The previously Ottoman dominated popu-
lation, which lacked traditions of self-government, sought to build a sovereign
national state of their own. Harboring no respect for individual freedom or
cultural difference, the new nation’s goal was to substitute the formerly subju-
gated status of the prevalent ethno-religious group with one of undisputed
domination over all other communities within the claimed territories. The
strategy was to enforce cohesion through coercion (violence) rather than
through integration of differing groups; and the more closely affiliated these
groups were with the former “oppressor,” the more likely target of violence they
became.
The language typical of Bulgaria’s nationalism echoes from the letter of a
group of patriotic activists from Pazardzhik—who would eventually carry out
the conversion of Pomaks in the central Rhodopes—to the Holy Synod of the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church, to Prime Minister Ivan Geshov, and to the Minister
of Internal Affairs, Al. Lyutskanov, of December 1, 1912:
The Bulgarian soldiery fulfilled the trust laid upon them by the King and
the People . . . The victorious Bulgarian troops gave freedom to our subju-
gated brothers beyond Rila and the Rhodope [Mountains]. Bulgaria is
great, whole, and strong. But with this comes big responsibility: in future
united Bulgaria, we will have many foreign peoples and faiths. And for-
eign faiths bring about foreign ideals. . . . One people, one society will be
easier to rule and better off because unity of creed would enable that
society to prevail. Even philanthropists dream of a mankind guided by
the same moral principles—by one ideal.
And what loftier, brighter ideal could mankind have than Christianity?
We led a war not of conquest, but of freedom; a war of the Cross—the
creator of all culture and civilization.
94 chapter 2
This is why, one of our goals must be to spread Christianity among all
our future subjects. To enlighten and educate these citizens, we must
inculcate Christianity in their minds. . . .
Only Christianity will elevate his [the Pomak] mind and soften his
heart. Only by embracing Christianity, will he be equal to us in the shared
love for our country.120
All typical characteristics of the Romantic nationalism of violence are identifi-

able in this excerpt: Bulgaria moved to affirm sovereignty and control over the
new territories by forcing the local Pomak population into religious conver-
sion. The nation-state’s prevalent majority desperately sought sovereignty as a
means to change their previous status of a subjugated people. For the ruling
elites, the fastest and most efficient way to enforce territorial and cultural sov-
ereignty was through violent assimilation.
The Pomaks were an obvious target for assimilation from the start because
they shared language with the nation’s dominant ethno-religious group. Their
Islamic religion, however, posed two problems to Bulgaria’s ruling elite: First,
Islam was the faith of the former Ottoman “oppressor.” Therefore, Islam consti-
tuted a religio-cultural identity against which the new Bulgarian nation sought
to define itself by glorifying its Christian heritage and disparaging the
“oppressor’s” Islamic one. Thus, according to the formula of the coercive
nationalism, the Pomaks could not be Muslim and Ottoman. They had to be
Orthodox Christians and Bulgarians. The 1912–1913 act of pokrŭstvane against
them applied that formula of Romantic nationalism. The resulting violence,
however, failed to win the Pomaks for the Bulgarian nation as might have dem-
ocratic respect for their difference.
This first comprehensive conversion had a lasting impact on Pomak identity
and cultural heritage. The effect was twofold: First, the pokrŭstvane set a prec-
edent for subsequent Bulgarian regimes to embark on brutal assimilations of
their own of the Rhodopean Muslims (and Muslims in general). Second, for
the first time, the relatively stable until then sense of Ottoman-Muslim iden-
tity of the Pomaks was shaken to its core by the label “descendants of forcibly
converted Bulgarian Christians,” imposed on the community by force. Hence
forth, this ideology would become the core value of Bulgarian nationalism in
120 Letter of a group of patriotic activists from Pazardzhik to the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church, to Prime Minister Ivan Geshov, and to the Minister of Internal Affairs,
Al. Lyutskanov, from 1 December 1912. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 568,
Inventory 1, Archival Unit 404, pages 1–3. (Georgiev and Trifonov, eds., 15.)
respect to the Pomaks and their “proper” place within the (Christian) nation-
state of Bulgaria.
Following the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913, a series of patchy attempts to con-
vert the Pomaks to Christianity took place before the communist takeover of
1944 in Bulgaria. While unsuccessful in terms of lasting impact, however, these
further pokrŭstvanes kept alive the spirit of violent nationalism and the sense
of alienation among the Pomaks. When the communist regime permanently
supplanted the Bulgarian monarchy in the mid-1940s, the new atheistic leader-
ship immediately denounced the latest Christianization of 1938–1944 as
“fascist” and promptly aborted it, much to the Pomaks’ relief. Yet, this gesture
of communist magnanimity was solely a political necessity which, once ful-
filled, would unleash the most enduring assimilation yet—the vŭzhroditelen
protses—with lasting implications for Pomak cultural identity today. The next
two chapters discuss the nature and long-term impact of the communist name
changing, including policy, political persecution, Pomak resistance, and dis-
senters’ exile.
chapter 3
The Vŭzroditelen Protses: Identity Crisis and the

Forced Renaming of the Pomaks (1944–1989)
The vŭzhroditelen protses (commonly translated as the revival process or rebirth)

was the last forced assimilation of Pomaks in Bulgaria, and, for the first time, it
targeted the Turkish-speaking Muslims, too. Because the Turkish vŭzhroditelen
protses of 1984–1985 was much larger in scale, it ultimately obscured the Pomak
name changing of 1972–1974. The following two chapters deal exclusively with
the Pomak vŭzhroditelen protses, limiting the Turks’s assimilation to contextual
reference only. Nevertheless, it is my hope that the revivalist campaign against
the Turkish Muslims at least receives an adequate introduction in the next two
narratives. While the nature and methods of both assimilations are identical,
there is one significant difference. The first campaign targeted a smaller and
ethnically ambiguous community in comparison—the Pomak Muslims, who
shared linguistic ties with Bulgaria’s majority. The second one was directed
against a highly defined and substantially larger minority group in Bulgaria,
with strongly developed ethnic self-identity—the Turkish Muslims. Whereas
chapter three is preoccupied with the vŭzhroditelen protses as a totalitarian
policy, political persecution, and Pomak resistance as a collective experience,
chapter four focuses of the life and struggles of Ramadan Runtov, a vocal anti-
revivalist, political prisoner, and Pomak expatriate to Turkey.
Policy and Ideology of the Vŭzhroditelen Protses
Pre-communist Bulgaria was a turbulent place for the Rhodopean Muslims.

After the grueling pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913,1 the Pomak hopes for a peaceful
existence within their new country vanished completely. For a brief while,
however, there were no forced conversions. In fact, during the Agrarian gov-
ernment of Alexander Stamboliyski, the Muslims of Bulgaria, and particu-
larly the Pomaks, came to enjoy a substantial freedom of religion and cultural
expression. But this period was short-lived and ended with the overthrow of
Stamboliyski’s cabinet in June 1923. The situation became especially critical
after 1934, when a military junta came to power. Toward the end of the 1930s
1 See chapter two.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004272088_��4

Vŭzroditelen Protses 97
and until 1944, a new humiliating pokrŭstvane of the Pomaks was underway.
Unlike the tightly organized and sweeping Christianization of 1912–1913, this
one was sporadic, patchy, and more propaganda-oriented. As a result, many
Muslims were able to avoid the renaming altogether simply by going into hid-
ing or learning to quickly slip away every time pokrŭstvane operatives showed
up in their villages. A number of Muslims also fled to Turkey to permanently
evade the conversion. After the communist takeover in Bulgaria of 1944–1945,
the pokrŭstvane stopped. Moreover, within the first few years of the new
regime, the political situation of the Pomaks improved significantly.
In the first decade of their rule, the communist authorities were politically
and culturally accommodating to the Muslims. “The Party,” as the regime came
to identify itself, needed all support it could get to consolidate its power. The
Pomaks, like most Muslims, were a relatively easy win. Any regime willing to
be tolerant of them would have had their backing given the history of oppres-
sion under previous governments. Understandably, the communists seized the
opportunity of that crucial moment. They took care to expressly incorporate
provisions for the freedom of conscience and religion in the new constitution,
adopted by the National Assembly in 1947. It became known as the Dimitrov
Constitution, named after the then supreme communist leader Georgy
Dimitrov. Ironically, while these constitutional guarantees were reaffirmed in
the Law on Religious Denominations of 1949, all religious schools—until then
the traditional form of schooling for all Muslims—were being shut down the
very same year. Moreover, the second constitution adopted by the commu-
nists in 1971—at the zenith of the Pomak vŭzhroditelen protses—restated the
freedom-of-conscience-and-creed guarantees (Article 53). Article 35(2) of this
constitution specifically stipulated that “no privileges or limitation of rights
based on nationality, origin, creed, sex, education, social and material status is
allowed.”2 Simultaneously, the Bulgarian Penal Code criminalized the instiga-
tion of hatred on religious grounds. Constitutional guarantees and criminal
liability notwithstanding, laws amounted to nothing once the regime had
determined to pursue the vŭzhroditelen protses.
As early as the mid-1950s, the communist politics in Bulgaria began to
change. By then, “The Party” had stabilized its control over the country and
could comfortably consider a reversal of minority policy, especially in regard
to the Muslims. The emerging communist nationalism saw the large number
of people professing Islam (roughly a fifth of about seven million) in the coun-
try as a malignant growth within—what had to be—the healthy, ethnically
2 Cited in Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York: Routledge,
1997), 52.
98 chapter 3
uniform body of the nation. To achieve a homogenous and compliant nation,

the regime put forward a suitable ideology, calculated to appeal to the patriotic
sentiments of the ethnic majority. As the Bulgarian historian Vera Mutafchieva
explains,
the Bulgarians began to be brainwashed en mass with fresh arguments

about the “otherness” of Turks and Pomaks. Compared to the “interna-
tionalism” [approach of relative freedom until then], a new conception
developed: they were not only “the others,” they were moreover danger-
ous for our state because they strove to cut off a part of the national terri-
tory and to annex it to Turkey.3
This sudden recasting of Muslims as “the others” also sprang out of a trou-
bling—for the communists—tendency among the Pomaks to identify as eth-
nic Turks, essentially synonymizing Muslim with Turkish. This presented a
serious obstacle to the regime’s emerging ambitions to homogenize the nation
by “reviving” all the country’s Muslims as “ethnic” Bulgarians.
Apparently, the government first entertained the idea of ethnic homog-
enization, specifically via Muslim assimilation, during a plenum of the cen-
tral committee (CC) of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) in April 1956.
The same year, the CC came up with a special directive “to raise the politi-
cal and cultural level of the Bulgarians with Mohammedan faith in order to
fully develop their sense of being inseparable from the Bulgarian nation and to
actively engage them in the building of communism.”4 It was the authorities’
plan to build a unitary and tightly controlled nation in order to bolster and
perpetuate their own rule of the country. The regime, however, did not imme-
diately embark on this assimilation project. It was not until six years later—
on April 5, 1962—that Politburo resolved to follow through with the “cultural
revolution,” as they originally termed the vŭzhroditelen protses. They were to
start with the Pomaks—as another Pomak assimilation would not be anything
new—as well as with the smaller communities of Muslim Tatars and Gypsies
who were also prone to cultivate a “distasteful” ethnic Turkish consciousness.
They were to deal with the Turks later, when the time was ripe for the final and
all-embracing stage of the vŭzhroditelen protses.
3 Vera Mutafchieva, “The Turk, the Jew, and The Gypsy,” in Relations of Compatibility and
Incompatibility between Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria, ed. Antonina Zhelyazkova (Sofia:
International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations Foundation, 1994), 33.
4 Decision of Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party to Improve the Work on Cultivating
National and Patriotic Awareness among the Bulgarians with Mohammedan Faith of 1973.
Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 446, page 1.
But the so-called Measures against the Self-Turkification of Gypsies, Tatars,

and Bulgarians [Pomaks] Professing the Mohammedan Faith of 1962, seemingly
with broader application, were intended mostly for the Pomaks. As “ethnic
Bulgarians,” the Pomaks—above all others—could not be allowed to develop
a “Turkish” self-consciousness. Thus, the 1962 directive promulgated the fol-
lowing “measures” to that effect: First, it barred the local “people’s councils”
from allowing Pomaks and Gypsies to move into villages with ethnic Turkish
population so as to prevent their cultural integration. Second, it enabled the
Ministry of Education and Culture and the local councils (a) to forbid instruc-
tion in the Turkish language at schools where Pomak (Tatar or Gypsy) children
attended; (b) to refuse appointment of ethnic Turkish teachers to schools with
predominantly Pomak (Tatar or Gypsy) students; and (c) to prevent Pomak
(and Gypsy) children from sharing living quarters, within the full-board
schools, with Turkish children. Third, it obligated the Bulgarian Academy of
Science to organize “expeditions of historians, ethnographers, [and] philolo-
gists” to the Rhodopes, traditionally inhabited by Muslims, in search of evi-
dence for the Pomaks’ Bulgarian ancestry. Fourth, it created a special entity, an
“Institute” at the Academy of Science, instructed to “study” the historical past
of the Pomaks.5
To ensure the success of the revival enterprise, the authorities indeed relied
on academics to scientifically establish the “pure” Bulgarian pedigree, ini-
tially, of the Pomaks and, later, of the Turks. As Ali Eminov points out, most
of those summoned for the task “readily obliged and found the required ‘evi-
dence’ everywhere they looked.” In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the com-
munist scholarship effectively proved the Bulgarian origins of the Pomaks by
expanding “partial truth[s]” “into sweeping generalizations” and by producing
“volumes of pseudo-scientific” literature. Thus, with a simple decision of “The
Party,” a select body of compliant and self-gratifying “scientists” was able to
rewrite history.6
With the past effectively falsified, the pressure began on Pomak men and
women (a) to rid themselves of the traditional attire in favor of more mod-
ern dress style, (b) to substitute their traditional Turkish-Arab names with
Bulgarian-Orthodox ones, and (c) to abandon any and all religious customs.
In the course of implementing the “cultural revolution” in the Rhodopes dur-
ing the early 1960s, many of the local communist apparatchiks, supported
by law enforcement and Christian civilians, engaged in premeditated acts of
5 Theodore Zang and Lois Whitman, “Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Gypsies of Bulgaria,”
Helsinki Watch (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991), 69–73.
6 Eminov, 9–10. See also Zang and Whitman, 69–73.
100 chapter 3
cruelty and debasement of the population. Subsequently, on many occasions

the population resisted and clashed with the authorities. To downplay the ris-
ing resistance, the communist regime came up with its third directive about
the vŭzhroditelen protses on May 12, 1964. While acknowledging the violence
against civilian Muslims, this directive was more concerned with portraying it
as a necessary reaction to thuggish behavior. 7
The communist leadership’s last formal resolution on the Pomak assimila-
tion came out on July 17, 1970. This document marked an important shift in
the implementation of the vŭzhroditelen protses. From a relatively low-key
undertaking by then, the assimilation effort was to become openly aggressive.
This fourth directive no longer sought to conceal the renaming, but to speed
it up and transform it into a nationwide campaign. Once in the open with the
vŭzhroditelen protses by the 1970, the regime expressed impatience with its
progress, describing it as “slacking lately and causing the negative processes of
self-Turkifization among the Bulgarians with Mohammedan faith to become
worse.”8 In the communist vocabulary, this meant stepping up with the vio-
lence. Thus, by the early 1970s, and especially “[a]fter the approval of the 1971
Constitution, the creation of a nation-state with a single language and homog-
enous culture became an explicit government policy.” After the 1974 Plenum
of the Bulgarian Communist Party—and once the Pomaks were formally
renamed—the term “unified Bulgarian socialist nation” officially entered the
regime’s terminology in live speeches, in the printing press, and in electronic
media.9
From the start, the underlying rationale for the vŭzhroditelen protses was of
the following nature: The Muslims—Pomaks and Turks—within the nation
were the culturally opposite other, because they were intimately associated
with Bulgaria’s historical “enemy”—Turkey, the political successor of the for-
mer Ottoman “oppressor.” As such, they presented a danger to the integrity
and stability of the Bulgarian nation. Therefore, they had to understand that
they could not express an identity—Muslim or Muslim-Turkish—that went
against the Bulgarian(-Christian) values. The Pomaks, in particular, were not
to be allowed to join forces with the Turks. They were not Turks and they were
7 This is in accordance with summary information, included in the Politburo’s Decision to step
up with the assimilation of 1973, quoted below.
8 Decision of Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party to Improve the Work on Cultivating
National and Patriotic Awareness among the Bulgarians with Mohammedan Faith of 1973.
Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 446, page 3.
9 Eminov, 7–8.
not to be allowed to become Turks. They were to be assimilated; and forced to

assimilate the Pomaks were.10
In a lengthy speech of 1985, Politburo member Milko Balev proudly called
the vŭzhroditelen protses a “national rebirth,” initiated with the renaming
of the Pomaks and successfully completed with the “revival” of the ethnic
Turks. “Recognizing historic[al] truth,” he elaborated, “a large number of the
descendants of forcibly Islamized Bulgarians . . . reconstituted their Bulgarian
names. . . . [And by doing so, they] shed their fanaticism, freed themselves
from the influence of conservatism . . . and strengthened their patriotic
consciousness.” The high official made these statements before the ethnically
mixed population of Haskovo, following the vicious conclusion of the Turkish
renaming in 1985. Adding insult to injury, he declared the affair “a striking
expression of a new historical awareness” among the ethnic Turks who—just
like the Pomaks a decade earlier—had suddenly decided to take on Bulgarian
names in acknowledgement of their true identity. As a finale, Balev clearly
articulated the fundamental purpose of the vŭzhroditelen protses: “The People’s
Republic of Bulgaria is one nation, her border incorporates no foreign territory,
and not a single part of the Bulgarian people belongs to any other people or
nation [emphasis added].”11
The regime threw this sort of nationalist rhetoric in the public sphere not
only to remind the citizenry that “The Party” expected complete obedience
from them, but also to manipulate the prevalent national sentiment. To achieve
it, the majority population needed to believe the following: First, the assimi-
lation was the will of the Bulgarian people, or at least carried out on behalf of
the people—that is, the ethno-cultural majority. Second, the targeted com-
munities—Pomaks and Turks—not only consented to the assimilation, but
also “spontaneously” denounced their traditional cultural identity to “enthusi-
astically” embrace a new one. The reason for it was their “sudden” realization
of the “pure” origins they shared with the Bulgarian nation. Third, in post-
factum perspective, Balev clarified, the vŭzhroditelen protses was a “good thing,”
because: (a) it brought economic development to traditionally depressed areas
(the Rhodopes was the case in point); (b) it opened a fanaticism-free envi-
ronment for everyone; and (c) it helped instill patriotic consciousness in the
Pomaks (and the Turks). Finally, the vŭzhroditelen protses fostered the achieve-
ment of the foremost national objective. There was now a unitary, strong and
indivisible nation-state for the Bulgarian people under the shrewd leader-
ship of the communist party. As hard as it is to imagine that the regime truly
10 Ramadan Runtov, interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 21, 2007.

11 Eminov, 13–14, (quoting original document).
102 chapter 3
believed in its own absurd ideology of ethnic purity and untainted origins, they
certainly had their minds set on imposing artificial homogeneity. To accom-
plish this feat, however, they needed the support of the ethno-cultural majority.
The very purpose of invoking nationalist ideology was precisely to manipulate
the prevalent national sentiment as a form of political control.
Manipulate it they did, especially by feeding unsightly propaganda to a
largely Christian nation that had been previously dominated by discriminating
Muslim rulers. Consequently, the previously conventional feelings of national
dislike and suspicion toward anything Ottoman, Turkish, or Muslim escalated
to hatred and xenophobia during the communist period (1944–1989). However,
as the Ottoman Empire had been long gone by their time, the communists’
propaganda concentrated on attacking the Islamic faith and culture instead
as the unpalatable surviving heritage of the former “oppressor.” And they did
so in a particularly vicious way. Four points became the cornerstone of that
ideological assault, as effectively summed up by Eminov. First, Islam was a
backward, barbaric religion that had been imposed on the Bulgarian people
(Pomaks being the “living proof” of that) by force for centuries. Second, Islam
impeded the ethno-cultural and scientific renaissance of the Bulgarian people
in the five centuries of “Ottoman yoke.” Third, foreign reactionary forces (nota-
bly Turkey and the West) used Islam to slander the Bulgarian socialist state by
promoting nationalism and religious fanaticism among its Muslim population.
Fourth, Islam was altogether obstructive to the integration of Muslims into the
Bulgarian nation.12
In the spirit of this propaganda, a range of prominent Muslim rites were
disparaged, condemned, and prohibited under penalty of criminal prosecu-
tion. Accordingly, the regime outlawed circumcision as “a barbaric and pagan
rite, a handover from the stone age.” Likewise, they forbade Ramazan (the
Muslim month of fasting) because it allegedly “lowered one’s immunity to dis-
ease.” Moreover, it was economically detrimental to the country as it physically
weakened the Muslim labor force—employed largely in agriculture—and,
thus, lowered its productivity. Even the sacrificial slaughtering of lambs dur-
ing Kurban Bayram (the Festival of Sacrifice) was banned for allegedly caus-
ing gastrointestinal disorders and for depriving the nation of much-needed
foreign currency via the meat export. The conservative way in which Muslim
women traditionally dressed was also problematic, because it symbolized
their oppression by men. Finally, Muslim burial rites were altogether improper
simply for being contrary to the “socialist practice.” Eminov aptly describes
what constituted a “socialist burial”:
12 Eminov, 53.
Party officials were sent to Muslim funerals to make sure that the proper
“socialist” ritual was carried out and that prayers were said in Bulgarian
only. Muslims were not allowed to bury their dead in their own cemeter-
ies [the cemeteries had to be mixed]. Turks and other Muslims were sent
letters ordering them to cover with cement the tombstones of their close
relatives with any Turkish or Arabic inscriptions or any Islamic symbols
on them.13
The “socialist ritual,” it turns out, was actually a Bulgarian-Christian one,

minus the most overt symbols of the faith such as the cross or the presence
of Orthodox priests. But because Marxism and Leninism promoted atheism,
the Bulgarian communism had to oblige. Although prayers were permitted
during burials, they were in Bulgarian—a practice particularly offensive to
the Pomaks who traditionally associated it with the pokrŭstvane.14 In addition,
Figure 3-1 Broken Tombstones from the Old Cemetery in Vŭlkossel.
13 Ibid., 60.
14 See chapter two.
104 chapter 3
Figure 3-2 Idem.

The cemetery no longer exists, but, in 2007, I found its tombstones piled up in a
corner of the current eastern cemetery of the village. The head stones were broken
and the cemetery was bulldozed in the 1980s (I do not recall the exact year, though I
recall how it looked), when the old mosque’s minaret was pulled down, too. The stone
inscriptions are in Ottoman Turkish, written in the Arabic alphabet, which was the
standard script of the Ottoman Empire.
the conventional fez-shaped tombstones were entirely banned. In particular,

the regime prohibited the carving of any and all Islamic symbols—including
inscriptions in the Arabic or Turkish languages or alphabets, engravings of the
crescent moon, and others—on the tombstones, instructing further that the
existing such be cemented over or disposed of completely. Consequently, old
Muslim cemeteries were changed beyond recognition or altogether wiped out.
Bringing about Identity Crisis
The vŭzhroditelen protses was a deeply bureaucratic and thorough affair. After
1974, the conventional Bulgarian-Christian names forced on the Pomaks had to
appear on their passports, birth certificates, property deeds, savings account
papers, court certificates, and every other conceivable document. Those lack-
ing the proper documentation, indicating Bulgarian identity, could not access
their salaries, pensions, and bank accounts. In addition, they could not apply
for a change of residence or job. Failure to produce new papers during frequent
check-ups resulted in job loss, fine, and imprisonment. In order to acquire these
papers, however, people had to attend especially organized public ceremo-
nies during which they were handed the new passports with much pomp and
ostentation. According to Yulian Konstantinov, Gulbrand Alhaug and Birgit
Igla, in the Rhodopean town of Rudozem, with largely Pomak population,
every person with revived name “would be asked to walk up to a ceremonial
rostrum set up in the town square, where the applicant had to hand in his/her
‘old’ passport and receive a ‘new’ one.”15
Thus, with a simple change of papers, not only the living—adults, chil-
dren, and newborns—but also their long-departed predecessors received new
identities overnight. The revival affair, brandishing the banner of communist
nationalism, imposed the sort of treatment that humiliated, traumatized, and
ultimately alienated the Pomak community from the Bulgarian nation more
than anything else. The events in the village of Lutovo, entirely inhabited by
Pomaks, are indicative of what generally took place during the vŭzhroditelen
protses in most Pomak communities:
The mosque was closed, residents were forced to adopt Christian names,
and overnight the village—originally called Lutovo—was re-dubbed
Sveta Petka, after the medieval patron saint of the Bulgarian nation.
For almost two decades, circumcision was forbidden in Sveta Petka, as
was the celebration of Muslim holy days. Soldiers and militiamen
patrolled the streets to ensure that prohibitions were enforced, and in
neighboring villages protesters were shot. Women were forbidden to
wear their traditional dress of loose-fitting pantaloons under skirts or
embroidered aprons; those refusing to abandon traditional attire were
ejected from rural buses. Many chose to walk 10 or 20 kilometers to and
from work or school each day rather than compromise Muslim codes of
modest dress.16
15 Yulian Konstantinov, Gulbrand Alhaug and Birgit Igla, “Names of the Bulgarian Pomaks,”
Nordlyd: Tromso University Working Papers and Language and Linguistics 17 (1991): 26.
16 Stephen Lewis, “Muslims in Bulgaria,” Saudi Aramco World 45, 3 (1994): 20–29. Also
available at www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199403/islam.in.bulgaria.htm. Accessed
August 21, 2013.
106 chapter 3
The closing of mosques and the prohibition of worship was a traumatic expe-
rience across the Pomak villages. As Eminov points out, the mosque served
several fundamental purposes. It was the house of worship, the “focus of
ceremonies associated with core events in the Pomak Muslim life—birth,
circumcision, marriage and death,” and the place where the elders of the com-
munity gathered to discuss, counsel, and act on important community affairs.17
Cutting the populace off from the source of their spiritual guidance, upon
which they had traditionally depended, threw entire communities in turmoil.
The vŭzhroditelen protses seemed like spiritual suicide to many Pomaks (and
Muslims in general), because it demanded the negation of the very sense of
self and identity they cherished. More specifically, it translated into accept-
ing names—for oneself and one’s community—and subscribing to creeds that
many perceived as belonging to the “enemy.” In addition, it commanded the
acceptance of clothing style which defiled basic precepts of Muslim modesty.
Overall, the vŭzhroditelen protses dictated the abandonment of age-old tradi-
tions, which formed the very fabric of Pomak life, including circumcision, reli-
gious holidays, as well as marriage-, birth-, and burial rites.
Not only was this communist revivalism a traumatic disruption of life as
people knew it, but also it was a factor that deepened the identity crisis among
the community. Pomak insecurities over “Who we are?” began with Bulgaria’s
independence from Ottoman rule in 1878, when their relatively stable iden-
tity as Ottoman Muslims was shaken to its core upon very quickly becoming
Bulgarian subjects. Henceforth, the brutal push on the Pomaks to convert to
the new dominant religion—Eastern Orthodox Christianity—was almost
immediate. Whereas the pokrŭstvanes of 1912–1913 and 1938–1944 attempted
to shift their sense of identity from Ottoman-Muslim to Bulgarian-Christian,
the communist vŭzhroditelen protses proceeded to do the same on an atheist
note, i.e., with emphasis of ethnicity rather than religion. The essence and pur-
pose of the pokrŭstvane and the vŭzhroditelen protses, however, were the same.
The systematic pressure on the community to assimilate not only destabilized
Pomak identity over time, but it also created an enduring state of psycho-
logical uncertainly as to who they were. As Tatjana Seypel effectively puts it,
“[s]everal historic ‘interruptions’ have driven the Pomaks into a state of con-
fusion in respect to their identity. The question put to them: ‘Who are you?’,
forces them to all kinds of reactions, to taking this and that position, to option-
ing in this and that way, to either resistance or opportunism, depending on the
17 Eminov, 59.
assumed purpose of the question or the questioner.”18 “When they are asked as
to their identity,” Konstantinov, Alhaug, and Igla contend, “Pomaks practically
always tend to hesitate. Some people prefer to utter the word ‘Pomak’ only in a
subdued manner, just like the word ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Jew’ elsewhere.”19
Indeed, the matter of the Pomaks’ own sense of identity has been a complex
one. Generally speaking, the question “Who are you?” directed at the Pomak
community will receive a variety of answers, largely depending on who asks
the question, on one side, and who responds to it, on the other. If a markedly
nationalistic Christian Bulgarian inquires, he or she is most likely to receive a
defiant answer of the sort: “I am Muslim/Turkish!” or “I am Pomak!” To a dis-
cernibly friendly interviewer, the answer will likely be more analytical as the
respondent will feel more at ease: “The Bulgarians [Christians] believe us to
be Bulgarians. We are Muslims by faith, but we speak the Bulgarian language.
So we are Bulgarian citizens and Muslims.” To a trust-inspiring insider—I have
been perceived as one—the answer will be earnestly straightforward: “Well,
you know that we are Pomaks! I don’t know if we descend from Christians who
converted to Islam, as the Bulgarians claim, or we have always been Muslims?20
But one thing is certain: We are Pomaks.” What might follow afterwards would
likely be some intimate musings over who the Pomaks “truly” are, contingent
upon the respondent’s personal leanings (pro-Bulgarian, pro-Turkish, or nei-
ther). However, whereas this scenario may apply to the majority of Pomaks,
who firmly establish themselves as Muslims, there is still a small segment of
the community who has either converted to Orthodox Christianity through
the years, or altogether avoids any Muslim self-reference. This latter group may
demonstrate affinity for the forcibly Islamized-Christians theory of Pomak
18 Tatjana Seyppel, “The Pomaks of Northeastern Greece: An endangered Balkan population,”

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 10 (January 1989): 43. Also in Eminov, 108.
19 Konstantinov, Alhaug and Igla, 46.
20 Many amateur Pomak historians as well as some scholars, including Mehmed Dorsunski
and Salih Bozov, argue—largely on the basis of old Muslim tombstones inscribed in
Arabic—that the Pomak population of the Rhodopes had professed the Islamic faith
prior to the Ottoman conquest in the Balkans during the late fourteenth century (which
argument defies the official Bulgarian historiography’s claim about the Pomak forced
Islamization by the Ottoman Turks). Although claims of old Muslim tombstones have
independently been made across the Rhodopes—most of them reportedly destroyed
by the communist regime or hidden away for safekeeping—I have encountered no clear
evidence of such to date. (See Mehmed Dorsunski, interview by author, Madan, Bulgaria,
June 15, 2007; Salih Bozov, V imeto na imeto (Sofia, Bulgaria: Liberal Integration Foundation,
2005), passim; Ibrahim Imam and Senem Konedareva, Ablanitsa prez vekovete (Ablanitsa,
2008), passim).
108 chapter 3
origins, because it justifies their own conversion to Christianity, and/or it com-

mands an instant approval and acceptance by the national Christian majority.
Pomak converts to Christianity, for their part, would directly reject the designa-
tion “Pomak” and fully identify as ethnic Bulgarians of the Orthodox Christian
faith.
In the light of such ambiguity, Konstantinov, Alhaug, and Igla have come up
with a two-level identity structure predicated on religious and ethnic affilia-
tion in an attempt to shed light on the Pomak complex sense of self:21
Two-Level Identity Structure Among Muslims
Pomak Turk Bulgarian
First (Islamic) Pomak = Muslim Turk = Muslim Bulgarian = non-Muslim

level
Second (ethnic) Pomak = not-pure Turk Bulgarian
level Turk
Thus, according to Konstantinov, Alhaug, and Igla, the Pomaks have two major
levels of identity affiliation: religious-Muslim and ethnic-Turkish/Bulgarian. On
the level of Muslim identification, the notions Pomak and Turk equal Muslim,
while Bulgarian means non-Muslim (i.e., Christian). In this sense, Pomaks with
firmly established Muslim identity could identify equally well as Pomaks or
Turks, but not as Bulgarians, because to identify as Bulgarians would mean
identifying as Christians, too. The root-cause of this bitter sentiment can be
traced directly back to the pokrŭstvane and the vŭzhroditelen protses, where-
upon Eastern Orthodox Christianity, as well as Bulgarian Christian names and
traditions, were forced upon the Muslim Pomaks while their own culture was
suppressed.
On the level of ethnic identification, according to the authors, Pomak con-
notes impure Turk, while Turk and Bulgarian remain pure concepts. However,
even when the name Pomak equals impure Turk, the ethnic self-identifica-
tion Pomak remains more prevalent than the Bulgarian(-Christian) one. In
other words, more members of the Pomak community are likely to identify
as Pomaks, even if the appellation implies impurity, than as ethnic Bulgarians
even if it guaranteed clean origins. Ultimately, Konstantinov, Alhaug, and Igla
stipulate—and rightly so—that in a formal context, the Pomaks insist on

being Muslims—i.e., identify on religious level—while in an in-group setting,

there is a sincere discussion of a more nuanced ethnic identity that is neither
entirely pro-Turkish, nor entirely anti-Bulgarian. As the authors put it:
In a formal, out-group context—such as an official discussion of identity

problems at a meeting , when reading and discussing what the papers
write about the issue, or in conversation with Bulgarians [Christians]—
the religious level seems to be activated. Consequently Pomaks find it
difficult to believe that they are Bulgarians since that will mean that they
are non-Mohammedans [Muslims]. An “ethnic” interpretation of the
identity issue is only possible therefore in an in-group context of discus-
sion, but even then, it has to be borne in mind, a popular description
such as “impure Turk” does not automatically lead to identifying with the
Bulgarian majority.22
In the words of a state official, Stephen Lewis seems to capture the essence
of the complex Pomak self-identification: “In the Western Rhodopes, where
Bulgarian Muslims live among Christian Bulgarians, they refer to themselves
as Turks; in the Eastern Rhodopes, where they are surrounded by ethnic Turks,
they stress their identity as Bulgarians.”23 However, there is one extra nuance
in the whole picture: one that lies between the pro-Turkish and pro-Bulgarian
affiliations—the sense of being Pomak. As Konstantinov, Alhaug, and Igla say,
“[c]aught in [the] traditional nationalistic conflict between Bulgarians and
Turks, . . . the Pomaks find it difficult to say who they are in any consistent terms
beyond the label ‘Pomak.’”24 Lately, a growing number of Rhodopean Muslims
find it increasingly acceptable—indeed, desirable—to identify as Pomaks, i.e.,
Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, occupying the border-zone between the ethnic
Bulgarian and the ethnic Turkish identity. Being and feeling fully neither, the
community has been gradually carving an identity of its own out of the crisis
generated by the pokrŭstvane and the vŭzhroditelen protses.

23 Lewis, 27.
110 chapter 3
From Pokrŭstvane to Vŭzhroditelen Protses
1 The Rebirth of Organization Rodina

That the pokrŭstvane and the vŭzhroditelen protses were one and the same pol-
icy pursued by different national regimes is evident from the fact that it was
executed by the same agent, the Organization Rodina—a most hated entity
among the Pomaks. Rodina emerged on March 3, 1937, in Smolyan (Eastern
Rhodopes) as a mixed organization of Bulgarian-Christian patriots and some
Pomak zealots who preached the idea of conversion among the Rhodopean
Muslims. Actively supported by the Axis-allied monarchic regime of Bulgaria
during the Second World War, they literally carried out the pre-communist
pokrŭstvane of the Pomaks in 1938–1944. The communist party’s stance on
Organization Rodina,25 as (one of) the chief pokrŭstvane perpetrator, upon
taking power in 1944 was one of condemnation. That attitude remained
unchanged for the next decade or so largely because it served the regime’s
interest in holding on to Pomak (and Muslim) loyalty. At a propaganda con-
ference in Gotse Delchev—one of the many which the regime had begun to
routinely initiate to address Pomak issues—on January 5, 1961, the scholar Kiril
Vassilev unequivocally described Rodina as “fascist”:
The intimidation of the Bulgarian Mohammedans during the Second

World War was extremely violent. The fascist regime created the
Bulgarian-Mohammedan organization Rodina in the Rhodopes which
they used to oppress that population. They willfully tore the ferezhes of
the women and mistreated the population. The most appalling abuse
over this people’s conscience took place under the banner “For culture!”
The bourgeoisie was not in the least concerned about the wellbeing of
the Bulgarian Mohammedans. They were only interested in completing a
new pokrŭstvane [emphasis added]. [A newspaper clipping from Pirinsko
Delo, Issue 3, 11 January 1961].26
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, the communist authorities began
a slow, cautious, and painstaking process of restoring Rodina’s reputation.
25 Report on Verifying the Activities of the Former Bulgarian-Mohammedan Organization

Rodina of August 1, 1960. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival
Unit 475, page 9.
26 Included in the Expose of Alexander Karamandzhukov, former member of Organization
Rodina, against the claims of Kiril Vassilev about Rodina from January 25, 1961. Tsentralen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 476, page 2.
During the April Plenum of 1956, the communist party had secretly decided
to launch its own “pokrŭstvane” of the Pomaks—as well as of all Bulgarian
Muslims in due course—and it needed a Rodina-type agency with Pomak
membership to provide legitimacy for the move. The party leadership decided
that the best way to pursue this goal was to resurrect Rodina by gradually
revamping its tainted image and by recasting its former activities as patriotic
rather than fascist. Thereafter, former leaders of the organization like Khristo
Karamandzhukov, Petŭr Marinov, and Svetoslav Dukhovnikov (the renamed
Pomak Mehmed Dervishev), previously denounced as “fascists,” were now
urged to praise Rodina’s former mandate as a “fight” against the religious fanat-
icism and for “the cultural growth of the Bulgarians of Mohammedan faith.”27
During the Gotse Delchev conference, Svetoslav Dukhovnikov—one of the
chief Pomak activists of Rodina and former mufti (Muslim religious leader) of
the Smolyan Region—issued the following proclamation:
We, the Bulgarian Mohammedans—who have been burning with the fire
of our /the Bulgarian Mohamedans’/ revival—approve and completely
support this campaign. We are happy, because we see in it the ideal
we had fought so hard to achieve [in the past] through the work of the
Bulgarian Mohammedan cultural-educational and charitable organiza-
tion Rodina[.] [A]nd we are convinced that it [the vŭzhroditelen protses]
will contribute to resolving the Bulgarian-Mohammedan question in the
Rhodopes once and for all [emphasis added].28
Rhetoric of this kind, uttered by Pomaks, was all the justification the Bulgarian
communists needed to carry out the planned assimilation through the same
means—violence—and via the same agent—Rodina, previously condemned
as fascist. The ideology and rogue methods used by the Christian members
of Rodina and their Pomak recruits in pursuing conversion had become such
a constant in the lives of the Rhodopean Muslims during the 1940s that they
learned to cope with the precarious circumstance, and even laugh at it. In
an archival document of 1960, when Rodina was slowly coming back, Petŭr
Marinov—one of the chief ideologists of the organization—describes a rou-
tine pokrŭstvane assault in the following way:
28 Expose of Svetoslav Dukhovnikov of February 13, 196. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia,
Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 476, page 8.
112 chapter 3
[W]hen Rodina activists would start jumping out from various directions
[onto the unsuspecting population to tear ferezhes and fezzes], people
would begin shouting: “Run, run! The Culture is coming! Hide! Quickly!
The damn Culture will get you . . .” [emphasis added]29
By “culture,” the Rhodopean Muslims sarcastically referred to Rodina’s

proclaimed objective to work for the “cultural growth” of the “Bulgarian
Mohammedans”—quite frankly—by Christianizing them. However, the Rodina
tactics of instilling “culture” resembled a medieval robbery ambush more than
any sensible effort at the cultural advancement of the population. Nor did the
Pomaks believe any part of the “cultural growth” propaganda. Rodina’s actions
defied any such believing. An entry of Marinov’s diary from June 1, 1940, pro-
vides the following account of Rodina’s brigand style of pokrŭstvane, which,
moreover, acted on government instructions:
Last night we organized groups with the mission to rip ferezhes[.] [T]hat
action will start tomorrow. Khusko [most likely a Rodina member] hosted
our meeting. The members present were divided into three groups: the
first was assigned to go around the Chokovska makhala [neighborhood],
the second—to the Chilingirska makhala and Sredok, the third—to the
Gorna makhala. Yurdan, the plain-clothed secret agent from Smolyan,
was there to provide [government] instructions.
We are planning an action for tomorrow. Around ten people would
block the crossroads to tear ferezhes and veils [emphasis added].30
In another entry, Marinov continues:
Yesterday, the members of Rodina ripped 3–4 fezzes and they’ve decided
to continue doing that tomorrow. They’ve each got their assigned neigh-
borhoods and hamlets to go to and remove fezzes [emphasis added].31

Rodina from August 1, 1960. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40,
Archival Unit 475, page 14.
As Marinov’s diary continues, an entry of May 4, 1940, clearly shows the gov-
ernment’s direct involvement in the pokrŭstvane. “Interesting news is coming
from Zlatograd [Eastern Rhodopes, formerly Darıdere],” Marinov wrote, “The
military authorities and the police there had undertaken an action to remove
the ferezhes which work is nearing completion. . . . Every gendarme and sol-
dier, armed with scissors, has been going around town cutting ferezhes. . . . and
pulling down yashmaks [female cover garment].” Because of the flagrantly
“Muslim” female garment, the Rodina crusaders were especially concerned
with Pomak women. “They have finally started to put on dresses,” Marinov con-
tinued, “but underneath those they still wear shalvars [broad trousers]. So the
soldiers . . . began to stop [the] women and cut out their [shalvars’] leggings, or
anything else hanging out from under their dresses. The same is being done in
the villages around Zlatograd.” As “some of the local Muslim dignitaries tried
to complain above [to the government],” Marinov explained, “they were told
that whatever the local authorities decided—went. So they had to comply and
nothing else . . . [emphasis added]”32
Alexander Karamandzhukov was one of the staunchest crusaders of the
pokrŭstvane in the 1940s and a prominent agent of the Axis-allied monar-
chic regime of Bulgaria. He was among those whom the communist authori-
ties immediately branded “fascist” and treated as a “people’s enemy” of the
most “reactionary” kind upon takeing over in 1944. In the early 1960s, how-
ever, Karamandzhukov, along with other former Rodina activists, reemerged
in the limelight as “patriot.” Ironically, it was this former communist enemy-
turned-comrade who most appropriately verbalized the common nature of the
pokrŭstvane and—what was to become—the vŭzhroditelen protses:
Were we to juxtapose the objectives and activities of the Organization

Rodina with the fundamental line of the [Communist] Party and state
politics in the Rhodopes, we will see that they coincide.33
Prior to the 1960s, to compare the communist politics regarding the Pomaks
to the former activities of Rodina would have been extremely dangerous for
anyone venturing to make such a statement. By the year 1960, however, former
members of Rodina were not only coming back into favor with the new regime
32 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 39, Archival Unit 40, pages 17–18.
Also, Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 488, page 17.
114 chapter 3
already, but they were also encouraged to praise Rodina publicly. In the ini-
tial decade of communist rule, a political approval of Rodina would have been
unthinkable, largely because the Muslim support for the regime rested exclu-
sively on its condemnation of the organization and reversal of the pokrŭstvane.
But only a decade later, the communist party was contemplating the resur-
rection of Rodina. The organization and its members—seasoned assimilation-
ists—were going to be instrumental in the latest “pokrŭstvane” of the Pomaks,
euphemistically termed the vŭzhroditelen protses.
Although it is generally presumed that the Pomak revival happened in the
period 1972–1974, the actual assimilation had begun at least a decade earlier
and it was formally concluded in 1974. A plethora of archival documentation
attests to the early start of the affair (including those discussing plans to bring
back Rodina). For example, as early as November 1962, the municipal party
committee of the “largely Bulgarian-Mohammedan” municipality of Lŭdzha
sent to their superiors in Smolyan the following statistics: (1) Of a popula-
tion totaling over 4,000, “[m]ore than 99% of the men wear hats or go bear-
head,” and just under one percent wearing the fez; (2) “Around 75–80% of the
women . . . put the new attire /dresses/. . . . Almost no ferezhe could be seen in
our area. No more than 2% of the women /mostly old ones/ still stick to the
ferezhe. The remaining 98% of the women in the municipality no longer wear
the ferezhe.” In addition to censoring male and female garment, the authorities
were also targeting Pomak names. The same archival document reports that
“170 individuals from our area [the Lŭdzha municipality] have already restored
their Slavic [Bulgarian-Christian] names [as of 1962].”34
In summary, as evident from the report, the primary targets of this early
“cultural revolution” were: (a) women’s clothing, particularly the over-garment,
ferezhe; (b) men’s Ottoman-style fez; and (c) the conventional Arab-Turkish
names of the Pomaks. Thus, an important region-wide statistics of Smolyan
as of November 15, 1962, shows the number of Rhodopean Muslims with cen-
sored attire and changed names by villages and towns:
34 A report of the municipal committee of the communist party in Lŭdzha to the regional
party committee in Smolyan from November 13, 1962. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia,
Fond 1Б, Inventory 38, Archival Unit 20, page 7.
Table 3-1 Number of Pomaks with Censored Attire and Changed Names by Villages and Towns
Population Number of people Number of people

Village/Town without the old attire with new names
Men women*
Smolyan 3,978 3,832 3,760 122

Madan – – 920 186
Rudozem – 1.400 700 170
Zlatograd – – 1,480 557
Devin 2,875 3,085 1,366 829
Vŭrbina – – 40% [handwritten] 61
Davidkovo – – 480 58
Dospat – – . . . [illegible] 24 [handwritten]
Zagrazhden – – 1,500 450
Zmeitsa – – 25% [handwritten] 82
Lŭdzha – – 98% [handwritten] 170
Lŭki – 1,700 1,660 639
Mikhalkovo – – 487 579
Mogilitsa – – . . . [illegible] 457
Mugla – 400 200 75
Nedelino – 2,535 890 806
Smilyan – 610 540 174
Slaveynovo – – 60% [handwritten] 233
Trigrad – – 180 55
Khvoyna – – 1,050 810
Chepelare – – 1,800 50
* Note: The statistics concerning women refer to those under 40-years of age.35
Albeit incomplete and likely inflated for propaganda purposes, this statistics
nevertheless clearly establish that the vŭzhroditelen protses was taking place
as early as 1962 and on a considerable scale. Whereas the early emphasis of the
assimilation was apparently on garment, with a success rate consistently over
fifty percent, the more difficult renaming was taking place as well. In Pomak
35 Information about Those Emancipated from the Old Bulgarian-Mohammedan Attire and
Those Reviving Their Bulgarian Names in the Smolyan Region as of 15.IX.1962. Tsentralen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1Б, Inventory 38, Archival Unit 20, page 16.
116 chapter 3
villages like Devin, Nedelino, and Khvoyna, the share of people with “restored”
names in 1962 ranged from one fourth to one third of the total population,
according to rough estimates based on the above table. This is a significant per-
centage considering the early stage of the vŭzhroditelen protses and the staunch
Pomak opposition to the comprehensive renaming a decade later. From the
very beginning, however, the communist party tried to portray the revival-
ism as an en-mass, “spontaneous,” and “voluntary” movement of the Pomak
population toward reclaiming their Bulgarianness. In spite of personal risks,
though, people were protesting the assimilation before the highest commu-
nist authorities. There are examples of individual and group complaints filed
with the communist party leadership by parents whose newborns were regis-
tered with Bulgarian-Christian names without their consent. Alish Husseinov
Bantov of Rakitovo, Pazardzhik Region, for example, petitioned the Presidium
of the People’s Parliament of Bulgaria to have his newborn son registered with
a Muslim name. “I am a Muslim,” he wrote, “and my wish was that my son
[born on December 23, 1961] bore a Muslim name, too. But the midwife [in the
hospital] refused to respect my wishes. The same midwife registered my child
with the local [people’s] council on her own accord, including by signing the
certificate of live birth in my stead, while completely neglecting to consider
the name I had chosen for my son.” When a few days later, Alish inquired about
the birth certificate in the people’s council in Rakitovo, he was informed that
he would have to register his son with a Bulgarian-Christian name in order to
receive the document. “When I refused to do so,” Alish goes on, “the comrades
from the council threatened to pick a name [for my child] themselves. [They
told me] they could do that without my consent. I [hereby] decisively protest
against the willful act of the comrades from the council [to name my child for
me]. I believe that every citizen is equal before the law and that coercion of the
above kind cannot be exerted against anyone. I also believe that changing one’s
name is a matter of personal choice, not of intimidation.”36
In another instance, Emin Ahmedov Kutsosmanov and Azmina Mehmedova
Kutsosmanova, husband and wife from the village of Dzhurkovo, Smolyan
Region, write to the Presidium of the People’s Parliament:
Comrade Chairman,
On July 13, 1962, a child of male gender was born to us /we are spouses/
in the hospital in the village of Lŭki, Smolyan Region.
36 A letter from August 21, 1962. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 28,
We both wish that our son bears the name Shaban. However, in the
course of 40 days now, the people’s municipal council in Lŭki prevents us
from registering the child with the above name by refusing to issue a birth
certificate for him[.] I have been working in an underground mine for
8 years and the council prevents me from collecting my benefits under
the family incentive plan by not issuing a birth certificate for my child.
I hereby implore you to order that a certificate of live birth be issued
for my son with the name we desire for him, [Shaban].
Please, let us know of any development on the matter of our request.
August 21, 1962.

V.[illage of] Lŭki 1/ [Husband’s signature]
Parents: Respectfully:
2/ [Wife’s signature]37
Ordinary people, whose newborns were registered with Bulgarian names, or not
registered at all when parents refused to accept the imposed names, addressed
their petitions directly to the top communist leadership. Apparently, this early
in the vŭzhroditelen protses, many still believed that the willful abuse of their
basic civil rights were solely the act of prejudiced local bureaucrats. Once the
central authorities received these complaints, however, they forwarded them
back to the same people’s councils of which the parents were complaining.
The returned petitions were usually accompanied by brief instructions for the
latter on how to proceed with the complaints. The format and content of the
instructional letters are fairly standard and of the kind below:
To the Regional Committee of BCP
[The Bulgarian Communist Party]—Pazardzhik
Comrades,
We are sending you the complaints of Musa Yuseinov Utev, Alish
Yuseinov Bantsov, Kezim Yuseinov Drikov, Ahmed Mustafov Tronov and
Shefket Abdula Serbezov, all from the village of Rakitovo[.] [T]hese peo-
ple complain that their newborns have been registered with [Bulgarian-
Christian] names to which they did not consent.
37 Ibid., 18.
118 chapter 3
It is necessary that the Regional Committee investigates those cases

and takes measures to prevent such acts from happening. [At the same
time, they must] continue the mass-political and ideological work on
raising the national awareness and the communist nurturing of those
Bulgarians professing the Mohammedan faith [emphasis added].

Head of “Propaganda and Persuasion” department of central committee
of BCP:
/V. Ivanov/38
Seemingly harmless, these instructional letters are important for two reasons.
First, they are revealing of the communist leadership’s care to produce “evi-
dence” to be used to absolve them from responsibility should the vŭzhroditelen
protses escalate into violence. In other words, by seemingly instructing the
local councils to investigate the complaints, the top bureaucrats were simply
making sure that they would be able to wash their hands of a potentially bloody
affair and squarely blame it on their regional puppets. Second, these instruc-
tional letters highlight the reality of secrecy, in which the vŭzhroditelen protses
was supposed to take place, at least initially. “The Party” formally directed the
lower bureaucrats to prevent excesses simply to be able to say, if need be, that
they took people’s complaints to heart, and that the abuse was unbeknown to
them. Thus, in the very same letters, the communist leaders were simultane-
ously instructing their local agents to carry on with the assimilation by means
of propaganda and persuasion. In a sense, the only purpose of these instruct-
ing letters was to cover up the leadership’s direct involvement in the affair.
In his report to the Politburo of the Communist Party, Angel Spassov—a
local Smolyan revivalist—plainly speaks of the regime’s intentions to assimi-
late the “Bulgarian Mohamedans.” The document specifies that the decision to
“revive” the Pomaks (as well as all Turks) was taken during the April Plenum
of the communist party in 1956. Quite obviously, even at this early date, “The
Party” had several clear objectives: to “enhance their [the Pomaks’] national
consciousness”; to persuade the Pomaks of an ancestry rooted in “forced
Islamization” claims; to remove women’s ferezhes and men’s fezzes; to orga-
nize sewing and cooking classes for women as assimilation incentives; and to
“restore” the Bulgarian-Christian names of the Pomak Muslims.39
38 Ibid., 5.
39 Expose on Raising the National Awareness of Bulgarian Mohammedans and on the
Organization Rodina from January 5, 1963, by Angel Spasov of Smolyan, Raykovo
The same report explains why the regime regarded the revitalization of
Rodina of critical importance to the vŭzhroditelen protses against the Pomaks.
First, for the communist party, the organization had already proven its effi-
ciency by having converted more than 80,000 “Bulgarian Mohamedans” in the
period 1938–1944. Second, in its pre-communist existence, Rodina had func-
tioned as a well-oiled pokrŭstvane machine for several crucial reasons: (a) it
had Muslim clerics in its ranks, including Mehmed Dervishev, also known as
Svetoslav Dukhovnikov, once the chief mufti of the Smolyan Region; (b) it had
a well-established propaganda apparatus; (c) it had a print medium of its own,
“Collection Rodina”; (d) it was served by seasoned ideological activists, includ-
ing the writer Petŭr Marinov; (e) it had efficiently disseminated propaganda
before, including via such initiatives as luncheons, book reading activities,
and formal conferences; (f) above all, however, Rodina had a proven success in
recruiting Pomak members.40
Thus, the efforts of bringing Rodina back to life began in earnest early in the
1960s. The regime, which formerly persecuted the organization as “fascist” and
“anti-communist,” was now chanting: “Bring back Rodina—history will judge
us less severely if we rehabilitate a progressive organization like Rodina. . . .
[W]e will remove the insult we dealt to the Rodina members by calling them
fascist. We will win them over and help them—and with renewed self-confi-
dence, they will be able to resume their mission.”41 And there was no doubt
what Rodina’s “mission” was. An official expose of January 1963 makes a som-
ber evaluation of the long history of Pomak assimilation:
Bulgarianizing the names [of the Pomaks] will be very difficult now,
because in the course of 50 years, the same people were made to change
their names four times. In 1912 their names were forcedly replaced
with Bulgarian ones[.] [I]n 1914, [Vassil] Radoslavov [then Bulgaria’s
prime minister] restored their Turkish names[.] [I]n 1940–1944, Rodina
Bulgarianized their names for a second time, and after September 9, 1944
[the official date of communist takeover], we “restored” their Turkish
names yet again. Now we want to change their names for the fifth time.42
Neighborhood. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit

478, pages 1–17.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 16.
42 Ibid.
120 chapter 3
Indeed, available evidence leaves no doubt that the communist government

planed the resurrection of Rodina—after having purposely destroyed it just
a decade earlier—precisely to carry out the fifth forced assimilation of the
Pomaks since 1912.
2 Mission: “Revival”
Soon after the regime’s dramatic change of heart regarding Rodina, reports
of intimidation and violence against the Pomak population began pouring
into “The Party’s” headquarters in Sofia. An extensive report—labeled “clas-
sified”—of the regional party committee’ secretary in Smolyan, N. Palagachev
of October 1963, details the ill-treatment that occurred in Dospat, Kŭsŭka,
Trigrad, and Nedelino.43 What follows is a summary of the coercive acts against
the Pomak population of those villages, as reported in the above and related
documents, which were designed to force people to renounce their traditional
names and attire:
First, men with fezzes (Ottoman-style headdress) and women in ferezhes
(outer cover garment) or shalvars (traditional broad trousers) were prohibited
from entering stores to buy basic groceries unless they put on hats and dresses
respectively. In Dospat (the Western Rhodopes), the action of barring people
from access to goods went on for nearly two weeks. During this time, two shop
clerks were sacked from work and two others were dismissed from the commu-
nist party for servicing the population in violation of the prohibition.
Second, women were constantly harassed by orders to report to the local
“people’s councils,” where communist apparatchiks methodically pressured
them to replace the shalvars with dresses. Those refusing to comply were
fined, further harassed, and/or had essential family property confiscated,
including beds, mattresses, covers, and clothes. Furthermore, the authorities
staged mock court trials to frighten the women into submission. For example,
in the village of Kŭsŭka, the revivalists turned a classroom into a makeshift
courtroom, while an adjacent room became a clothing store, outfitted with a
changing room. While the intimidation of women happened in the first class-
room, where mock judges ordered them to change their clothing, the actual
transformation took place in the second classroom. After being “sentenced,”
each Pomak woman was directed into the clothing store next door, where
two female school teachers (possibly Christian?) would sell her a dress, make
sure she put it on, and carefully record the price of the dress into an account-
ing ledger. The thus “revived” woman would finally sign the account, thereby
“agreeing” to pay for the dress. The cost of the new attire, which the woman
neither wanted nor could afford, would be automatically withheld from her
43 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 39, Archival Unit 40, pages 128–145.
paycheck at the local agricultural cooperative. This way, the cooperative, which
had itself provided the clothes for the makeshift store, would retain a portion
of the woman’s future earnings. As the same archival document specifies, the
dress-reviving action in Kŭsŭka lasted for two days. Meanwhile, machine guns
were fired on purpose during the intervening night (most probably with blanks
or in the air?) “to scare the most stubborn of the women.”44
Third, the regime formed special commissions of revivalists—usually local
party bureaucrats and all sorts of salaried individuals, including school teach-
ers—for the purpose of making surprise visits to Pomak neighborhoods and
households to further harass the population. These “commissioners” had the
discretionary powers to use force and remove ferezhes, shalvars, black heads-
carves, or anything they deemed “un-Bulgarian.”
Fourth, members of the communist party, in some position of authority,
were under obligation to inspect the homes of their subordinates to make sure
that the latter’s wives were properly clad in dresses. If they were not, the “cul-
prits” were to be promptly fired from work.
Fifth, all salaried members of the communist party—including those
employed in agriculture—whose wives did not wear dresses, either lost their
jobs or were altogether dismissed from “The Party.”
Sixth, women not wearing the dress could not go to work and receive pay,
including those who performed the lowest menial labor in the local agricul-
tural cooperatives.
Seventh, those of the women who refused to change to the dress had their
basic clothing confiscated or destroyed. The following is reported from the vil-
lage of Bukovo (the Western Rhodopes) to that effect:
The most stubborn women like Fatma Shukrieva, Safie Zaleva, and Fatma
Kassapchieva . . . had their clothes taken away. This act of the commis-
sioners had offended the women, who began to call them [the com-
missioners] criminals, thieves, and so on. The commissioners have also
been threatened by the said women’s husbands. Zaim Kassapchiev, for
example, had threatened that when his son came back from Madan, he
would kill the commissioners and then go to prison[.] Karim Zalev [fur-
ther threatened] that the commissioners’ “heads would fly off by his son’s
hand.”45
44 Ibid., 129.
45 People made such threats out of utter frustration, not because they really ever considered
acting upon such “promises.” Were there such occurrences, they would have been broadly
reported in the archival documents, but I found no evidence to that effect.
122 chapter 3
To eliminate the danger, those two [Zaim Kassapchiev and Karim

Zalev], as well as two others, Softov and Dzhaferov, will have to be
“filtrated.”46*
Eight, people who refused to conform to the communist policy regarding the
change of names or clothing were routinely ill-treated, both physically and
psychologically. As one available record puts it, a “typical example” of com-
monplace abuse against Pomaks constituted the “conduct of the deputy
chairman of the Rakitovo municipal council, who was also in charge of [the
vŭzhroditelen protses in the village of] Kostandovo.” “Two years ago,” the docu-
ment reports in 1963, “he was removed from his office, because he struck the
local teacher—a Bulgarian-Mohammedan—for refusing to change his name.
Within six months, however, he had been reinstated and had immediately
exacted revenge against the said teacher by refusing to sign the college appli-
cation form of that teacher’s nephew. I [Prof. Georgy Gŭlŭbov who reports the
case to the authorities] advised the aggrieved party to file a complaint with the
[party’s] central committee, which he did, only to be threatened with worse
consequences should he complain any further.”47
Ninth, whereas Pomaks who resisted the vŭzhroditelen protses became
political and social outcasts, those who willingly accepted Bulgarian names
were appointed to various salaried positions.
Tenth, the communist regime discriminated against Pomak youths by over-
whelmingly assigning them to labor units in the armed forces. Thus, Muslim
conscripts spent the three-year mandatory military service not as soldiers, but
as construction workers and common laborers. The following quote from the
above report testifies to that policy:
* The word “filtrated” (in Bulgarian “филтрирани”) is used in quotation marks in the
original document. Taking into consideration the totalitarian character of the regime and
the seriousness of the vŭzhroditelen protses, the word may be interpreted to mean any action
on the part of the regime against these individuals ranging from mistreatment, through
labor camp and imprisonment, to death. It is not recorded what happened to the people in
question.
47 Report of Prof. Georgi Gŭlŭbov, chairing the committee in charge of implementing the
vŭzhroditelen protses to the “Propaganda and Persuasion” department of the central
committee of the communist party, circa 1963. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1,
Inventory 40, Archival Unit 12, page 4.
The greater part of them [young Pomaks] is not admitted to the regular
armed forces, but in labor units. This automatically places them in that
category of young people who are not trusted [by the party].48
Ramadan Runtov, whom I interviewed in May of 2007, confirms this informa-

tion. Between 1951 and 1954, he was in a labor unit of the armed forces himself.
Ramadan went through intensive construction training in the army and rose
to the rank of sergeant, who led a construction brigade. He had some telling
recollections:
In 1951, I went to do my military service—in the labor forces. They never

took any of us [Muslims] in the regular army; we all served in the labor
forces. We constructed buildings, tunnels . . . I started construction train-
ing classes. I was in the army for three years and I worked in construction
all that time. . . . Then one day, they brought to me 36 boys, all [ethnic]
Turks. . . . One major brought them. “Sergeant,” he said [to me], “these are
Turks. Five hundred years they’d oppressed us. Now, you’ve got to bleed
them dry with work.” . . . That night, I introduced myself to the guys. “My
name is Ramadan. Fear not. . . . [W]e’ll cope with everything together.”
They looked at me in disbelief at first, but then went all at once: “Hey,
brother, they’ve wasted us with work already. We’ve been cutting paving
stones in a quarry day and night. By night, they made us build fires to
keep working.” . . . [W]e started working on a building in Sofia. . . . It was
180 meters long and the boys worked with much enthusiasm, because
they were going to become certified stonemasons. In a short time we
completed the project and we were commended for it. A general from
the headquarters came down to talk to us on that occasion. He said to me:
“How did you make these guys work!? They had been transferred here
for refusing to work on orders. . . . You know, you’ve done a miracle with
them!”49
Eleventh, Pomak parents from remote villages were under obligation to send
their children to larger towns or villages, where they were accommodated in
special full-board schools. The objective was to separate the youngsters from
their families so as to indoctrinate them in revivalist ideology along with
teaching them science. “There is almost no village in the Rhodopes without a
school now,” one document reads, “and almost no central settlement without a
48 Ibid., 8.
49 Ramadan Runtov, interview (Ibid.).
124 chapter 3
boarding school for the children from remote villages and hamlets. More than
5,000 pupils live in the total of 70 boarding houses. Moreover, after-school
activities with free lunches are provided for more than 7,000 pupils.”50 “The
Ministry of Education,” the report continues, “has issued special instructions
to teachers of history, literature and Bulgarian language in these [Pomak] areas
to change the curriculum according to the goals of the Cultural Revolution
[i.e., the vŭzhroditelen protses].”51
Twelfth, to further the assimilation of Pomak youth already graduating
from boarding schools, the communist regime instituted an affirmative-action
policy for their admission to technical schools and colleges. According to the
above report, the college graduates of Pomak origin in Smolyan region alone,
as of (circa) 1963–1964, were 380 compared to almost none previously.52
Thirteenth, the authorities routinely organized public meetings, lectures,
and conferences—with mandatory attendance for all party members, state
employees, and the general Pomak population—to instruct the public “about
the origins, culture, and past of the Bulgarian Mohammedans,” claimed to be
“the descendants” of forcibly Islamized Bulgarians.53
With these policies in place throughout the 1960s, the vŭzhroditelen protses
was well underway by the early 1970s. In a speech published in Rodopski Ustrem
(a Smolyan-based newspaper) in January 1971, the secretary of the municipal
party committee in Oreshets, Georgy Staykov, recaps the overnight transfor-
mation of the Pomak village of Mostovo, with a population of 1,300. “In less
than a year, the Turkish-Arab names [of the Mostovo population] had been
replaced with beautiful Bulgarian names. How joyous everybody was, espe-
cially the young people, [who] already knew from school what savage Turkish
Islamization had taken place in the Rhodope.” In the ostentatious language of
communist propaganda, Staykov proceeds to elaborate on what transpired in
Mostovo during the prolonged vŭzhroditelen protses. The picture is reflective of
the politics that had swept across the Rhodopes by 1974, when the assimilation
of Pomaks formally ended. For over a decade prior to 1974, in Mostovo, and
in most Pomak villages, the communist regime had been slowly carrying out
the following revivalist strategies, designed to convince the population of their
Bulgarian heritage and the need to revert back to it:
50 Report on the work among the “Bulgarian Mohammedans,” circa 1963. Tsentralen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory 40, Archival Unit 12, page 13.
51 Ibid., 15–16.
52 Ibid., 13–14.
53 Ibid., 14.
1. The authorities recruited scholars to research the names of local sites and
the genealogy of local family names; prove their “purely Bulgarian char-
acter;” and present “a detailed report of their findings . . . before the entire
village.”
2. They organized exhibits “showcasing the barbarity of the Turkish
enslavers” against the Bulgarian (Christian) population.
3. There were country-fair “reenactments” of the way “barbaric Turks”
burned Christian villages and kidnapped local girls to satisfy their lust.
4. Lectures containing incendiary propaganda about the “reactionary
nature” of Islam were delivered on a regular basis.
5. The regime constantly evoked improving economic conditions in the tra-
ditionally impoverished Rhodopes to validate the vŭzhroditelen protses
as progressive: “We have now created a local intelligentsia. There are 48
high-school and college graduates in Mostovo. Of the total of 15 school
teachers, 9 are from the village [i.e., Pomaks]. Also local are the nurse and
the veterinary technician. In addition, a comfortable road now connects
the village with the outside world. Trucks are used to haul cargo in and
out of the village, and comfortable busses—to transport people. . . . There
are stores and a school in the village, as well as electricity and sewage.”
6. The leadership was always mindful of placing the vŭzhroditelen protses in
the context of women’s emancipation in order to project it as a liberating
rather than oppressive policy: “The women, routinely ignored in the past
because of Quranic prescriptions, are now equal-rights citizens taking
jobs in the administrative, agricultural, and political life [of the area]. For
instance, Sofka Roynova serves as a secretary of the secondary party orga-
nization [in Mostovo]. Nina Roynova is a member of the municipal party
committee, and Violeta Badeva is a secretary of the youth’s municipal
committee. . . . Women are everywhere. They stand shoulder to shoulder
with their husbands at party meetings, at banquets, and as initiators of
things new and progressive.”
7. The regime systematically targeted religion and religious practices: “For
more than eight years now,” Staykov boasts, “there has not been a hodzha
[hoca] in Mostovo and people do not want one. The mosque had been
provided to the local agricultural cooperative as storage facility. The reli-
gious holidays of the past—Kurban Bayram and Ramazan Bayram—are
prohibited. The mevlid [ceremonial prayer accompanied by communal
meal] has been abandoned, too.”
8. To break Muslim conventions completely, communist bureaucrats even
forced people, though the agricultural cooperatives, to raise pigs and
encouraged them to eat pork: “When, six years ago, Iliya Sandanski first
126 chapter 3
raised a pig in the village, it was a scandal. He was particularly ridiculed

by the elders for eating pork. Now everybody in the village eats pork.”
9. Mandatory school attendance was strictly enforced in regard to Pomak
children: “From day one of each school year, every child of school age
goes to school. It is all parents’ objective now to see their offspring gradu-
ate from primary and secondary school, as well as from high school and
even college.”
10. Forcing women to abandon the conservative Muslim garment was com-
mon practice: “Women have discarded the ferezhe and now they all wear
the modern new dress.”
11. The regime also introduced mandatory civil marriages and formal name-
giving (christening) ceremonies for newborns: “The newly instituted civil
marriages and name giving ceremonies of newborns are widely practiced
[in Mostovo].”
12. Finally, by 1974, the complete and total renaming of the Pomak popula-
tion had taken place: “Everybody, regardless of age, has new identifica-
tion papers now. The population is deeply convinced of their purely
Bulgarian origin.”54
Turmoil in the (Western) Rhodopes
Despite all propaganda, not everyone—the Pomaks least of all—subscribed

to the communist claims of “voluntary” assimilation. In fact, Pomak commu-
nities across the Rhodopes were in turmoil, and they did not take the abuse
meekly. As Ali Eminov remarks, the Pomaks offered a fierce resistance to the
vŭzhroditelen protses. Unrest broke in a number of villages in the Western
Rhodopes, among others, most notably in Kornitsa, Ribnovo, Lŭzhnitsa, and
Breznitsa. “Scores were killed [in the Rhodopes],” Eminov sums up, “and hun-
dreds were arrested and sentenced to long years of incarceration and hard
labor.”55
Indeed, my interviewees Ramadan Ahmedov Runtov (Kurucu) and Ismail
Bekirov Byalkov experienced the full blow of the vŭzhroditelen protses not
only as direct participants, but also as long-term exiles and political prison-
ers. I met them in the summer of 2007. Ramadan and Ismail—sixteen years
54 Georgi Staykov, “Patriotichnoto vŭzpitanie—postoyanna zadacha,” Rodopski Ustrem 2,

January 7, 1971.
55 Eminov, 106.
apart in age—were born and grew up in Kornitsa, but after years of communist
persecution and suffering, they left Bulgaria in the late 1980s and early 1990s
respectively to permanently settle in Turkey. Currently, they are both residents
of the Istanbul suburb of Güneşli, where I interviewed them independently.
Ramadan, born in 1929, became a member of the communist party while
serving in the army between 1951 and 1954. As soon at the intimidation started
several years later, however, he renounced his membership and became one of
the most outspoken opponents of the regime. He was subsequently arrested,
imprisoned, tortured while incarcerated, exiled from the Rhodopes, and finally
expelled from Bulgaria in May 1989. He reminisces about what happened in
the close-by Lŭzhnitsa, Kornitsa, and Breznitsa during the late 1950s, when
the authorities first attempted to force the women into dresses in those vil-
lages. “It was 1957–58,” he recalls, when a group of revivalists “tried to sneak into
Lŭzhnitsa, disguised as medics and, going from house to house, to presumably
spray for fleas[.] They actually wanted to catch the women without ferezhes
and headscarves to get them used to not having them on [women wore no
ferezhes in their homes or in the presence of their Pomak neighbors]. Well,
they managed to get into a house or two like that, but then some women real-
ized what was going on. These women then came together and beat them up.
After that, they [the revivalists] ran from Lŭzhnitsa and into Kornitsa.” Later
the same day, the unlucky apparatchiks, having miserably failed their recon-
naissance mission to Lŭzhnitsa, were already fueling the passions of their
Christian audience in Kornitsa. They were telling the crowd how they had been
attacked in Lŭzhnitsa, “narrowly escap[ing] with our lives.” In reaction to the
alleged revolt in Lŭzhnitsa, “a posse of about 15–16 individuals” got ready to
depart for the mutinous village to exact revenge. A forest guard, a mild man
known to Ramadan Runtov and nicknamed Upana, joined the group, but only
(as it would transpire) as a curious spectator. Because the original group of
revivalists—all men—had been beaten by women, there was an element of
amusement in the overall bleakness of the episode. As Ramadan reports, he
jokingly asked Upana:
Ramadan: Bay Georgy, where’re you going?

Upana: There’s been a mutiny in Lŭzhnitsa. Some of our folks [Christians]
got beaten there. So we are going that way.
Ramadan: Listen, behave yourself there. You wouldn’t want to be beaten
by the women yourself, would you!
Upana: Yeah, yeah! I know!
128 chapter 3
The group returned “two-three hours” later, and Upana with it. Ramadan was
there, when they showed up on the public square in Kornitsa. He approached
Upana and half-jokingly, half-anxiously inquired:
Ramadan: What happened [in Lŭzhnitsa], bay Georgy?

Upana: You know, I didn’t get beaten. But the rest did.
Ramadan: How come?
Upana: Well, the women apparently knew we’re coming, so they’re wait-
ing for us already. Before we knew it, they were all ‘round us. Somehow,
though, I stayed out of trouble. Then, these women started throwing
rocks at us, and everyone darted to the mosque for cover.
At this point I had to ask for clarification. “So, the women of Lŭzhnitsa beat
the militsioners, right?” The communist police, that is! “Well, most in the group
were civilians, but they had guns. And the police lieutenant Shopov was with
them, too.” So, most of the revivalists were Christian civilians with some milit-
sioners in the mix, armed. Ironically, to escape the barrage of rocks pelted their
way, the group ran for the mosque—the closest shelter they could locate, and
barricaded themselves in. Meanwhile, Upana, who had stayed out of trouble,
“was watching from afar.” “They thought they would be safe in there,” Ramadan
narrates but rocks, which the women kept hurling at the intruders, smashed
right through the windows. When the beleaguered posse men realized they
could not hide in the mosque much longer, they flung the door open and bolted
out. But two of the women, according to the (now) popular story, already stood
guard before the door with bludgeons. So they managed to beat the notorious
police lieutenant Shopov so badly that he had to be carried back to Kornitsa on
an impromptu stretcher made out of a blanket. Thus, in “1957–58” the “cultural
revolution” in Lŭzhnitsa ended before it had begun. Kornitsa’s turn was yet
to come.
As Ramadan recalls, one day he and other local party members were told
to prepare to meet a group of regional communist dignitaries in Kornitsa. The
same evening, seven or eight of them arrived from Gotse Delchev, the nearby
town. Meanwhile Kornitsa’s Pomak majority, fully aware of the revivalist intent
of the visit, had prepared wooden boards, properly reinforced with iron nails,
to resist if provoked, as in Lŭzhnitsa. To avoid escalation of potential conflict,
the village men decided to stay out of sight, assuming that no one would attack
defenseless women and children. The boards with spiky nails, however, were
kept close at hand if the need for defense did arise. Having been forewarned of
the general village mood by deliberate informers, the delegation of revivalists
arrived in Kornitsa, but remained safely behind locked doors, in the mayor’s
office. Only after Kornitsa’s women gathered on the public square and taunted
them with shouts: “Dogs! Get out! What do you want from us?” did Shopov, the
lieutenant, and Nanchev, the mayor, venture out. In a spur of bravado, Shopov
drew his pistol out and fired into the air to disperse the crowd, but only managed
to enrage the women. When a teenage girl took her board out and began walk-
ing toward the pair, the women collectively pressed forward causing Nanchev
to jump over the railing in a frantic, beeline flight homewards. Meanwhile
Shopov ran back into the building. Ramadan, who had taken cover behind the
stairwell of a nearby house to monitor the situation, witnessed everything as it
unfolded. No one of the would-be revivalists came out again that day. It was not
until three-four o’clock in the morning, when the population finally dispersed,
that the revivalists could leave the village. Thus, it was quickly over in Kornitsa,
too. The subsequent attempt to force Breznitsa’s women into the dress also
failed. This time, a formidable female force not only prevented the militsioners
from entering the village, but also wrestled the young village hodzha (hoca) out
of their custody. The militsia (communist police) had arrested him earlier with
the intent to use him in proselytizing women to accept the dress. The ruse not
only failed to produce results, but also forged a collective women’s resistance
that quickly aborted the assimilation move on Breznitsa.56
Whereas the faltering attempts to re-attire Pomak women in the late 1950s
promptly crumbled having met resistance, the renewed revival pressure in the
1960s and onwards became more determined and violent. Ismal Byalkov, a young
man at the time, was able to shed light on what happened in Kornitsa in 1964,
and especially during the final throes of the vŭzhroditelen protses in 1973. “I was
born in Kornitsa . . . in 1945,” Ismail begins. “My occupation was agricultural—
crop growing, shepherding. I have no specific profession. . . . [I was 19] when in
1964, they first came to change our names. [P]eople fled to the woods. It was
March. Very cold! There was nothing and no one in the woods that early in
the season. Neither grass was growing, nor could any food be gathered in the
forest yet. The name changing in 1964 continued for four days. Most people
who had fled into the woods to avoid it couldn’t make it beyond the second or
third day in the open. . . . It was raining all the time. . . . People were cold and
starving. . . . If they happened on a shepherd, out with his herd, they’d take his
bread and let him go. But those in the woods were so overwhelmed with hun-
ger that many came back to their houses and had their names changed.” To
everybody’s surprise, however, the renaming abruptly stopped four days after it
had begun. “What we heard subsequently was that Turkey spoke on our behalf
and that’s why the name changing halted,” Ismail reminisces. “Then those who
56 Ramadan Runtov, interview. (Ibid.)

130 chapter 3
had signed paperwork, agreeing to change their names, wanted it back.” The
regime, however, stalled. As the population converged on the public square in
Kornitsa to demand annulment of the renaming, the authorities returned the
declarations, containing individual’s signatures, which “people then tore up.”
“Four persons were exiled from the village as a result [of the events in 1964],”
Ismail says, “Among them was my father, Bekir Bekirov Byalkov.” 57
Then came 1973, and with it, the final and most brutal stage of the
vŭzhroditelen protses against the Pomaks. In Kornitsa, the population was astir
once more. “[B]ecause of the extreme conditions [in 1964],” Ismail contin-
ues, “people decided not to flee to the woods again in 1973, but to gather on
the public square. So on January 23, [1973], we’re all assembled on the village
square.” A revivalist force of bureaucrats, troops, militsia (police), fire fighters,
and armed civilians arrived in Kornitsa. The entire population, “[having] con-
gregated on the public square, held tight and determined to let nobody rename
us.” This tense state of affairs continued from January 23 to March 28, 1973.
“We stayed there day and night, in snow and rain, small children and adults.
We were building big fires to keep warm. We slept in shifts: some would go to
their houses to get some sleep while the rest kept vigil. We rotated like that. It
went on like that until March 28. On the morning of March 28 the village was
surrounded . . .”58
To my inquiry whether or not it was the military or police who descended
on the village, Ismail explains that most of the revivalists were dressed in civil-
ian clothes. “There were no troops,” he clarifies. “At least I did not see any
uniformed soldiers. There was a small horseback force and the rest were plain-
clothes. . . . They were all dressed in plain clothes: fire fighters . . . everyone.
Now, whether they were civilians from the neighboring [Christian] villages or
troops, I couldn’t tell. There were very few individuals in military uniforms, and
those in uniforms were on horses. But the ones that did the beating wore plain
clothes. . . . [And] there were loads of them. The whole village was blocked.”
On March 28, 1973, after more than two months of nerve-racking suspense
on both sides, the regime started shooting at the multitude gathered on the
Kornitsa’s public square. “The whole square was smeared with blood that day,”
Ismail concludes. Among the numerous wounded and severely beaten people,
five lay dead. Ismail Byalkov was arrested, among many others, for having par-
ticipated in the supply of firewood and for maintaining the fires on the public
square during the long resistance vigil of Kortnitsa. Ismail would spend the
57 Ismail Byalkov, interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 20, 2007. Also, for more on
Ramadan Runtov and the vŭzhroditelen protses, see the next chapter.
58 Ibid.
next decade in prison, where he ran into Ramadan Runtov. The latter had been
exiled from Kornitsa in the early 1960s. By the time Ismail encountered him in
prison, Ramadan had been systematically starved, and in and out of solitary
confinement for months.59
Economic Opportunities in the Vŭzhroditelen Protses
In spite of the bloodshed, the vŭzhroditelen protses was not implemented

solely by brutality. What won many Pomaks to the communist cause was eco-
nomic opportunity. The conditions of utter poverty typical of the Rhodopes
in pre-communist times, as well as during the first two decades of commu-
nist government, began to slowly improve by the early 1970s. The literacy rate
among the Pomak population also rose as a result of the mandatory school
attendance for children. Many young people were given the opportunity—
through affirmative action—to continue their education beyond primary and
secondary school into high school, technical school, and college. The popula-
tion as a whole experienced a general improvement of the infrastructure and
living standards. The regime encouraged the building of roads, sewage and
water-supply systems, as well as initiated the electrification of traditionally
Pomak areas.60
A collection of data, compiled by the regime, reveals the following
vŭzhroditelen protses—generated picture of the Zagrazhden Municipality
in late 1971—a situation generally representative of much of the Rhodopes.
An overwhelmingly Pomak municipality, 79 percent of Zagrazhden’s inhabit-
ants were Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Appendix 3.2.1). Of the 2,807 Pomaks,
1,099 were already “revived” as of October 1971 largely by having their tradi-
tional names replaced with Bulgarian ones (Appendix 3.2.2A). Through the
years 1969–1971, 127 infants were born to Pomak parents and more than 60 per-
cent of them (80 newborns) were registered with Bulgarian names (Appendix
3.2.2B). Ninety-three Pomaks were forcibly removed from the municipality and
resettled elsewhere in the country—usually in central or northern Bulgaria,
among Christians (Appendix 3.2.3). The most common reason for exiling
people from the Rhodopes during communism was their staunch opposi-
tion to the vŭzhroditelen protses. As a rule, the regime relocated those per-
ceived as “troublemakers,” because they refused to change their names and/or
59 Ibid. Also, for a detailed account of Ramadan’s life and anti-revivalism, see chapter four.
60 See section From Pokrŭstvane to Vŭzhroditelen Protses in this chapter.
132 chapter 3
influenced others to resist.61 While the data reveals that the Pomaks remained
overwhelmingly agrarian, their children were being prepared for other occupa-
tional opportunities as well, including in the education and health-care sectors
(Appendix 3.2.4). Further statistics report that from none to negligibly small,
the average number of Pomak students graduating from secondary school,
high school, technical school, college, and university respectively rose to 82.6
percent during the academic years of 1969–1970, 1970–1971, and 1971–1972.
The largest share of those completed secondary- and technical-school educa-
tion (Appendix 3.2.5). However, the majority of Pomak students—especially
those—enrolled in technical school and college were able to do so because of
affirmative action. Surviving documents highlight that the affirmative action
policy was designed with the view to accelerate the vŭzhroditelen protses
and possibly encourage revivalists from within the Pomak community. The
so-created “local intelligentsia” was henceforth expected to take part in all reviv-
alist activities, including destroying old tombstones and minarets, interfering
with traditional burial rites and holidays, ripping ferezhes and shalvars, chang-
ing names, and sacking incompliant employees from work. Nevertheless, along
with frustration, the vŭzhroditelen protses brought about relative economic
prosperity as well. To that effect, further statistics illustrate that, by the early
1970s, a growing number of Pomak households in the Zagrazhden Municipality
(and elsewhere in the Rhodopes) began purchasing items previously inac-
cessible such as television and radio sets, refrigerators, cassette players,
electrical and gas stoves, motorcycles, mopeds, cars, furniture, and new homes
(Appendix 3.2.6).
As Mehmed Myuhtar, among others, attests, the village of Vŭlkossel and
most of the Western Rhodopes were electrified in 1964, chiefly by conscripted
local labor. Thus, it was the village population who mixed concrete and poured
in into molds to make electric poles, dug holes to plant those in the ground,
and pulled electric wires for most of 1961, 1962, and 1963. With electric outlets
in place, the Myuhtar family was able to purchase their first television set in
1970, and they were only the third household in Vŭlkossel to do so. Further,
most of the existing dirt or gravel roads were asphalt-coated between 1967
and 1976, when the major traffic arteries connecting the villages Ablanitsa,
Vŭlkossel, Slashten, and Satovcha were completed. Thereafter, regular public
bus transportation developed, linking the villages with each other, with the
nearest town Gotse Delchev, and from there—with the rest of the country.
(At the same time, the inner streets of most Pomak villages in the Western
Rhodopes remain unpaved to this day, including in Vŭlkossel.) A public bakery
61 Ramadan Runtov, interview; Ismail Byalkov, interview. (Ibid.)

in Vŭlkossel also opened in 1966, when several local persons completed voca-
tional training as bakers.62
Thus, economic opportunity and assimilation in the Rhodopes went hand
in hand. By mid-1972, more than fifty percent of the Muslims in the entire
Smolyan Region had received Bulgarian names with Christian significance, and
carried new identification papers (Appendix 3.2.7). Although the vŭzhroditelen
protses was—by and large—forced on the Pomaks, many voluntarily adopted
the new names and attire. Especially enthusiastic were some women, whose
situation was particularly difficult due to the strongly patriarchal culture in
the Rhodopes. A letter of complaint by a Pomak woman to the local authori-
ties in this respect is noteworthy. The letter reveals intimidation of a differ-
ent kind: one exerted by Pomaks against other Pomaks, particularly of women
against women, largely to dissuade them from accepting Bulgarian names by
way of mockery and rejection. However, the letter also points to the type of
reaction the communist regime encouraged—indeed, actively pursued, par-
ticularly among women—to validate the vŭzhroditelen protses as voluntary.
Thus, “evidence” like the example below would have been carefully copied and
broadly distributed for propaganda purposes. The preserved archival copy is a
typewritten replica of an original handwritten letter, which could have been
fabricated. With no direct evidence to that effect, however, I will treat it as
authentic:
May 1972
Dear Comrade Chairman of the R[egional Party] Committee—Smolyan,

I have a request and I hope that you could help me. We already restored
our Bulgarian names and, having thrown our Arab [Muslim] names, we
[women] are happy. But there is something else: Do we need to wear the
headscarves[?] I am a young woman and I do not want to wear the heads-
carf, but we have many gossipers here. Let me tell you about this case: I
went on vacation at the Narechen spa resort and, while there, I did not
wear the headscarf[.] [B]ut when other women from my village saw me
like that, they told my husband about it. Because he [my husband] is reli-
gious, they [these women] caused such problems for me that I wanted to
commit a suicide.
So my opinion [i.e., question] to you, comrade chairman is this[:] Are
we building communism here [in this country] or fascism[?]
62 Mehmed Myuhtar, telephone-interview by author, January 12, 2010.

134 chapter 3
I want a reply to this question[:] [A]re these headscarves going to be

removed from our heads so that I could enjoy my life? Because, when
they [other women] say that rejecting the headscarf is sinful, I get mad
and I have problems afterwards.
If you could make my family life scarf-free, the treat will be on me.
There is more: The women in our villages wear shalvars or pants to
cover their legs since they believe that it is sinful to expose them[.] So
they laugh at me and say: “Where do you think you’ll go with these bare
legs when you die?” I tell them: “You mind your own business!”
That’s my opinion [i.e., complaint] to you and I ask you to consider it.
My address is:
V[illage of] Treve, Smolyan Region—Svetla Silkova Surova
I’m looking forward to your reply.63
If the letter is authentic, it posits an interesting scenario. The woman who

authored it must have been unusually courageous or foolhardy to challenge
a staunchly patriarchal society that way. Because she speaks of herself in the
first person singular, one ought to assume that she was the sole female rebel in
the village, facing not only a conservative husband and society, but also fellow
women who openly ridiculed her. Because it is difficult to imagine that any
woman would willingly place herself in a position of isolation, vulnerability,
and mockery within her community, it is possible that the letter may be a fake.
According to evidence furnished by Ramadan Runtov, there were regularly
scheduled propaganda conferences organized for Pomaks after 1956, when the
regime first moved to re-attire Pomak women. During these conferences veiled
women—supposedly Pomak—would come forward, before the audience, and
theatrically discard the veil, declaring: “I desire this black veil no more.” As she
would throw down the headscarf, other women would help her put a dress on,
thus, symbolically delivering her from “the black veil,” i.e., from male oppres-
sion. Among the largely Pomak audience, however, who were forced to attend
these events, there was a great deal of suppressed snickering and doubt as to
the true identity of these women. It is very likely, as Ramadan suggests, that
some were paid actresses, Christian women posing as Muslim ones, or even
female relations of previously converted and/or voluntarily revived Pomaks.
These events, however, based on Ramadan’s information, were frequently
organized, followed the same basic format, and smacked of forgery.64
63 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1Б, Inventory 38, Archival Unit 6, page 125.
64 Ramadan Runtov, interview. (Ibid.)
Reluctantly or not, the vŭzhroditelen protses against the Rhodopean Muslims

formally concluded in 1974. Nevertheless, a number of Pomaks managed to
evade renaming even after that date. Indeed, in March 1977, a government
report estimated that 6,718 individuals had remained un-revived (Appendix
3.2.8).65 The majority of those escaped the vŭzhroditelen protses by taking
refuge in areas with significant Turkish-speaking population and feigning
“Turkish” identity. This subterfuge worked because Bulgaria, still apprehensive
about an international incident with Turkey, excluded the Turkish minority
from forced assimilation during the 1970s.
No matter how successful the renaming, as soon as the communist regime
eased up the pressure on the Pomak community, the majority resumed the
practice of their religious traditions and the use of their Turkish-Arab appel-
lations, albeit privately.66 Much of the Muslim unwillingness to submit to the
new identity stemmed from the abusive and debasing nature of the assimi-
lation. The Pomak population, which had overwhelmingly supported the
regime’s initial ascent to power, felt betrayed, beaten down, and humiliated
65 Assessment on the Implementation of the Decision of the Secretariat of the Bulgarian

Communist Party’s Central Committee from July 17, 1970, Concerning the Pomak
Vŭzhroditelen Protses. The document is dated May 8, 1978, and numbered 005805, pages
60–80. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia. (There is no archival reference on the document).
66 A government assessment of the implementation of the Pomak vŭzhroditelen protses
reads:
“. . . After the mass revival of their names, the individual work with the [Pomak] people
started slacking[.] [A]s a result, in some regions there are still hundreds of Bulgarians
[Pomaks] bearing Turkish-Arab names and there is a general tendency of reverting back
to old-fashion Turkish style of dressing [among the Pomaks]. . . .
A considerable part of the descendants [of Islamized Bulgarians] accepted the new,
Bulgarian names only nominally. They continue to use their Turkish-Arab names among
themselves and in the privacy of their homes. Although, all newborns are registered with
Bulgarian names, in many parts of the country the parents privately give them Turkish-
Arab names and use those at home. Most of the children in the towns and villages of the
Kardzhali, Blagoevgrad, and Pazardzhik Regions unofficially bear [Turkish-]Arab names.
Some reactionary elements are instilling the belief in people that their [Muslim]
names will be restored soon since the same had happened many times before.
. . . In many [Pomak] areas, the women and girls still wear shalvars, yashmaks [cover
garment] and ferezhes. Despite the prohibition, many boys are still being circumcised . . .
[emphasis added].”
(Assessment on the Implementation of the Decision of the Secretariat of the Bulgarian
Vŭzhroditelen Protses. The document is dated from May 8, 1978, and numbered 005805,
pages 60–80. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, pages 71–73.
136 chapter 3
by the vŭzhroditelen protses yet again. Just as the earlier pokrŭstvane, the
vŭzhroditelen protses was committed in the name of nationalism. It was pur-
posed to perpetuate the communist control over a unitary nation-state with-
out regard to the dignity of the Muslim communities. While working towards
its goal, the regime skillfully manipulated the national majority’s sentiment by
synonymizing the vŭzhroditelen protses with advancing the national interest.
Conclusion
1 External Pressure, Internal Turmoil, and the “Big Excursion”

With the national sentiment firmly swayed in favor of the assimilation, the
communist regime revived all Muslims in Bulgaria by the beginning of 1987.
Whereas the final Pomak revival of 1972–1974 remained largely unnoticed by the
international community, the campaign against the ethnic Turks of 1984–1985
created an international uproar due—in greatest part—to Turkey’s forceful
protests. Nervous and apprehensive about a broader international condemna-
tion, the communist regime in Bulgaria closely monitored every move of the
Turkish government. Between June 27 and July 3, 1987, alone, the regime regis-
tered a number of developments in Turkey regarding the vŭzhroditelen protses.
An intelligence report observes the following, among other things:
• The radio station, The Voice of Turkey, was steadily transmitting news
about the vŭzhroditelen protses.
• The Voice of Turkey spoke directly to the Muslims of Bulgaria, because of
which, measures were put in place “to jam the transmissions of The Voice
of Turkey.”
• At a protest rally in Istanbul on June 27, 1987, the united organization of
the Bulgarian immigrants in Turkey voiced the opinion that the Turkish
government should pressure Bulgaria into signing an agreement allowing
the Muslims of Bulgaria to leave the country. In response, the communist
regime vowed to “[c]ontinue the smear campaign against the leaders of
the anti-Bulgarian-movement in Turkey in order to inflict discord in it.”67
• On 21–24 June 1987, the Istanbul Lawyers Association held a symposium
about “the politics of repression against and assimilation of the Turkish
ethnic minority [in Bulgaria].”
• The production of a new anti-Bulgarian documentary was being planned
in Turkey, titled “Belene—The Death Camp.” The regime cautioned in
67 Ibid., 2.
this regard: “It is possible that this and other such films would attempt to
be smuggled into our country on videotapes to keep high the hopes for
migration to ‘the mother-country, Turkey’ of the Bulgarian citizens with
revived names.”
• Turkey’s President Kenan Evren met with Jordan’s King Hussein, during
the latter’s official visit to the country, where Kenan expressed concern
over the vŭzhroditelen protses in Bulgaria. According to the information,
Kenan said: “Our nation will be grateful if the Islamic countries use their
influence with Bulgaria to help us on the matter.” King Hussein replied:
“We believe that a just solution will be found regarding the human rights
and cultural identity of the Muslim minority in Bulgaria. We will attempt
to persuade Bulgaria to respond positively to such just demands.”68
Spearheaded by Turkey, international indignation at the treatment of Muslims

in Bulgaria steadily grew after 1985. The Pomaks and Turks, for their part,
reacted with massive demonstrations against the regime and its revivalist poli-
cies by early 1989. What became known as The May Events of 1989 resulted in
the expulsion of “scores of native Turkish [and Pomak] intellectuals, leaders
and potential leaders” of the anti-revivalist movement,69 and Ramadan Runtov
was among them.70 As foreign pressure on Bulgaria mounted, the Chairperson
of the State Council of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, deliv-
ered a dramatic speech on May 28, 1989. It was broadcasted on all electronic
media in Bulgaria and disseminated through the printed press. In this speech,
Zhivkov called on Turkey to open its borders for all those who “wished” to leave
Bulgaria temporarily or on a permanent basis. As Eminov describes it, “[a] week
after the start of [the] demonstrations, the government announced on national
television that those Bulgarians who . . . wished to visit Turkey would be issued
passports on demand. The response to this announcement was unanticipated
and overwhelming. The passport offices were besieged by hundreds of thou-
sands of Turks [and Pomaks] immediately after the announcement. Passports
were issued rapidly and the Turks [but not the Pomaks] were told to put their
affairs in order quickly and leave . . .” Thus, the epic expulsion of Muslims
by the communist government of Bulgaria began. To save face, the regime
68 Information about Turkey’s Activities against the Vŭzhroditelen Protses for the Period
27 June–3 July 1987. The document is dated from July 3, 1987, and signed by then Deputy
Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen. Lieutenant St. Savov, pages 1–6. (There is no archival
reference on the document).
69 Eminov, 97.
70 Read about Ramadan Runtov in the next chapter.
138 chapter 3
deliberately called it the “Big Excursion.” Hundreds of thousands of Muslims

left Bulgaria during this forced “excursion,” most of them never to return.71
When Zhivkov promised to let all Muslims go, “hundreds of Pomaks” from
the Rhodopes filed applications for passports to immigrate as well. As Eminov
accurately points out, whereas Bulgaria’s Turks received “passports by the tens
of thousands,” Pomak applications were denied. “Local party officials explained
that Z[h]ivkov’s announcement did not cover the Muslims living in the Sofia
and Plovdiv provinces [i.e., Pomaks] because they were ‘another category of
people’, presumably meaning Bulgarians.” Accordingly, regional bureaucrats in
charge of issuing immigration papers “categorically stated that they would not
allow anyone to immigrate to Turkey and threatened anyone who persisted in
their demands with arrest, imprisonment, and even death.”72 According to offi-
cial statistics, as of July 6, 1989, in excess of 370,000 Pomaks submitted applica-
tions for passports to leave the country (Appendix 3.1A). Of those, only about
125,000 were issued the necessary documents to travel abroad (Appendix 3.1B).
They were mostly political undesirables like Ramadan Runtov. Despite the dif-
ficulties, however, an estimated 111,336 Pomaks had already left the country as
of July 6, 1989 (Appendix 3.1C).
2 The End Is Near or Is It?

By late 1989, the political and economic situation in Bulgaria was so unsta-
ble that the regime finally awakened to reality. As the Soviet Union’s leader
Mikhail Gorbachev spoke of communist perestroika (reformation), the peo-
ples of Eastern Europe marched for democracy. Consequently, the communist
regimes throughout the Eastern European bloc diminished politically. Reacting
to this pervasive agitation, the Bulgarian Muslims rallied for freedom and
demanded reversal of the vŭzhroditelen protses. Although nervous, the com-
munist “Caesars” of Bulgaria remained arrogant and remorseless. Believing the
status quo to be retainable, they hatched a plan to expel all ethnic Turks from
the country, thus, resolving “the national problem” once and for all. In a matter
71 Eminov, 97.
“Between June and August,” Eminov continues, “when Turkey closed its borders with
Bulgaria to emigrants without proper visas, over 350,000 Turks [and Pomaks] left the
country. The mass exodus of Turks [and Pomaks] from Bulgaria over such short period of
time caused severe economic and social dislocations in the country which contributed to
the downfall of the Z[h]ivkov regime on 10 November 1989. Eventually, especially after the
ouster of Z[h]ivkov from power, over 150,000 Turks [and Pomaks] returned to Bulgaria,
but more than 200,000 chose to remain in Turkey permanently.” (Eminov, 97.)
72 Eminov referencing Ashley, 106–107.
of months in 1989, more than 350,000 Muslims—overwhelmingly Turks but

many Pomaks as well—were deported from Bulgaria. This was the single larg-
est mass exodus of refugees in Europe since the Second World War.73
Because the Muslims were the major workforce of the country’s agrarian
sector and because they were driven out in the middle of the summer, Bulgaria
experienced a severe labor shortage for the fall harvest of 1989. The national
agricultural economy accordingly collapsed. In a desperate move to survive,
on November 10, 1989, the regime ousted from power the main “Caesar”
Todor Zhivkov, and blamed the total political and economic disaster on him.
Meanwhile, the communist party renamed itself to the Bulgarian Socialist
Party (BSP) and continued to rule the country. However, it was already making
amends with the Muslims by revising the disastrous vŭzhroditelen protses. On
December 29, 1989, the “reformed” regime reversed the vŭzhroditelen protses
and proclaimed it an anomaly of the Zhivkov era. In June 1990, during the
first multi-party elections in decades, Bulgaria elected the first democratic
Parliament, which undertook to abolish the assimilation policy and ensure a
democratic rule of government.
Accordingly, on May 6, 1990, the Parliament passed the Law on the Names
of the Bulgarian Citizens, which denounced the vŭzhroditelen protses and con-
demned the violation of the basic constitutional guarantee for equality before
the law of all citizens (Article 35 of the 1971 Constitution). Article 17 of the law
stipulated: “Threat, coercion, violence, fraud, abuse of power or other illicit
actions in choosing, keeping, changing or restoring a name is punished under
the Penal Code.” It also ensured that all “Bulgarian citizens whose names have
been forcibly changed may, of their own free will, restore their former names.”74
Within two years, most Pomak and Turkish Muslims were able to regain their
conventional names of Turkish-Arab origin.
Further, the democratic Constitution of 1991 incorporated provisions to
the same effect. Article 13(1), for example, stipulated that “The practicing
of any religion shall be free.” Article 37 provided for freedom of conscience,
thought, and religion, as well as charged the state with ensuring tolerance and
respect for the religious beliefs of others.75 Simultaneously, however, Article
13(3) established the Eastern Orthodox Christianity as “the traditional reli-
gion of the Republic of Bulgaria.”76 This renewed identification of the political
regime with the Orthodox Church, and hence with the Christian values of the
73 Eminov, 97.
74 Ibid., 20.
75 Ibid., 62.
76 Ibid., 65.
140 chapter 3
dominant ethno-religious majority, aroused fresh fears among the understand-

ably distrustful Muslims. The Pomaks were especially concerned about being
able to hold on to their newly acquired freedom of self-expression given the
history of forced assimilation.77
The Pomak apprehension about displaying “Muslim” (i.e., “un-Bulgarian”)
identity has largely proven justified since the initial freedom surge following
the collapse of the communist regime. Taking advantage of the dire economic
straits of the Rhodopes in the early 1990s, as Eminov points out, “Orthodox
priests have been extremely active among the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims
since 1989 and their success in converting [them] to Christianity is widely
reported in the mass media.” In addition, “representatives of mainstream
Protestant denominations, Evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, Church of
Scientology and various cults are competing with one another to ‘save’ Muslim
souls.” At the same time, however, “Muslim missionary activity among the
Orthodox population is . . . unthinkable.”78
Eminov registered the ongoing conversion activities among the Pomaks
prior to 1997, when he published his book Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities.
Since then Bulgaria has joined NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007).
Regardless of these most stimulating developments, however, the Pomak cul-
tural expression remains restricted. Moreover, the post 9/11 reality, inflaming
anti-Muslim sentiments worldwide, has frighteningly normalized the nega-
tive and even hostile attitudes toward the Muslims in Bulgaria. Especially
galling to the prevalent national sentiment has become the Pomak claim to
Muslimness. Now, as in the past, the Pomaks—as “Bulgarian-Mohamedans”—
have to strictly follow prescribed norms of cultural behavior, i.e., act Bulgarian
by maintaining adherence to dominant ideas of nationalism. Thus, the post-
totalitarian status quo has been painfully reminiscent of the vŭzhroditelen
protses for many Pomaks who remember it.79
In the course of over thirty years of democratic government in Bulgaria, the
appeal of jingoist nationalism is growing rather than subduing. The harsh eco-
nomic reality further enables the openly biased media to fan the flames of a
tangibly hostile national sentiment. As in 1997, when Ali Eminov described it,
much of the news production in Bulgaria remains in the hands of journalists
who “often manufacture evidence, expand rumors into major stories, or cre-
ate rumors themselves” in service to various cultural-political interests. These
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
79 Ramadan Runtov, interview; Ismail Byalkov, interview; Mehmed Shehov, interview;
Mehmed Myuhtar, interview; and others.
“stories” are then “given wide play in both print and broadcast media.” When
these journalists get pressed for “concrete evidence” to back up their allega-
tions, they usually furnish none.80 Referencing Bulgarian scholarship, Eminov
quotes actual news headlines, the likes of which still appear in the Bulgarian
press (and other media):
“The sinister wave of Turkish separatism is swelling”;

“The declaration of a Turkish Republic in the Rhodopes is in
preparation”;
“Turks want to redraw the ethnic map of Bulgaria”
“Turkey is secretly training Janissaries* for the Bulgarian army”;
“Bulgarian Muslims are subjected to forced Turkization”;
“Islamic fundamentalists are crisscrossing Bulgaria”;
“Emissaries from the Middle East are scuttling through the Rhodopes.”
* The Ottoman policy of recruiting Christian youth into the military by con-
verting them to Islam is popularly labeled “blood tax” in Bulgarian folklore
to suggest forced removal of these boys from their families. Scholars, on the
other hand, agree that Christian families volunteered their boys into the
army, because the Ottoman system otherwise prohibited non-Muslims
(mostly Christians and Jews) from serving in the military.81
Several themes, smacking of populist nationalism, immediately manifest

themselves in this roster. First, Turkey—as the Ottoman Empire’s heir—
remains the “enemy” that is always scheming to reoccupy its former territo-
ries, including Bulgaria, and “reenslave” the Christian population. Second,
in preparation for reclaiming its empire, Turkey (as well as the Arab Middle
East) is “secretly training Janissaries” and sending in “Islamic fundamentalists”
to Turkicize/Islamize the population. Third, these Islamic “emissaries . . . are
scuttling through the Rhodopes” to pervert the consciousness of the Pomaks
and to alienate them from the Bulgarian nation. Fourth, sinister Islamic forces
are plotting to “redraw the ethnic map of Bulgaria” to the destruction of “our”
nation-state. Taking a “conspiratorial approach” to expressions of Muslim
identity, some journalists diligently “keep track of the number of new mosques
built and under construction,” and quite seriously claim that those are used
“to hatch diabolical plots to destroy the Bulgarian state and nation.” Most
80 Eminov, 21.
81 See chapter two for details.
142 chapter 3
worrisome of all, however, is the lack of political will to hold “people who
spread unfounded and incendiary propaganda accountable.”82
3 Implications for Pomak Heritage

This conspiratorial frenzy in the public space is inevitably coloring the prev-
alent national sentiment. On the flip side, it may also be that the press and
media simply pick up on some anger in the popular mood and respond accord-
ingly. Indeed, the disappointing economic and political developments in
recent years have not been conducive to a positive national sentiment. Already
disillusioned by several governments and hardened by economic instability, in
July 2009, Bulgaria’s majority voted the openly nationalist GERB party to power.
The political prowess of GERB is singularly vested in the personal charisma of
its leader, Boyko Borissov, who has openly expressed strong nationalistic views.
Along with serving as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, elected for a second term in
2011 (widespread economic agitation in the country forced him to resign in the
spring of 2013), Borissov was also a former bodyguard of the long-term com-
munist leader Todor Zhivkov. According to his own admission, Borissov took
part in the Turkish vŭzhroditelen protses of 1984–1985 as “lieutenant” of a fire-
fighting “battalion.” “As fire-fighters,” he explained in an interview, “we were
sent there [to the areas with Turkish population] to protect the cereal crops,
so that they [the Turks] don’t set them on fire.”83 Protecting the crops from
insurgents, however, was the least of “The Party’s” concerns. In fact, it is now
common knowledge that the communist regime threw all available forces—
police, troops, fire brigades, and salaried functioneérs—against a civilian pop-
ulation to intimidate and force it into revivalist submission, including by a way
of beating and murder.84 In a highly controversial statement of October 31,
2008, the then future Prime Minister Borissov quite seriously explained that
while he approved of the objectives of the vŭzhroditelen protses, he disagreed
with the methods of its implementation. In response to a reporter’s comment
that imposing names on people was perverted, Borissov retorted: “It must be
understood once and for all that the citizens of Bulgaria are Bulgarians, of
Turkey—Turks, of Serbia—Serbs[.] [T]hat’s why, there are states and there are
borders. If one is Bulgarian, one needs to feel that way[.] [I]f one feels Turk, let
82 Eminov, 21–22.
83 “Boyko Borrisov odobryava tselite na vŭzroditelniya protses,” Mediapool, October 31, 2008.
Available at www.mediapool.bg/show/?storyid=145332. Accessed October 31, 2008.
84 Eminov, passim. See also, Vera Grozeva, Kŭrvyashta Nostralgia (Zhar-Zhanet Argirova,
2000), passim; Salih Bozov, V imeto na imeto (Sofia, Bulgaria: Fondatsia Liberalna
Integratsia, 2005), passim.
him go to Turkey. . . . In Bulgaria, there are Bulgarian citizens, and that is to be

the guiding principle for every [national] cause.”85
Thus, the authorities in Bulgaria effectively reduce the essence of nation-
alism to narod, meaning that nation and people are one and the same thing.
This constraining equalization of the nation-state with the sentiments of the
dominant ethno-cultural majority promotes exclusion rather than integration
of vernacular heritages into the public narrative. As a result, most efforts to tell
the Pomak version of history as dissent and oppression in the official domain
are consistently met with hostility and censorship.
Yet, as painful as they may be, narratives of violence and suffering like the
pokrŭstvane and the vŭzhroditelen protses should be remembered not to create
antagonism, but to foster acceptance and reconciliation. Only by facing the
past can a people move forward as a nation, and only by recognizing histori-
cal wrongs can a nation hold those in charge of government accountable to
the benefit of all in society. In its essence, the vŭzhroditelen protses was the
doing of the ruling communist minority against a whole segment of Bulgaria’s
population with historically Turkish-Arab names. These privileged few, how-
ever, victimized society at large during the nearly five decades of totalitarian
rule (1944–1989), irrespective of ethnicity, religion, or language. In that sense,
the vŭzhroditelen protses was a crime not against Muslims alone, but against
all those who valued dignity and free conscience in the nation. Potentially,
people’s realization of their shared vulnerability to a government without
check would engender acceptance and lay the foundations for common
heritage in the Rhodopes, among other places. Thus, amid the many reasons
I explore the life story of Ramadan Runtov in the next chapter is that of his
potent forgiveness and positive outlook regardless of the trauma he sustained
while a political prisoner and exile as a result of the vŭzhroditelen protses.
85 Mediapool, (ibid.).
CHAPTER 4
A Pomak Life of Dissent Amidst Cultural

Oppression in Communist Bulgaria
Meeting Ramadan
I met Ramadan in May 2007 while in Turkey conducting research that focuses
on the Pomaks of Bulgaria. Even though I knew that Pomak exiles lived in
Turkey, I did not expect to meet so many of them in Istanbul. My guide in the
city was Fikrie, a Pomak student at one of the local universities, who also came
from my home town of Vŭlkossel in southwest Bulgaria. Because of Fikrie’s
status as a student, I largely anticipated to be speaking with other students
about the way they coped with life in a foreign country. When I turned up in
Istanbul, however, life unraveled for me in fulfilling twists and turns. One of
those was Fikrie’s connection to the village of Kornitsa (her mother is from
there), near Vŭlkossel, where my informant Ramadan was born.
Because of the forced assimilation of the Muslims during the communist
period, many Pomaks were either expelled from Bulgaria for opposing the
vŭzhroditelen protses or voluntarily left the country once the regime collapsed
in 1989. Their primary destination was Turkey, a predominantly Muslim coun-
try. As a result, many Pomaks live throughout Western Turkey today, notably in
Istanbul and along the Western coast of Asia Minor. Indeed, I discovered a
whole Pomak community in Istanbul, all coming from the Rhodope Mountains
of southwest Bulgaria, the Pomak stronghold in the country. Numbering at
least in the hundreds, many live within city blocks from each other in the sub-
urb of Güneşli in Istanbul. Ramadan was the then seventy-seven-year-old
patriarch of the Runtov’s clan comprised of his wife, three sons and their son’s
families, dwelling within walking distance of one another. When Fikrie intro-
duced me to her relatives from Bulgaria, they sat down with me to collectively
discuss who the best interviewees to approach would be. From the lone nerve-
racking venture I had expected, my research project was becoming a commu-
nal enterprise. Everybody agreed that I should be introduced to Ramadan
Runtov. The next day, my hostess for the day, Ava, and I headed toward his
home. After a short meandering walk, we rang the doorbell of a house to be
admitted by an elderly, tall, and somewhat stern-looking man: Ramadan
Runtov himself. Being invited in, we sat on sofas covered with familiar woolen

A Pomak Life in Communist Bulgaria 145
bedspread, likely handcrafted by Ramadan’s own wife and brought over from
the ancestral home in Bulgaria. With the mandatory black Turkish coffee
before us, Ramadan and I settled down for a quiet interview.
Ramadan’s Vŭzhroditelen-Protses Ordeal
Figure 4-1 Ramadan Runtov

Ramadan Runtov, also known as Ramadan Kurucu, is holding a book that had
recently publicized many painful vŭzhroditelen-protses memories, including
Ramadan’s own. Istanbul, Turkey, 21 May 2007.
I was slightly apprehensive about how to begin the conversation, because I did
not want to appear intrusive or otherwise unprepared. Starting with an expla-
nation that I was conducting a research on the Pomak community, I said to
my host: “I heard that you went through a lot during the vŭzhroditelen
protses. Would you care to answer a few questions while I record?” “Go right
ahead!” instantly came the cordial answer. “Ask! Record! Whatever you want!
It’s alright with me. I want this to be known; young people should know their
146 chapter 4
heritage.”1 From this point on, Ramadan embarked on a narrative that

recounted the struggles of his life. I did not have to say much until the very end,
three hours later. When he finished, the coffee was cold in my cup, and I
was sitting there pondering the richness and anguish of one man’s life.
He stood before me quietly smiling and apparently untroubled by bitterness
or resentment.
Policies of forced Pomak assimilation have been an evolutionary process,
pursued by different Bulgarian regimes during various time periods, and
repeatedly aborted or resumed depending on political circumstances. The first
comprehensive Christianization—better known as pokrŭstvane—happened
in 1912–1913. In the midst of an ongoing war,2 thousands of Pomaks were forced
to formally renounce their Islamic faith and to convert to Orthodox Christianity.
The affair was short-lived, however, and abruptly ended when Pomak protests
drew the attention of the international community. Subsequent Bulgarian gov-
ernments, in conjunction with the Orthodox Church, made similar moves
against the Pomaks in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s by means of both violence
and persuasion.3 The Nazi-allied monarchic regime of Bulgaria launched its
successive attempt to convert the Pomaks in the period 1938–1944.
In the eve of World War II, Ramadan Runtov was a young boy who experi-
enced the excesses of the last pre-communist conversion of the Pomak popu-
lation. “I was eight-year old in 1938, when the harassment began again,” he
reminisces.
They forbade us to wear fez [the traditional Ottoman male headdress in

those days]. I attended school back then and I would go to school with a
fez . . . And there was this man, Boriss Baldevski, from the [Bulgarian]
gendarmerie. On two occasions he took my fez and cut it to pieces with
his knife. Then, in the freezing cold, I would wrap a scarf around my head
1 Ramadan Runtov, interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 21, 2007.

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, all the quotes are from the interview with Ramadan
Runtov.
2 The Balkan Wars were initially fought by Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro against
their former occupier Ottoman Turkey, and subsequently by Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro
against Bulgaria, which had taken most of the Ottoman territories the formerly allied four-
some sought to acquire (see chapter two).
3 For more information, see chapter two. Also, read the compilation of original documents on
the Christianization of 1912–1913 published under the editorship of Velichko Georgiev and
Stayko Trifonov, eds. Pokrŭstvaneto na Bulgarite Mohamedani 1912–1913 (Sofia, Bulgaria:
Prof. Marin Drinov Publ., 1995). (In Bulgarian).
to be able to go to school. But they would grab my scarf, too, and tramp it
in the mud.
In 1944, in the heat of the war, the Soviet army occupied Bulgaria and installed
in power a relatively small group of Marxist and Leninist adherents, who sub-
sequently formed the puppet communist government of Bulgaria. Fierce per-
secution of opposition activists and supporters of the previous dynastic regime
began immediately. Thousands of inconvenient persons and organizations
were labeled “fascist” and put to their death by a specially created extra-
judicial body dubbed “the People’s Court of Justice.” The political witch-hunt
was a matter of survival for the fledgling communist government as it grappled
to establish control of the country.4 As Bulgaria had a sizeable Muslim popula-
tion, the new regime embarked on gaining their support. It won the Pomaks
simply by aborting the conversion and reinstating their traditional names.
By the mid-1950s, the communists had stabilized their grip on power and
could comfortably consider reversing their policy toward the Pomak minority.
The emerging communist nationalism saw the large number of Muslims in the
country, comprising about one-fifth of roughly seven million people, as a chal-
lenge to their ambition to build a culturally uniform nation. Thereafter, the
pressure began on Pomak men and women to rid themselves of the traditional
attire in favor of more modern clothing, to substitute their traditional Turkish-
Arab names with Bulgarian-Orthodox ones, and to abandon any and all reli-
gious practices.5 Especially affected by the assimilation politics were young
Pomak army conscripts.6
From 1951 to 1953, young Ramadan Runtov was serving his mandatory mili-
tary service. In Bulgaria, all Muslim youths were assigned to labor units, with
limited access to weapons and military training in the army. Instead, they did
construction, mining, and other strenuous and hazardous activities.7
Nevertheless, it was a time of optimism for Ramadan who believed that better
days were ahead after having witnessed the pre-communist conversion. When
4 Georgi Markov, Zadochni Reportazhi ot Bŭlgaria (Sofia, Bulgaria: Profizdat, 1990).

5 Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York: Routledge, 1997),
99–111; Ali Eminov, “Social Construction of Identities: Pomaks in Bulgaria,” JEMIE 6 (2007): 2.
6 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories 39–40, Archival Units, passim;
Ramadan Runtov, interview.
7 Report of Prof. Georgi Gŭlŭbov, chairing the committee in charge of implementing the
vŭzhroditelen protses to the “Propaganda and Persuasion” department of the central commit-
tee of the communist party, circa 1963. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventory
40, Archival Unit 12, page 4.
148 chapter 4
he was offered the rare chance to advance as a construction supervisor in the

army, he seized the opportunity. The communist regime, on the other hand,
needed young enthusiasts like Ramadan to win over the disillusioned Pomak
population. In 1953, Ramadan officially became a member of the communist
party. While in the army, however, he also received his first taste of what was
coming. One day, a group of ethnic Turkish soldiers were brought to his army
unit. “One major brought the boys,” Ramadan said, “but he never knew I was a
Muslim myself.”
“Sergeant,” he said, “these are Turks. Five hundred years they oppressed
us. Now, you’ve got to bleed them dry with work.” . . . That night, I intro-
duced myself to the guys. “My name is Ramadan. Fear not. From now on
we’ll cope with everything together.” They looked at me in disbelief at
first, but then went all at once: “Hey, brother, they’ve wasted us with work
already. We’ve been cutting paving stones in a quarry day and night. By
night, they would make us build fires to keep working.”8
By 1958, the communist harassment of Pomaks in the Rhodopes commenced.

Thereafter, Ramadan’s ordeal as a junior party member began, too. The first
order of business for the regime was to force Pomak women to adopt a more
revealing dress style instead of the conservative broad trousers and heads-
carves. Pomak communists like Ramadan had to give a personal example by
obligating their wives first to wear dresses or skirt-and-shirt combinations. As
most people defined their identity in terms of religion, however, they resisted
participation in the revival affairs. Ramadan not only refused to serve as an
example, but also dissuaded others from succumbing to pressure. In the early
1960s, the vŭzhroditelen protses took a nasty turn. Coercion was especially dis-
turbing in the three nearby villages of the Western Rhodopes—Kornitsa,
Breznitsa, and Lŭzhnitsa.9
Trouble in Kornitsa
Communist bureaucrats, assisted by police, called militsia, and civilian volun-

teers, routinely harassed Pomak villages in the Rhodopes. Because these early
8 Ramadan Runtov, interview.

9 Ibid. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories 39–40, Archival Units, passim.
revival efforts targeted first and foremost women,10 it was also women who
offered the first open resistance. One day, a group of communist apparatchiks,
escorted by militsia, arrived in Kornitsa (Ramadan’s village). Hoping to prevent
bloodshed, Ramadan advised the village men to take cover in attics and cellars
while the women and children stayed out. The women armed themselves with
wooden boards with sharp nails spiking out. These were to serve as the first
line of defense before the men could come to their aid, if need be. Having
learned from an informer what awaited them in Kornitsa,11 however, the reviv-
alists walked straight into the mayor’s office upon arrival and remained there.
Everybody in the village waited. Gradually, the women started gathering

in front of the council. I could see everything from behind a stairwell. The
women above roared: “Dogs! Get out! What do you want from us?” For a
while, nobody came out. Then Shopov, the lieutenant, and Nanchev, the
mayor, showed up. The lieutenant pulled his pistol out and shot in the air
once or twice. At that moment, ago Bayram’s daughter, Amideyka, took
her board out and walked toward the lieutenant: “Shoot here, dog, [point-
ing to her chests]! Shoot here!” He slowly backed out and disappeared
behind the door. No one came out again that day.
It was, thus, quickly over in Kornitsa in 1960 (?).12 The attempt to force women
into new attire in the neighboring village of Breznitsa days after the Kornitsa
affair also failed. However, before they dispatched revivalists to the village, the
authorities detained the young hodzha (hoca, religious teacher) of Breznitsa,
hoping that by forcing him first to renounce name and religion, others would
follow suit. According to Ramadan, they threatened him that unless his wife
adopted the dress, they would not release him. When the women of Breznitsa
heard of the arrest, they started convening at the lower extremity of the village.
As a jeep-load of revivalists headed toward Breznitsa, with the hodzha, they
stumbled upon an access road blocked by women. Forcing the vehicle to a
10 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories 39–40, Archival Units, passim (see
chapter three).
Also, Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, 99–111; Eminov, “Social
Construction of Identities: Pomaks in Bulgaria,” passim.
12 Even though Ramadan did not recall the exact year, it must have been 1960, because it is
the year registered in the collective local memory as the time of forced resettlement,
when the communist regime evicted many Pomak families from their ancestral homes in
the Rhodopes, scattering them throughout Bulgaria. Also, by 1964, the time of another
assimilation attempt, Ramadan had already been exiled from Kornitsa.
150 chapter 4
stop, these self-styled amazons surrounded the revivalists, and Ava Dŭrvova
shattered the windshield with a bludgeon. The women then collectively
pulled the hodzha out of the jeep and safely escorted him home. “The militsia
just stood there stupefied and did know what to do,” Ramadan reports.
As a member of the communist party, the regime expected Ramadan to
cooperate with their revival efforts. Having repeatedly failed to comply with
their instructions, however, the authorities began to harass him. They system-
atically summoned Ramadan to the local police station, where the regime’s
efforts to secure his cooperation progressed from verbal to physical abuse. On
one occasion, he reported to the office of the local agent of State Security
(Dŭrzhavna Sigurnost), who “immediately took his coat off, threw it on the
chair, pulled down the window blinds, locked the door,” and proceeded to
strike Ramadan, who was still standing by the door. “If you hit me one more
time,” he gasped in exasperation, “I will throw you out of the window or my
name is not Ramadan. . . . I’ll throw you out of that window and you’ll burst like
a pumpkin down there. They may cut me to pieces afterwards, but you won’t be
sound either.”
Rather brawny and confident in his physical strength, Ramadan took a bold
step toward his abuser, but the latter pulled his pistol out shouting: “Stop or I’ll
shoot you on the spot.”
Shoot if you dare, you, son of a bitch! Is this what you’ve learned from
Communism!? In fifteen years of people’s government, you’ve learned to
be murderers! Yours is no Communism. You’ve completely distorted
Lenin’s directives. What did Lenin say, huh? Everyone has the right to be
Communist regardless of religion or language. But what are you doing!?
Then lowering his gun, the agent said conciliatorily: “Why are you agitating the
people!?”13
As the pressure on the Pomaks to change their names intensified, Ramadan
renounced his membership in the communist party and began to speak out
against the vŭzhroditelen protses. Moreover, his determination to encourage
people to resist grew stronger. In 1961–1962, his family, along with many others,
labeled “troublemakers,” was exiled hundreds of kilometers away from the
ancestral home and community, from southwest to central Bulgaria. But even
in exile, there was no respite for Ramadan. As the communist regime moved to
change Muslim names in 1964, equipped with his ancestors’ identification
papers, Ramadan went from one state institution to another trying to prove

that the Pomaks had historically borne Muslim names, not the Christian
ones the government was forcing on them. He even initiated a civil litigation
challenging the constitutionality of the vŭzhroditelen protses only to be curtly
informed by the judge that there was nothing he could do to stop it.14
In October 1964, Ramadan received visitors from his home village with the
news that Kornitsa and the adjacent Pomak communities were surrounded by
a revivalist force of local bureaucrats, militsia (police), and civilian (Christian)
zealots. Scores of people fled into the woods as a result, and were now unshel-
tered, starving, and ailing for days under the relentless, cold autumnal rain.15
It was a group of these refugees who travelled hundreds of kilometers to
Ramadan’s new home in central Bulgaria to seek counsel and help. The same
day, Ramadan took them to the Turkish consulate in Sofia. As he delivered the
news, the consul exclaimed: “How’s that possible? Here are your witnesses. Ask
them. Eighty people are hiding in the woods. They haven’t eaten in three days.
They have nothing. These people will starve to death or die of cold.” The consul
picked up the phone, and Ramadan heard him reporting the news to Ankara.
Shortly afterwards, a fax came through, and the consul encouraged the group
to go home with the reassurance that the renaming would stop.
By the time the men reached Kornitsa on foot a few days later, the blockade
had been lifted. The whole revival affair had already been aborted, and people
were vigorously tearing off the very same declarations they had signed earlier,
ostensibly requesting to take new names. The same was happening in the
nearby village of Ribnovo, where the communist authorities made quite the
dramatic appearance both to appease as well as to intimidate the population.
According to a widely circulated story, the regime flew a helicopter into
Ribnovo. As it landed on the fields just outside the village, however, the whole
population came together resolved to let no revivalist in the village. “Whatever
you have to say to us, say it here?” the people insisted. “We won’t do anything to
you. Go home!”16 Indeed, for the time being this was the end of the forced
assimilation against the wider Pomak community. As oral and documentary
evidence suggests, the combined factors of external pressure from Turkey and
the regime’s own qualms about the stability of their government as early as
1964 temporarily halted the vŭzhroditelen protses.17
14 Ibid.
15 Ismail Byalkov, interview by author, Istanbul, Turkey, May 20, 2007. Also, Ramadan Runtov,
interview.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.; Ramadan Runtov, interview; Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories
38–40, Archival Units, passim.
152 chapter 4
Figure 4-2 Ramadan with His Family, circa 1959–1960

Ramadan with his wife (left) and two infant sons (the third had not been born yet),
and his two sisters (right and back) in Kornitsa, the Rhodopes, before being exiled to
Dolno Izvorovo, central Bulgaria.
(Courtesy of Ramadan Runtov.)
However, the ordeal was just beginning for Ramadan Runtov. As he collected
petitions against the forced assimilation and submitted them to the Turkish
consulate in Bulgaria, hence, making the affair known to the outside world,
Bulgaria’s communist regime grew nervously irate. “We had put together an
organization of sorts,” Ramadan explains to me, “We (Muslims) were coming
together from everywhere, doing prayers, discussing [the vŭzhroditelen protses]
and collecting petitions, which I then took to the Turkish consulate in Sofia or
Plovdiv. I was delivering petitions to the consulate every Friday; Friday was a
day for rest and prayer, and I was delivering petitions, too. On one occasion I
took a petition to the consulate with 3,800 signatures collected from across the
[Muslim] villages. . . . [W]e were protesting. We wanted to let everybody know
what was happening [in Bulgaria] and that it was against our will. So we took
our petitions to the Turkish consulate.”18
For Ramadan and the wider Pomak community, most of the 1960s passed in
protesting, anxious waiting, and toiling on the land for economic survival.
Whereas Ramadan made a living for his wife, three sons and himself as a con-
struction worker and farmer in central Bulgaria, most Pomak families in the
Rhodopes grew tobacco as a cash crop. Then came the 1970s. “It was May 11,
1972. This I vividly remember.” Ramadan reminisces. “I was working for this
Bulgarian [Christian] in one village. He was a communist, a member of the
local party committee. We had a good relationship, though, he and I. One day
he bluntly warned me: ‘Ramadan, don’t show up for work tomorrow. They are
conspiring to arrest you and change your name.’ ” Thus began the most harrow-
ing chapter of Ramadan’s and most Pomaks’ life in communist Bulgaria: the
final and complete revivalization. This bold move occurred in response to fun-
damental political changes within the larger communist bloc.
After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the new Soviet Union’s leader Nikita
Khrushchev denounced Stalin and eliminated his cult of personality, thus, ush-
ering in a gradual process of easing of dictatorial rule across Eastern Europe.
As a result, by the late 1960s, such reform-minded communist leaders as
Czechoslovakia’s head of state Alexander Dubček embarked on political and
economic democratization of his country. The liberalization and decentraliza-
tion of the administrative authority in Czechoslovakia, however, did not sit
well with the Soviet Union, which saw in it a dangerous precedent for the rest
of the communist bloc and a direct threat to its total dominance over the com-
munist states of Eastern Europe. Thus, in the spring of 1968, the Soviet army
occupied the country, viciously crushing the budding Czechoslovakian democ-
racy. (History poetically remembers this tragic event as The Prague Spring.)
The Soviet brutality sent shockwaves across the region. Whereas most ordinary
people, especially dissidents, trembled in fear and desperation, the loyal com-
munist rulers of Eastern Europe, especially in Bulgaria, relished the sense of
empowerment.19
By 1972, with firm confidence in their absolute authority, the Bulgarian com-
munist party re-launched the vŭzhroditelen protses. Moreover, the regime was
determined to complete the renaming of the Pomaks once and for all. In his

19 Markov, passim.
154 chapter 4
place of political exile in the village of Dolno Izvorovo, Kazanlŭk Region (cen-
tral Bulgaria), Ramadan resumed his anti-revivalism out of necessity. As Pomak
villages were once more besieged by heavily armed troops, militsia, and patri-
otic civilians—on a much larger and more aggressive scale than in the 1960s—
Ramadan and his co-villagers organized the defense of Dolno Izvorovo.
However, just as the regime was determined to successfully conclude the name
changing, so were the Pomak dissenters prepared to resist. As the menace of
forced assimilation loomed larger, the villagers armed themselves with farm
implements, wooden boards, extra gasoline, and even Molotov cocktails to
defend themselves.
In 1972, Ramadan’s anti-revivalism was taking place on two fronts, hundreds
of kilometers apart: in his native village of Kornitsa, southwest Bulgaria, and in
his place of exile, Dolno Izvorovo, central Bulgaria. Similar to many exiled
Pomaks, Ramadan and his family kept in touch with Kornitsa and the wider
Western Rhodopes through a network of relatives, friends, and co-villagers
who travelled back and forth from southwest to central Bulgaria to visit with
family members. As the danger of revivalism reemerged in the early 1970s,
these visiting patterns acquired a new meaning. They effectively transformed
into a network of reconnaissance and communication, where people
exchanged information about what was taking place on the other end and
coordinated their actions accordingly. A vocal opponent of the vŭzhroditelen
protses and a respected member of the community, Ramadan soon transpired
as one of the leaders of the Pomak organized resistance not only in his place of
exile—Dolno Izvorovo, but also at home, in Kornitsa.
Trouble in Exile
In May 1972, trouble in Dolno Izvorovo began for the Pomak families that had
been forcibly resettled from the Rhodopes in the early 1960s. In a determined
effort to prevent the name changing, the whole village population got together
to keep the revivalists at bay. In Dolno Izvorovo (Lower Izvorovo), just like in
the Rhodopes, the Pomaks made a living by farming collectivized land to grow
crops for little cash and personal sustenance, as well as to graze a few heads of
sheep and cattle. Most men supplemented their family income by doing con-
struction work, while women worked in the local textile factories. There was a
factory in the nearby village of Gorno Izvorovo (Upper Izvorovo), where most
of the women from Ramadan’s village worked. And they were home from work
by 10 o’clock every day. This particular day in May 1972, however, they were not.
Already suspecting new assimilation moves, Ramadan immediately dispatched
a youngster, in possession of a precious motorbike, on a reconnaissance mis-

sion: “Shaban, ride your bike to the factory and see what’s going on with the
women!” Recognizing the urgency of the situation, Shaban returned promptly
to report that the women were being held in the factory against their will.
Ramadan and the rest of the village men hastily convened for a council. The
first order of business was to barricade the main artery connecting the string of
villages to the main provincial city of Kazanlŭk in order to ensure that the
women would not be transported into town unbeknownst to them. In
Kazanlŭk, with large militsia and army units, the anti-revivalist group would
have no leverage at all to rescue their wives, daughters, or mothers. Adjacent to
the men’s blockade position was a military base that housed a tank division.
The soldiers were out on a drill that day—deliberately, according to Ramadan—
to “scare the population,” and nip potential resistance in its bud.
“So we stood there guarding the road, armed with wooden boards which
had nails sticking out.” Ramadan explains. “And we stopped every vehicle to
make sure that none of our women were inside. Then we let them go.” Whoever
refused to comply, the men stopped by placing the boards along the width of
the road so the vehicle’s tires would blow out. They stopped military cars as
well. On one occasion, they forced the vehicle of a captain to a halt, who loudly
objected: “ ‘What right do you have to stop military personnel?’ ‘We have every
right.’ ” Ramadan replied on behalf of all, and the men proceeded with their
business. “Then, we saw a jeep heading straight for the fields to avoid us . . .” But
even before that, a young woman by the name Fatme, overlooked in the bath-
rooms, had managed to sneak out of the factory and had rushed to inform the
men. “Ago Ramadan, all women are being held in the factory and they are get-
ting ready to change their names.” So, Fatme was there when the jeep cut
straight through the fields in an apparent attempt to escape the roadblock.
In the vehicle, besides the driver, there were two men occupying the back
seats. As Ramadan and his collaborators tried to question the driver over the
maneuver, Fatme recognized the two passengers: “These two detained the
women?” They were prominent local apparatchiks. While pondering over what
to do with the two apparent revivalists, Ramadan’s group received the news
that seven of their co-villagers—forest workers—had been arrested in the
nearby village of Enina. After brief deliberation, Ramadan turned to the jeep’s
occupants and made his proposition: “Listen, you see all these people here—
children, women, and men? You see how many of us we are, right? Well, seven
of our people have been arrested in Enina. We will let you go now, but if
they are not reunited with us within the next hour and a half, this entire
multitude—you see right here, in front of you—will be heading your way, to
Enina. We will burn the council’s building down no matter how much militsia
156 chapter 4
you have to protect you.” Indeed, before the deadline had expired, the seven
foresters were safely back in Dolno Izvorovo, as well as the factory women.
From May 11 to September 25, 1972, the villagers stuck together awaiting the
worst. For nearly five months, no man, woman, or child ventured out of the
village. No one was able to work in the fields either. “All summer long we spent
each night sticking together in someone’s house. The women slept indoors,
and we—the men—napped outside while taking turns to patrol the village.
We had to be alert at all times to make sure no intruders came in.” However,
while Ramadan’s village was arming with farm implements, kitchen utensils,
and Molotov cocktails, “a couple of snitches among us . . . had been informing
the authorities of all we did,” Ramadan tells me. Meanwhile the crops, planted
in the spring, were rotting in the fields without being harvested. As the agricul-
tural cooperative grew anxious about the empty granaries, they spoke to the
local bureaucrats of the urgency to harvest the crops and the need to postpone
the vŭzhroditelen protses. The authorities apparently relented and took steps to
convince the wretched population that no renaming would take place if they
resumed their farm work. Thus, on September 25, 1972, “the women began har-
vesting the crops, while the men went back to construction.” Life continued
more or less peacefully in Dolno Izvorovo until February 12, 1973, when the
harassment resumed and the name changing was formally finalized.20 While
seemingly reconciled, most Pomaks accepted identity papers with new names,
but continued to use their traditional names among themselves.21 The ordeal
for those like Ramadan, however, who refused to take Bulgarian names, was
just beginning.
Bloody Revival in the Rhodopes
If the Pomak renaming in Dolno Izvorovo, and elsewhere, went without major
incidents, it was not the case in Kornitsa (as well as in Ribnovo and Lŭzhnitsa).
As the regime stepped up with the vŭzhroditelen protses, guns were fired and
blood was spilled in the Pomak stronghold of the Rhodopes. Drawing from the
experience of Dolno Izvorovo of 1972 and using the visiting/reconnaissance
network, Ramadan Runtov encouraged the population of Kornitsa to resist by

21 Assessment on the Implementation of the Decision of the Secretariat of the Bulgarian
Vŭzhroditelen Protses. The document is dated May 8, 1978, and numbered 005805, pages
60–80. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, pages 71–73.
sticking together and by letting no revivalist force in the village. Although

the regime restricted his movement to the village of Dolno Izvorovo and its
vicinity only, Ramadan was able to send instructions, along with anti-revivalist
literature, to Kornitsa through various visiting family members.
Thus, facing guns yet again in 1973, the people of Kornitsa—under the
impromptu leadership of such local people as Bayram Geta, dubbed the
General—met the fully armed intruders with clubs, knives, and domestic
implements, as Dolno Izvorovo had done nearly a year earlier. They barricaded
the village and did not let anybody in. For six days, a 1996 news clipping attests,
the population managed to ward off the revivalists and to keep the renaming at
bay. “The reason for the 1973 revolt of the Pomaks,” the article confirms, “was
the name changing. It made the Hassans into Ivans, the Ahmeds into Assens
and so on. And Kornitsa did not like that.” On the night of March 28, “about
2,000 horse police were thrown against us! But people of the neighboring vil-
lages Lŭzhnitsa and Breznitsa came to our aid,” the then mayor of Kornitsa,
Bayram Zul, is quoted as saying. Five people were killed during these events.
According to the official version, cited by the news clipping, they had fallen
victims to ricocheting bullets or were stampeded by the crowd. But eyewit-
nesses had a different story to tell: “‘They killed Ismail a few days later,’ recounts
a relative of the late Ismail, ‘[after he refused to sign a declaration to change
his name].’ . . . ‘They killed my father without reason,’ says the 28-year-old
Shazie . . . ‘They buried the bodies somewhere along the [Greek] border. These
people never received proper burial.’ ”22
Another news clipping, clearly reflecting the communist version of the story,
confirms the bloodshed in Kornitsa and attests to Ramadan’s involvement in
orchestrating the resistance. These “most dramatic and tragic” events in
Kornitsa happened because “Ramadan Runtov had established an illegal orga-
nization there. . . . He was persuading the villagers not to change their names
and to insist that they were Turks [Muslims]. . . . He was distributing bro-
chures . . . that made allegations of killing and rape of Muslims in our country.”23
Among other things, the author of the article Boncho Assenov effectively
reveals how the rioting began in Kornitsa. In January 1973, Pomak employees
of the local agriculture and forestry cooperatives were summoned to Gotse
Delchev, the regional administrative center, supposedly to address work-
related matters. Upon returning to Kornitsa, however, these people claimed to
have been beaten into signing declarations to change their names. Thereafter,
remembering the turbulent 1964, Kornitsa immediately went on the defensive.
22 Pavlina Trifonova, “Kornitsa pak izpravi na nokti Bulgaria,” Sega 13, April 4–10, 1996, 22–23.
23 Boncho Assenov, “Kakvo stana prez 1973 godina?” Sega 13, April 4–10, 1996, 23.
158 chapter 4
Figure 4-3 A Commemorative Monument in the Village of Kornitsa

A monument in the center of Kornitsa today commemorates the deaths of 69-year-
old Moharem Bargan, 45-year-old Hussein Karaalil, 35-year-old Salih Amidein,
22-year-old Tefik Hadzhi of Breznitsa, and 50-year-old Ismail Kalyor. The inscription
reads: “Always alive in our hearts. In memory of those killed as a result of the
assimilatory politics of the communist regime, March 1973. Hussein Karaalil,
Moharem Bargan, Salih Amidein, Tefik Hadzhi, Ismail Kalyuor.”
Everything began on January 23, 1973, as Assenov accurately notes, when a

(Christian) militsioner (communist policeman) allegedly travelled to Kornitsa
to see a friend. The more likely explanation for this ill-timed journey, however,
appears to have been spying. But true intents aside, the villagers—clearly sus-
picious—did not let him into Kornitsa. Then, allegedly without any reason, the
entire Pomak population of Kornitsa suddenly refused to work in the fields,
stopped their children from attending school, and completely shut themselves
in. Moreover, they started congregating on the public square in organized
round-the-clock vigils, apparently armed with pocket knives, kitchen knives,
axes, clubs, and even two pistols, as Assenov explains referencing the items
confiscated after the renaming. They had also set up signals of communica-
tions with the neighboring villages of Lŭzhnitsa and Breznitsa, which, accord-
ing to the author, “had promised to come to their aid.” Aid against what and
whom, the question arises, if indeed the regime did not plan to carry out the
vŭzhroditelen protses, as Assenov maintains. Ultimately, he solves this contra-

diction by charging Ramadan Runtov with establishing an “illegal o rganization”
in Kornitsa from hundreds of kilometers away, in exile, and taking “control of
the village for two months practically setting a pro-Turkish government with
almost military regime.” Thus, Assenov—similar to many other “patriots” in
Bulgaria—blames the brutal renaming in Kortnitsa of 1973 on people’s “riot-
ing,” not on the heavily armed troops, militsia, and civilians enforcing the
vŭzhroditelen protses.24
Having organized the supply of firewood during the two-month vigil on
Kornitsa’s public square, Ismail Byalkov (a former political prisoner) relates to
me an altogether different version. I interviewed Ismail just hours before I met
with Ramadan Runtov in May 2007, and neither had been aware of my research
or me until the moment I knocked on their doors. I interviewed them indepen-
dently, and received the same general storyline of the events in Kornitsa:
Ismail, as he witnessed them, and Ramadan, as he learned about them from
deliberate envoys, keeping open the connection between Dolno Izvorovo and
the Rhodopes. Thus, on January 23, 1973, as Ismail recounts, the village popula-
tion was assembled on the public square. When the authorities first arrived in
Kornitsa, they tried to pressure all local party members and salaried individu-
als to take part in the renaming. As the people remained on the square fright-
ened but reluctant to change their names, so did the authorities. “Had they left
[Kornitsa],” Ismail says, “the people would have dispersed and that might have
been the end of it.” But it was not to be. Awaiting the worst, the whole Pomak
population of Kornitsa clung to each other for support inside the village, while
an assortment of troops, militsia, fire brigades, and armed civilians were laying
siege on them from the outside.
This tense state of affairs continued from January 23 to March 28, 1973. The
whole village had gathered on the public square and remained there through-
out that time. “We stayed put day and night, in snow and rain, all of us: children
and adults. We were building big fires to keep warm. We slept in shifts: while
some slept, the rest kept vigil!” recalls Ismail. He and a few other men were
responsible for collecting firewood to maintain the fires. Then, on the morning
of March 28, 1973, the village was surrounded by a combined force of horse-
back police, fire brigades, and plainclothes.25 As Ismail explains, “[t]hey were
all dressed in civilian clothes: fire brigades . . . everyone. Now, whether they
24 Ibid.
25 Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, passim; Trifonova, passim;
Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories 38–40, Archival Units, passim;
Ramadan Runtov, interview.
160 chapter 4
Figure 4-4 At Ismail’s

Once Fikrie (the student from my hometown who met me in Istanbul) introduced me
to the Pomak community in the suburb of Güneşli, my research in Istanbul became a
communal enterprise. In the photo ( from left to right): Ibrahim Byalkov, his father
Ismail Byalkov (my informant), Ibrahim’s wife, and my Güneşli hostess Ava Cesur
(right) with her then teenage daughter, as well as a neighbor and good friend of
Ava’s with her little girl who tagged along (unfortunately, their names escape me)—
all originally from Bulgaria.
were civilians from the neighboring [Christian] villages or militsia, I couldn’t

tell. Very few of them were wearing [military] uniforms; they were on horses.
But those that did the beating were wearing plain clothes. . . . [T]here were
loads of them. The whole village was surrounded.”26
As bullets began to rain on the multitude on March 28, “the whole square
was smeared in blood,” Ismail tells me. After terrifying the population, wound-
ing scores, and leaving five dead, the regime began the arrests. Everyone spot-
ted on the public square was rounded up and stuffed into a building which
served Kornitsa as a sports club at the time. As they were brought in, people
were lined up along the wall, facing inwards. According to Ismail’s testimony, a
wrestling ring occupied the center of the hall and a pond of blood had already
26 Ismail Byalkov, interview.

formed in the middle of it—“blood from the beatings.” “There was so much
blood there that you could scoop it with a bucket. I saw this with my own eyes:
When they took me in, I saw two individuals, naked from the waste up, each
wielding a club, just waiting for someone to move or shift position to strike.”
Ismail immediately noticed the person standing nearest the door—Uruch
Bachev of Breznitsa (a neighboring village), because his cheek was slashed
open and a piece of loose flesh was dangling about. As the regional militsia
chief, Stoychev, walked in, the wounded man addressed him: “Comrade
Stoychev, I gave blood yesterday and I lost more today . . . Can I sit down?”
When given leave to do so, another person asked: “May I sit down?,” but imme-
diately received a blow to the head. Ismail just saw the man collapsing to the
ground. From where he stood, he could not recognize who he was. The man
survived that day. Whereas Ismail avoided a beating in the sports club, he was
nevertheless arrested and endured six years of harsh treatment as a political
prisoner, along with many other people from Kornitsa, Breznitsa, and
Lŭzhnitsa. “That’s what happened [in 1973 in Kornitsa], Fatme!” my informant
concludes. “And all this was filmed. The authorities documented everything,
but it will probably never see the light of day. They had brought a big camera
with them and filmed everything. I saw that personally.”27
Thus, in spite of the bloodshed and probably because of it, the regime final-
ized the vŭzhroditelen protses. By 1974, the Pomaks had acquired new identi-
ties. Their Bulgarian-Christian names now had to appear on all identification
papers, including passports, birth certificates, and savings accounts. Those
without proper documentation not only could not access their salaries, pen-
sions, or bank accounts, but also they faced unemployment, fines, and even
imprisonment.28
Prison Tribulations
1 Arrest, Detention, and Trial

Singled out as particularly dangerous, the communist regime lost no time in
detaining Ramadan, along with his closest collaborators. His arrest was most
carefully orchestrated. In 1973, Ramadan and his crew were working on a con-
struction site, when an army jeep with two or three individuals approached
him. “Ramadan, you’ll have to come with us to take measurements for a new
construction site in Sheynovo, so we can go ahead with digging the foundation.”
27 Ibid.
28 Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, 107.
162 chapter 4
When Ramadan picked up his instruments and got into one of the jeep’s back
seats, he noticed that the vehicle’s interior was blackened out. As they drove
off, Ramadan heard one of the men, who had come to collect him, transmitting
on the radio that they had left the site with him. They indeed took Ramadan to
Sheynovo, where he put the foundation markers for a new building. But when
the jeep drove out of Sheynovo and into the deserted fields, a traffic police
stopped them. “Everyone out!” they ordered. “We need to inspect the vehicle.”
As soon as Ramadan scrambled out of the dark interior of the jeep and into the
blinding daylight, two of the militsioners (policemen) immediately restrained
his arms twisting them backwards. In his initial fright, he managed to extricate
himself from the captors’ grip to be instantly overpowered by others. At that
moment, “I felt a stinging pain in my [lower] leg . . .” Ramadan explains. “They
must have struck me with a piece of metal or something. To this day I have a
scar there. Squatting down to protect myself, I felt blood streaming down my
leg. Then—what seemed to me like—a whole crowd—civilians, militsia, and
two dogs—ganged on me. And—My God!—in their eyes it looked as if they’d
caught The Big Enemy!” After restraining him, Ramadan’s abductors blind-
folded him, pushed him into the back of the jeep, covered his head with a blan-
ket, and took him to the police station in Stara Zagora. “When we arrived in
Stara Zagora, there was a swarm of journalists waiting to photograph me. Yeah!
They’d caught The Big Villain!” Ramadan laughs.
What transpired that day was rather bizarre to Ramadan. Perceiving himself
of no particular importance as a political dissenter, he was totally taken aback
by the publicity given to his arrest, and even more puzzled by the great lengths
to which the regime went to detain him. “They could have taken me any time
and any place they wanted.” He struggled to find explanation, for example, as
to why the militsioners did not just arrest him on the job site, but chose instead
to abduct him while posing as traffic police. In Ramadan’s own estimation, he
constituted a “nobody” back in the 1970s. He had nowhere to hide. Nor had he
influential protectors to look after him. He saw himself as a person—among
many others—who disagreed with the regime and stood his own grounds, but
who feared the potentially dangerous consequences for himself and his family.
The authorities, Ramadan thought, accorded him far greater significance than
he deserved, once, by painstakingly organizing his abduction and, then, by
making a spectacle of his arrest. Perhaps, as the celebrated Bulgarian dissident
writer Georgy Markov suspected, the regime felt the need to overstate the
danger—whatever and whenever—in order to distract the nation from the
poor economic situation and deepening political oppression in the country,
as well as to convey the warning that no dissent would be tolerated.29 By the

mid-1970s, as Markov’s case brilliantly illustrates,30 political dissent was on the
rise in Bulgaria, as elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc. Thus, one may speculate that
by dramatizing Ramadan’s case, the regime was hoping not only to channel
the popular sentiment against “subversive” Muslim (pro-Turkish) elements,
but also—and more importantly—to cut short the nascent Pomak resistance.31
After he was arrested, Ramadan spent the next several months in pre-trial
detention. Awaiting trial, he was moved from facility to facility, starved, abused,
and kept in information blackout. While in the State Security headquarters in
Sofia, the authorities held him in an underground cell. “They had a network of
tunnels underground. They kept me in these tunnels at night. And there was a
plaque in every cell saying: ‘If your arms are tied up at the waist, prepare for a
long journey . . . ’ That referred to the detainees [like me]. ‘If your arms are
bound in front, you will be hanged. If your arms are bound at the back, you will
be shot.’ ” One day, they bound Ramadan’s arms seemingly for execution by
shooting. Plain-clothed personnel with machine guns took him out of the cell
and led him about twenty meters into the tunnels. The light was on. The order
came: “Stand still. Don’t turn back, or you will be shot.” He stood there and
waited in suspense for hours. Finally, someone came down for him, and
Ramadan heard a voice: “Bring him upstairs. It’s not going to be tonight.” The
intent was not to dispose of Ramadan as it appeared, however, but to extract
confession from him for conspiring to overthrow the government. It was vital
for the communist regime to maintain the charade of treasonous conspiracy in
order to stifle dissent, while banking on xenophobic sentiment.32
After months of pretrial interrogation in the State Security headquarters in
Sofia, Ramadan was moved to a prison in Burgass, a city in southeast Bulgaria.
29 Markov, passim.
30 Markov, a well-known dissident and writer, defected from Bulgaria in 1969. Having relo-
cated to Great Britain, he launched a scathing criticism of the Bulgarian communist
regime as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, the US-funded Radio
Free Europe, and Germany-based Deutsche Welle. It is believed that as a result of this
activism, the Bulgarian government disposed of him, with the help of KGB. He was killed
in London in 1978 by someone, who stabbed his leg with a ricin-poisoned umbrella.
31 Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, passim. Also, Information about
Turkey’s Activities against the Vŭzhroditelen Protses for the Period 27 June–3 July 1987.
The document is dated from July 3, 1987, and signed by then Deputy Minister of Internal
Affairs, Gen. Lieutenant St. Savov, pages 1–6. (There is no archival reference on the docu-
ment). For details, refer to chapter three (conclusion).
32 Ibid.
164 chapter 4
There for the first time, he was allowed to write a letter to his family and to
receive visitation. This was also a ploy. As his wife and two of his sons came to
see him in prison, they were instructed to persuade him to change his name.
It did not work. Despite the continuing harassment, Ramadan was happy to
see his family after months in detention and disinformation. From Burgass,
Ramadan was moved to a facility for political prisoners in Stara Zagora (a city
in central Bulgaria) near his village of exile—Dolno Izvorovo, where his trial
finally began.33
Ramadan and his companions, as Krum Karakachanov—the defense attor-
ney—recalled in an interview from the year 2000, “were prosecuted for trea-
son; for organizing a rebellion to overthrow the people’s government.” “When I
heard the charge,” he said, “I thought to myself: ‘My God! That is an Article 70
crime, the most serious crime under the [then] Penal Code!’ ”34 Whereas
Ramadan was officially tried for treason, his sentence was relatively mild,
because with no evidence to prove it and no confession, the authorities
could not pursue a lengthily prison sentence or capital punishment. He
received eight years in prison instead of twenty or the death penalty, as the law
(Article 70 of the Penal Code) provided, while the rest got between three and
eight years. Ultimately, the reason for the discrepancy between charge and
penalty stemmed from the regime’s recognition that neither Ramadan, nor any
of his co-activists truly intended or had the capacity to overthrow the commu-
nist government. To downplay the vŭzhroditelen protses, as well as to discour-
age dissent among the people, however, the authorities put on a good
performance for the masses. Peppering it with accusations of treason, they
effectively played on people’s fears to inspire support for the vŭzhroditelen
protses. In his early forties when first arrested, Ramadan spent more than a
decade behind bars as a political prisoner.
2 Tortured Prisoner
After his sentencing, the prison authorities kept Ramadan on a regimen of
constant harassment, starvation, and sleep deprivation. At one point he spent
forty-five straight days in solitary confinement, in extremely cold tempera-
tures, deliberately flooded cell floor to keep him standing on an ice sheet, and
in a single layer of ragged clothes. “Although I was exhausted from sleepless-
ness,” he tells me, “I determined not to fall asleep by endlessly pacing around

34 Petŭr Marchev, ed., “Buntŭt na pomatsite, obvineni e izmyana i predatelstvo,” Iskra 19,
March 10, 2000.
the cell and singing to myself in Turkish.”35 Under the pretense of singing,
Ramadan got to know some of his prison mates, as well as to communicate
with them occasionally. Thus, he discovered that people from Kornitsa had
been arrested as well, among which was Ismail Byalkov, my other key infor-
mant from Istanbul. Ismail independently confirmed Ramadan’s grueling
account of isolation, abuse, and chronic starvation in prison. Branded as one
of the masterminds of Pomak organized resistance, alongside Bayram Geta-
the General and others of Kornitsa, Ramadan was deemed particularly danger-
ous and kept in a heavy security ward. Whereas the regime viewed the majority
of Muslim political prisoners simply as “troublemakers,” Ramadan was in an
entirely different category.36 He was not allowed to work in the prison wood-
shop, farm, or construction projects like most prisoners. Giving a job to
Ramadan, already used to hard work, in addition to letting him socialize with
other inmates, was tantamount to rewarding him. Therefore, they kept him
alone and barely fed. His basic prison diet consisted of bread and water. Bread,
at that, was in such short supply that without the help of working inmates he
could have starved to death. Ismail often shared his meager rations with
Ramadan out of profound respect for him. As Ramadan explains, most often
Ismail, or another inmate, would save a piece of bread and hide it in the bath-
room’s trashcans. This was the only place to safely hide food intended for a
“dangerous” prisoner without too much risk for one’s own wellbeing. The rest
of the time, Ramadan would forage the garbage containers for scraps of food
that other prisoners had discarded. Whatever he found, he shared with another
inmate, Fikret, a Turkish national convicted of spying for Turkey, and kept in
similar conditions as Ramadan.
We were in the same predicament, Fikret and I. So we’d go to the toilets

and scavenge for food—any food. The prison population was tossing all
their filth there, but sometimes they would throw excess food they
weren’t permitted to keep. Whichever one of us found any bread, we
shared it. It worked like this: Whenever they’d let him out for a walk, he’d
scavenge the trash containers for scraps of bread. If he found any, he
would eat half of it and leave the rest behind for me. When back in his
cell, he’d knock on my wall to let me know if there was any bread or not.
35 Ramadan Runtov, interview. Note: This information was independently confirmed by

Ismail Byalkov who spent time in solitary confinement under the same conditions and in
the same facility as Ramadan. (Ismail Byalkov, interview.)
36 Ismail Byalkov, interview.
166 chapter 4
A double knock meant there was bread for the other. I did the same for
him when out. . . . That’s how we survived.
Feeding from the garbage was a dangerous affair, Ramadan found out, for he
almost died of food poisoning one time. But hunger was unbearable. One day,
it was his turn to scavenge the trash containers. They had not found anything
for days. As Ramadan turned the container upside down in desperation, at the
very bottom of it, he found a piece of bread, “all blackened and such . . . tossed
there a long time ago. But I took it—took half of it. The other half, I buried back
in. I tried to wash the bread with water somewhat. It softened up a little bit. I
had no place to hide it. If the guards were to catch me with it, I’d be beaten. . . . So,
as soon as I was back in my cell, I knocked twice to Fikret and ate my half
immediately. It was just a tiny little piece. He got his own half as well.” No more
than thirty minutes later “I felt violently sick at my stomach. ‘Mother, I’m
dying!’—I thought. I could neither keep still, nor lay in any comfortable posi-
tion. I was cramping so badly that I almost lost my wits.” As Ramadan was pac-
ing back and forth in the cell, it occurred to him to drink water—as much as he
could swallow—to induce vomiting. He swallowed until he started throwing
up. “The more I drank the more I threw up. The pain was excruciating.”
Gradually, it subdued and Ramadan was able to take a breath of relief. Then, he
heard “frantic striding and stomping” on Fikret’s side of his cell.
Fikret, what’s going on?

I’m dying.
Did you eat that beard?
I did.
Then drink! Drink as much water as you can and try to vomit. That’s your
only salvation. Drink water and vomit! Drink and vomit!
We never slept that night, but we were still alive in the morning.
Chronic starvation was not the biggest of Ramadan’s problem. The abuse was
worse. If constant slapping, punching, and kicking were a daily existence, beat-
ing to unconsciousness occurred with terrifying frequency. One evening three
wardens beat him to unconsciousness. As he tried to sit up upon regaining his
senses some time later, blood gushed out of his mouth.
I reached for the bucket and pretty much bled over it for most of the
night. At that moment I truly believed I was a broken man. . . . By the
morning, I couldn’t open my mouth. It was livid and swollen. They had
been kicking me in the face apparently . . . In the morning, they brought

me some tea. I had never been given tea before. One cup of tea . . . and
some bread! Well, I was very hungry, but I couldn’t eat.
As the days progressed and Ramadan ate nothing, they called a medic to see
him. The medic, visibly nervous, opened his mouth with some difficulty and
pretty much pulled out several of Ramadan’s teeth with his fingers. “‘I can only
apply this medicine now,’ he told me, ‘and I hope that the rest of your teeth will
stay intact.’ He smeared me with some green medication that caused a tighten-
ing sensation in my mouth.” Within a month and a half, though, Ramadan lost
all his teeth. “They simply fell out,” he tells me.
Ramadan spent a total of two months and eight days in solitary confine-
ment under extreme and restrictive conditions. Whereas the cell was plenty
tall, it was not wide enough for a person to sit or lie down in any comfortable
position. A small aperture, with a single broken piece of glass on it, rattling
with every gust of winter wind, was located high above, beyond the eyes’ reach,
near the ceiling. The isolation cells were flooded with water that turned into
ice and kept the prisoners’ feet—protected only by rubber galoshes and torn
socks—cold at all times. In solitary confinement, the prison authorities
stripped the inmates’ of their own warmer clothes and gave them worn-out
prison attire instead, complemented by two thin blankets to keep them alive at
night. During the day, they took away one of the blankets, too.37
To keep himself from freezing to death, Ramadan had to stay awake. He fol-
lowed a regiment: When they would let him out to the bathroom in the morn-
ing, he would sprinkle the upper part of his body with (cold) water. Then, back
in his cell, he would wrap himself in all the clothes and blankets he had.
Shivering, he would gradually warm up a little and catch an hour or so of slum-
ber. This was the only way he could sleep for a brief while; roughly one hour
out of every twenty four. “Sleep was impossible at night,” Ramadan shares.
Those who succumbed to it at night were pretty much doomed. One morning,
he heard the guards dragging away an inmate who apparently had fallen asleep
and suffered bad frost bites. “He screamed with pain and fright—I guess—
when he saw the livid nails of his limbs in the daylight, ‘My nails are falling off!
My nails are falling off!’ he screamed as the wardens consoled him, ‘Don’t
worry! You’ll grow new ones.’ ” Placing Muslim prisoners in freezing isolation
was part of the deliberate strategy to make them sign papers declaring willing-
ness to change their names. Because Ramadan persistently refused to do so,
37 Ramadan Runtov, interview; Ismail Byalkov, interview.

168 chapter 4
thus instigating others to resist, the authorities were particularly brutal with
him. One of Ramadan’s fellow prisoners, a young man from his native village,
Kŭdri, could not make it past the third night in isolation. Ramadan just heard
him crying: “Get me out! Get me out of here! I’ll sign! I’ll sign anything you want
me to!” Indeed, they took him out and changed his name. Ramadan carried on.
Even though the prison authorities had already changed his name to
Radan, they continued to press him to submit a written consent. Such extorted
evidence was important for the regime for one and only reason: to serve as
solid proof that the name changing was voluntary. From its inception in the
early 1960s, the vŭzhroditelen protses was carried out clandestinely, and when
information of the excesses against Muslims leaked into the public space,
they were presented as a legitimate battle against extremists and traitors. In
case this rationale failed to convince the Bulgarian people or the international
community should the revival affair become known, the regime would be able
to furnish the signed declaration as hard evidence of consent to the name
changing.38 Ramadan, however, remained adamant in his determination not
to yield to pressure and sign a document to change his name both in prison
and outside.
3 Release and Re-imprisonment

In his early forties when arrested, Ramadan was almost fifty when first dis-
charged from prison. By that time, his sons had grown to young adulthood.
While still in confinement, however, my interviewee learned that his eldest son
had fled Bulgaria and made his way to Turkey. So after his release, Ramadan,
his wife and two remaining sons, one of whom was doing military service, set-
tled into a life of emotional uncertainty and economic hardship in Dolno
Izvorovo. Even though he was a master stonemason and there was dire short-
age of skilled laborers like him, Ramadan was not allowed to work. In a reality,
where everything was state-owned and controlled by the communist party, he
was denied even the most menial of jobs. Instead, he became the village’s cat-
tle herder, where people collected money among themselves to pay his meager
wage. But Ramadan was happy to be back with his family and even happier to
know that his eldest son was building a life for himself in Istanbul. Then trou-
ble struck again. Barely two or three years out of prison, Ramadan was arrested
once more after his two remaining sons, two nieces, and other young people

This can also be inferred from archival documents at the Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-
Sofia, Fond 1, Inventories 38–40, Archival Units, passim (for details, refer to chapter three).
attempted to escape from Bulgaria, but were captured. Believing Ramadan to

be the instigator of this venture, the regime detained him immediately. Unable
to prove his involvement, the authorities plea-bargained: “You take the blame
on yourself and we’ll release the two girls and your younger son?” Taking pity
on the girls, who had never been separated from their families before, as well
as considering his underage son, Ramadan accepted. “I agreed and they kept
their promise.” Ramadan says: “They let the girls and my youngest son go free
without charge.” The rest were sentenced to prison terms. Ramandan’s son,
who had deserted the army, intending to cross the border, received a year and
eight months. Ramadan was given three years, and all the rest were handed
between a year and two months to two years of incarceration. Ramadan, now
over fifty years old, spent two years and two months in the Sofia prison. He was
immediately put in the seventh ward. It was a high security ward, with no work
privileges. “Everybody else could work, but me.” Ramadan reminisces. “I lived
through two and a half months of beating there.”
They were beating me with clubs. Every morning, when I’d go to the bath-
room to wash myself and get some water, the guard at my door would hit
me with a truncheon. As I’d walk in the bathroom, another one would
strike me there. After returning to the cell, I’d be beaten one more time.
This was every day. While most prisoners shared cells with five or six
other inmates, I was locked alone. My cell was adjacent to those of death-
row inmates. I was kept with the death-row inmates. And no matter how
hard I tried to avoid the wardens’ clubs, I could not escape them. Morning,
evening—beating! This lasted for two and a half months.
Having survived almost a decade of extreme prison abuse already, Ramadan

weathered this second imprisonment with the same stoicism. He was released
in 1982, after serving two years and two months of his original three-year prison
sentence. In or out of prison, however, his life was a veritable inferno. While
behind bars he endured beating on a daily basis, outside he had to report to the
local police station day after day, wherein they locked him up for hours on end.
This constant harassment was due to the fact that Ramadan persistently
refused to accept a passport with a new Bulgarian name. Thus, he had no iden-
tity papers, and he could not work. Even though his name had already been
changed in prison, he refused to accept a passport with the name Radan, which
was strikingly similar to Ramadan. This was no coincidence. In their attempt to
make the name changing appear as harmless as possible, the communist
regime often opted for those Bulgarian names sounding closest to people’s
170 chapter 4
original names, perceived with somewhat neutral meaning. That was little
consolation to most Pomaks, however, especially the likes of Ramadan who
vividly remembered the last forced conversion and to whom a name was either
Muslim or Christian, never in between; never neutral. Therefore, to accept a
passport with Bulgarian name—any forced name—was tantamount to
betrayal of faith and identity for Ramadan.39
Because his name was changed in prison, Ramadan’s passport picture was
also taken there. When he was first imprisoned, the primary purpose of his
solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, drastically reduced food rations, and
routine torture was to induce a name changing with consent. As Ramadan
refused to do so, verbally or in writing, the prison authorities simply proceeded
to choose a name for him and issue new identification papers. For his new
passport, however, they needed his photograph. One day, prison wardens came
to his cell:
“Come with us.”

“Why?”
“The bosses need you.”
They took me to a room, where a photographer was getting ready to take
my picture—passport style.
“Sit down.”
I sat down. When he tried to take my picture, I jerked my head sideways.
Two individuals immediately restrained my arms on each side.
“Raise you head.”
I did it. But as soon as the photographer prepared to snap the picture,
I dropped it again.
“We can’t photograph him like this.”
They were angry but hesitant to beat me in front of the photographer, an
outside civilian.
Ultimately, one of the guards grabbed Ramadan’s hair and pulling his head
back, he instructed the photographer: “Shoot like this.” The person did so and
Ramadan was returned to his cell. “I had barely sat down,” recalls my infor-
mant, “when they came back.”
“Get up. Out again. The photograph is faulty.”

“I’m not coming out of here.”
“Get out.”
“No. You can get me out of here only dead.”

At length, they brought down the deputy prison chief, a bureaucrat by the
name Zhelekov, to deal with Ramadan.
“Why don’t you comply with the orders?”

“I don’t want to comply with such orders.”
“Get out.”
“No. Only dead will you get me out of here.”
Then, he gave up: “Let him be. Don’t bother with him for now.”
And I remained in my cell.
“Take the Passport or Die”
Ramadan was set free in 1982 after serving two separate terms of eight and
three years respectively. His lot in life, however, was not about to get any better.
Once Ramadan was out of prison, the harassment to accept the new passport
resumed immediately. Every day the authorities summoned him to the police
station trying to force him to take the passport, and every time he threw it to
the ground, he spent the day in jail. Then, one day, a major from the militsia, for
whom my informant had done masonry work in the past and who was very
sympathetic to him, pleaded with Ramadan: “Please, take the damn passport
and burn it, if you will, afterwards. Just take it and get out of here. They are
planning to beat you to death tonight if you refuse again, and dump your body
somewhere. You’ll die for nothing. You must take it. Take it now and do what-
ever you want with it later.” Having no reasons to distrust the officer, Ramadan
realized that the regime had had it with him and would no longer waste time
to silence him. When he walked out of the police station that day, he opened
the new passport and realized for the first time why the photograph was
“faulty.” It clearly showed a disembodied hand forcing Ramadan’s head up by
pulling back his hair.
The very next morning Ramadan wrote a long letter to Todor Zhivkov,
Bulgaria’s long-term head of state and supreme leader of the communist party.
In it, he poured the harrowing story of his life in prison: solitary confinement,
torture, hunger, broken health, everything. Enclosing his new passport with
the “faulty” photo as—what he believed to be—the indubitable testament to
his ordeal, Ramadan concluded the letter with the following appeal: “Take a
look at my passport picture and see the way it is taken! I plead with you to stop
your subordinates from violating our honor for we are human beings, too.”
Then, Ramadan placed the letter in an envelope and sent his son with it to
Gabrovo, a neighboring town, to mail it from there. In Kazanlŭk, he was already
a well-known “subversive element,” because of which, Ramadan was afraid, the
172 chapter 4
postal officials would refuse to mail his letter. From Garbrovo, however, they
did. A week later, he received a reply from the Council of Ministers reading
simply: “Your complaint has been received and will be considered.” Nothing
more! Thereafter, Ramadan continued his anti-revivalism.
Conclusion
The last decade of communist rule in Bulgaria was a turbulent one. Having
revived all Pomaks by the mid-1970s with remarkably few consequences, the
regime abandoned all caution and moved against the ethnic Turks of Bulgaria
a decade later. Unlike the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, however, who had been
recurrently targeted in the past based on nationalistic claims to their
Bulgarianness, the Turkish-speaking Muslims were quite culturally distinct
and numerous in comparison. Since the Turkish vŭzhroditelen protses is
beyond the scope of this work and an event that has been well-documented
already, it suffices to say here that it was imperative for the regime to assimilate
the Turkish Muslims precisely because they were the largest (Muslim) minor-
ity within the prevalently Christian nation-state of Bulgaria (encompassing as
much as one fifth of approximately seven-million-strong population). Thus,
the regime proceeded to change the names of the ethnic Turks in full villain’s
style—with troops, militiamen, and guns against unarmed civilian population,
in much the same fashion as against the Pomaks, but on a mammoth scale.
As news of the violence and bloodshed erupted, Turkey—“the mother
country”—raised the alarm, generating an international uproar. Four years
later, in November 1989, the communist regime in Bulgaria collapsed and the
vŭzhroditelen protses was gradually reversed.40
Whereas the end of totalitarianism in the country came about in the con-
text of the larger Soviet perestroika (political and economic reformation) and
economic collapse across Eastern Europe, dissenters like Ramadan and their
human network ultimately spread the news of the vŭzhroditelen protses and
other atrocities taking place in Bulgaria. Ramadan met Iliya Minev, Petŭr
Boyadzhiev, and Priest Blagoy Topusliev, three of the most eminent Bulgarian
dissenters from the 1980s, in prison and befriended them. After Petŭr
Boyadzhiev fled to France in the 1980s, Ramadan, his sons and a multitude of
like-minded Bulgarians, both Muslim and Christian, set up lines of communi-
cation and secretly transmitted news about the vŭzhroditelen protses to
40 For details on the vŭzhroditelen protses against the ethnic Turks, see Eminov, Turkish and
Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, passim. Also, refer to chapter three.
Boyadzhiev in Marseille, France, who subsequently alerted Western media41

and journalists.42
By the spring of 1989, Bulgaria—as most of Eastern Europe—was rocked by
massive demonstrations. People demanded freedom and the right to dignified
existence. The nation’s Muslim community likewise protested though hunger
strikes, petitions, and mass rallying to demand religious freedom and reversal
of the vŭzhroditelen protses. As Ramadan and his sons continued to transmit
news to Western Europe, they were detected and promptly arrested. Clinging
to the last remnants of power and unable to do more, the regime rounded up
the family, put them on a Vienna-bound train, and forced them out of the
country with just 50 USD in cash, in total. Ramadan and his family joined the
first group of 170 people collectively deported from Bulgaria on May 21, 1989.
Three hundred fifty thousand Turkish and Pomak Muslims would follow suit
within the next few months.43
May 21, 2007, when I interviewed Ramadan Runtov at his home in Istanbul,
was the day of the eighteenth anniversary of his coming to Turkey. I did not
think of it at the time, but after re-listening the interview, it struck me that
neither had my informant shown awareness of it. This open-hearted man was
more concerned with living a good life in the present than dwelling on the past
in bitterness. Because it was his experiences that made him who he was—hon-
orable, compassionate, and forgiving—Ramadan had nothing to regret. The
life stories of exiles like Ramadan are not only an engaging narrative of dissent,
but also an essential component of Pomak heritage. Being a direct concomi-
tant of one of the pivotal episodes in the community’s existence—the
vŭzhroditelen protses, Ramadan’s experience reflects a life pattern common to
thousands of Pomak expatriates, still permanently living abroad.
Even having achieved comfortable living for themselves in Istanbul (and
elsewhere in Turkey), these Pomak émigrés maintain a strong connection with
41 Among the media transmitting on the vŭzhroditelen protses were BBC World Service,
US-funded Radio Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle in Germany.
42 Petŭr Dobrev, “Bŭlgarskata 1989-a: Ivan ot Sliven i golemiat protest sreshtu komunizma,”
News.bg, November 26, 2009; Elisaveta Kovacheva, “Bivshi polit-emigranti osporvat zaslu-
gite na lidera na DPS,” Kontinent, August 10, 1992; Ramadan Runtov, interview.
43 Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, passim. Of the 350,000 Muslim
refugees who left Bulgaria in 1989, about 150,000 returned by 1991, while 200,000 perma-
nently settled abroad, mostly in Turkey (ibid., Eminov, 97). Subsequently, economically
motivated exodus of Bulgarian citizens with Muslim religious affiliation continued to
immigrate to Turkey well into 1994. Thousands of Pomaks, whom the regime had prohib-
ited from leaving the country prior to November of 1989 when it collapsed, left Bulgaria
for Turkey (and elsewhere) as well (see chapter three for details).
174 chapter 4
their home communities in the Rhodopes. They periodically return—many,

every year—not only to visit with friends and family, but also to attend the
funerals and marriages of loved ones. Most of the Pomak immigrants in Güneşli
come from Kornitsa, Breznitsa, and Ribnovo, the three villages that put forth
the strongest resistance to the vŭzhroditelen protses in 1973. Consequently, peo-
ple from these villages left Bulgaria in the greatest numbers during and after
1989, the final year of communist rule. Those who remained in the Rhodopes,
however, resolved to keep the Pomak heritage alive by reviving suppressed cus-
toms and making local traditions more visible than ever. One such tradition is
the stunning Ribnovo wedding, detailed in the next chapter, whose most rec-
ognizable manifestation today is the colorful mask of the bride.
chapter 5
The Ribnovo Wedding: A Pomak Tradition
Introduction
The Western Rhodope landscape, sheltering the village of Ribnovo, encom-

passes picturesque undulating hills sporadically covered with age-old trees,
thick shrubs, tobacco and corn fields, or grassy patches that move in waves
with every gust of the wind. For most of the year, the climate is pleasant, rang-
ing from moderately cold in the winter to occasionally hot in the summer. The
region harbors communities who still work the land for a living: largely small-
scale tobacco farming for cash and fruit and vegetable growing for private con-
sumption. Ribnovo is one of those agricultural communities. From early spring
to late fall, from sunrise to sunset, the villagers are busy planting, chopping,
picking, and processing the tobacco while simultaneously cultivating pota-
toes, corn, and various fruits and vegetables on small patches of arable land.
Come winter, however, there is time for respite and weddings.
The Ribnovo wedding is, above all, an opportunity for public merrymaking
whereby everyone in the community partakes either by being intimately asso-
ciated with the family-and-friend circle or simply by dancing, observing, and
gossiping as a member of the general village population. Only second to being
a public celebration is the Ribnovo wedding an elaborate ritual, a vibrant tra-
dition, saturated with colors and excitement. Almost invariably, the wedding
festivities take place in the fall or winter, just after the farm work is completed.
The Ribnovo wedding is a unique Pomak ritual surviving only in Ribnovo
today as a living testimony to the richness of bygone traditions. The process of
the wedding is an intricate historical blending of what is purely local under-
standing of life necessities and aesthetics—including in dress, in the purpose
and way of celebration, as well as in the usefulness of the dowry—on one side,
and the Islam-influenced belief system, on the other. Thus, the Ribnovo wed-
ding, as most Pomak customs, is the result of an intensive interaction between
three sets of elements: religious, linguistic, and ethno-cultural. As a Muslim
community, the Pomaks are inextricably linked to the ethnic Turks with whom
they shared the status of Ottoman Umma1 in the not-so-distant past of Bulgaria
as an Ottoman domain. As a Slavic-speaking people, they are connected to
the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Christian majority as well, which has caused
1 The totality of Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

176 chapter 5
them to be singled out for religious and cultural assimilation on more than one
occasion since Bulgaria’s independence of 1878.2 However, the relatedness to
both Turks and Bulgarians via religion and language complicates the Pomaks’
status as an ethno-cultural minority. Although religion unites them, their dif-
ferent mother tongue also sets the Pomaks apart from the Turkish-speaking
Muslims of Bulgaria. On the other hand, even though they share language with
the Bulgarian majority, the Pomaks profess a religion that has been histori-
cally construed as the “enemy’s faith” by the predominantly Eastern Orthodox
Christian Bulgarians. Thus, the Rhodopean Muslims have been placed in a pre-
carious ethno-cultural position that simultaneously connects and distances
them from the two dominant contenders for their identity within Bulgaria: the
ethnic Turks and the ethnic Bulgarians. The lack of clear sense among most
Pomaks as to just what ethnic group they belong, deepens the identity quag-
mire they are pushed into by various external forces, assigning them identities
not necessarily accepted by the community.3 Yet, those shaky grounds have
been conducive to the development of a heritage that is uniquely Pomak—
Rhodopean, local, typical of the Rhodope Muslims. The Ribnovo wedding is
one of many exquisite expressions of Pomak culture that needs preservation.
This chapter contributes to promoting, documenting, and preserving it as a
Pomak heritage.
The purpose of this chapter about the wedding tradition in Ribnovo is mul-
tifold. First, I provide a step-by-step analysis of one truly remarkable ritual, as
part of the Pomak culture, which is by no means unknown.4 This section of the
2 Detailed accounts of the assimilation of Pomaks in Bulgaria are provided in chapters two,
three, and four.
3 Although I discuss this matter elsewhere in the book, I will briefly mention that the main
contestants in the dispute over Pomak identity are Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. While
Bulgaria puts forth linguistic arguments about the Bulgarian ethnicity of the Pomaks, Turkey
points to shared religion as the main indicator of cultural identity. At the same time, because
of the strategic location of the Rhodopes between northern Greece and southern Bulgaria,
Greece insists that the Pomaks belong to the Greek ethnicity since they descend from
ancient Thracian tribes that had been once Hellenized, subsequently Romanized, Slavicized,
then Ottomanized, and finally Bulgarianized. In addition, both Bulgaria and Greece point to
physical appearance—the predominance of fair skin and blue eyes among the Pomaks—as
proof of the Pomaks’ Bulgarian and/or Greek origin. (Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim
Minorities in Bulgaria, (New York: Routledge, 1997), 102 & passim.)
4 Because of the uniqueness of the bridal make-up, not only (Bulgarian) national- and inter-
national media have broadcasted the Ribnovo wedding, but also journalists, local interest
groups, and individuals have broadly used Internet to publicized it via photographs, videos,
or films. Among these media are bTV, a leading Bulgarian television, the Bulgarian National
The Ribnovo Wedding 177
chapter includes two parts: an introduction of Ribnovo as a place and commu-

nity the way I saw it during visits in 2004, 2009, and 2013, and a descriptive nar-
rative of the traditional wedding rituals with special emphasis on the bride’s
decoration and dowry (cheiz). Second, employing an approach advanced by
the early twentieth-century Belgian anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, I ana-
lyze the wedding tradition as a major rite of passage.5 In accordance with van
Gennep’s concept, as updated by Robert Ingpen and Philip Wilkinson,6 I ana-
lyze the Ribnovo wedding as a major turning point, not only in the lives of
the individuals who marry, but also of their families and community. Through
marriage, two people simultaneously undergo separation from the life of sin-
gle individuals, make transition into the world of spousehood, and experience
reincorporation (get reintroduced) into the village society as a family unit.7
This chapter also examines a truly unique wedding tradition that has all but
disappeared outside of Ribnovo. What makes it even more special is that the
wedding, in its full ritualistic splendor, occurs only rarely. Many young couples
conduct their nuptials simply: without the intricate bridal décor so appeal-
ing to outsiders; without the live music that accounts for most of the public
entertainment; and without the processions, dowry display, or other trappings
typical of the colorful Ribnovo wedding. When a marriage takes place in all
its ritualistic manifestations, the splendor is complete. Ironically, the typical
backdrop of all the flow of colors and excitement accompanying the festivi-
ties is the gray-autumn or white-winter landscape. The drabness of the cold-
season setting, however, only enhances the vibrancy and appeal of the colorful
Ribnovo wedding.
Ultimately, this chapter examines the Ribnovo wedding in the context of
claiming and preserving Pomak culture. First, because the wedding ritual,
as practiced in Ribnovo, is unique, beautiful, and forgotten elsewhere in the
Rhodopes, it naturally stands out as an important heritage attribute. Second,
I can safely claim the Ribnovo wedding as a Pomak tradition, because the
community itself identifies as Pomak. Moreover, there is evidence, surviving
in oral testimonies and family photographs, that similar wedding rites had
been widely practiced among the Pomaks of the Western Rhodopes as early as
the 1940s and all the way until the 1970s. The Ribnovo wedding appears to be
neither a new cultural invention, nor a borrowed tradition. The evidence
Radio (BNR), Reuters, as well as Internet sites such as Pomak.net, Ribnovo.com, YouTube,
and others.
5 Arnold van Gennep, Rites of Passage (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 10–11.
6 Read section, Marriage: A Major Turning-Point in Life, of this chapter.
7 Van Gennep, passim.
178 chapter 5
suggests that the phenomenon, as seen in Ribnovo today, is a remnant of a

long-standing cultural custom once typical of and widely practiced by the
Slavic-speaking Muslims of the Western (and of the whole of) Rhodopes. As the
ritual went extinct once having been the cultural norm among the Rhodopean
Muslims, this chapter describes and analyses the Ribnovo wedding with a view
to its literary preservation as a unique manifestation of Pomak heritage.
Ribnovo: Place and People
Ribnovo, in the Western Rhodopes, is the last bastion of the traditional Pomak
wedding, the most distinctive feature of which nowadays is the exquisite facial
decoration of the bride. While in most other villages in the area, the tradition
was swept away by the vŭzhroditelen protses,8 and has since disappeared, in
Ribnovo it undergoes unusual revival and popularity. In fact, one can only
discover genuine Pomak traditions and images in more remote villages like
Ribnovo, which has shown a remarkable agility in keeping up with traditions.
Ribnovo, as it is, standing isolated at the bottom of a mountainous road in the
Bulgarian countryside—in the deep reaches of the Rhodope Mountains—har-
bors patriarchal values perhaps less affected by global uniformity than most
other places in the region (Figure 5-1).
I first visited Ribnovo in the fall of 2004 on a business-related trip, while I
was still living and working in Bulgaria. Subsequently, I returned twice, once,
in March of 2009 to conduct research and, again, in September of 2013 for a
follow-up visit. Even though I have been to Ribnovo only three times, I know
much about the way of life there—the social and economic environment, the
people and general traditions—because I was born and grew up in the Western
Rhodopes, barely an hour away from Ribnovo. In addition, I have worked and
still actively communicate with many local people, including from Ribnovo,
who have continuously rendered invaluable assistance to the present research.
The closest city to Ribnovo is Gotse Delchev, about 25–30 kilometers away
(approximately twenty miles). In order to get to Ribnovo from Gotse Delchev,
in 2004, I had to take an old, beat-up, uncomfortable socialist-style bus, so dif-
ferent from the comfortable private buses in use today, and travel uphill along
a one-lane, rugged asphalt road, perforated with potholes like Swiss cheese.
After an hour of wobbling, shaking, meandering, crawling, and pausing in
villages to deposit and accept a few passengers, the bus finally left me on a dirt
road in the middle of a small settlement.
8 For a detailed account of the vŭzhroditelen protses, see chapters three and four.
Figure 5-1 Ribnovo
This was Ribnovo. From where I stood, it looked like a cluster of houses seem-
ingly sitting atop each other, because of the ascending, picturesque summits
snuggling the village on all sides. The surrounding scenery of rolling hills cov-
ered with conifers and rocks was breathtaking. It was truly beautiful! In the
crisp-clean morning air I breathed lightly and smiled for no apparent reason.
The dirt road where I stood—a sort of main street—zigzagged in opposite
directions from me, lined on both sides by rows of stone-and-brick houses. The
houses did not strike me as luxurious then, but rather as large and solid edi-
fices providing homes for the inhabitants. The faces of the people emanated
warmth, friendliness, and curiosity all at once upon meeting my bemused
glance. It was my first time in Ribnovo, but I was not nervous. I knew that the
moment I spoke in one of the native Rhodopean dialects, any ice would break
completely, on the spot. But non-natives are not strangers here, either. The vil-
lagers frequently encounter journalists, as well as all sorts of professional and
amateur photo-researchers flocking to Ribnovo to catch a glimpse of the com-
munity’s unique lifestyle. All in all, lacking clear indication of malicious intent,
any stranger would receive the same welcome as one from the area such as
me. So, the locals are not the least surprised when an unfamiliar face shows up
in Ribnovo and approaches them with questions, followed by the inevitable
request to take a few pictures. Moreover, a timid visitor would most likely be
aided by the people if he or she appears lost in some predicament. There are
no hotels or rooms for rent in Ribnovo. Those seeking overnight accommo-
dations would board in someone’s house either by preliminary arrangements
180 chapter 5
or simply as serendipitously invited guests, free of charge. According to tradi-

tional strong hospitality, no one should be refused shelter and meal, especially
non-residents, for the locals all know each other and they can immediately tell
a local from a guest. During my first visit in 2004, I stayed with a good friend of
mine in the neighboring village of Ossikovo.
I returned to Ribnovo in early 2009, accompanied by my brother in his old
Opel Frontera. The Swiss-cheese road had been repaved, albeit still a one-lane
affair. Although the village looked familiar, the houses gave an impression of
more vibrancy and affluence. Most were now splashed in light pastel colors
and boasted marble railing and ornamentation on the outside. The two of us
parked on the same narrow public square, where the bus had left me almost
five years earlier. This place marks the broadest part of Ribnovo’s main street
and, in conjunction with the local schoolyard, serves as the main venue for
public dancing—horo9—during weddings.
Feim “Foxi” Osmanov, then a twenty-three-year-old student of the South
western University in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), was supposed to meet me there.
I did not know Foxi in person—at least not yet—but that is how one conducts
one’s business in the Rhodopes. When need calls, one trusts people one has
never met in person, almost never to be disappointed. The evening before I
went to Ribnovo, I still did not know I was going. At that point, I had no one to
rely on, for the people I knew—as it turned out—had all moved away or were
otherwise unable to help. But as it always happens in the Rhodopes—com-
pletely coincidentally—that Friday evening some relatives of ours dropped
by my parents’ home (in Vŭlkossel) and in the conversation I expressed the
concern that my original plans to visit Ribnovo had failed. A cousin of mine,
Dzepa, was among the visitors that evening. While mentioning that she had a
classmate from Ribnovo, Dzepa pulled out her cell phone and called someone.
The very next moment she handed me the phone and a short while later my
trip to Ribnovo was arranged. On the next Saturday morning, a brown-haired
young man of average build met me on the public square in Ribnovo. That was
Foxi. He took my brother and me to his house, where I proceeded to conduct a
four-hour group interview with Foxi, his mother, and his sister while watching
a video of a traditional Ribnovo wedding.
My original plan was to attend an actual event, based on the erroneous
belief that all weddings in Ribnovo were the typical colorful affair. As it turned
9 This is a type of dancing where people hold hands to form a link that often curls into double
or triple rings depending on the number of people dancing or space available. The musicians
often play their instruments standing inside the ring(s) of dancers, while the crowds of spec-
tators occupy the outer areas.
out, there were plenty of weddings to be had during my time-frame in Bulgaria,

but none was conducted in full ritual. At this point, I need to explain that,
albeit all weddings take place in the time-honored tradition—most notably,
not in the proverbial white gown of the bride, but in the colorful local attire
(Figures 5-210 and 5-3), not all elements of the complex ritual such as the bridal
mask, live music, procession, and others are always included. Some weddings
are greatly simplified to reduce expenses.11 Even though I was unable to wit-
ness the full traditional wedding personally, the Osmanov family of Ribnovo,
Kimile Ulanova of Ribnovo, the Gotse Delchev-based Safet Studio for moving
images, as well as a bTV documentary walked me step-by-step through the
Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo.12 Many other people have also become a valuable
source of information—both verbal and visual—for this project.
Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo
When bTV, a leading television media in Bulgaria, broadcasted a thirty-min-

ute documentary of a Ribnovo wedding in April of 2008, they named the film
Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo. Indeed, “colorful” is perhaps the adjective that best
describes the full-blown traditional Ribnovo wedding. Most everyone and
everything—from the bride, through her make-up and cheiz (dowry), to young
Ribnovo women (Figure 5-4)—emerge in bright, sparkling, astonishing dazzle
of colors and sequins for two full days.
On the other hand, “fairytale” is the noun that most truthfully captures
the spirit of the wedding season for two fundamental reasons. First, it marks
the time of respite from hard work in the fields, usually going on for most
of the calendar year. Second, it presents the best opportunity for entertain-
ment that the populace can get. A “fairytale” life for the community would,
thus, be the time of weddings when the worries of the harvest season are left
behind and everyone is making merry, dressed in their finest. The description
10 These are snapshots from video materials—including a wedding video of Kŭdrie and
Feim’s wedding—kindly provided by Safet Studio, Gotse Delchev (Bulgaria). All snapshots
from Kŭdrie and Feim Hatip’s wedding in this chapter are from the same material.
11 A wedding cost can absorb from eighty to a hundred percent of an average family’s annual
income. Very often, the overall expenses may be fully compensated or even exceeded by
the amount received in the form of wedding gifts, but that is not generally the case. The
cost of the bride’s cheiz (dowry) and the building of a new house for the newlyweds can
be really costly for the couple’s families.
12 A bTV documentary. bTV is a leading television media in Bulgaria (below).
182 chapter 5
Figure 5-2 Kŭdrie and Feim Hatip from Ribnovo as Bride and Groom in February 2005.
Figure 5-3 A Happy Bride.

The bride Kŭdrie as she appeared on one of the days of her wedding. She is
posing for the shot in front of her dowry.
Figure 5-4 Young Women Hold Gifts at Kŭdrie and Feim’s Wedding.
of the Ribnovo wedding as a “colorful fairytale” acquires even greater signifi-

cance, because the community itself, in the person of one female observer,
puts it forward before the bTV reporters:
You haven’t seen anything as colorful as this and you’re fascinated! It’s
like from another world to you. It’s like a fairytale really: it comes and
goes. The wedding comes and goes, then, life continues as usual [italics
added].13
Life on the semi-mechanized farms in Ribnovo, and throughout the Western

Rhodopes, is not an easy one. While only plowing and partial hauling of the
produce (tobacco, vegetables, and other) is done by tractors and other motor-
ized machinery, almost everything else is manually handled. Apparently, fac-
tors like the relatively small size of the average farm (about fifty acres) and
the difficult terrain of the Rhodope Mountains, allowing only for small and
disconnected parcels of land to be cultivated, limit the cost-effectiveness of
13 bTV, Sharena Prikazka Ribnovo. Broadcasted on April 6, 2008, in the “bTV Reporterite”
show.
184 chapter 5
Figure 5-5 The Wedding Begins.

The Ribnovo wedding begins . . . with the groom’s (Feim) brother leading the
musicians to Feim’s house.
mechanization. Once plowing takes place in the fall and/or early spring, the
intensive work continues all through the spring, summer, and fall whereupon
crops are planted, grown, picked, processed, and readied for sale. Cultivating
the tobacco—the standard cash crop of the Western Rhodopes—usually occu-
pies the time from February–March to October–November when the process
starts with germinating the tobacco seeds. After that, the tobacco gets trans-
planted, repeatedly chopped and picked in stages, sun-dried and arranged in
bales, ready to be sold. Baling begins with the autumn rain which softens the
desiccated tobacco leaves and makes them amenable to manipulation. This
work often continues well into the winter, but it is not as time- and labor-
consuming as the rest of tobacco farming is. The cold season, albeit still
demanding, remains more relaxed compared to the rest of the year and, thus,
conducive to entertainment. This is the time of the Ribnovo wedding.
On a chilly morning, when the village awakens to the languid sound of
woodwinds and drums, the wedding has begun. Usually, the typical colorful
event lasts two days. This is very much in keeping with the past when wedding
festivities went on for days. Nowadays, the cheiz, or everything that the bride
Figure 5-6 Live Music.

Accompanied by musicians, the groom’s family brings the gifts prepared for the bride
and her relatives to her parents’ house on the second day of the festivities and the
groom takes his bride home. Behind them are two other bayraks with fabrics and
clothes respectively. All these gifts will go to the bride and her family.
will bring to her husband’s house, is exhibited during the first day of the wed-
ding, normally a Saturday. In the evening on the same day, the bride’s hands are
decorated with henna, forming delicate garnet coloration in various patterns.
The Ribnovo wedding is largely a public event. Apart from the few private
aspects of it, including the bridal decoration and the dowry arrangement, the
entire village participates in the wedding one way or another. One very impor-
tant occurrence is that no formal wedding invitations exist. Members of the
community simply decide to attend the reception as relatives, friends, age-
mates, neighbors, or in whatever other capacity. Weddings across the Western
Rhodopes are generally open to the community at large, thus, being planned
for a sizeable number of people. The Ribnovo community, particularly the
womenfolk, partakes in the first-day festivities mostly by scrutinizing the cheiz
and dancing horo on the public square or another venue in the village suitable
for large congregations. The wedding is a special invitation to merrymaking
for both unmarried and married people in Ribnovo. For the former, it largely
means an opportunity to find a potential spouse, while for the latter—to get
186 chapter 5
some entertainment before the farm work resumes. The first day of the Ribnovo
wedding is also a day when only the groom feasts with his family, relatives, and
friends. The bride’s side of the family does the feasting on the next day. The
expenses are incurred by the parents of both bride and groom for their own
guests respectively. The wedding guests, on their part, bring gifts in the form of
food, money, and various household items. The young couple must be present
during both receptions to formally accept the gifts and congratulations.
On the second day of the wedding, normally a Sunday, the groom’s side
of the family prepares the so-called bayraks (Figure 5-7). Typically, these are
“T”-shaped wooden constructions of various sizes, suspended from which are
all the gifts the groom has prepared for his wife-to-be and in-laws. Usually, the
gifts include articles of clothing and paper money. The groom’s relatives carry
the bayraks, as well as other gifts, to the bride’s house accompanied by live
music and a throng of participants and curious spectators. At the head of the
procession is a close relative (a brother or cousin) of the groom who carries
a (blue) flag—symbol of hospitality—topped with a bouquet of evergreens
and money. When the slow-moving procession finally arrives at the gates of
the bride’s home, they will have to face a small party of young men—bride’s
relatives—blocking the entrance. As tradition requires, the groom’s family
Figure 5-7 Kŭrdie’s Father Lifts the Bayrak with One Hand and Drops a Bill to the Bearer with
the Other.
Figure 5–8: Kŭdrie’s Mother and Father Carefully Assist Her Out on the Way
to Her New Life as a Wife.
Figure 5-8 Kŭdrie’s Mother and Father Carefully Assist Her Out on the Way to Her New
Life as a Wife.
literally buys their way in by handing the youngsters some cash in return for
being let in. Failing to be generous could entail a considerable social embar-
rassment, so grooms (or their parents), who do not wish to be labeled “tight-
wads,” prepare the cash in advance and in abundant quantity. Gaining access
to the bride also has a vital symbolic significance at this point since the groom
has essentially arrived to take his bride home. Once the groom’s procession
is past the gate barrier, they pass the bayraks on to the parents of the bride.
This time around, it is the bride’s family’s turn to pay for accessing the gifts
in the same way. A male relative—normally the father or older brother of the
bride—hands out some small change to each bayrak-bearer, thereafter, taking
possession of the gift.
After the cash-bayrak exchange, along with pausing for photographs, it is
time for the bride’s parents to bid farewell to their daughter and ritualistically
surrender her to the in-laws. The groom and his family will take the bride to her
new home for the first time. She now wears the elaborate mask which prevents
her from opening her eyes or lips. The bride walks out of her parent’s home
silently and blindly, gently assisted by her mother and father or other family
members along the way (Figure 5-8).
188 chapter 5
Figure 5-9 Kŭdrie Wearing Full Bridal Make-up.
While wearing the make-up, she keeps her eyes shut and carries a mirror before
her. Tradition requires that she does not look back—she can only look in the
mirror, if at all—at her girlhood home, because it is considered a bad omen for
the stability of her future life as wife and mother. On a more mundane level,
the purpose of the mirror is a very practical one: to help the bride navigate her
way forward since her gaze is inevitably obstructed by the heavy sequin make-
up applied on her eyelids as well (Figure 5-9).
It is not clear how the tradition of decorating the bride with sequins and
tinsel started. But a clue to the mask’s possible purpose may be found in a com-
ment by Dr. Margarita Karamikhova, ethnographer at the Bulgarian Academy
of Science:
All we know about this proverbial colorful bride—as you put it—is that it
is some type of decoration that replaces the bride’s veil, which also signi-
fies a clear transition in status [of the bride, from girlhood to matrimony].
This means that you change your appearance: disappear in the dark,
covered one way or another, including by veil or garment. Then, when
the [wedding] ritual is over, you reemerge in a new status [of a married
woman], including by change in appearance.* As yet, however, none of us

[scholars] can tell when and how this tradition came about.14
* [For instance, married women in Ribnovo are usually less adorned and
wear more mundane clothing than girls.]
Regarding bridal veiling, Arnold van Gennep makes an interesting reference

to the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch who once rhetorically remarked:
“ Why do people veil their heads when worshiping the gods? . . . The answer
is simple: [They do that] to separate themselves from the profane [secular]
and to live in the sacred [religious] world.”15 In similar line of reasoning, one
might interpret the elaborate “veiling” of the Ribnovo bride as a symbol of her
separation from the world of adolescence and girlhood and permanent incor-
poration into the world of wifehood and potential parenthood. The physical
act of bridal veiling may be a temporary—rather than permanent—condition,
Arnold van Gennep says, but when the veil falls, it permanently shuts one door
and opens another one that leads to the next stage of the bride’s life: the world
of family responsibilities.16
Despite the uncertainty as to origins, however, the tradition of bridal deco-
ration is not a new invention. Oral and photographic evidence suggests that
the ritual was thriving in the (Western) Rhodopes during the early twentieth
century, but completely disappeared by the mid-1970s, when the vŭzhroditelen
protses uprooted it. Indeed, Margarita Karamikhova’s submission that the
bridal mask is a sort of veil replacement appears to be correct. According to the
oral testimony of Vassilka Alimanska, a (Bulgarian Christian) school teacher in
the village of Debren, the Western Rhodopes (near Ribnovo) during the 1930s
and 1940s, the following was typical of Pomak weddings:
Weddings in those days went on for weeks. The bride used to be covered
with red veil. That’s the way the brides were done until 1944 [a dual year of
14 Ibid., bTV documentary.

15 In his book, The Rites of Passage, Arnold van Gennep places great importance on the
distinction between the concepts of the sacred and the profane while analyzing the rites
of passage. In a nutshell, unlike other cultural scholars of his time, Gennep does not see
religion as the underlying force of all ceremonies in a given societies. Instead, he holds
that the sacred is not an absolute value, but one that is relative to the situation. However,
since this distinction does not have a major bearing on this chapter, I have altogether
excluded it from discussion (van Gennep, 168).
16 Van Gennep, 168.
190 chapter 5
Figure 5-10 Bride Nadzhie Ulanova, Soon-to-be-Chavdarova, Fully Clad in the Traditional
Way, 2009.
(Courtesy of Kimile Ulanova)
the latest Pomak pokrŭstvane and communist takeover in Bulgaria]. On

the forehead, in the form of wreath, multicolored sequins were arranged.
I loved going to these weddings and looking at the brides for hours. The
brides’ adornment existed until 1975 [the year the vŭzhroditelen protses
among the Pomaks was finalized], but without the veil: dressed in purple
shalvars [broad trousers], sequined aprons, and embroidered tyulbens
[headscarves]. During wedding, the women of the family and the neigh-
borhood would prepare pastries and go to see the bride.17
This testimony very precisely points at the reason and timeframe of change and
disappearance, first, of the bridal veiling, and, then, of the decorative mask.
Apparently, the veil—an integral part of Muslim women’s attire in Ottoman
times (roughly 1400 to 1900)—was still worn by at least some Pomak women
until the 1940s. Veiling certainly appears to have been a part of the bridal attire.
However, Bulgaria’s persistent attempts to assimilate the Pomaks, including by
suppressing their traditional attire, resulted in the disappearance of veiling by
the early 1940s.18 By 1975, when the renaming of all Pomaks happened, the last
remnants of a range of cultural traditions peculiar to the community—nota-
bly, the bridal decoration—had died out as well.
Another testimony from the village of Breznitsa (the Western Rhodopes) not
only provides further details about the tradition of decorating the bride earlier
in the twentieth century, but also alludes to its common practice throughout
the Western Rhodopes:
The most interesting was the decoration of the [bride’s] face and head.
A specially commissioned woman would come to decorate the bride:
the face would be thickly covered with belilo [literally, whitener, i.e., cos-
metic crème], the eyebrows would be blackened, and two circles would
be drawn on the cheeks with lipstick. Then, the sequins and especially
made rhomboid shapes cut out of colored foil would be arranged on the
17 Anastasiya Pashova et al., Semeystvo, Religiya, Vsekindevie na Myusyulmanite v Zapadnite

Rodopi (Sofia, Bulgaria: IK Sema RSH, 2002), 79–80. Memories of Vassilka Alimanska,
school teacher in the village of Debren, Western Rhodopes, from the 1930s and 1940s.
18 The first comprehensive pokrŭstvane happened during the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars (see
chapter two), followed by partial attempts at Pomak Christianization in the 1930s and
1940s. After the communists’ takeover in 1944–1945, the assimilation culminated in the
1972–1974 vŭzhroditelen protses, which put an end to all remnants of the bridal masking
tradition in the (Western) Rhodopes. The eradication of veiling and fezzing as part of the
Muslim dress was an objective already achieved in pre-communist Bulgaria.
192 chapter 5
face. A small cap would be placed on the head, the visible side of which
was decorated with various bead strings and small gold coins suspended
from the cap’s top. A white veil would then be placed over the cap, on
top of which came [sheer] red or blue veil floating freely on both side
of the face. Her [the bride’s] hands were painted with henna. The bride
would then place her hands on her belly with one palm resting atop the
other. Henna covered her hands because she did not wear apron [to place
them under]. Then she would be shown out from the balcony—givya-
ing, [i.e.,] not looking or talking at all—to a crowd of onlookers that had
come especially to see her.
The quote continues:
When the bride walked out of her parental home, her eldest brother
would cover her with the ferezhe [outer cover garment], because from
then on she was a married woman and the ferezhe would become part
of her attire. Her mother would place three kernels of corn wrapped in
kerchief under her right arm so that she could bring the nafaka [good
fortune] into her new home. Her face and head would be covered with
red fabric called duvak. While she was coming down the stairs, her father
would sprinkle her with oat grains and small candy, sifted through a col-
ander which he would be turning to the exit door. Once in the groom’s
house, . . . he [the groom] would come down and uncover her face. Here,
she would sit down on the bed to givey [sit motionless and speechless]
again till sundown. In the evening, the hodzha [hoca, Muslim cleric]
would arrive to marry the couple.19
Photographic evidence, on the other hand, also testifies that similar rituals of
bridal masking and (tinsel) veiling existed throughout the Western Rhodopes
all the way to the mid-1970s, when most Pomak traditions were altogether dis-
couraged as a part of the communist regime’s sustained effort to assimilate the
community.
This and other photographic evidence represent a sampling of villages from
across the Western Rdodopes—from Ribnovo, through Vŭlkossel, to Yakoruda.
In Vŭlkossel, for example, every family album from the late 1960s and early
1970s contains pictures where a grandmother, great aunt, or other female rela-
19 Pashova et al., 80–81. The authors quote the book Breznitsa—Minalo, pesni i traditsii
(Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria: 2002).
Figure 5-11 Sanie and Mehmed Myuhtar.

As bride and groom in 1972, Vŭlkossel, the Western Rhodopes (the author’s parents).
The bride is decorated with colored sequins arranged in floral patterns, but without
the cakey belilo on the face. Instead, an egg white is used to secure the sequins
in place.
(The Myuhtar Family Album. Wedding photograph of the author’s
parents, Vŭlkossel, January 1972)
tive is elaborately decorated. My mother (Figure 5-11) wore her own sequined
mask on a cold January day of 1972, when she was a young bride of eighteen.
The portrait of her and my father on their wedding day has hung on the wall of
my parents’ house for as long as I can remember. As a result of the questions it
prompted me to ask, I came to understand early on that brides no longer looked
the same way because the communist regime would not allow it (although I
did not understand why). When, years later, my research enabled me to look
deeper into the Pomak community’s culture, I discovered that nearly all of my
female relatives or neighbors that were brides in the same time period (this
was the time when taking one’s picture became more broadly available and
trendy) were decorated. Figures 5-13 through 5-16 show Vŭlkossel brides who
are dressed and decorated in nearly identical fashion. Whereas the wedding
attire is merely an upgraded version of what a woman would usually wear, the
194 chapter 5
Figure 5-12 Wedding of Fatme Aguleva of Kornitsa, the Western Rhodopes, 1967.
While the bride is certainly decorated, it cannot be established to what degree,
mainly because of the tinsel veiling over her face.
(The Cesur Family Album)
Figure 5-13 Wedding Photograph Atie Hadzhieva of Vŭlkossel, 1971.

The bride Atie is decorated in a slightly different fashion than the typical belilo-
based, lipstick-circle centered bridal make-up (below). With no crème foundation,
the facial adornment forms branches and leaves rather than flower petals emanat-
ing from a red midpoint.
(The Hadzhiev Family Album)
Figure 5-14 Wedding of Atidzhe and Mustafa Chavdarov of Vŭlkossel, 1972.

The bride Atidzhe, with husband Mustafa and relatives, decorated in the—more or
less—traditional style: sequins arranged around two large red cores on both cheeks,
as well as two spread-out floral patterns on the chin and forehead respectively. The
bride has no belilo foundation. Most probably, the sequins were applied onto the
bride’s face with an egg white or another natural glue substance.
(The Chavdarov Family Album)
196 chapter 5
Figure 5-15 Wedding of Sadbera and Izir Chavdarov of Vŭlkossel, 1968.

(The Chavdarov Family Album)
Figure 5-16 Wedding of Nadzhibe and Natŭk Dermendzhiev of Vŭlkossel, Early 1970s.
(The Dermendzhiev Family Album)
198 chapter 5
decoration and veil clearly marked the bride. A bride was always decorated to
distinguish her from other, similarly dressed women on her wedding day. Thus,
just as the Ribnovo bride today dons her wedding mask—only much more
ornate and colorful—so did Pomak women across the (Western) Rhodopes as
late as 1972–1973, before the vŭzhroditelen protses took full effect.
As the available evidence indicates, the process of decorating the bride in
Ribnovo today appears to be uniform with the past. The belilo, or thick cos-
metic crème, remains the primary foundation for the elaborate mask, even
though the decorative pieces are now conveniently replaced by industrially
manufactured sequins, Rhine stones, beading, and tinsel. The modern Ribnovo
bride is always prepared by women who have a great deal of know-how regard-
ing bridal adornment. The decoration involves the following process: The
bride’s face is thickly covered with belilo. Using a lipstick, usually red, the deco-
rator marks several red spots on strategic points of the bride’s face, usually two
larger spots on each side and two smaller ones on the forehead and chin. Shiny,
colorful sequins are then carefully arranged around the red “cores”—directly
over the belilo—into stylized floral patterns. As a final step, the decorator com-
pletes the make-up by tracing the bride’s lips and darkening her eyebrows
with lipstick and eye liner respectively. After some finishing touches and last-
minute corrections, the make-up is ready. Now the bride’s face is essentially a
mask that she has to preserve intact for up to several hours. She does that by
keeping an expressionless face. Once the facial adornment is done, the bride
arranges her attire with the help of other women. She is partially dressed in her
bridal clothing when the facial adornment is applied. Afterwards, she puts on
some warmer top garments and veil. The outer layer of the garment consists of
(1) a highly ornate bodice that clasps at the waist line below the chests, (2) an
apron, usually hand-woven of bright treads, and (3) a thin black cloak, ferezhe,
customarily worn by married women in the community (Figure 5-10).
In the past, the decoration of the bride took place in strict privacy, only in a
very narrow family circle. Although it remains a largely intimate ritual, those
especially interested, including journalists and researchers, may negotiate
access to it with the family. Once the heavy facial make-up is applied, the bride
can no longer talk or hold her eyes opened. As a result, it has become tradi-
tional for the bride to keep silent lips and closed eyes to preserve the intricate
mask which must remain intact from midday to nightfall on the second day
of the wedding. Karamikhova (above) contemplates the importance of being
silent for the bride on the day she parts with girlhood to become a wife:
The bride is the center of attention that day without touting her presence.
She is quiet. This is her biggest day. After that, the whole world would fall
on her shoulders: the world of children; of life without a husband, for

he would probably be far away—abroad—earning a living. Perhaps this
solitude is good for her. She has the day to herself—to think about all
she is giving up [as a single woman] and receiving in return. That’s why,
perhaps, this decoration—like a mask—is beautiful! Because it hides her
emotions! It helps her keep them to herself.20
When the bride walks out of her parental home, she pauses to present her in-
laws with gifts, prepared in advance as part of her dowry. To show respect and
acceptance of her mother- and father-in-law as her new family, she ritually
kisses their hands. “When the gelina [bride] comes out,” says the bTV bride’s
sister-in-law, “she presents us—the nearest [groom’s] relatives—with gifts.
And now we will take her home. We will collect her dowry and bring her with
us. There, the groom will remove her make-up and . . . that’s it.”21
The two day-wedding ritual culminates into the couple’s becoming a hus-
band and wife at the end of the second day. This means that the bride and
groom will be intimate for the first time that night. In fact, in Ribnovo, only a
girl that goes chaste to her husband’s house can become a bride or gelina. If a
girl elopes before being married in the traditional way, she cannot be gelina in
the strictly ritualistic sense. While most young people marry with their par-
ents’ consent, sometimes eloping occurs where the girl- or boy’s parents dis-
approve of their son- or daughter’s choice of partner. Once the young couple
has eloped, however, the parents have to accept the situation. In this case, the
girl joins her husband’s household only after a mundane civil and/or religious
marriage. But there is no traditional wedding ritual to celebrate the occasion.
The Cheiz
Like the mask, the dowry is an important attribute of the vibrant Ribnovo
wedding. Tradition requires that the groom’s family provides a dwelling for the
newlyweds, while furnishing the new home is the responsibility of the bride’s
parents (as far as their means allow). Thus, the cheiz includes everything that
is deemed necessary for establishing a new household. While the volume, vari-
ety, and value vary from bride to bride depending on her family’s means, com-
mon dowry items include articles of clothing and fabrics, rugs, bedspreads,
pillows, towels, furniture, and kitchen appliances. Referencing the Safer Studio
20 bTV documentary (above).

21 Ibid.
200 chapter 5
Figure 5-17 Cheiz Display.

This photograph, which I took at a random wedding in Ribnovo in 2009 (during
which the bride was not decorated), shows a living-room and bedroom sets, rugs,
bedspreads, curtains, tablecloths, decorative pillows, and various knits and fabrics
exhibited for public scrutiny. Among the items in an average dowry usually are
television sets, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens
and other household and electronic utensils. The reason some of those items may
be missing in this case could be the rain that day where bulkier and more sensitive
electronic articles were kept dry, indoors. More textile dowry is displayed on the
balcony of the house to which the bride probably belongs (her parents’ home). The
observing crowd is small on occasion of the rain and the lack of live music during
this particular wedding.
video material, Kŭdrie’s dowry contains bedding, bedroom furniture, carpets,

curtains, appliances, dishware, glassware, living-room furniture, a television
and other electronics.
It is a tradition in Ribnovo to display the bride’s dowry on special lumber
constructions placed along the street in front of the bride’s parental house
so that everyone could see it. Although the colors are rich and the composi-
tion seemingly chaotic, the overall arrangement pleases the eyes. This should
come as no surprise since the women of the bride’s household execute the
arrangement with a great deal of fuss and attention to details. They are pain-
fully aware that their work will be scrutinized by the entire female community
of Ribnovo and beyond. That is why, early on the first day of the wedding, the
bride’s family works busily. The men erect timber frames and help with mov-
ing the heavier items, while the women arrange the cheiz according to their
own rules of harmony and proportion. The most immediate practical rule is
to move from the largest to the smallest article in the process of arrangement.
Thus, the women place the largest rugs, carpets and covers on the frames first.
Onto those they affix the smaller tablecloths, fabrics, pillow cases, and such-
like, with the tiniest and most decorative units resting atop everything else.
The furniture and kitchen utensils are displayed separately. Overall, the more
colorful the ensemble, the more beautiful it is perceived to be. Once the cheiz
is exhibited, crowds of spectators—mostly women—gather to observe and
trade comments (Figure 5-17).
The Essence of the Ribnovo Wedding
Life in the course of the wedding is simultaneously intimate, communal, hec-

tic, vivacious, exhausting, exciting, disappointing, gloomy, hopeful, concilia-
tory, bountiful, and gossipy. It is in this web of complex emotions, reflective
of the conservative-patriarchal social and cultural environment of the com-
munity that the essence of the Ribnovo wedding emerges. The wedding has
several essential components. First, the wedding is primarily a family affair. It
is the family of the bride, the groom, or both together that organize the event,
bear the cost of it, actively participate in it, and altogether make the wedding
possible. Moreover, marriage brings people together not only during the prepa-
ration and celebration of the tradition, but also for life by creating ties between
families and communities. Second, communal feasting is a vital factor in the
wedding. In Ribnovo, each of the newlyweds’ families invites their relatives and
friends to a banquet to celebrate their son or daughter’s marriage. Interestingly
enough, however, the families feast separately. The groom’s side gathers for an
afternoon meal, gift-giving, and dancing on the first day of the festivities at a
local restaurant or eatery especially booked for the occasion. The bride’s side
does the same on the following day, or vice versa. Overall, it is more traditional
in the Western Rhodopes for the groom’s family to pay all reception expenses,
while the bride’s parents provide the dowry. However, since a wedding can be
very costly, sharing expenses is important. The solution to a financial predica-
ment in Ribnovo is ingenious: detached feasting and half the cost per fam-
ily. Third, the wedding is an important community celebration. In Ribnovo,
not only the extended family, but also the entire community of neighbors
turns out at the wedding festivities for socializing and good cheer. Not only
202 chapter 5
is the full, traditional Ribnovo wedding a grand occasion for everybody to be

entertained, but it is often the only occasion, particularly for women. There are
no bar clubs or discothèques in Ribnovo. Although there are plenty of cafés to
congregate in and chat with friends, these are largely the domain of men. In
this conservative social milieu, eligible bachelors and bachelorettes meet on
the street, before everybody’s eyes. Young people in Ribnovo date while partak-
ing in the so-called dvizhenie (promenading) during which girls—in groups of
two, three, or more—stroll back and forth along the main street of the village
so that (potential) boyfriends could meet and talk with them. The dvizhenie
usually continues until dusk. It is particularly dynamic during the wedding
season, when farm work is at a standstill. Fourth, the wedding is an arena for
enacting socio-cultural norms. In Ribnovo, although both men and women are
expected to live up to rigorous social norms of moral integrity and connubial
truthfulness—norms influenced by Islam—a husband’s indiscretion is less
likely to break a marriage than a wife’s one. It would be a matter of personal
honor for a man to divorce an unfaithful wife and one of social survival for a
woman to stay in a disloyal union. The type of class-related antagonism, mark-
edly observable in more urban societies, is less pronounced in Ribnovo since
most people share the more-or-less egalitarian status of small farmers.
It is paramount for the young people of Ribnovo to marry within their vil-
lage community where they feel most comfortable. This is especially true for
women who rarely marry outside Ribnovo. To wed someone from the village
is more prestigious than marrying outside. Those who choose a non-Ribnovo
husband, after all, do it either for love or because they cannot find a suitable
match in their home community.22 Ultimately, however, what is important
to the people in Ribnovo is not merely keeping with rigid social norms, but
preserving the world they know the way they know it through observing the
norms. Life in a familiar and controlled environment is secure and predictable,
while life beyond people’s reach is foreign, frightful, and unwanted. In Ribnovo,
not only will parents suffer the undesired partner of choice of their offspring,
but they will take steps to prepare for the wedding, usually by incurring the
cost of it. As long as the integrity of the family and community is ensured and
life goes on as usual, every union—even an initially deplored one—will come
to be accepted and even celebrated via the wedding ritual. Thus, the custom of
marriage emerges as a vital act of—and even quest for—preserving the status
quo in the community both: (1) by ensuring smooth transition from singlehood
to marriage for two young individuals and (2) by averting a crisis that may arise
out of opposition to a perceived bad match. In other words, the wedding ritual
22 The Osmanov Family (Feim, Fatme and their mother), interview by author, Ribnovo,
Bulgaria, March 7, 2009.
rises as a flag of celebration when a marriage is desired and as a white banner

of surrender when it is not so, all for the purpose of averting crisis and keeping
family affairs going.
Marriage: “The Key Turning Point in . . . Adult Life”23
Marriage is a cornerstone in two people’s lives, as well as the lives of their fami-
lies and communities. According to Arnold van Gennep,24 responsible for first
systematizing the rites of passage in the social sciences, marriage is one of the
major rites of passage in human existence together with childbirth, coming of
age, and death.25 Expanding on van Gennep’s proposition, Robert Ingpen and
Philip Wilkinson write:
Birth, coming of age, marriage, death. Whoever we are and wherever we

live, we cannot avoid these great climaxes and crises of life. People need
to ease these changes in a number of ways. And a change of status needs
to be made known to the community. Rituals to signal and mark these
key life changes—rites of passage, as they are called—occur in all human
societies and they seem to fulfill a basic human need.26
As the authors contend, all humans experience major life changes—“crises of

life”—during marriage, the birth of a child, puberty, or the death of a loved
one. Once those changes take place, the person(s) affected re-enter society in a
new role, status, or position as husbands or wives, mothers or fathers, widows
or widowers, and so on. People feel the need to go through these life changes
as close to their normal routine as possible under the circumstances of crises.
As a result, the community performs rituals to help smooth the transition of
any given members from their old to their new status, as well as to announce
the change to society at large. Thus, principal rituals such as weddings are
designed not only to mark a major change in the lives of two people, but also
to facilitate their transition from the world of singlehood to matrimony and to
ensure their successful reintroduction into society as a family unit.
23 Robert Ingpen and Philip Wilkinson, A Celebration of Customs and Rituals of the World
(New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996), 77–78.
24 Van Gennep is a Belgian anthropologist and folklorist who became influential with his
concept of the rites of passage in cultural theory at the turn of the twentieth century.
25 Van Gennep, passim.
26 Wilkinson and Ingpen, 43.
204 chapter 5
In 1908, when van Gennep’s Les Rites de Passage first appeared, no classifica-
tion of rites existed.27 Published initially in French, his theories languished in
semi-obscurity for over fifty years. With the release of an English edition in the
1960s, van Gennep’s rites-of-passage classification and the concept of schema
(meaning pattern, process, structure, and/or dynamic) have become recognized
contributions to anthropology and social theory in general. In a nutshell, van
Gennep defines the customs and rituals that mark major disruptions in the life
of an individual or group as rites of passage. The basic schéma of these rites
of passage incorporates three stages: a) separation (séparation), b) transition
(marge), and c) incorporation (agrégation).28 Clarifying on the concept of the
schéma, van Gennep says:
Rites of separation are prominent in funeral ceremonies, rites of incor-

poration at marriages. Transition rites may play an important part, for
instance, in pregnancy, betrothal, and adoption, in the delivery of a sec-
ond child, in remarriage, or in the passage from the second to the third
age group.29
Based on van Gennep’s overall notion of schema, one can generalize defini-
tions of separation, transition, and reincorporation that apply to all major rites
of passage, including marriage. Separation occurs not only at death, but gen-
erally when a person parts with his or her present social role to accept a new
one. Thus, the rites of marriage and (first) childbirth can also be interpreted
as rites of separation since, in the first instance, two people part with single-
hood to re-emerge as a family unit and, in the second instance, they separate
from the status of non-parenthood to join that of parenthood. Transition is the
period of adjustment to a new role, status, or position a person has acquired in
society. As Wilkinson and Ingpen indicate, transition often manifests itself by
physical and social transformations30 such as those accompanying a woman’s
motherhood or an individual’s puberty when some exterior features change
and social responsibilities grow. Re-incorporation happens when an individual
is successfully reintegrated into society in his or her new status. In marriage,
two former single persons would have successfully re-entered society as a unit
after establishing a family, and potentially raising healthy children. In all three
stages separation, transition, and re-incorporation, customs and rituals help
27 In the introduction to The Rites of Passage (above) by Solon S. Kimbali (van Gennep, xxv).
28 Kimbali, in van Gennep, vii.
29 Van Gennep, 11.
30 Ingpen and Wilkinson, 43.
ease the stress on people as they undergo “life crises” and re-establish them-
selves as productive members of society.
The Ribnovo marriage, too, qualifies for a “life crisis,” defined by its own
phases of separation, transition, and re-incorporation. Whereas, for the pur-
poses of this chapter, the wedding day(s) is the culmination of the marriage
rite, there is a long period of preparation for marriage that precedes the wed-
ding and another, shorter period of adjustment (transition before permanent
incorporation) to marriage that follows the wedding. Young Ribnovo girls grow
knowing that they will marry and move to their future husband’s house some-
day. Thus, a girl in Ribnovo (as in many other Pomak villages in the Rhodopes)
is helping prepare her cheiz, often for years, before she actually marries. This
usually happens by her saving money for furniture, kitchen appliances, or
clothing, or by knitting, embroidering, crocheting, and sewing garments or
household articles. Ribnovo girls could be engaged in cheiz-preparing activi-
ties since the age of twelve or thirteen, if not younger.
Another important aspect of the pre-marriage period is the courtship
between a girl and a boy. While some young couples that may end up being mar-
ried could have a courtship lasting for years, others have relatively brief rela-
tionships. Certainly, a young married couple—if both from Ribnovo—would
know each other and one another’s families prior to marriage since Pomak vil-
lages are usually very tight-knit, especially Ribnovo. Because of this familiarity,
the relatives of both young people would generally be very involved in the pro-
cess of courtship and marriage. Indirectly, family members could offer advice
or express opinion about a potential match, and, more directly, they could
cause or prevent marriage itself. In fact, the godezh (engagement), shortly
preceding the wedding, is entirely directed by the family. Once a romance is
budding, a boy’s family member(s) approach the prospective bride’s family to
formally ask for her hand in marriage. In a series of visits following on both
sides, arrangements are made and plans are set in motion for a wedding. After
the wedding, there will be a period of adjustment to married life, especially
for the bride who joins her husband’s household. Unlike the marriage prepa-
ration period, however, which could last for years, the marriage-adjustment
period is relatively short by comparison. However, the bride will need time
to achieve the same level of comfort living in the husband’s household as in
her parents’ home. This usually happens after the birth of the first child, if not
sooner. Ultimately, the Ribnovo marriage is truly a central and complex rite
of passage for two people and their families. It has its own unique stages of
separation (from single life, from the parents’ home), transition (pre-marriage
preparation, marriage adjustment), and incorporation (into the “married,”
spousehood, and parenthood circle) which permeate one another and
206 chapter 5
culminate in the Ribnovo wedding. The colorful wedding ritual distracts from
the anxiety that accompanies this major change in anyone’s adult life and
helps two individuals adjust to their new circumstances, in merrymaking.
In A Celebration of Customs and Rituals of the World, Ingpen and Wilkinson
suitably describe the intended purpose of rituals in any given cultural com-
munity in the following way:
By relieving the stress within a community that can surround change,

they [rituals] help to prevent social disruption. By bringing people
together, they foster cooperation. By providing clear instructions to indi-
viduals, they help people to live up to society’s expectations.31
Customs and rituals, they contend, are important in society for three essential
reasons: (i) to smooth the transition from one crucial stage of human existence
into another without disrupting society’s life; (ii) to bring people together and
create a sense of community among them; and (iii) to provide important guid-
ance to the newlyweds as to the values, norms, and responsibilities they have
in society as a family unit.32
Indeed, the passage from one stage of a person’s life into another—from
single to married life, for instance—entails a major change not only in that
person’s social condition, but also in the social condition of his or her family
group, and potentially of the whole community. Because difficulties accom-
pany these changes, rituals play a pivotal role in reducing the anxiety that
people experience. As van Gennep aptly puts it:
Such changes of condition do not occur without disturbing the life of

society and the individual, and it is the function of the rites of passage to
reduce their harmful effects. That such passages are regarded as real and
important is demonstrated by the recurrence of rites . . . among widely
differing peoples [and societies] . . . [emphasis added].33
Because people design and enact them with a view to alleviating social dis-
turbances occurring at key points in every person or group’s lifecycle, customs
and rituals are indispensable for the proper functioning of any given society.
The wedding is one of those fundamental rituals. In fact, van Gennep defines
marriage as “the most important of the transitions from one social category to
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Van Gennep, 13.
another, because for at least one of the spouses it involves a change of family,
clan, village, or tribe, and sometimes, the newly married couple even estab-
lishes residence in a new house.” In other words, marriage constitutes a major
disturbance in the life of two individuals, two families, and their community—
even though it is generally perceived as a joyous event—so the wedding cere-
mony is intended to facilitate the process of adjustment from single to married
life of the couple, as well as to jumpstart the couple’s successful reintegration
into society as a family.
As many people, particularly in Ribnovo, take part in the initiation of a
new family, they have a stake in a marriage, and certain share of that stake is
economic. Thus, the economic aspect is inherent in the wedding rite. In the
Ribnovo wedding, this is clearly indicated by the gift exchange between two
families, the bride’s cheiz, and the overall wedding expenses. Often, all par-
ties involved have a vested interest in the economic component of a marriage,
but none of them more so than the couple and their immediate families who
usually bear the bulk of the wedding expenses. On a more abstract level, the
extended families-, friends- and community’s stake lies in the future success of
the marriage. The effort and expense the latter put into organizing the ritual
transpires as an important investment into the proper functioning of society.
As van Gennep puts it, “the bonds of marriage have joined not only two indi-
viduals, but above all the collectivities to which the maintenance of cohesion
is important.”34
In the author’s terms, moreover,
[t]o marry is to pass from the group of children or adolescents into the
adult group, from a given clan to another, from one family to another, and
often from one village to another. An individual’s separation from these
groups weakens them but strengthens those he [or she] joins.35
In the Ribnovo ritual, the bride is the one who leaves her family to join her
husband’s household. As a result, it is the bride’s family that gets weakened. To
postpone the weakening as much as possible, the members of the bride’s clan
symbolically place obstacles before the groom on his way to the bride. Such
obstacles can be barring the gate before the seekers who have come to uproot
the bride from the security of her parental home to plant her into an alien
environment, the groom’s place.36 The groom and his family have to pay their
34 Ibid., 120.
35 Ibid., 124.
36 See the section, Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo, of this chapter.
208 chapter 5
way into the bride’s house in order to gain access to her so that the marriage
ceremony can proceed to its expected culmination, the formation of a new
family.
Further in the analysis, van Gennep makes another important observation
applicable to the case of Ribnovo. He points out that every marriage poses a
social disturbance in any given community’s equilibrium.37 But while that
phenomenon is scarcely noticed in . . . [the] big cities, . . . it is more appar-

ent in remote corners of our countrysides where weddings are occasions
for a stoppage of production, an expenditure of savings, and an awaken-
ing from the usual apathy. . . . The impact of a marriage on a group’s daily
life seems to me to explain . . . why marriages are held in spring, winter,
and autumn—i.e., at the time of little activity and not at the moment
when there is work in the fields. . . . It is often said, on the other hand, that
this is chosen because the agricultural work is completed, the granaries
and treasures are full, and there is a good opportunity for bachelors to
establish a home for themselves for the winter.38
In this passage, the author makes several fundamental inferences that are very
relevant to Ribnovo as a small rural community. First, unlike in the big city
where people pretty much remain anonymous to one another, in Ribnovo
everyone knows everybody else. Second, as an agricultural society, weddings
occur in the cold season when most of the farm work is done and there is
plenty of time for merrymaking. Third, by the winter, crops have been har-
vested and either stored for private use or sold for cash. Resources, therefore,
are now available to pay for weddings. In Ribnovo, money comes from two
main sources: (1) the sale of tobacco and mushrooms, grown and harvested
throughout the year and/or (2) family members (mainly fathers) who, having
worked abroad, return home in the fall to spend the hard-earned cash on home
improvements, as well as on the education and marriages of their children. In
marriages, the groom’s family resources go toward supplying a house for the
newlyweds, while the bride’s side assembles a dowry to furnish the place.
Asserting Identity through Custom
All the flow of money into costly wedding ceremonies, when money is often
hard to come by, may seem unreasonable, but it is essential to the Ribnovo
37 Van Gennep, 139.

38 Ibid.
community. A group’s culture is nothing short of that group’s sense of identity

which is periodically reasserted and reinvigorated through customs and ritu-
als. More than a necessary ritual, the wedding tradition is among the strongest
expressions of identity for the people of Ribnovo. Moreover, it has made them
interesting, likeable, and known to the outside world. Through the medium of
wedding ritual, the community not only projects a positive image of itself, but
also proclaims an identity of its own making.
As documentary producers, journalists, researchers, and scholars are
increasingly curious about the unique wedding rituals of Ribnovo, they bring
questions of Pomak identity to the fore. It is in the bTV documentary, Colorful
Fairytale Ribnovo, and I have heard and seen it numerous times on television,
in newspapers, on internet, and in the multiple formal and informal inter-
views I have had with Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, including from Ribnovo:
When asked about their identity, people insist on being Muslim. Not Turkish;
not Bulgarian; but Muslim; and Muslim not so much to express strong attach-
ment to religion, but rather to indicate cultural rootedness. This means that
the Pomaks increasingly tend to differentiate themselves from both the eth-
nic Turks and Bulgarian Christians to essentially resist outside prescriptions
as to who they are. This effectively reflects the emergence of a more confident
sense of self among the community in recent years whereby the identification
Pomak is being used by members of the group to define themselves.
The appellation Pomak, however, has not always been a comfortable one
to bear, mainly because non-Pomaks have used it in a derogatory fashion. As
a result, many Pomaks continue to substitute it for—simply—Muslim, espe-
cially when talking to outsiders. It feels somewhat safer to do so. This is not to
say, though, that they do not accept Pomak as self-appellation. The name is old
and familiar to the community. As Stoyu Shishkov—a (Christian) Bulgarian
author—observes, the term has been historically used in reference not only to
the Rhodopean Muslims of Bulgaria, but also to the Slavic-speaking Muslims in
Turkey, Greece, and Macedonia.39 In the time of the Ottoman Empire, part of
the Rhodope population was designated as Pomaks to distinguish them as local
Muslims who stood apart from the Bulgarian Christians. But since Bulgaria’s
independence from Ottoman rule in 1878, the name Pomak has been indiscrim-
inately used by both Christian Bulgarians and Bulgarian Turks to connote “trai-
tors” of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith or “impure Turk” respectively. The
Bulgarian label is based on the assumption that the Pomaks’ predecessors were
once Christians who converted to Islam, although that claim has never been
39 Stoyu Shishkov, Balgaro-mohamedanite (pomaysi) (Sofia, Bulgaria: Sibia, 1997), 15 &

passim. The book was originally published in 1936.
210 chapter 5
substantiated. The Turkish connotation of the name in more recent times, on

the other hand, rests on the incorrect—partly unwitting—synonymization of
“Turkish” and “Ottoman” in respect to the Pomak status in the Ottoman Empire
as Ottoman subjects of non-Turkish (Slavic?) descent.40 Following this histori-
cal pejorativization of the word, many have stopped short of declaring them-
selves Pomak. Moreover, after a series of compulsory assimilations in Bulgaria,
many members of the group have felt it risky to declare any such affiliation. In
the last twenty years, however, the Rhodopean Muslims are not only becoming
comfortable with the name, but also finding new meaning in it. The meaning
is one of identity of their own: the identity of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims; the
identity of Pomaks.
To be Pomak for the community not only means knowing who they are, but
also standing up for one’s own sense of self. That is why, in Colorful Fairytale
Ribnovo, the people of Ribnovo while conceding to be Bulgarians, also empha-
size the difference of religion and identify as Pomaks. Margarita Karamikhova,
ethnographer at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, ponders on the reasons for
this dual cultural self-identification:
The traumatic memories from the different periods when the Bulgarian
Muslims had their names changed is still very painful [to them]. The first
generation, free of such memories, still matures. They are still young. Very
painfully, very slowly, with great difficulty, people reminisce [when inter-
viewed] of what happened to them. The harsh assimilatory politics of the
past drives people into looking for another form of identification [than
simply that of Bulgarians]; into finding another name for themselves
[- Pomaks]. Islam [i.e., identifying as Muslim] seems to provide the most
acceptable one to them.41
What Karamikhova perceptively observes is the root cause of it all: The

feelings of hurt and humiliation that the people in Ribnovo and across the
Rhodopes still carry as a direct result of the vŭzhroditelen protses and the ear-
lier pokrŭstvane.42 The phrase “Ribnovo republic” dates back to the 1960s and
1970s, when there were violent clashes between the police and Christian civil-
ians enabling the vŭzhroditelen protses, on one hand, and the inhabitants of
40 Shishkov, passim; Ali Eminov, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York:
Routledge, 1997), passim.
41 bTV documentary, Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo (ibid.).
42 For detailed accounts of the vŭzhroditelen protses and the pokrŭstvane, see chapters two
and three.
several villages in the Western Rhodopes, including Ribnovo, on the other. The
Ribnovo villagers put a strong resistance and defiantly—but largely symboli-
cally—proclaimed their place “a republic,” the dream land of cultural freedom.
Of course, there never was or could be any actual “Ribnovo republic,” but the
term has become a catchphrase ever since to mockingly denote Ribnovo as a
backward society.43 Historically, the people of Ribnovo defended their sense of
identity even when guns were turned against them. Essentially, all they wanted
was their names unchanged and their religious traditions intact. They needed
the community the way they knew it, not the way others thought it should be.
In Ribnovo, more than in any other Pomak community of the Rhodopes today,
rootedness in cultural tradition matters so much that any threat of change only
makes people cling more faithfully to it.44
Pomak as a cultural identity in Bulgaria is highly politicized today. Any ref-
erence to a distinct cultural heritage is problematic. That is why, the Muslim
community of the Rhodopes, and in Ribnovo in particular, still avoid promot-
ing their customs and rituals as Pomak culture. Instead, they safely present
them as the celebration and honoring of age-old local traditions. But peo-
ple are acutely aware of the Pomak nature of these traditions that are prac-
ticed neither by their Christian, nor by their Turkish-speaking neighbors.
Thus, the Ribnovo wedding, although unique to the village today, has its past
precedents in the Pomak villages across the Western Rhodopes. Despite the
preponderance of Western-style garments and secular traditions in modern-
day Rhodopean weddings, certain fundaments of tradition are characteristic
to all Pomak nuptials even today. The foremost commonality is that the wed-
ding is always a family affair, whereby the two connecting families—and nota-
bly the groom’s one—organize, most actively participate in, and pay for the
43 My interviewees Ramadan Runtov-Kurucu and Ismail Byalkov, both from Kornitsa—

currently, residents of Istanbul (Turkey)—were taken as political prisoners during the
final stage of the vŭzhroditelen protses in 1973. Ago Ramadan recounted how the four
villages of Kornitsa, Lŭzhnitsa, Ribnovo, and Breznitsa were surrounded by armed
militia in the early 1960s, while the population within prevented the “revivalists” from
entering the villages by blocking the main road coming in. The villagers had clubs and
farm implements against the armed contingents of police, communist apparatchiks, and
Christian civilians. This tense situation went on for three months until the authorities
finally aborted the campaign, largely for fear of international scandal. Ultimately, in 1973,
these villages rebelled again, but this time the resistance was crashed and five people died
as a result. This issue is extensively discussed in chapters three and four of this book.
44 This information is based on archival documents from the Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-
Sofia and the author’s interviews with Ramadan Runtov and Ismail Byalkov. Both groups
of sources are comprehensively used in chapters two, three, and four respectively.
212 chapter 5
wedding. Another shared trait is the assumption that the bride provides
the dowry, while the groom—the house. A third uniting feature is the way
receptions are held. They are typically open to the community at large, with
no formal invitations; expenses are generally born by the groom’s family. A
fourth—albeit decreasing in relevance—similarity is the expectation that
the bride should marry a virgin, or, alternately, have no other “boyfriend” than
her husband-to-be. Yet a fifth, and by no means final, commonality is the live
music accompanying the newlyweds every step of the way for the duration of
the wedding.
This list of shared characteristics in the wedding customs of most Pomak
communities is far from complete. But in combination with existing past
similarities of marriage traditions across the (Western) Rhodopes and the lack
of such thereof with other cultural groups, it provides sufficient grounds to
claim that the colorful Ribnovo wedding is indeed a unique and meaningful
expression of Pomak heritage. Due to the fact that Pomak culture remains
largely unexplored, or compulsorily explained in terms of belonging to the
mainstream Bulgarian culture, many valuable cultural traditions—including
the unique wedding ritual—are rapidly fading away without ever being docu-
mented. I chose to describe, interpret, and analyze the colorful Ribnovo wed-
ding in an attempt to preserve an exciting Pomak tradition, which has sadly
gone extinct outside of Ribnovo.
The traditional Ribnovo wedding has survived despite—and perhaps
because of—its disappearance elsewhere in the Western Rhodopes. Having
established itself at the end of a solitary mountain road, the community has
preserved Pomak heritage more than any other community in the vast Rhodope
Mountains. What the people of Ribnovo know is what they love most, and what
they love is what they cannot let go. Clinging to tradition has become a second
nature to the villagers, because to them it means identity, stability, and future.
Recently, as the community has fared better economically, weddings are only
getting bigger and more elaborate. Most parents just compete to provide richer
spectacles during their sons or daughters’ wedding through the lavishness of
the dowry, gifts, music, and bridal ornamentation. Fortunately, at this point in
time, the unique, colorful Ribnovo wedding, it seems, will endure as tradition,
as identity anchor, and as Pomak heritage.

∵
Cultural tradition is an important element of identity and heritage, but it is by
no means the only one. Whereas this chapter effectively establishes the Ribnovo
wedding as a highly visible Pomak ritual, there are “stories” that clearly pertain
to history as well. Indeed, it must be acknowledged that heritage is more than

custom or culture. In fact, heritage has a strong historical component, which
leads to the pertinent question: Is there an identifiable Pomak history?
Naturally, there is a history associated with the Pomak people, as with all
human communities. Regrettably, the most visible aspect of that history has
been the religious, political, and cultural oppression of the Pomaks in Bulgaria,
beginning with the pokrŭstvane of 1912–1913 (see chapter two) and culminat-
ing in the vŭzhroditelen protses of 1972–1974 (see chapter three). While this is
valid history, which inevitably influences the preservation and projection into
the future of any Pomak heritage, there are also positive aspects to Pomak his-
tory that await identification, contextualization, and incorporation into the
collective Pomak narrative. The next chapter advances one such opportunity
to reclaim a potentially uniting historical component of a renewed Pomak,
Rhodopean, and local heritage.
chapter 6
Preserving Historical Heritage: The Case of Salih

Ağa of Pașmaklı, the Pomak Governor of the Ahı
Çelebi Kaza of the Ottoman Empire (1798–1838)
This chapter deals with the person and legacy of Salih Ağa of Paşmaklı within
the context of the hotly disputed Pomak heritage in Bulgaria. Salih is the most
famous, but “forgotten” Pomak governor of the small Ottoman province of
Ahı Çelebi from the first half of the nineteenth century.1 Relying largely on
orally transmitted ethnographic documentation, I reconstruct the life story
of a fascinating ruler who registers in local memory as tough—indeed, often
ruthless—but relentlessly evenhanded enforcer of justice. Most notably, he
elevated the status of Christians to that of Muslims in Ahı Çelebi despite the
religious discrimination inherent in Shari’a, the normative law of the Ottoman
Empire.
One major problem that prevents the construction of standard narrative
histories of Pomak heritage in general, and about Salih Ağa in particular, is the
lack of direct historical evidence. That is, within the larger framework, Pomak
heritage does not exist—at least, not officially. Historically, Pomak heritage has
been traditionally subsumed into, initially, Ottoman-Muslim and, subsequently,
Bulgarian historiography. For Ottoman historians, the Pomaks were peripheral
local people, largely indistinguishable from the larger mass of Muslim subjects,
who were not even remarkable for causing trouble. Subsequently, for Bulgarian
nationalism, “Pomak” became and remains a forbidden name, ostensibly liable
to spell ethnic divisions and territorial disputes.
Plainly and simply, then, Pomak history does not explicitly exist in recorded
history. Instead, it must be gleaned out of whatever historical evidence there
is, both oral and recorded. In Salih Ağa’s case, as a highly local and fairly minor
Ottoman governor, he should be largely absent from the annals of Ottoman
history. But hunting for any snippets of information that may have survived
1 The Ottoman state had a tripartite level of administrative government based on territorial
districts: (1) the largest administrative unit was vilayet and it was ruled by the highest rank-
ing-governor paşa (pasha); (2) the next, smaller unit was sancak (sandzhak); and (3) the third
and smallest was kaza, the later two ruled by lesser governors (ağas). The Ahı Çelebi Kaza
was part of the Gümürcina (Gumurdzhina) Sancak within the Vilayet of Edirne, the Province
of Rumelia.

Preserving Historical Heritage 215
about him in various Ottoman archives, would be more trouble that worth for
the purpose of this chapter, because of a language barrier, among other things.
More importantly, it is known that the archive from Salih’s time as administra-
tor of Ahı Çelebi was destroyed during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. While
the construction of Pomak histories may be difficult, however, it is not impos-
sible. This chapter sets out to (re-)claim Salih Ağa and his legacy as a Pomak
heritage.
I develop the story on the basis of surviving archival evidence as well as
abundant oral stories and legends about Salih. Because of the incompleteness
of the existing sources, however—at least in the sense that they recount epi-
sodic stories about Salih, rather than provide any comprehensive account of
his life—my goal is far from any kind of biography of the governor. Instead,
I attempt to reveal him the way he has survived in local memory by piecing
together the available information. Because Salih lived and ruled in turbulent
times, his—in many ways—conventional achievements stand out as a stagger-
ing feat of moral integrity, justice, and pursuit of order.
Finding Salih Ağa
Salih Ağa is a fascinating character to study. But the governor particularly

matters within the discourse of Pomak heritage because—as my friend Ivan
Terziev once said—his positive legacy of equitable treatment of Muslims and
Christians in Ahı Çelebi could be a potent “unifying factor” of the Rhodopean
communities of both faiths today. The combination of Salih’s fascinating pres-
ence in the indigenous folklore and the rather limited surviving records about
him make this relatively obscure Ottoman governor an extremely desirable,
but equally challenging candidate for study.
Although I was born in the Western Rhodopes not far from the place where
Salih lived and ruled, I had never heard about him before the summer of 2007
when I delved into the region’s history. Salih Ağa became the forgotten gov-
ernor of Ahı Çelebi for two correlated reasons: (1) After the country gained
independence from Ottoman rule, Bulgaria’s national historiography associ-
ated him with the former “Turkish oppressors,” and, consequently, (2) the offi-
cial memory chose to ignore Salih’s legacy. The Rhodopean community today
remembers little beyond the name Salih, which is frequently mentioned in ver-
nacular references to prominent local sites, such as “The Gorge of Salih Ağa”
(presently, the Waterfall of Smolyan) and “The Konak of Salih Ağa.”
The place I encountered Salih Ağa’s name is Smolyan, a city of about
forty thousand inhabitants today, formerly known as Paşmaklı. For almost a
216 chapter 6
hundred years, Paşmaklı was the capital township, from which Salih Ağa and
his family ruled the Ahı Çelebi Kaza. The former Ottoman kaza occupied an
area naturally enclosed by picturesque mountain ridges, running along the
Arda River in the Middle Rhodopes, southwest Bulgaria. During Salih’s time,
the Rhodope Mountains were still overgrown by thick pine forests—here
completely covering gently sloping hills, there the base from which sharp,
rocky peaks jutted skyward. The place is rich in history and legend and, for
millennia, the naturally protected and largely inaccessible Rhodopes provided
home to peaceful sheep- and goat-herding populations. But the mountains
were also a hideout for dangerous outlaws who would pillage and plunder the
fertile valleys of Thrace and then withdraw to safety in the mountain, heavy
with spoils.
Smolyan lies in the heart of this magnificent Rhodope Mountain. I visited
the town in the summer of 2007, wishing to learn more about the history and
culture of the predominantly Muslim population of the Rhodopes, the Pomaks.
Ivan Terziev, a local Bulgarian Christian, whom I have known for many years,
gracefully agreed to be my guide in Smolyan. From our preliminary telephone
conversation, Ivan knew that I was interested in conducting oral history
research in the area, and that I wanted to talk to some local people about their
traditions and historical memory. When one is interested in a community like
the Pomaks—largely non-existent in recorded history, one has to pay particu-
lar attention to oral history, because it is the principal source of emic historical
knowledge. While the majority of ethnic Bulgarians profess Eastern Orthodox
Christianity, the Pomaks do not. Since Bulgaria’s independence from Ottoman
rule, there have been numerous attempts to assimilate the Pomaks, including
by forcibly converting them to Christianity and replacing their Turkish-Arab
names with Slavic-Bulgarian ones. Subsequent reversals of policy, however,
have helped preserve their identity to this day. According to Ivan’s estimates,
the ratio of Muslims to Christians in the city of Smolyan today is forty to sixty
percent, but the surrounding villages are largely Muslim. Nowadays, Bulgarians
of both faiths coexist well as neighbors and friends in the Rhodopes.
When I first arrived in Smolyan, Ivan and I sat for a chat in a local eatery. I
asked him to show me or tell me about interesting places or people from the
region’s past. Anticipating my interest, he had already arranged for me to meet
with Mrs. Melike Belinska, a descendant of Deli Bey, another feudal lord from
the Ottoman past and blood relative of Salih Ağa, so that she could show me
around the konak (the ruler’s headquarters) of Deli Bey and tell me stories that
she might have heard from her parents and grandparents. Unlike the konak of
Salih Ağa, which was about three times the size of this one and destroyed in
Figure 6-1 The konak of Deli-Ali Bey in Smolyan

Presently, the building is state-owned and operated as a hotel, June 2007.
1931,2 the beautiful edifice of Deli Bey, finished by one of his sons Ali, survives
(Figure 6-1). Nationalized by the communist regime in the 1960s, the municipal
government operates it as a hotel today. Visibly excited, I asked Ivan when the
meeting was supposed to take place. He answered that we should leave as soon
as I finished my meal. I quickly swallowed the melted-cheese sandwich, col-
lected my recording equipment from the table, and was ready to go. We were
to meet Melike in the konak itself (Figure 6-2), located in downtown Smolyan.
On our way there, Ivan mentioned that the man I ought to hear about was Salih
Ağa. He told me that the site in town, where his residence once stood, is still
known as the konak of Salih Ağa.
Although the konak did not survive, a number of roads, arched bridges, and
aqueducts remain as silent testimony to Salih’s legacy. Salih Ağa had a vital
2 Matey Mateev, Srednorodopski konatsi (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Natsionalna Akademiya na

Arhitekturata, 2005). The quote is from the section about the konak of Salih Ağa, pub-
lished separately, see Matey Mateev, Konakŭt na Salih Ağa Pashmakliisky (Plovdiv, Bulgaria:
Natsionalna Akademiya na Arhitekturata, 2005), 15.
218 chapter 6
Figure 6-2 Melike Belinska

Melike gives me a tour of the konak of Deli Bey—her great-grandfather and the
nephew of Salih’s father Süleyman Ağa—in Smolyan, June 2007.
impact on the area not only for building extensive infrastructure, but also for
inviting Christian families to settle and take roots in the central Rhodopes.
The governor protected the Christians from harassment and allowed them to
prosper on equal footing with the privileged Muslim subjects of the Ottoman
Empire.3 Ivan’s reference to his just treatment of Christians was the first time
I heard the name Salih Ağa. With such a positive clue in mind, I was looking
forward to meet Ab(l)a4 Melike so that I could learn more about this elusive
governor. Unfortunately, she could not satisfy my curiosity either because—
like most other people—she had no definitive knowledge about him. She
3 Vassil Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I (Sofia, Bulgaria: Otechestven Front, 1928),
72–96; Nikolay Haytov, “Smolyan: Tri vŭrha v srednorodopskata istoria” (Sofia, Bulgaria:
Natsionalen Sŭvet na Otechestvenia Front, 1962), 18–31; Vassil Dechov, Tetradka na V. Dechov,
1924: Istoricheski belejki za roda (?) na Kör Hoca [Hodzha] i Salih ağa Pashmakliisky (Regionalen
dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Smolyan), passim.
4 Aba or abla is a title of respect given to an older woman among the Pomaks of the (Western)
Rhodopes.
did, however, share some fascinating stories about her own branch of the Kör
Hodzha’s (Hoca’s) family, (which I do not discuss here since they bear no direct
relevance to Salih).
Salih Ağa and His Time
Salih Ağa governed the Ottoman kaza of Ahı Çelebi for forty years. Paşmaklı—
modern-day Smolyan in Bulgaria—served as his administrative center, where
Salih chose to build his konak. During his long reign, the residents of Ahı Çelebi
and the adjacent areas enjoyed peaceful coexistence, as well as economic and
political equilibrium. Thus, in the local community’s oral history, the name
Salih Ağa is still synonymous with “iron law,” an image enhanced by the politi-
cal volatility of the Ottoman Empire at the time.5
The governor was in charge of a strategically important region of the
Ottoman realm, sitting on—what is today—the border zone of Bulgaria with
northern Greece. He inherited the governorship from his father, Süleyman
Ağa, and his grandfather, Mehmed Kör Hoca (Hodzha). Popularly endorsed
by both Muslims and Christians, Mehmed Kör Hoca became the first native
governor of the kaza in the year 1751. Thus, he founded a dynasty that would
rule the Middle Rhodopes for the next one hundred years. Salih Ağa’s reign
constituted the apex of that family’s rule.6 He is best remembered for bringing
much-needed political and economic security to the area for both Muslims
and Christians in times of grave instability and rampant banditry in much of
the Ottoman state. In fact, Salih was so successful in instituting order and jus-
tice in the kaza that Nikolay Haytov, a leading Bulgarian historian, defines the
period of his governorship as a “pinnacle” in the long history of the Middle
Rhodopes.7 Salih’s handling of the province as his private feudal realm, how-
ever, in conjunction with his favorable disposition toward the Christians, would
ultimately provoke the distrust of an already paranoid imperial government,8
with deathly consequences for him and his family.
5 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96; Haytov, “Smolyan,” 18–31.

6 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96; Haytov, “Smolyan,” 18–31.
7 Haytov, 18–31.
8 This was a difficult time for the central government of the Ottoman Empire, vested in the
Istanbul-based Sultanate, for three reasons: First, provincial notables resisted the govern-
ment’s efforts to centralize the Empire and to, therefore, limit their powers, so they often
challenged Istanbul with their own private armies. Second, the ambitions of the Russian
Empire to gain access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean posed a serious and constant
220 chapter 6
Whereas his rather independent rule of Ahı Çelebi was slow to attract impe-
rial attention, in conjunction with the governor’s failure to strictly enforce
Shari’a and to differentiate between his Muslim and Christian subjects,
made him an apparent culprit. Being a Rhodopean native and not a centrally
appointed, outside administrator, as was the standard practice, Salih Ağa spoke
the Slavic dialect of the Rhodopes. It was the linguistic kinship of the Muslim
and Christian inhabitants of the Rhodopes that underwrote Salih’s policy of
equitable treatment. But just what accounted for this linguistic homogeneity
and religious dichotomy? When the medieval Christian kingdom of Bulgaria
fell under Ottoman rule in the late fourteenth century, it remained so until
the late nineteenth century—full five centuries. During this time, many people
converted to Islam to attain higher socio-political status since Muslims were
more privileged under Shari’a than non-Muslims. For instance, non-Muslims
were barred from pursuing lucrative military and political careers. In addition,
they had to pay special taxes, not required of Muslims, such as ispençe (land
tax), haraç (in-kind land tax), cizya (head tax), and others.9 When and under
what circumstances exactly the population of the Rhodopes became Muslim,
however, has not been authoritatively and unanimously established. The fact
of the matter today is that the Pomaks are a Bulgarian-speaking community
who professes Islam in a largely Orthodox Christian nation. But, in Salih’s time,
the Ottoman Empire was undisputedly Muslim-dominated.
Salih’s achievements were momentous not only for overcoming the equal-
ity limitations of Shari’a, but also because he successfully ruled in trying
times for the Ottoman Empire. The end of the eighteenth- and the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century was an intense period of opposition by semi-
independent regional administrators to the attempts of the Ottoman state
to consolidate its rule. As a result, provincial governors, long accustomed to
autonomy and absolute control over their realms, felt threatened by the effort
of the Ottoman Sultanate in Istanbul to strengthen its authority and limit their
power. Understandably, those who had much to lose, and were confident in
their potency, rose against the central government. Most of the forces support-
threat to the territorial integrity of the Ottoman state. In fact, in the decade before Salih’s
death (1838), the Ottomans had just concluded another war with the Russians (1828–1829),
which facilitated Greece’s independence. Third, the Christian populations in the Balkans
were prone to rebellions in the nineteenth century, largely inspired by the success of the
Greek Revolution of 1821–1829 and the spread of Western nationalism.
9 A letter signed by Salih Ağa testifies to the fact that one non-Muslim (his name is not men-
tioned) paid his ispençe dues in the year 1810 (Figure 6-5). Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-
Smolyan, Fond 415k, Inventory 23, Archival Unit 52.
ing such factional leaders consisted of kŭrdzhalii, called by the Rhodopeans

hayti—mercenaries attracted by the prospects of personal gains.10 The
kŭrdzhalii posed a serious challenge to the political stability of the empire dur-
ing Salih’s time. They practically controlled whole provinces of the Ottoman
state. Some of their leaders were powerful provincial administrators such as
Osman Pazvantoglu of Vidin, who turned his kŭrdzhalii on Constantinople
itself in an attempt to overturn Sultan Selim III (1761–1808).11 In steady raids,
the hayti burned down settlements, took property, women and livestock, thus,
causing immeasurable loss and suffering to civilians. The heavy woods and
rugged terrain of the Rhodopes provided many kŭrdzhalii bands with quick
escape from retribution, when imperial troops or locally operating regiments
went after them. Nikolay Haytov describes the desperate situation at the turn
of the nineteenth century in the following way:
[T]he whole Ottoman Kingdom was in turmoil; the kŭrdzhalii leaders

Mehmed Sinap, Mehmed Dertli, Emin Ağa, Karamanaff Ibrahim and oth-
ers were burning the towns and villages of [modern-day] Bulgaria, and,
come winter, they withdrew in their fortresses [within the Rhodopes]
with abundant spoils.12
Official fermans (royal decrees) authorized regional rulers like Salih Ağa to arm
every able-bodied man—Muslim and Christian—within their entrusted prov-
inces in order to fight the hayti.13 When the hayti raged, all usual business came
to a standstill as the frightened populace was unable to tend to the fields, while
government became paralyzed.
In the midst of such pervading chaos, though, Ahı Çelebi stood secure. Its
people went about their daily affairs largely unobstructed as Salih saw to the
safety of the kaza and of those who dwelled within it. Salih Ağa was a deter-
mined ruler who was frequently prone to ruthlessness when it came to enforc-
ing the law. He maintained order in Ahı Çelebi by reciprocating the brutality of
the hayti, but only when he deemed it absolutely necessary. Particularly vulner-
able to willful aggression, the Christian population especially appreciated Salih
Ağa’s swift rendition of justice. Historical memory among Rhodopeans of both
faiths celebrates him as a ruler who punished Muslim and Christian malefactors
10 Nikolay Haytov, Rodopski Vlastelini (Sofia: Otechestven Front, 1976), 71–146.

11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., 218.
13 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 127–141. The fermans are cited in full, in
Bulgarian translation, within the respective pages.
222 chapter 6
on an equitable basis. Haytov describes the essence and impact of his excessive
from a modern standpoint, but extremely efficient “Solomonian law”:
His [Salih’s] Penal Code consisted of four paragraphs: For banditry—

shot. For pillaging and insubordination—hung . . . For minor offences—
cursed; and for moral transgressions against girls and women—threw the
perpetrators from the notorious Gorge of Salih Ağa. Finally, for trespass-
ing livestock—shot the “offending” animal, and administered fifty to a
hundred lashes to the owner.
The laws of Salih Ağa applied with equal force to both Christians and
Mohammedans [(Muslims)]; they were enforced mercilessly and abso-
lutely, and the good results were immediate: Agricultural life in the Ahı
Çelebi kaza did not stop as it did in the adjacent regions ravished by the
bandits. The roads were safe, the nights—peaceful, and the hayti steered
clear of Ahı Çelebi. [Consequently,] Smolyan became the only place,
where refugees from Dimotika, Haskovo, and Ardino, who had escaped
the kŭrdzhalii, found safe heaven. It was during that time when [Bulgarian
Christian] families like the Tomovs, Stanchovs, Kiryanovs, Uzunovs,
Nachovs, and Takovs settled in the area.14
Salih Ağa frequently imposed stern punishments. For instance, for immoral
advances toward women and girls, he would bind the perpetrator’s hands and
feet before he had him thrown from the top of a waterfall, known to this day
as The Gorge of Salih Ağa. Thus, a victim would often suffer a slow and pain-
ful death of broken bones, blood loss, and/or drowning. As brutal as this form
of punishment may seem, it was critical in deterring rape or general abuse of
women, crimes all too common at the time to be neglected. Known as a par-
ticularly strict moralist, Salih adjudicated very harshly on sexual offences.15
By rendering just such a punishment in one case, Salih made a mortal enemy
of one of his formerly close associates, Petko Tsŭrvulan Kehaya of Dereköy, a
wealthy Christian livestock owner. This person would later support the base-
less accusations of treason leveled against the governor. Tsŭrvulan Kehaya’s
son, a young single man, pursued a girl from Ustovo (now a neighborhood of
Smolyan) in an offensive and indecent manner. The young woman complained
to her father who, in turn, reported the case to Salih Ağa. Because of the strong
need to contain lawlessness and keep order, the governor had to consistently
appear firm and impartial in the administration of justice. Thus, friendship
14 Haytov, “Smolyan”, 22–23. See also Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 78.
15 Haytov, “Smolyan,” 18–31; Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96.
notwithstanding, Tsŭrvulan’s son was duly arrested, tried, and convicted of

moral misconduct, the punishment for which was death by throwing into the
Gorge of Salih Ağa. In revenge for his son’s killing, Tsŭrvulan Kehaya would
play a role in bringing about the governor’s demise to the detriment of all in
Ahı Çelebi.16
Who Wrote about Salih Ağa
Salih Ağa is a powerful figure in the oral tradition of the Middle Rhodopes.
Despite his folklore pervasiveness, however, Salih is absent from the officially
endorsed historiography of Bulgaria. Only three authors, with strong personal
connections to the Rhodopes, provide partial accounts of his life. The oldest
and most trustworthy among them belongs to Vassil Dechov, a local Bulgarian
Christian historian and ethnographer, who also served as mayor of the Middle-
Rhodopean town of Chepelare at the turn of twentieth century. Dechov
published a two-volume history of Cheperale in 1928. The first volume, incor-
porating a research that spans at least four decades, has a section on Salih Ağa’s
family history.17 The section in question is based on an earlier handwritten
journal, in which Dechov had recorded stories specifically regarding Salih Ağa.
The journal dates back to 1924. For convenience, I refer to it as the Historical
Diary or simply the Diary.18 In the document, Dechov identifies Mehmedali
Tahirbey, the grandson of Salih Ağa and the son of Tahir Bey (the oldest of
Salih’s son, Figure 6-4), as one of his sources of information about the gover-
nor.19 In Dechov’s own words, “Tahir Bey’s son and Salih’s grandson Mehmedali
Tahirbey, who gave me a detailed account of his grandfather, is a gentle, quiet,
and extremely good-natured person. He is now about 65-year old [empha-
sis added].”20 Additionally, at the end of Volume I of Minaloto na Chepelare
(The Past of Chepelare), the author attaches a list of more than 160 informants,21
among which is the name Mehmed Tahirbeev of Paşmaklı (the 90th informant
from the top). Even though this informant’s relationship to Salih remains unde-
termined, it is likely that Mehmedali, son of Tahir Bey, grandson of Salih Ağa, is
either the same Mehmed Tahirbeev or a Mehmed’s descendant. Regardless of
16 Dechov, Historical Diary, 22–23; Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 87.

17 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96.
18 Historical Diary, passim.
19 Ibid., 15 & 42 (or pages 7 & 34 of the typed version of the Diary).
20 Ibid., 42 (or 22).
21 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 279–83.
224 chapter 6
these uncertainties, however, it is abundantly clear that Salih Ağa’s own family
was among the most valuable Dechov’s informants, including Salih’s very own
grandson.22 At the time of the interview, as the author indicates in the Diary,
Mehmedali was a sixty-five-year old man. It is quite possible that Mehmedali
was old enough to have more than fleeting memories of his grandfather Salih,
provided that Dechov interviewed him in the early years of his ethnographic
research (i.e., as early as the 1880s). Unfortunately, I have no way of ascertaining
when the interview(s) took place. However, I can safely conclude that Mehmedali
(and/or Mehmed) transmitted intimate family knowledge about their legendary
predecessor. Salih’s grandson Mehmedali appears to be the source of at least
two crucial pieces of information: first, exactly how Salih died and, second, what
occurred in the konak once news of his death reached Paşmaklı.23
The second author who wrote about Salih Ağa is Nikolay Haytov, a promi-
nent Bulgarian writer and historian, who published a paper, “Smolyan: Tri
vŭrha v srednorodopskata istoria” (Smolyan: Three Pinnacles in the History
of the Middle Rhodopes), in 1962 and a book, Rodopski vlastelini (Rhodopean
Lords), in 1976. Both works contain narratives directly concerning the gover-
nor or about events and individuals related to him.24 The third author is Petŭr
Marinov, another Bulgarian writer, who in the late 1930s published the play
Salih Ağa. The play incorporates well-known stories about the ruler of Ahı
Çelebi, which had originally been reported by Vassil Dechov.25
The central source of all these works appears to be the oral tradition of the
local community. Vassil Dechov’s volume contains, among other things, the
earliest and most comprehensive written account on the family of Salih Ağa,
starting from his grandfather, Mehmed Kör Hoca (Hodzha). Kör Hoca was
originally from the township of Chepelare, where Dechov lived and, therefore,
had unfettered access both to archival material and rich oral history. Nikolay
Haytov, for his part, conducted research on Salih Ağa and his governorship
while serving as a forest guard in the Smolyan region during the 1960s and 1970s.
22 Dechov, Historical Diary, 15 and 42.

23 Ibid. The list further includes as informants “Adzhi Ağa’s grandchildren,” Salih’s grand-
nephews and offspring of his brother Adzhi Ağa’s sons, Salih’s bitter enemy. The list
most probably contains the names of other close descendants, but I cannot be certain
of it since Dechov does not specify his informants’ kinship ties (except a few only) to the
family.
24 Haytov, Rodopski vlastelini, 197–234.
25 Petŭr Marinov, Salih Ağa, Rodopski voyvoda i deribey: Cherti iz jivota i upravlenieto mu—
Dramatizatsia po ustni predania i legendi v pet deystvia (Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Collection
Rodina, 1940). Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 959, Inventory 1, Archival
Unit 52.
Although Haytov propagandistically portrays Salih Ağa as Bulgarian patriot,

largely to comply with the ideology of the communist regime, his account is
an invaluable contribution to reviving Salih’s legacy in Bulgaria as late as 1976.
Petŭr Marinov, on the other hand, writes with a specific agenda. In the
1930s and 1940s, he was a founding member of the Organization Rodina, which
played a major role in the Pomak pokrŭstvane of 1938–1944.26 His play, Salih
Ağa, quite purposely recasted the Ottoman governor as a Bulgarian nationalist
half a century before a Bulgarian national state even existed. Understandably,
Marinov wrote the play to inspire the kind of patriotic consciousness Rodina
sought to instill in the Pomaks when carrying out the pokrŭstvane. To that end,
as evident from the archival inventory of the Petŭr Marinov Collection (housed
in Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv), Rodina sponsored a series of live performances
of Salih Ağa in the Rhodopes between 1938 and 1944 (Figures 6-6 and 6-7) as
part of the sustained assimilation campaign. Ironically, the only—and quite
unintended—effect of Marinov’s play was reinstating Salih Ağa to his rightful
place in Bulgaria’s historical discourse (at least for a short while), albeit for the
wrong reasons. The play, however, has one undisputed quality: Salih’s person-
ality comes remarkably alive from its pages, due in large part to the authentic
Rhodopean dialect Marinov uses to render the dialogue.
Beyond these limited accounts, little has been published or said about the
Pomak governor of Ahı Çelebi.27 Indeed, a cursory examination of the mod-
ern Bulgarian historiography reveals that the prevalent mode of presenting
any Muslim-Ottoman heritage is either negative or dismissive.28 The works of
26 Rodina, a nationalist organization with a mixed Bulgarian-Christian and Pomak mem-

bership, was set up with the help of the Bulgarian authorities in 1937 to facilitate the
conversion of the Pomaks in the period 1938–1944.
27 This was particularly the case in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s when the communist
regime in Bulgaria completely banished all things akin to “foreign” (un-Bulgarian)
heritage. The combined effect of religious suppression and ethnic assimilation during the
communism era (1945–1989) resulted in detrimental forgetting of the past, particularly
among the Pomaks who were among the primary targets of the assimilation.
28 In 2006, for instance, the Austrian academic Ulf Brunnbauer and his Bulgarian colleague
Martina Baleva made an attempt to launch a new scholarly perspective about the
notorious Batak Massacre. According to the official version of the events, thousands of
Bulgarian Christians were massacred by Muslims during a wave of rebellions in 1876,
including children, women, and men. Their skeletal remains are prominently displayed
in the church of Batak to this day. Brunnbauer and Baleva were immediately accused of
serving foreign interests that wished to rewrite Bulgarian history, and they were forced to
prematurely terminate their work in Bulgaria.
226 chapter 6
Dechov, Haytov, and Marinov, however, portray Salih as a righteous and likeable
ruler, who often exerted a form of harsh justice for the greater good of law and
order. It is worth noting that Dechov, Marinov, and Haytov—three Bulgarian-
Christian scholars—speak very highly of the Ottoman governor of Pomak lin-
eage, Salih Ağa. To be sure, the pursuit of a pokrŭstvane agenda played a part in
Marinov’s profuse exaltation of the governor. Likewise, Haytov’s obvious rever-
ence for Salih may be partially explained with his alleged Pomak parentage.29
Dechov’s work, on the other hand, is tarnished neither by suspicions of ulterior
motives, nor is he known to have been a pokrŭstvane crusader. Dechov wrote
as a historian who was passionate about preserving local history and as a per-
son who largely shied away from political propaganda. Overall, his reads as a
straightforward and unembellished account of Salih Ağa. All three chroniclers,
however, share one unmistakable trait: They were fascinated by Salih, and their
admiration for the governor seems quite genuine.
But neither these authors’ positive depiction of Salih, nor the governor’s rep-
utation for integrity in the collective local memory could prevent the destruc-
tion of his heritage in Smolyan. The governor’s exclusive residence (konak),
for example, endured systematic neglect and vandalism after 1912–1913, when
In fact, all Martina Baleva ever said was in the spirit of the following quote from an article
she published in the weekly Kultura:
“Less known perhaps are the following facts [about the Batak Massacre]: Even before the
ensuing Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) and the creation of the Bulgarian national state,
the dreadful events in Batak were almost as quickly forgotten as they were revived 16 years
later to become the central focus of public attention in Bulgarian society. Between 1876
and 1892, the only evidence about the bloody past of Batak are two well-known pictures
by the Plovdiv-based photographer of Greek origin, Dimitŭr Kavra, depicting survivors of
the massacre and the Batak church containing the skeletal remains [of the massacred],
both from 1878 [i.e., two years ofter the fact], as well as Stambolov’s translation from
1880.* All of a sudden, in 1892, an enormous amount of literature and imagery on Batak
appeared, which continues to this day.”
* Baleva is referring to the report of J.A. MacGahan, an American journalist of Irish descent
married to a Russian aristocrat, published in the Daily News. This report and the two pictures,
produced two years after the massacre, constituted the whole evidence about it. Baleva’s
comment about J.A. MacGahan is that the author “does not try to conceal his pro-Russian
sympathies . . . and his exceptionally negative attitude toward the Ottoman state and Islamic
religion.” (Kultura 17 (2412), May 3, 2006).
29 Nikolay Haytov is a renowned Bulgarian writer and historian, as well as a great promoter
of the thesis about the Bulgarian-Christian heritage of the Pomaks. His father’s name
is Shandyo, a conventional Pomak name that derives from the Muslim name Rushan,
widespread among Rhodopean Pomaks. It is commonly believed in the Rhodopes that
Haytov was of Pomak parentage, although he never addressed the issue publicly.
much of the Rhodopes permanently became part of Bulgaria. The konak was
completely demolished in 1931 (Figure 6-3). Attesting to the uniqueness of
the edifice, the Bulgarian architect Matey Mateev—who published an illus-
trated work on the architectural heritage of the Middle Rhodopes in 2005—
defines Salih’s palace as “the most significant building complex [of its kind] in
the entire Asia-Minor—and Balkan expanses of the Ottoman Empire.”30 He
goes on to describe the sustained destruction of the konak as “utterly reckless
and unlawful attitude of the then [Bulgarian] authorities toward the cultural
heritage [of Bulgaria’s Ottoman past].” The konak’s site was subsequently filled
by an army compound which, according to Mateev, could not even begin to
compare with “its precursor in terms of magnitude, architectural quality, and
style.”31 Quite amazingly, the name of Salih Ağa has not only remained largely
untarnished in local memory, but it has actually acquired a measure of rever-
ence in the public discourse via the praise of such committed promoters of
Bulgarian nationalism as Petŭr Marinov and Nikolay Haytov.
Figure 6-3 The Konak of Salih Ağa in Paşmaklı, circa 1916.

The palace complex, described as a unique architectural ensemble and the largest of
its type on the Balkan- and Asia Minor territories of the Ottoman Empire by architect
Matey Mateev in his work on the Middle Rhodopean architecture,32 was demolished
in 1931 to open room for an army compound.
(Courtesy of Peyo Kolev at lostbulgaria.com.)
30 Mateev, Konakŭt na Salih Ağa Pashmakliisky, 9.

31 Ibid., 15.
32 Ibid., 9.
228 chapter 6
Salih’s Family Tree
Salih Ağa was the grandson of Mehmed Kör Hoca (Hodzha), the first native
governor of the Ahı Çelebi Kaza, who ruled from 1751 to his death in 1779.
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, the Middle Rhodopes had been
in the hands of outside and absentee landlords. The area acquired its name
from Sultan Selim I’s personal doctor, Ahı Çelebi, who in 1519 received the
Middle Rhodopes as a gift of personal estate from the sultan. The name sur-
vived until 1912, thereafter losing its significance within the newly independent
Kingdom of Bulgaria. The imperial doctor dedicated the estate to the holy cities
of Mecca and Medina.33 The vast vakıf (donated property), however, remained
under the custodianship of Ahı Çelebi’s descendants until the early 1700s. After
that, the political power vacuum in the Middle Rhodopes spilled into violent
rivalry between several prominent local families, which destabilized the whole
region. As the population grew tired of the chaos, they petitioned the Ottoman
government to appoint a permanent governor in the kaza to institute stability.
Mehmed Kör Hoca was among the most suitable candidates. He was a local
and highly educated man, modest, relatively wealthy, and with a reputation
for exceptional moral integrity. He also enjoyed the support of the majority
Muslims and Christians in the area. Kör Hoca, however, put two conditions to
accepting the governorship: (1) the office was to become hereditary, and (2) his
capital township was to be Paşmaklı. In 1751, a ferman from Constantinople for-
malized the appointment of Mehmed Kör Hoca as governor of the Ahı Çelebi
Kaza, with Paşmaklı as his administrative center. According to Dechov, the
population that came out to greet their new governor, as he was moving his
household into Paşmaklı (from Chepelare), observed two unusual things:
a) whereas his children and servants were all clad lavishly, the new gov-
ernor was dressed modestly, in very simple attire; b) the women of the
household were not covered as Mohamedan [Muslim] women usually
were, but bore open faces with only white scarves over their hair[.]34
Thus, the Kör Hoca family established themselves as the ruling dynasty of the
Middle Rhodopes for nearly a century. According to both Dechov and Haytov,
Kör Hoca’s governorship (1751–1779) indeed brought a measure of stability in
33 Dedicating a property is an Islamic tradition where private persons or entities donate

property (normally land) to a religious body (e.g., mosque) which draws income from it
by either renting it out or selling the produce from it to support itself.
34 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, 75.
the region. It was Kör Hoca who also initiated the tradition of equitable treat-
ment of Muslims and non-Muslims, a policy more or less institutionalized in
the days of Salih Ağa. Hoca’s eldest son and heir, Süleyman Ağa (1779–1798)
continued this non-discriminatory practice. Although a benevolent ruler, how-
ever, Süleyman lacked the charisma and determination of his father, Mehmed
Kör Hoca, and heir, Salih Ağa.35
Süleyman Ağa had deeply personal reasons to extend benign treatment to
the Christian population, too. According to Haytov, he married a Christian
woman by the name Stana (or Maria), whom he unwearyingly courted before
she responded to his feelings.36 This was a somewhat unusual demeanor for an
Ottoman notable. Indeed, their standard portrayal in Bulgarian folklore is one
of willful and violent characters who took by force what they fancied, includ-
ing women. The reported behavior of Süleyman, though, defies this popular
depiction. Not only did he wait for Stana to obtain her parents’ permission to
marry him, but Süleyman was loath to polygamy, a tradition allowed by Islam.
Süleyman had one wife at a time. After he was widowed from his first wife,
mother of three of his sons—Salih, Mustafa (Adzhi), and Liman-Shishman—
Süleyman married Stana-turned-Ayshe who mothered Brahom Bey, Süleyman’s
fourth son. Although Haytov appears to be mistaken about Stana’s being the
mother of all four of Süleyman’s sons, the author describes his marital situa-
tion in the following way:
Even before becoming governor, Süleyman was widowed and married

a second time to a [Christian] woman from Raykovo—Stana, whom he
met and fell in love with during harvest time at a place known as Rumin
Preslop. Soon after the wedding, the family moved from Raykovo [now
a Smolyan’s suburb] to Smolyan, where his [Süleyman’s] four sons were
born: Salih, Liman Shishman, Brahom, and Mustafa later named Adzhi
Ağa.37
35 Haytov, “Smolyan,” 18–31; Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96. According

to Dechov’s Historical Diary, Kör Hoca (Hodzha) died in 1779 and was buried in the old
Turkish cemetery next to the mosque and near the Imamov’s homestead in Raykovo
(now a neighborhood of Smolyan). In 1924, when Dechov was compiling his Diary, the
headstone marking the grave was still there. The inscription on it simply read: “Mehmed
bin Isein 1779.” Dechov, Historical Diary, 6–7. (Also, see Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare,
Volume I, 75.)
36 In “Smolyan” Haytov talks about a woman named Maria, and in Rodopski vlastelini, he
mentions Stana.
37 Haytov, Rodopski vlastelini, 201. Based on Dechov’s note about Brahom Bey’s being from
a different mother, as well as the Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv’s description of a
230 chapter 6
“Süleyman, like his father,” Dechov notes, “was educated, quiet, pious, kind-
hearted, and a good caretaker, but for the demands of the time—not a good
ruler.”38 During his reign of nineteen years, the internal strife for political
dominance in the realm continued. When Süleyman died in 1798, his eldest
son Salih Ağa succeeded him as governor of the Ahı Çelebi Kaza, retaining
Paşmaklı as his capital town. Along with the leadership, however, Salih inher-
ited the difficult task of ending the chaos that had been tearing the district
apart. Ultimately, he would do just that.39
Like his father Süleyman, Salih had one wife. In fact, he was married to
the same woman throughout his life, and history remembers her simply as
Salihağovitsa (the wife of Salih Ağa). Together, they had two sons, Tahir Bey and
Emin Bey, and at least four daughters. Salih’s sons jointly ruled the kaza for a
brief period between 1842 and 1850. But none of the preceding or following
governors of Ahı Çelebi would match the legendary Salih Ağa in popularity
or accomplishments. Salih died in Gümürcina (Gumurdzhina) in the fall (the
exact date is disputable, but Dechov points to September) of 1838, at the age
of eighty.40
Salih, the Family Man
1 Mustafa, Adzhi Ağa

Salih Ağa’s greatest supporter and enemy were within his family. As a fam-
ily man he was blessed and cursed at the same time. He was blessed with a
wife who, contrary to the traditions of his time and society, was his partner
rather than just the woman who obediently served him and shared his bed.
Salihağovitsa was her husband’s most trusted advisor in matters of marriage
and family who, on her own initiative, took orphaned girls and destitute
women into the household. Salihağovitsa rarely interfered with the governor’s
political decisions, but when she did, he always heeded her opinion. Thus,
photograph that Stana was the mother of one of Süleyman’s sons, I am inclined to think
that Haytov is in the wrong.
38 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 76.
39 Dechov, Historical Diary, 7.
Süleyman died in Paşmaklı, and his headstone (Dechov does not clarify where he was
buried, but probably in the same cemetery as his father) was destroyed in 1912–1913,
when Bulgaria took control of the Rhodopes and launched a violent, but short-lived
Christianization of the Muslim population.
40 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96; Dechov, Historical Diary, passim.
Figure 6-4 Family Tree

Partial Family Tree of Salih Ağa according to governorship of the Ahı Çelebi Kaza,
as well as according to family connection of one of his indirect descendants and my
interviewee, Melike Belinska.41
Salih was often heard saying: “All people in Ahı Çelebi obey my command, but
in the konak only my wife’s orders count.”42 The governor, however, was also
cursed with a mortal enemy, his own brother Mustafa, dubbed Adzhi, (or Adji,
bitter, bad-tempered) because of his disposition to lawlessness. Salih and Mustafa
were also brothers-in-law. Both were married to the daughters of the wealthy
Mehmed Kehaya of Raykovo (now within Smolyan’s city limits) or Smilyan
(a nearby village).43
In outer appearance, Haytov writes, “these two brothers—Mustafa the
Bitter and Salih the Pure [as engraved on the governor’s seal, Figure 6-5],”
41
Dechov, Historical Diary, 1–10. Vassil Dechov incorporates most of his Historical Diary
in Volume I of the book, Minaloto na Chepelare, 72–96; Mateev, Konakŭt na Salih Ağa
Pashmakliisky, 20. I am particularly grateful to Ivan Terziev for helping me entangle
Dechov’s handwritten family tree. Of the extensive family tree of the Kör Hodzha family,
I only reconstruct the part related to Salih, as well as to Melike whom I met in person.
232 chapter 6
looked very much alike: both were short in stature, very energetic,
bearded, and both loved power. But in everything else, they were the total
opposite. Adzhi Ağa was irascible and hot-tempered, and “would kill a
person for no reason.” [While] Salih Ağa was sensible, calm, and with good
judgment; he had an affinity for order, so he condemned his brother’s
hayti for the crimes they committed and prosecuted them relentlessly[.]44
Ahı Çelebi Kaza Salih, Lord of Ahı Çelebi

From the landowner, non-Muslim, /Seal on the back of the document/
is collected the tax “ispençe” May my deeds be as honorable as the name Salih
/tax for landowning levied from is /“Pure one”/
non-Muslims/ Translated by: [Signature here]
Lord Salih /Svetoslav Duhovnikov/
1226 /Year 1810/ Note [by the translator]: This has been written by
the hand of Salih Ağa, Lord and Governor of Ahı
Çelebi, because of which I translated it.
Figure 6-5 A-b Salih Ağa’s Seal

A document about a paid ispençe tax is signed by Salih in the following way:
“May my deeds be as honorable as the name Salih is /Pure one/.” 45
44 Haytov, Rodopski vlastelini, 221.

45 The document is translated from Ottoman Turkish by Svetoslav Duhovnikov. Duhovnikov’s
translation is enclosed under the actual text of the document, as well as under Salih’s
seal on the back of it. Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Smolyan, Fond 415k, Inventory 23,
Archival Unit 52.
Indeed, Adzhi Ağa was hayta. In fact, he was so reviled by the local popula-
tion for his licentiousness that Salih himself turned against his brother and
ultimately killed him. Between 1798 and 1806, Mustafa led his henchmen—
an assortment of Muslim and Christian mercenaries—against some of the
most prosperous settlements in and around the Rhodopes, ravaging towns
and villages and leaving destitute populations behind. Initially, Adzhi Ağa was
very careful to conceal his exploits from the governor, but as he accumulated
wealth, his arrogance grew. Around 1798–1799, “the Bitter” and his cohorts plun-
dered two of the wealthiest towns in the region, Gümürcina (now in northern
Greece) and Stanimaka (modern-day Assenovgrad in Bulgaria). The public
outcry was so great that the imperial government in Constantinople responded
with a ferman for the capture and execution of Adzhi Ağa. Thereafter, Mustafa
was on the run as a wanted criminal. Whereas they could comfortably hide
in the impregnable Rhodopean forests for most of the year, the life of fugi-
tives became intolerable for Adzhi and his companions in the harshness of the
winter. Without the promise of pillaging and enrichment, most of the hayti
gradually abandoned Mustafa Adzhi Ağa. Finally, alone and beaten, he clan-
destinely surrendered to the governor. Banking on Salih’s brotherly love, Adzhi
anticipated to be quickly forgiven and spared the execution.46
Relying on oral history, Haytov envisions the scene of the surrender in the
following way:
– “Come brother! Where have you been—starving, cold, and eaten by

lice?”—Salih received Adzhi Ağa with audible excitement in his voice.
Adzhi approached weeping. With eyes cast down, he answered:
– “Brother, if I deserve to be shot, you shoot me. If I deserve to be hanged,
you hang me. If I deserve to be beaten to death, you do it. If I deserve to be
pardoned, you pardon me. But do not hand me over to my enemies.”
– “Come, come brother! Don’t be afraid!”—Salih Ağa cajoled, deeply
moved by his brother’s despondent appearance.47
Indeed, the governor hid his fugitive brother in a secret chamber of the
konak, where the floor was strewn with thick carpets and soft pillows. A ser-
vant-woman, Sofa, was assigned to take care of his every need (and/or Salih’s
own daughter Fatme did that, in another version of the story). According to
Haytov, Adzhi was changed and bathed several times a day to rid him of the
46 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96; Dechov, Historical Diary, passim; Haytov,
Rodopski vlastelini, 197–234; Haytov, “Smolyan”, 18–31.
234 chapter 6
lice and filth he had brought in from living in the woods. Reportedly, only Salih,
Salihağovitsa, Sofa (or Salih’s daughter Fatme, in another version), and the
governor’s trusted secretary Abdullah Effendi knew of Mustafa’s true where-
abouts. Under good care and abundant food, Adzhi Ağa was able to recover
quickly. With strength and confidence regained, however, his lust for power
and plunder returned. In the passing days, Salih agonized over what to do with
his brother, the outlaw. He could not pardon the hayta. To set him free would
compromise Salih’s own position as governor and bring further suffering to
many who would inevitably became victims of Adzhi’s inclination to lawless-
ness. So, Salih did the only thing he could: bought his time and waited. His
sense of honor certainly prevented the governor from betraying or killing his
own brother. But Salih’s uneasy dilemma soon resolved itself.48
One day, Sofa, who took care of Adzhi Ağa, informed Salihağovitsa that
while cleaning Adzhi’s room she discovered a pistol under his pillow. “But how
had Mustafa acquired a weapon?”—she pondered—“And what did he need it
for in the first place? Was he distrustful of his own brother or was he planning
something sinister?” Salihağovitsa shared her misgivings with Salih Ağa. The
latter, however—according to popular lore—promptly dismissed the warning
as “Women’s drivel!”,49 and went about his usual business. Several days later,
the governor was returning home from an inspection of his nearby fields. As
he rode through the gates on his horse and into the inner courtyard of the
konak, someone shot at him, but narrowly missed. Frantic commotion ensued
in the konak immediately. While women and children were screaming, sol-
diers were running about the premises and taking defensive positions. With
no more shots to be heard, however, a sort of tense normality slowly returned
to the konak, and an investigation began. Who shot at the governor? Where did
the shooting come from? Why? Soon, it was clear that the gunfire came from
the direction of Adzhi Ağa’s secret chamber. Salih suddenly recalled his wife’s
warning of a pistol. Finally, he realized that Adzhi Ağa—his own brother—had
just attempted to assassinate him.50
Instead of succumbing to a momentary rage, however, Salih took his time
in dealing with the hayta. Initially, he ordered that all articles of comfort be
removed from his room. While leaving Adzhi without food and drink for eight
days, the governor “aimlessly walked from room to room, pulling hairs out of
his beard, weeping,” and lamenting how blindly he had kept “a snake in his
bosom.” In his frustration, Salih repeatedly called on the guards to kill “the dog
48 Ibid., 226–231.
dishonoring my house.” However, none of the soldiers dared to act on words

uttered in emotional distress. After a time, when Salih inquired as to why they
had ignored his pleas, Strahin (according to Petŭr Marinov), his lieutenant,
answered: “Today he may be your enemy, but tomorrow he would be your
brother again. You would have blamed us for his death.”51 Thus, Salih had to
deal with his family problem on his own.
Salih and Mustafa were more than full-blood brothers. They had wed the
daughters of the same mother. Their mother-in-law, however, did not share
the same fondness of both brothers. She hated “the Bitter” and advised Salih
Ağa to get rid of him, even though one of her own flesh and blood had born
at least four sons to Adzhi Ağa. According to Petŭr Marinov, she spoke the fol-
lowing words of advice to Salih Ağa, at a juncture where neither Salih’s trusted
Secretary Abdullah Effendi nor his beloved wife had—or rather dared not
offer—any for him:
Ağa! That dog will finish you. The dog has gone mad. One of you will die
while he lives. That mustn’t be you! Your children are mostly female [Salih
had two sons and four (?) daughters] and they will need their protector.
He should die! His children are male. They can take care of themselves.
This much I can tell you.52
As the days went by following the assassination attempt, Salih’s frustration

subdued but his anger intensified. Not only did he offer compassionate protec-
tion to his deviant brother, who had only done harm, but Adzhi Ağa had raised
a gun against his own brother and benefactor. Salih finally determined that
Adzhi should die. And since no one else would kill him, the governor had to do
it himself. Salih was now fully aware that, while Adzhi lived, no one was safe,
least of all himself and his children. Neither would the Ottoman authorities or
the local population be pleased to have him freed. So, one day, Salih resolutely
walked in Mustafa’s confinement chamber and shot him dead. “My children
won’t be orphans on your account, but yours will!”—he reportedly said before
walking out “pale and shaking.”53
Despite this fully justified execution of his brother—already officially con-
demned to death by a ferman on which he, as governor, was obligated to act—
Salih did not take Adzhi Ağa’s death lightly. Deeply affected by the murder,
51 Ibid., 227–228. The same answer, worded differently, is reported by Vassil Dechov and
Petŭr Marinov as well.
52 Marinov, 22.
53 Haytov, Rodopski vlastelini, 228.
236 chapter 6
Salih mounted his favorite horse, and issuing a warning that no one should
follow him, stormed out of the konak in the direction of a nearby stream.
Because it was spring time, the mountain snow caps were melting and causing
the stream to swell. Lost in distress and obviously unaware of his surround-
ings, the governor thrust his horse straight into the raging water. When the
frightened animal stood up on his hind legs, refusing to step in, mindless of
his actions, Salih took out his gun and shot his beloved horse to death. The
very next moment, both horse and rider collapsed into the river—the horse
already dead and Salih very much struggling for his life. Finally back to his
senses, the man who had just killed his brother managed to pull himself out of
the water. On the river bank, the distraught Salih sat on a rock and “wept like
a child.”54 What was he weeping about? His horse, his false brother, or both?
About the people whose good he put before his personal wellbeing but who
were never satisfied? About the fact that he needed to protect his life from his
own family? Thus, it came to pass that in 1806, Mustafa, the hayta, died from
the hand of his brother Salih. According to Dechov, Adzhi was outlived by five
sons—Süleyman, Emin, Brahom, Hassan, and Isein—who vowed to avenge
their father’s death. Ultimately, they, among others, would take an active part
in bringing about Salih’s downfall more than thirty years later. 55
2 Salihağovitsa (the Wife of Salih Ağa)
In a short segment titled “Historical Note” and attached to the play Salih Ağa,
Petŭr Marinov describes the governor in terms remarkably in sync with Dechov
and Haytov’s depiction of him:
Salih Ağa was strict, energetic, often hotheaded, but perfectly fair, kind-
hearted, insightful, and generous person. The population saw in him an
uncompromising arbiter of justice with nothing escaping his attention.
He was particularly concerned with family values, unforgiving toward
polygamy, infidelity and lewdness. Furthermore, not only did he tolerate
other faiths [other than Islam], but also treated Muslims and Christians
on a completely equitable basis. It was during his time that the over-
whelming majority of churches were built in the region [Ahı Çelebi].
The only thing that the population was unhappy about during his rule
was that he frequently conscripted people’s labor in the construction of
roads, arched bridges, buildings, water fountains and aqueducts, as well
54 Ibid.
as for work on his private estate.56 They also did not like the governor’s
intrusions in their private lives, often coercing people into reluctant mar-
riages [emphasis added].57
Salih’s greatest supporter, most valued advisor, and the architect of many of his
moral “intrusions” was his wife. As strong as her presence beside her husband
is, history never recorded her own name. She is simply known as Salihağovitsa,
the wife of Salih Ağa. This should come as no surprise considering the Islamic
tradition of addressing women as their son’s mothers or their husband’s wives,
and not by their personal name per se. According to the oral testimonies col-
lected by Dechov, Salihağovitsa “was a good woman . . . lively, tidy, with very
strong moral values, merciful, and pious. She was devoted to Salih Ağa and
respectful of his will as a ruler, but she ran her household as a full-fledged mis-
tress. Salih never interfered in her household business. . . . [She] was very char-
itable . . . helped the poor . . . especially girls and orphaned children, without
regard to their faith. However, she was particularly good to Christian women.”58
When Dechov describes Salihağovitsa as “particularly good” to Christian
women—and generally women in vulnerable position—he speaks with two
things in mind. First, Salihağovitsa’s own mother—the same who advised
Salih to kill Adzhi Ağa—was a Christian convert to Islam following her mar-
riage to Mehmed Kehaya. Second, the author refers to a specific event, when
Salihağovitsa’s involvement proved crucial in saving several enslaved women.
When the Greek rebellion broke out on the Halkidiki (Medenköyleri) Peninsula
in 1821, Salih was ordered to send troops to help quell the uprising. The gover-
nor dispatched his lieutenant Agush Ağa to—what is today—northern Greece
with a small force to assist the regular troops. Agush not only fought the rebels,
but also managed to plunder a few townships and to enslave several Greek
Christian girls, whom he smuggled into Paşmaklı.59 Enraged by his lieuten-
ant’s actions, but—above all—urged by his wife, Salih denounced Agush
for his lawlessness, appointed Strahin in his stead, and sent his new deputy
to retrieve the enslaved women; by force if necessary. Agush surrendered his
“bounty,” but from that day on he became Salih’s sworn enemy. Salihağovitsa
56 Marinov makes sure to explain that Salih provided abundant food, drink, and respite to
his workers. He was often heard saying that nothing could be done on empty stomach and
tired limbs (Marinov, 87).
57 Marinov, 87 (“Historical Note”).
58 Dechov, Historical Diary, 23–27.
59 Under Shari’a, slavery was a legitimate institution.
238 chapter 6
took the women under her protection.60 Upon joining the household, “these
girls,” Dechov writes in his Diary, “were encouraged to practice their Christian
faith freely, and Salih [and his wife] married all of them to Christian men from
the area. All wedding expenses, gifts, and dowry were paid by Salih Ağa and
his wife (the grandmother of Priest Atanass P. Raychev from Paşmaklı was one
of these slave girls). . . . Salihağovitsa took under her protection all vulnerable
Christian girls she came across. . . . They treated her as their mother.”61
In a scene of the play, Salih Ağa (Figures 6-6 and 6-7), Petŭr Marinov wonder-
fully recreates the atmosphere of Salih and Salihağovitsa’s marriage arrange-
ment of one of their foster-daughters, Kalina, to Manol:62
Salih Ağa: Whose son are you?

Manol: Niko Gulumekhovski’s son from Peshtera63
. . .
Salih Ağa: What brings you here?
Manol: I left my fiancée and came to tell you about it.
. . .
Salih Ağa: You left her?! What does that mean? Don’t you know that I
disapprove of such frivolities in my realm!? Do you wish to be thrown
down the Gorge?
Manol: Ah . . . the Gorge. I know all about the Gorge. That’s why I came
to tell you. Do with me as you will.
Salih Ağa: I do not like such things. What’s going to happen to that
poor girl now? Have you thought about that? Why did you leave her in the
first place?
Manol: I caught her with another man. That’s why I left her.
Salih Ağa: Well, well, well! What am I supposed to do with you then?!
60 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 86–87; Dechov, Historical Diary, 23–27; Haytov,
“Smolyan”, 26–27.
61 Dechov, Historical Diary, 23–27.
62 In a footnote, Dechov explains that Kalina and her sister Rakshina are real women, who
belonged to the family of Hasŭmovi from Dereköy—now the village of Sokolovtsi—both
of them raised and married by Salih Ağa’s wife to men from the towns of Peshtera and
Smolyan respectively. Kalina is the great grandmother of one Priest Nikola Manolov from
the village of Chokmanovo, whom Marinov probably knew in person (Dechov, 6).
63 In another footnote, Marinov adds that Manol was the grandfather of Manol the Painter
from Peshtera, father of Nikola and Petŭr Manolov, both priests (Dechov, 19).
Salihağovitsa to Salih privately: It will be a pity, Salih Ağa, for this young
man to die. He is so young and handsome. Also, he came here to tell you
about it on his own. That proves he doesn’t lie . . .
Salih Ağa: That’s exactly why I worry. If I let him go without punish-
ment, everyone will say: “Salih Ağa has grown soft . . .” Everybody knows I
do business with his father! . . . I don’t want to be accused of favoritism.
What should I do?
Salihağovitsa: No one will judge you ill. Let him live. Here is what I
think.
Salih Ağa: What?
Salihağovitsa: Since he has no fiancée, let’s marry him to our Kalina.
This will put an end to any talk. She is a good and hard-working girl. They
are both young . . . What do you say?
Salih Ağa: Sounds good to me.
Salihağovitsa: Her dowry is ready and it’s time to let her go.
. . .
Salih Ağa to Manol: Since you left your fiancée, won’t you take our
Kalina? All will be good that way. She is a servant of ours, but my wife
keeps her as one of our own daughters. She has a good dowry . . . What do
you say?
Manol: If I like her, I might . . .
Salih Ağa: Allah, Allah! Do you think I’d purposely tie you to someone
bad?
. . .
Salihağovitsa to Manol: Come, come with me [takes him to meet
Kalina].64
This story has a happy ending, both in the play and in real life. Apparently,
Kalina and Manol liked each other well enough to marry (or Manol simply had
no choice). In due time, Kalina gave birth to her first child, a boy. In another
scene of the play, Kalina visits Salihağovitsa in the konak accompanied by her
newborn son. Marinov puts the two women in an intimate mother-daughter
setting, wherein Kalina behaves in the manner of a dutiful daughter coming to
her parents’ home to share the joys of parenthood.65
64 Marinov, 19–22.
65 Ibid., 31.
240 chapter 6
Figure 6-6 Scene from the Play Salih Ağa

Scene from the play Salih Ağa by Petŭr Marinov, where the photographer Krum
Savov and his wife take the roles of Salih Ağa (sitting) and his wife (standing), 1938:
Salih Ağa and Salihağovitsa dynamically discussing some issue of importance. Oral
history portrays Salih’s wife as his most important advisor, particularly in family
matters.
(Courtesy of Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv.)66
Salih, the Public Man
As Petŭr Marinov remarks, Salih built many “roads, arched bridges, buildings,
water fountains and aqueducts” during his governorship. Most importantly,
however, “[i]t was during his [Salih’s] time that the overwhelming majority of
[Christian] churches were built in . . . [Ahı Çelebi].”67 As far as Dechov is con-
cerned, “all” churches in the region were constructed at Salih’s bidding.68 To
that effect, the historian writes:
The first church was built in [the village of] Chokmanovo . . . To gain a
permit to erect the church, several dignitaries from Chokmanovo, led
by Stoyan Kehaya, appeared before Salih Ağa. They asked Salih to help
66 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, The Petar Marinov Collection, Fond 959k,

Inventory 2, Archival Unit 243 (Photo-collection).
68 Dechov, Historical Diary, 7 (10).
Figure 6-7 Scene from the Play Salih Ağa

Scene from the play Salih Ağa by Petŭr Marinov, with Krum Savov and his wife in the
roles of Salih Ağa and his wife (sitting), 1938: Salih Ağa adjudicates on Manol’s case,
with Salihağovitsa naturally sitting beside him, in the role of advisor. (The Inventory
of The Petŭr Marinov Collection, in possession of the Dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv,
annotates many pieces of correspondence where people requested to see the play in
their towns or villages.)
(Courtesy of Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv.)69
them obtain ferman [royal permit] for the construction of the church.
Salih Ağa agreed to help them, but said: “Do not build the church too big
or on too prominent a site, for it would attract a lot of unwanted atten-
tion and . . . [unread words].” The dignitaries agreed to select an unobtru-
sive location for the church, but asked if they may build it larger so it
could accommodate the growing [Christian] population . . . Salih advised
them to apply for a ferman indicating smaller arshins70 for the church,
but when building it to make it wider and taller to meet their needs.71
Obviously, the stratagem suggested by Salih worked. The Christians of
Chokmanovo had their church consecrated in the year 1835.72
69 Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, The Petar Marinov Collection, Fond 959k,

Inventory 2, Archival Unit 243 (Photo-collection).
70 An old measuring unit, which most internet sites calculate at approximately 28 inches.
71 Dechov, Historical Diary, 7 (10–11).
72 Ibid., (10).
242 chapter 6
But not only churches had their desired purpose. The availability of good
roads and bridges in the difficult terrain of the Rhodopes was vitally impor-
tant for facilitating transportation, business, and defense. Thus, it was Salih
who commissioned the construction of key transportation arteries connect-
ing Paşmaklı to other important townships in the Rhodopes and beyond.
Among those were the roads Paşmaklı-Chepelare, Paşmaklı-Shiroka Lŭka, and
Paşmaklı-Tozburun-Cheresha-Arda which remain major connecting lines to
this day.73 What the population did not like, however, was that they had to
provide their free labor for the making of these roads, and for most projects
of public significance. In keeping with the traditions of his time, Salih simply
conscripted the local population when the construction or maintenance of
aqueducts, bridges, and roads were deemed necessary for public use. However,
the governor made sure to provide ample food, drink, and rest for the laborers.74
While nearly immaculate in most ways, Salih was prone to despotism when it
came to—what he saw as—advancing the public good. Ultimately, he forced
his will on the population when building public infrastructure for much the
same reasons as he administered severe punishment or arranged marriages:
Because he believed that it was his responsibility as governor to cater to the
common—not the individual or self—interest in Ahı Çelebi. The words which
Marinov ascribes to him in a candid conversation with his wife most truthfully
capture Salih’s philosophy of government:
Well! It’s not easy to look after the welfare of the people for forty years
and keep everybody happy. . . . How am I supposed to treat them [the
people]!? My whole life I have tried to do them good. . . . Listen, all! While
my human strength permits, I will enforce order. I will not let things slip
out of control. I am the Vizier here. I am the King [emphasis added].75
The Death of Salih Ağa
The Ahı Çelebi Kaza was in close proximity to Greece, which declared its sov-
ereignty from the Ottoman Empire in 1828, following a turbulent decade of
rebellions. Because Salih displayed an unusual autonomy in his government of
Ahı Çelebi and was sympathetic to the plight of the Bulgarian Christians, it was
not difficult for his enemies to incriminate him in disloyalty to the imperial
73 Ibid., (10–11).
75 Ibid., 59.
Figure 6-8 The Sycamore in Smolyan

This tree is the center-point of a small square that was the site of many public events
such as dances, meetings, and various other occasions calling for large congrega-
tions of people during Salih’s time ( June 2007). In his Diary, Dechov writes:
He [Salih] placed an order with a peddler—a Walachian from Yanina—to
bring and plant in Paşmaklı a sycamore tree—Chinar. The sycamore was
brought by Sharya Shaban and planted next to the water fountain and the
mosque of Paşmaklı. The sycamore—90–100 year-old [in 1924?]—exists to this
day. This magnificent tree . . . [unread words] . . . along with the water fountain,
is the town’s most beautiful decoration.76
government. Because of Greece’s independence, the already paranoid sultanic

regime speedily dispatched a ferman to the superior governor of Gümürcina
(Gumurdzhina), Emin Bey, authorizing Salih Ağa’s arrest and execution for
treason. Aware of Salih’s popularity and his ability to muster resistance, how-
ever, Emin Bey resorted to deception. Instead of openly detaining Salih Ağa,
he concocted a plan to invite the aging governor to Gümürcina to purportedly
hand him royal tokens of recognition for a long and exemplary service to the
empire. But the eighty-year-old seasoned ruler of Ahı Çelebi distrusted Emin
Bey, and with good reason.77

77 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 72–96; Haytov, “Smolyan”, 18–31.
244 chapter 6
Emin Bey was cunning and, more importantly, hated Salih Ağa for the lat-
ter’s persistent failure to bow to his authority as a higher imperial administra-
tor. When the ferman for Salih’s execution was received in Gümürcina, Emin
knew that he could not simply arrest the popular Rhodopean lord. He was
determined, however, to carry out the order one way or another. Both Dechov
and Haytov recount the story of Emin Bey’s dishonest scheming to that effect.
He sent not soldiers, but standard horse couriers to deliver a letter to Salih, urg-
ing him to immediately depart for Gümürcina in order to receive the honorary
distinctions of the Great Divan (the Ottoman government).78 Emin Bey sent
the following letter to the governor of Ahı Çelebi:
To the Great Lord and Governor of Ahı Çelebi

KARAHOCOĞLU SALIH AĞA SON OF SÜLEYMAN
of Paşmaklı
Glorious and Just Lord,
The news has arrived from the Great Divan [Divanı Kebir], the source of all
goodness, that our magnificent King Abdul Mecid Khan has bestowed gifts and
honors upon you for so many years of immaculate service in governing the
people of Ahı Çelebi.
Your tokens of honor and gifts have been sent to my domain in Gümürcina.
This is why I appeal to you, Great Lord, to leave immediately, travel swiftly
day and night, and appear personally before me to receive them.
I look forward to seeing you soon and to embracing you, my brother.
EMIN BEY
Governor of Gümürcina79
Despite the flattery, Salih had misgivings about this invitation. In fact, Vassil
Dechov attributes the following words to the governor who confided into his
loyal secretary Ismail (rather, Abdullah Effendi) before leaving for Gümürcina:
“I am old and life is no longer so dear to me. I will go, and whatever has to come,
78 A scarlet garment and necklace, according to the remarkable ballad the people of Ahı
Çelebi later composed about Salih, (Appendix 6.1).
79 A Bulgarian-translated facsimile of the original letter, preserved in Regionalen dŭrzhaven
arkhiv-Plovdiv, The Petŭr Marinov Collection, Fond 959(k?), Inventory 1, Archival Unit
1039.
will come.”80 Salih Ağa had no choice, but to go. If he opted not to do so, his
demeanor could have been interpreted as insurrection and the repercussions
for his family and the people of Ahı Çelebi would have been tragic. From the
way Dechov narrates the governor’s final hours, it will be safe to conclude that
Salih Ağa consciously put his life on the line to avert potentially more disas-
trous consequences for the kaza, provoked by suspicions of rebellion.81
Emin Bay provided a royal welcome to Salih Ağa in Gümürcina.82 Aware
of Gümürcina’s proximity to Salih’s stronghold Ahı Çelebi and Istanbul’s rela-
tive remoteness, Emin still feared Salih’s ability to rally popular support in his
defense. Were Salih to ignite uprising in an already combustible environment,
Emin could lose both his governorship and his head. The lavish welcome had
the purpose to deceive, and it succeeded. Salih gradually relaxed and, feeling
safe enough, he sent his security escort back to Ahı Çelebi, with the exception
of five to ten personal guards. With that, the opportune moment came for Emin
Bey to strike. Salih Ağa occupied a bedroom at the upper levels of Emin Bey’s
konak, while his bodyguards, including his lieutenant Stahin, were deliberately
accommodated on the ground floor, away from the governor. Thus separated
from his only friends in Gümürcina, the elderly Salih became an easy target.
One evening, two assassins snuck in his bedroom and strangled the sleeping
man with a piece of leather cord. According to a different version, Salih was
strangled not during the night, but in broad daylight after walking out of a
conference with Emin Bey in the latter’s private chamber.83 Whereas it is dif-
ficult to ascertain which the correct version of events is, both storylines seem
plausible. With his typical attention to details, though, Dechov records that
Salih Ağa was buried in the Turkish cemetery by the Polipoli (or Poshposh)
River, west of Gümürcina. Later on, his sons Emin Bey84 and Tahir Bey marked
their father’s grave with a headstone, on which they inscribed the leather cord
that cut his life short. When, in 1924, Dechov recorded an entry in his Historical
Diary, he remarked that the headstone was still there.85 If the author means
that he actually saw the stone for himself, then it is at least certain that Salih
was strangled by a leather cord.

81 Ibid., 72–96.
82 Ibid., 88.
83 Dechov, Historical Diary, 13–15 (23–27).
84 In addition to title (governor), “bey” was also the accepted form of addressing higher-
ranking Ottoman officials.
85 Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare, Volume I, 88; Dechov, Historical Diary, 24–25.
246 chapter 6
Whatever the actual circumstances of his demise, Salih never returned to

his beloved Rhodopes. His days ended in Gümürcina sometime in the fall of
1838 because of the cunning of Emin Bey. The governor of Gümürcina mur-
dered Salih Ağa as much in compliance with the order for his execution as in
satisfaction of his personal resentment for the lord of Ahı Çelebi.86 As Dechov
specifies, though, the story of Salih’s murder was reported to him, among oth-
ers, by the governor’s own grandson Mehmedali Tahirbey.
Salih’s remaining guards fled Gümürcina after the governor’s strangulation
and carried the news of his tragic end to Paşmaklı. Deep was the despair and
frustration of all who depended on Salih Ağa for protection of life, property,
and welfare. Not only was Salih’s family now vulnerable to confiscation of
property and general willful abuse, but so were his servicemen, and—above
all—the poor Christian and Muslim peasantry, shielded from violent arbitrari-
ness solely by Salih’s personal integrity and political power. Dechov describes
the general mood following his death:
The news about the killing of Salih Ağa produced a shocking effect on the
entire Middle-Rhodopean population. Some were scared, because they
did not know what to expect next, others rejoiced, yet third genuinely
mourned their governor. But most of all mourned the people of Chepelare
and Smolyan, because they lost their best protector and benefactor.87
After Salih’s assassination, Emin Bey dispatched bureaucrats and troops to Ahı
Çelebi in order to contain potential turmoil and to take control of everything
that the governor’s family possessed. By the time they arrived, however, Salih’s
older son Emin Bey ordered all the women and children of the household,
including servants, to leave the konak, each taking out whatever they could
hide in their clothes. This way, the smaller and more valuable possessions
were hastily hidden away in various places. When the Gümürcina bureaucrats
arrived, they claimed the konak and what was left in it, sealing off all rooms
and inventorying every item. All that belonged to Salih Ağa was duly confis-
cated, his honor soiled, and his offspring barred from public office.
One of Salih’s kinsmen and bitter enemies, Agush, who brought about the
accusation of treason, managed to secure the appointment of his own sons as
joint rulers of Ahı Çelebi, with himself as their political advisor. This state of
affairs continued only until 1842, a little over three years. By then, Salih’s sons,

87 Ibid., 88.
Emin Bey and Tahir Bey—tirelessly petitioning every friendly ear in Edirne88
and Istanbul and evoking Salih’s immaculate reputation—had restored their
father’s good name, reclaiming possession of their property, and reestablishing
their family’s authority.89 But the sovereign reign of the Kör Hoca (Hodzha)
dynasty was over. Emin Bey did eventually succeed his father Salih as gover-
nor of Ahı Çelebi, but the Ottoman authorities also appointed a kadi (admin-
istrative judge)—an ethnic Turk from Constantinople—alongside, with the
authority to countermand Emin’s decisions. In effect, this was a measure of
preventing Salih’s heirs from reestablishing their father’s absolute control of
the kaza. Scared by Greece’s successful bid for independence just a decade ear-
lier, the Ottoman state was determined not to permit a regional ruler to grow
strong; no matter how small hierarchically he was.
The population of Ahı Çelebi, however, took immediate and irrevocable dis-
like to the Turkish kadi, because “he was arrogant, corrupt, and most impor-
tantly could not speak Ahren language [the local Slavic dialect].”90 Popular
determination to get rid of him provoked an anonymous individual to sneak
in the kadi’s sleeping quarters one night and to set his bed on fire. The kadi
burned along with his house. The authorities blamed the murder on Emin
Bey, Salih Ağa’s successor, who was forced to resign from the office of governor
by 1850.
The distinguished and widely liked Isein Zhurnal—native of Paşmaklı
and a kinsman of Salih’s lieutenant Strahin—received the imperial appoint-
ment as the next chief administrator of Ahı Çelebi. Wary of allowing the
power back into the hands of another local person, however, the authorities
in Constantinople and Gümürcina implicated Isein Bey in the kadi’s murder
as well. In the course of a few years following his appointment, in 1856, the
Ottoman government tried, convicted, and effectively imprisoned Isein Bey.
From then on and until 1912–1913, when Bulgaria permanently took control of
most of the Rhodopes, Ahı Çelebi was governed by deliberately appointed out-
side administrators, titled kaymakam.91
The Kör Hoca dynasty ruled Ahı Çelebi for over one hundred years and
Salih Ağa’s reign was the golden age in the Ottoman history of the Middle
Rhodopes. The archives of Salih Ağa, which would have been a valuable source
of Rhodopean history, survived until 1912 when the invading Bulgarian troops
88 The Ahı Çelebi Kaza was part of the Edirne Vilayet (larger province) of the Ottoman
Empire.
89 Dechov, 95.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid., 95–96.
248 chapter 6
plundered the konak, taking away or obliterating most of what was left in it,
including written records.92 This destruction, in conjunction with Salih’s pref-
erence to conduct his gubernatorial affairs mostly orally, rather than in writing,
accounts for the sad fact that very few records bearing Salih’s authentic mark
survive today.
“After the death of Salih Ağa,” Dechov concludes the family’s saga, “the Kör
Hoca offspring developed a liking for alcohol and gradually sank into poverty
and insignificance. But all the way until 1913, most of these descendants of an
illustrious dynasty had preserved the physical and character traits of noble,
intelligent, kindly, and virtuous lords.”93
Conclusion: Salih Ağa’s Heritage
Salih Ağa was a remarkable person who not only brought stability to Ahı Çelebi
in trying times for the Ottoman Empire, but also established a social order of
a new type—one that permitted equality between Muslims and Christians
despite Shari’a. As Nikolay Haytov sums it, the governor’s most remarkable
legacy lies in “the fact that he elevated the status of the Christians to that of
the Muslims in both civil and political matters . . . [which] provided the former
with the opportunity . . . to amass wealth surpassing the latter in all respect.
From servants and bondsmen of the Yuruks [(a community of stockbreed-
ers)], they [the Christians] became owners of vast herds of sheep, pastures,
forests, and land.”94 Nevertheless, the heritage of Salih Ağa remains obscure
and unrecognized in the local public history of Bulgaria to this day.
Even Haytov, a writer well-known for promoting restrictive Bulgarian nation-
alism, finds this neglect detrimental to the national cultural narrative, albeit
within the jingoistic discourse of bad Muslimness and good Bulgarianness. In
his paper, “Smolyan: Three Pinnacles in the History of the Middle Rhodopes,”
he concludes the section on Salih Ağa with the following monologue that best
illustrates the complexity of the issue:
“Celebrated?” Can we define him [Salih Ağa] as such?

While some [Bulgarian academics] quiescently accept this, others are
silent, and third straightforwardly reject it. Was Salih Ağa not the
overlord, the feudal, and the appointed tyrant of the Sultan? Did he not

94 Haytov, “Smolyan,” 27.
wear the fez, and was he not the one who condemned and hanged?
Should we let him in the upper echelons of Bulgarian history in his
tyrant’s armor? “No! Let him stay in the basement, in the dusty corner,
where is the proper place for all reactionary feudal trash.”
But how can we let that happen, when it is a matter of fact that Salih Ağa
equalized Christians with Muslims, expurgating the very concept of
“rayah”95 during his reign, and, by doing so, broke away from the practice of
all preceding and following rulers, for which he ultimately paid with his life!
. . . Why can’t we see that Salih Ağa obstructed Muslimness in all its
forms—polygamy, “Turkization,” and depravity, preserving the tradi-
tional Bulgarian morality?
Why should we deny that his archaic justice brought peace and order
in society a hundred times more effectively than any formal justice
system, as well as nurtured agricultural development and economic
prosperity?
Why? Because he is a feudal tyrant? An Ottoman governor?
Is it possible to demand of him—a product of his time—to outgrow
his age and become—let’s say—a partisan of the Bulgarian [indepen-
dence] cause? As a ruler of Ahı Çelebi, he has done more for the preserva-
tion of Bulgarianness in Smolyan than a hundred [of our] patriots.
Facts! Does it not suffice to mention that during the April Uprising
[the 1876 pro-independence uprising] not a single shot was fired against
a Bulgarian [Christian] in Smolyan? If there were a Salih Ağa in Devin or
Chepino to curb the Muslim fanaticism, there would have been no burn-
ing of Perushtitsa, and no massacre in Batak. The reign of Salih Ağa
opened the way for the [Bulgarian] renaissance in the Middle Rhodopes
. . .
But Salih Ağa ended with a loop around his neck!
And if this last, bloody evidence is not enough [to give him the due
respect], then all further words will be in vain [emphasis added].96
Yet, Salih Ağa—the Pomak governor of the Ottoman kaza of Ahı Çelebi—is
gaining momentum in the rising discourse of Pomak heritage in Bulgaria.
Because of the contentious nature of Pomak identity in the national discourse,
95 A term that literaly translates as “the flock” and refered to the totality of Ottoman subjects,
both Muslim and Christian. However, in the nineteenth century, the age of nationalism in
the Balkans, the term rayah was improperly interpreted to mean “non-Muslims,” that is,
second-class people, the “oppressed” subjects of the sulan.
96 Haytov, “Smolyan”, 30.
250 chapter 6
the Muslim Rhodopean community has been stranded on a precarious cross-

road with no real sense of self that is reflective of the people’s own understand-
ing of past and present. Since the time of their first comprehensive pokrŭstvane
of 1912–1913, the Pomaks have been consistently told to think of themselves as
descendants of forcibly Islamized Bulgarians, whose primary patriotic duty
is to return to their “true” identity. Even today, if they stray but a little from
the prescribed identity and claim, for instance, a distinct Pomak heritage, this
unleashes an avalanche of resentment and indignation by patriotic citizens
and institutions.97 Challenges to any aspect of—what has become—the estab-
lished history of the Bulgarian nation is likely to be met with overt hostility
and aggression. Finding a way out of negative emotions and devising common
grounds for the discussion of sensitive heritage issues, therefore, is paramount
to a constructive public discourse. Salih Ağa, the man who cared equally for the
wellbeing of Muslim and Christian communities within his realm more than
170 years ago, may be able to offer just such shared platform. As Ivan Terziev,
my (Christian) friend and host in Smolyan, said to me in the context of further-
ing the Rhodopean cultural tourism, Salih’s legacy could be a potent factor in
uniting the cultural interpretation of Rhodopean heritage to the benefit of all:
Christians, Muslims, and tourists. While the formal acknowledgement and cel-
ebration of Salih’s legacy in Smolyan would immensely please the local Pomak
community, it will also open the discussion of currently sensitive issues per-
taining to the Ottoman past, including Pomak identity, thereby enriching local
history and attracting cultural tourists to the region. Salih Ağa may be revived
in many ways to benefit tourism and the public discourse, including via aca-
demic and fictional writing, reconstruction of his konak as a heritage site, and/
or formally attaching his name to such places as The Waterfall of Smolyan (The
Gorge of Salih Ağa) to turn it into a tourist hotspot. My own tribute to Salih
Ağa—and the local Pomak heritage through him—is this narrative of his life
as reflected in oral history and recorded by Vassil Dechov, Nikolay Haytov,
and Petŭr Marinov. Albeit neglected by orthodox history, Salih of Paşmaklı is
very much alive in vernacular memory and available to inspire the common
grounds for a new, shared Rhodopean heritage.
Ultimately, I brought Salih’s story to light not only because he is the for-
gotten local hero, but also—and mostly—to point to the fact that Pomak
history merits academic exploration. Not only is it littered with fascinating
individuals (and events) like Salih Ağa, but it could also be a veritable boon
for a diverse body of scholars, including ethnographers, cultural geographers,
97 Read the example with Baleva and Brunnbauer’s attempt to offer an alternative reading of
the Batak massacre in footnote 28 of this chapter.
micro-historians, folklorists, cultural anthropologists, and scholars of national-

ism. Because of the long history of cultural suppression, however, much of the
Pomak past has been obliterated with vital consequences for the availability
of standard historical evidence. Thus, future scholastic devotees of Pomak cul-
ture will have to be willing to embrace new and cross-disciplinary approaches
as they delve into challenging, but ultimately rewarding research.
Appendices
Appendix 2.1 Report of Pazardzhik Activists for Pomak Conversion to

Archbishop Maxim
It was not easy to make compromise with our consciousness in order to decide that
we have to persuade the ignorant Pomaks that through the faith we hope to achieve
their Bulgarianization. This courageous idea was born in the mind of one of our activ-
ists, Todor Iv. Mumdzhiev. From the very beginning of the mobilization (October 10,
1912), he wrote a long letter to His Excellency the Archbishop of Plovdiv, Maxim,
signed by ten people, his co-ideologists, among which the town’s mayor Iv. Koprivshki,
Iv. Voyvodov, and others. . . .
[As a result of our initiative], a population of about 150,000 people was delivered to
the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and to the Bulgarian nation. . . .
Several days after the above [Mumdzhiev’s] letter was sent, there was a conven-
tion of citizens [in Pazardzhik], inclusive of those who signed the letter [a total of
22 people signed it, among which were six teachers, four merchants, four lawyers, two
soldiers, one engineer, one student, one retiree, one banker, one mayor, and one per-
son with unspecified profession], where they decided to organize the “Committee for
Assistance of the Newly Converted Christians;” the Committees’ purpose is to popular-
ize and spread the idea of Christianizing the Pomaks. . . . The committee decided to
start the realization of this goal by converting the Pomaks in Chepino first. . . .
[L]ed by priest Konstantin Koev, our co-ideologists embarked on a mission trip
through the Chepino region to propagate the idea of pokrŭstvane. Just because they
were asked to consider whether it would not be in their best interest to convert to
Christianity voluntarily, some fanatics (about 10–20 households) along with their
families fled to Peshtera; some even traveled to Sofia and Plovdiv to complain to the
authorities and foreign consuls.
. . . Meanwhile, however, in each village our co-ideologists managed to organize
themselves in the so-called local committees for conversion. On the appointed day
[29 December 1912], we marched into [the village of] Lŭdzhene where we encoun-
tered a convention of local mayors and other leading Pomaks from neighboring vil-
lages gathered to hear us.
. . . Mumdzhiev spoke first . . . . [He told them] . . . that the Qur’an obstructs their
progress, that their forefathers had been Islamized by force, . . . that the faith of
Mohammed resembles a tattered coat which cannot warm the soul and soften the
heart; that Christianity brings high moral values and gives freedom of conscience; that
they are a compact mass of about 300,000 who speak the pure Bulgarian language so
dear to us; that their folklore is ours, and so on. . . .

appendices 253
Molla Mustafa Kara-Mehmedov from Rakitovo spoke on behalf of the Pomaks—a

wealthy, intelligent, sixty-year old person, who had served as a district councilor and
who can read Bulgarian excellently. He literally said the following: “Gentlemen, what
the people from Pazardzhik said is just; but what can be done when there are 2,000
behind us (speaking of his village) who are simple and ignorant people and they do
not understand how they could change their faith. This seems to us like impenetrable
forest, how can we find our way out of it? Anything is possible, but we ask to be allowed
some time?” To that, the people, the audience objected: “We have been waiting for you
35 years to become Bulgarians and you have not; if the Turks were to invade us now,
you would rise to massacre us, as you did in Batak. . . . You must convert now.”
. . . It was decided that the conversion would be done en mass, not village by village,
or family by family; the Pomaks themselves wished it that way . . .
On the day of baptism, the entire population of Lŭdzhene and Kamenitsa was
gathered together in order to facilitate the job of the conversion activists, as well as
to stimulate the Pomaks to select their godfathers and godmothers [from among the
Christians]. By 3 pm that day all petitions for conversion addressed to the Archbishop
[of Plovdiv, Maxim] were signed, and many [Pomaks] already had their religious advi-
sors selected. When all were announced for conversion, the men and their families
were urged to go to the river for baptism and prayer. . . .
The soldiers, who helped collect the population, had been stationed in these vil-
lages since mobilization time when they had disarmed the Pomaks in order to prevent
them from doing damage to the Bulgarian troops. These soldiers performed their task
admirably. More than 1,300 people [Muslims] were present for the baptism. . . .
. . . We had brought several trunks full of hats for the men and boys, and brand new
headscarves for the women. Priest Koev preached about Christianity, Mumdzhiev
talked about the social-political benefits of accepting Christianity, and Ushev told the
story of how the Pomak were forced to Islamize.
. . . But none [of the Pomaks] ventured to come forth; then their godfathers and
godmothers came forward and, in a few minutes only, all fezzes were replaced by hats,
and all yashmaks—by headscarve. . . .
The ceremony of baptism concluded with kissing the cross, kissing the priest’s hand,
and sprinkling them with water. Personal congratulations followed, then every family
went home; the Bulgarians left for their villages, too.
Some of the women teachers were tireless in spreading the new ideas among the
[Muslim] women . . . Committees of 15–20 individuals consisting of men and intelli-
gent misses began house-to-house visits on the following day asking the new Christians
to select their new names. To assist the committees in their name replacing campaign,
the godfathers and godmothers of the new converts accompanied them. . . .
The former mosques were converted into churches, chapels, or Sunday schools.
Photographs were made of the baptizing in Rakitovo, Banya, and Lŭdzhene.
254 appendices
. . . In Rakitovo, the photographs captured the moments when the converts were
sprinkled with water, and when they were kissing the cross and the priest’s hand; the
Bulgarian women were helping the Pomak women to take off their yashmaks and put
on the headscarves, all the while teaching them how to do it; the children fought one
another for a better hat. The crowd, including the new converts, saluted the general, the
local governor, and shouted three times: “Long live the King and Great Bulgaria.” . . .
The ceremony of baptism went in the following way: the whole family approached
the kupel [vessel with holy water]; they denounced the Mohammedan faith; the priest
then poured holy water over the father and mother’s heads, and sprinkled some in
their children’s faces. Then a prayer was said, followed by announcement of the con-
verts’ new names, at which moment the priest performed the sign of the cross on them
by placing the crucifix on the foreheads, chests, and two arms of the converts. . . .
. . . The ceremony of baptism took place in the temples . . . or in the premises of
former mosques that had been converted to chapels. . . .
Both good and bad reactions came as a result of our initiative. But our conscience
is at peace, because we did not admit casualties or violence to take place. Up to date,
32 weddings in the village of Banya and 20—in Rakitovo have happened among the
new Christians and they have been performed in the Christian tradition.
. . . [A]n association “Brotherly Love” was founded in the village of Lŭdzhene for the
purpose of the moral, religious, cultural, and material uplifting of the new Christians
in Chepino.1
1 Confidential report of the Pazardzhik activists on Pomak conversion to the Holy Synod, to
Archbishop Maxim of Plovdiv, and to several Ministries, including the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of
Justice, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of War, and others from 22 February 1913.
Regionalen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Plovdiv, Fond 67 к, Inventory 2, Archival Unit 107, pages 79–85.
(In Velichko Georgiev and Stayko Trifonov, eds., Pokrŭstvaneto na Bulgarite Mohamedani
1912–1913 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Prof. Marin Drinov Publ., 1995), 157–171).
appendices 255
Appendix 2.2 Excerpts from the Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars, 1914
1 Appendix A, No.7, Testimony of Ali Riza Effendi from Kukush

. . . [He] states that the Bulgarian bands entered Kukush on October 30 [1913], after
the Turks had left. Toma of Istip, their leader, installed himself as governor, and
told the people to have no fear. Both Ser[b]ian and Bulgarian detachments passed
through the town, but only very few soldiers were left there while the main army went
on to Salonica. After the occupation of Salonica, disarmed Turkish [Muslim] soldiers
in groups of two to three hundred at a time marched through Kukush on their way to
their homes. They were captured by the Bulgarian bands and slaughtered, to the num-
ber of perhaps 2,000. A commission of thirty to forty Christians was established, which
drew up lists of all the Moslem inhabitants throughout the district. Everyone was sum-
moned to the mosque and there informed that he had been rated to pay a certain sum.
Whole villages were made responsible for the total amount; most of the men were
imprisoned and were obliged to sell everything they possessed, including their wives’
ornaments, in order to pay the ransom. They were often killed in spite of the payment
of the money in full; he, himself, actually saw a Bulgarian comitadji cut off two fin-
gers of a man’s hand and force him to drink his own blood mixed with raki [alcoholic
beverage]. From the whole county (Caza) of Kukush £1,500 were taken. The chief of
bands, Donchev, arrived and matters were still worse. He burnt three Turkish [Muslim]
villages in one day, Raionovo, Planitsa and Kukurtovo—345 houses in all. He shut up
the men in the mosques and burnt them alive; the women were shut up in barns and
ill used; children were actually flung against the walls and killed. This the witness did
not see, but heard from his Christian neighbors. Only twenty-two Moslem families out
of 300 remained in Kukush; the rest fled to Salonica. Twelve small Moslem villages
were wiped out in the first war, the men killed and the women taken away. He was in
Kukush when the Greeks entered it. The Bulgarians in leaving the town burnt nothing
but the bakers’ ovens. The Greeks systematically and deliberately plundered and burnt
the town. He believes that many aged Bulgarian inhabitants were burnt alive in their
houses. He himself found refuge in the Catholic orphanage.2
2 Appendix A, No.8, “Report Signed by Youssouf Effendi, President of the

Moslem Community of Serres, and sealed with its seal,”
. . . On November 6, 1912, the inhabitants of Serres, sent a deputation to meet the
Bulgarian army and surrender the town. Next day Zancov, a Bulgarian Chief of bands,
2 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Report of the International Commission

to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars” (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1914), 280.
256 appendices
appeared in the town with sixteen men, and began to disarm the population. A day
later the Bulgarian army entered Serres and received a warm welcome. That evening
the Bulgarian soldiers, on the pretext that arms were still hidden in the houses of the
Moslems, entered them and began to steal money and other valuables. Next day the
Moslem refugees from the district north of Serres were invited to appear at the pre-
fecture; they obeyed the summons; but on their arrival a trumpet sounded and the
Bulgarian soldiers seized their arms and began to massacre these inoffensive people;
the massacre lasted three hours and resulted in the death of 600 Moslems. The number
of the victims would have been incalculable had it not been for the energetic interven-
tion of the Greek bishop, and of the director of the Orient bank.
The Moslems of the town were then arrested in the cafes, houses and streets, and
imprisoned, some at the prefecture and others in the mosques; many of the former were
slaughtered with bayonets. Bulgarian soldiers in the meantime entered Turkish houses,
violated the women and girls and stole everything they could lay their hands on. The
Moslems imprisoned in the overcrowded mosques were left without food for two days
and nights and then released. For six days rifle shots were heard on all sides; the Moslems
were afraid to leave their houses; and of this the Bulgarian soldiers took advantage to
pillage their shops. Moslem corpses lay about in the streets and were buried only when
they began to putrefy. . . . In a word, during the Bulgarian occupation the Moslems were
robbed and maltreated both in the streets and at the prefecture, unless they had hap-
pened to give board and lodging to some Bulgarian officer. The Bulgarian officers and
gendarmes before leaving Serres took everything that was left in the shops of Moslems,
Jews and Greeks, and pitilessly burnt a large number of houses, shops, cafes, and mills.
September 5, 1913.3
3 Ibid., 280–281.
appendices 257
Appendix 3.1A Applications for Emigration Submitted by Pomaks
Number of Application to Leave the Country Submitted by Bulgarian-Mohamedans4
Year Total Varna Razgrad Burgass Haskovo Sofia—City

1989 number for Region Region Region Region and Region
the country
As of June 15th 50,608 20,592 27,983 84

On June 15th 8,631 3,470 3,603 52
On June 16th 8,252 2,444 4,069 26
On June 17th 5,400 - [no data] - [no data]
On June 18th 89,148 3.396 - [no data] 10,594 - [no data]
On June 19th 8,980 3,235 1,842 3,414 62
On June 20th 10,577 5,301 1,260 3,508 57
On June 21st 10,727 4,217 2,412 3,115 35
On June 22nd 13,110 4,349 3,927 4,627 56
On June 23rd 9,259 3,881 196 4,148 25
On June 24th 3,034 2,976 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On June 25th - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
.
On June 26th 10, 482 76 1,763 318 7,702 43
On June 27th 9,899 - [no data] 3,438 299 5,422 8
On June 28th 10,285 - [no data] 3,447 155 6,129 16
On June 29th 13,083 - [no data] 4,816 134 7,771 19
On June 30th 9,645 - [no data] 3,655 132 5,449 17
On July 1st 176 - [no data] 80 60 - [no data] - [no data]
On July 2nd - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On July 3rd 6,324 97 2,890 2,994 11
On July 4th 5,402 - [no data] 2,436 123 2,643 19
On July 5th 3,768 - [no data] 1,772 87 1,414 8
Total as of July
6th, 1989 370,291 89,321 124,543 42,438 97,194 539
[Notice: There is no statistics available for the period prior to June 18th, 1987, countrywide, and prior to June
22nd, 1987, for Varna Region.]
4 Statistical information of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, No. I 3839 from July 7, 1989,
prepared for Lyubomir Shopov, a member of the central committee of the communist party. Tsen-
tralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv Sofia. (There is no archival reference number on the document.)
258 appendices
Appendix 3.1B Number of Passports Issued to Pomaks
Number of Passports to Travel Abroad Issued to Bulgarian-Mohamedans5
Year Total Varna Razgrad Burgass Haskovo Sofia—City

1989 number for Region Region Region Region and Region
the country
As of June 15th 174

On June 15th 13
On June 16th 113,851 60,352 31, 298 6,900 11,768 28
On June 17th - [no data]
On June 18th 215
On June 19th 4,850 - [no data] 4,798 - [no data] - [no data] 52
On June 20th 73 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 51
On June 21st - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 28
On June 22nd - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 4
On June 23rd - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 4
On June 24th - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On June 25th - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On June 26th - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 61
On June 27th - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 7
On June 30th 1,795 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 1
On July 1st 299 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On July 2nd - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On July 3rd 1,009 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On July 4th 1,612 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] - [no data]
On July 5th 1,230 - [no data] - [no data] - [no data] 27
Total as of 125,441 60,352 6,900 11,768 460
July 6th, 1989
5 Ibid.
appendices 259
Appendix 3.1C Statistics on Pomak Immigration
Number of Bulgarian-Mohamedans That Have Left the Country6
Year Total number Varna Razgrad Burgass Haskovo Sofia—City

1989 for the country Region Region Region Region and Region
As of June 15th 23,192

On June 15th 4,516
On June 16th 4,258 16,755 12,911 5,134 11,383 13
On June 17th 3,405
On June 18th 4,125
On June 19th 3,280
On June 20th 4,050
On June 21st 4,772 1,512 1,264 760 959 4
On June 22nd 4,943 1,894 1,281 529 867 4
On June 23rd 4,694 2,027 1,205 211 687 16
On June 24th 4,479 2,051 1,444 385 495 9
On June 25th 4,331 2,059 1,360 77 615 4
On June 26th 4087 1,863 1,115 26 903 13
On June 27th 4,313 1,914 1,170 60 838 6
On June 28th 4,420 1,236 1,622 399 1,017 8
On June 29th 4,707 743 1,467 768 1,381 2
On June 30th 5,038 747 1,499 555 1,960 0
On July 1st 3,570 461 1,412 662 940 0
On July 2nd 2,980 335 1,036 308 1,074 5
On July 3rd 3,666 920 1,615 513 558 0
On July 4th 3,363 447 789 478 1,441 11
On July 5th 5,155 1,350 1,102 816 1,644 4
Total as of July
6th, 1989 111,336 36,314 32,197 11,681 26,662 99
6 Ibid.
260 appendices
Appendix 3.2 Statistics on Zagrazhden Municipality
The following statistics, collected by the regime, for the municipality of Zagrazhden,
Smolyan Region, provides an interesting insight into the reality of the years 1969, 1970,
and 1971. In particular, the tables include statistics on population size, number of peo-
ple with changed names, typical industries of Pomak employment, household appli-
ances acquired by Pomak families, education, as well as number of exiled individuals
from the region:
Table 3.2.17
Permanent Population of Zagrazhden Municipality as of 31 October 1971
Villages and hamlets Total number Included in the total are: Included in the total are:
of people
Pomaks Turks
Men Women Men Women
Zagrazhden 1,056 518 538 516 534 6

Vŭlchan Dol 413 181 232 181 231 1
Glogino 499 212 287 211 287 1
Ribin Dol 606 296 310 231 259 116
Hambar 348 164 184 164 184 –
Dve Topoli 408 211 197 2 6 400
Malko Krushevo 207 111 96 – 1 206
Total: 3,537 1,693 1,844 1,305 1,502 730
Total 2,807
7 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1Б, Inventory 38, Archival Unit 11, page 130.
appendices 261
Table 3.2.2a8
Number of People (Children Under One Year of Age Excluded) with “Revived” Names
Villages and 1969 1970 As of Oct. 31, 1971

hamlets
Total - of them Total - of them Total - of them
number of with number with number with
people “revived” people “revived” of people “revived”
names names names
Zagrazhden 1,051 341 1,054 233 1,050 282

Vŭlchan Dol 428 34 423 46 412 206
Glogino 495 86 503 48 498 203
Ribin Dol 498 34 495 77 490 185
Hambar 347 20 350 28 348 222
Dve Mogili 9 — 9 — 9 1
and M. Krushevo
Total: 2,828 515 2,834 432 2,807 1,099
Table 3.2.2b9
Number of Newborns Registered with Bulgarian (Christian) Names
1969 1970 (As of Oct. 31) 1971

Villages and
hamlets Total - of them Total - of them Total - of them
number of with number of with number with
Pomak Bulgarian Pomak Bulgarian of Pomak Bulgarian
newborns names newborns names newborns names
Zagrazhden 17 8 13 11 8 8
Vŭlchan Dol 4 2 12 9 3 3
Glogino 7 1 10 7 8 8
Ribin Dol 7 — 7 5 7 7
Hambar 11 1 7 4 6 6
Total: 46 12 49 36 32 32
8 Ibid., 131–132.
9 Ibid., 130–131.
262 appendices
Table 3.2.310
Number of People Exiled from the Region
Year 1969 1970 1971

Number of People 45 29 19
Table 3.2.411
Employment of the Pomaks
1969 1970 As of Oct. 31, 1971

Employment Sectors
Men Women Men Women Men Women
Industry
Agriculture and Forestry 112 197 107 201 119 298
Construction 27
Retail 37 8 37 8 36 8
Transportation 15 — 15 — 16 —
Other non-production 50 25 48 24 46 28
sectors [teachers, medical
professionals, etc.]
Total: 214 230 207 233 244 334
Total number of unemployed 299 337 303 341 297 341
people:*
[* Note: The statistics is for people who did not have salaried jobs, but otherwise worked the land given them by
the state for private use, largely to grow tobacco.]
10 Ibid., 138.
11 Ibid., 133.
appendices 263
Table 3.2.512
A. Education of the Pomaks as Oct.31, 1971
High school Technical school College University

Villages and
hamlets Total - of them Total - of them Total - of them Total - of them
number employed number employed number employed number employed
of people locally of people locally of people locally of people locally
Zagrazhden 27 24 38 31 2 2 2 2
Vŭlchan Dol 4 3 7 5 2 2 1 1
Glogino 3 3 6 6 1 1 1 1
Ribin Dol 5 4 3 2 — — — —
Hambar 5 4 7 7 2 2 — —
Total: 44 38 61 51 7 7 4 4
B. Number of People Graduating by Academic Year
Level of Education 1969/1970 School Year 1970/1971 School Year 1971/1972 School Year
8th grade 47 43 45
High School 12 11 13
Technical School 16 18 19
College 3 5 9
University 2 2 3
Total: 80 79 89
12 Ibid., 135.
264 appendices
Table 3.2.613
Household Appliances Purchased by Pomaks
Appliances Total Number of Appliances 1969 1970 As of Oct. 31, 1971
TVs 132 58 29 32
Radios 442 52 47 42
Cassette players 37 7 11 17
Refrigerators 102 15 35 19
Electrical stoves 123 3 72 6
Gas stoves 93 15 16 8
Motorcycles 53 7 5 2
Cars 2 1 1 —
Mopeds 5 2 3 —
Houses 427 4 6 8
Furniture 431 70 127 21
Radio transmitters 92 78 5 9
Table 3.2.714
Pomaks with New Names and IDs in the Smolyan Region as of 15 August 1972
Total number of - of them supplied People NOT supplied Percentage (%)

Municipality people ELIGIBLE WITH new IDs with new IDs yet of those already
for IDs WITH new IDs
Devin 3,356 1,907 1,449 56.82%

Zlatograd 5,260 3,270 1,990 62.16%
Lŭki 1,751 1,500 251 85.66%
Madan 3,118 1,650 1,468 52.91%
Rudozem 2,216 920 1.296 41.51%
(Continued)
13 Ibid., 134.
14 Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia, Fond 1Б, Inventory 38, Archival Unit 16, pages 1?5–1?6
(? indicates unreadable number).
appendices 265
Table (Continued)
Total number of - of them supplied People NOT supplied Percentage (%)
Municipality people ELIGIBLE WITH new IDs with new IDs yet of those already
for IDs WITH new IDs
Smolyan 4,280 3,339 941 78.01%

Chepelare 1,053 980 73 93.06%
Arda 1,080 730 350 67.59%
Barutin 1,256 572 684 67.59%
Breze 605 445 160 73.55%
Bukovo 1,217 518 699 42.56%
Vŭrbina 2,920 1,020 1,900 34.93%
Davidkovo 1,799 1,235 564 68.64%
Dospat 1,502 540 962 35.95%
Elhovets 1,840 704 1,136 38.26%
Zagrazhden 1,659 666 993 40.14%
Zmeitsa 863 478 385 55.38%
Zabŭrdo 591 533 58 90.18%
Lŭdzha 2,530 1,671 859 66.04%
Lyaskovo 805 605 200 75.15%
Mihalkovo 415 235 180 56.62%
Mugla 1,128 683 445 60.31%
Mogilitsa 1,421 614 807 43.21%
Nedelino 3,660 2,019 1,641 55.16%
Petkovo 1,172 784 386 66.89%
Slaveino 1,136 650 486 57.22%
Sredets 1,149 316 833 27.50%
Smilyan 1,806 1,618 188 89.59%
Startsevo 1,300 700 600 53.85%
Selcha 740 433 307 58.51%
Trigrad 842 636 206 75.53%
Tŭrŭn 1,274 440 834 34.54%
Chepintsi 1,143 454 689 39.72%
Yagodina 981 578 403 59%
Total 57,868 33,433 24,425 57.10%
266 appendices
Table 3.2.815
Statistics “On the Descendants of Mohamedanized in the Past Bulgarians with Still
Un-revived Bulgarian Names as of March 30th, 1977”16
[Area]* [Number of people]
1. Blagoevgrad 150
2. Burgass 32
3. Varna 5
4. Veliko Tŭrnovo 32
5. Vidin 17
6. Kŭrdzhali 281
7. Lovetch 230
8. Pernik 16
9. Plovdiv 1,705
10. Razgrad 43
11. Ruse 6
12. Silistra 16
13. Sliven 6
14. Sofia—City 4,034
15. Sofia—Region 2
16. Stara Zagora 21
17. Tolbuhin [Dobritch] 23
18. Tŭrgovishte 58
19. Haskovo 11
20. Shumen 20
Total 6,718
Notice: The statistics is prepared by the executive people’s committees commission at the council of
ministers [of the Bulgarian communist party]
* [Although it is not clear whether the statistics refers to the cities alone or to their
respective municipal and/or regional areas, my assumption is that the data refers to the cities.]
15 Statistical information of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, No. I 3839 from July 7,
1989, prepared for Lyubomir Shopov, a member of the central committee of the commu-
nist party. Tsentralen dŭrzhaven arkhiv-Sofia. (There is no archival reference number on
the document.)
16 Ibid., 78.
appendices 267
Appendix 6.1 Ballad about the Killing of Salih Ağa17
Such a summer arduous into a heavy sleep I drifted,

arduous and desperate but shortly I woke up.
never has been remembered Go, Srahine, and bring me
never has been known. my brother Shishmana.”
Summons after summons come Hastily Shishman arrived

from Stambol*—the great city and his brother he asked:
news after news arrive “What has, Ago, happened?
from the Gümürcina** town What have you, Ago, suffered?”
from the governor of Gümürcina
from the kadi*** of Geliboli. “Limane, my brother, Shishmane,
nothing has yet happened
Salih Ağa**** they instruct nothing I’ve yet suffered,
to do whatever he must but something is coming upon me.
to Gümürcina he is to depart
to Stanbol he is to go Drifted I into a heavy slumber
before the King***** he is bow and saw I in my dream
before the King and the Great Vizier. that I was clad in scarlet
that I rode a dappled stallion
Laid Ağa down and dozed off that I roamed about roads
drifted into a deep sleep but nowhere water I found.
on the summer day of St. George.
And saw he in a dream I’m asking you, brother Limane,
that clad he was in scarlet garments Is it for good or not?”
that rode he a dappled stallion “It’s for good, Ago, for good;
in Paşmaklı****** searched he for water don’t you be troubled.”
but a drop he never found
his scorched lips to moisten And still they talked together
his thirst to quench. till news was to Ağa delivered:
that Tatar riders have been dispatched
Frightened Ağa awoke from Gümürcina town:
and called for Strahina: “Last night they were in Palass
”Strahine, my lieutenant, tonight they’d be in Paşmaklı.”
laid I here and dozed off,
17 Recorded by Vassil Dechov, Minaloto na Chepelare (Sofia, Bulgaria: Fatherland Front Pbl.,
1928), 88–91. (Translated from Bulgarian by the author).
268 appendices
Drooped Ağa his forehead I hope, my sons, you settle

and to Shishman he said: with the governor of Gümürcina
“Limane, my brother, Shishmane, with the kadi of Geliboli
you and I have quarreled and with the Great Vizier.
let us, my brother, reconcile Ask they fine scarlet wool of you,
let us forgive each other.” you give them silk and tinsel.
Ask they silver of you,
And more words Ağa uttered, you give them gold pieces.”
more he Limana entreated,
whilst Tatar horses trotted “We went, Father, we implored,
up stone-paved pathways, but empty-handed we return.
their hooves were puddles leaving Once was when money worked;
and fire sparks were sending out. this time it could not.
It’s you, Father, they want;
Tatars on the gates hammered it’s you that must go
off their horses they leapt to the Gümürcina town,
boot-clad they walked in to Stambol, the great city,
to the Ağa they delivered a letter. before the King you must kneel,
When the messenger read the letter before the King and his Vizier.”
this was the Ağa commanded:
Set out, Ağa, to go
“Hurry up, Ağa, be gone to the Gümürcina town
to the Gümürcina city, with his faithful guardians
the King has favored you and with many gold coins
and the King’s name you must praise, went he never to return . . .
for the King has sent to you, . . . .
fine scarlet wool garment,
a white tinsel waste-band Birds he entrusted with these words:
and gold necklace, in token of favor.” “Farewell you pass on from me
to all up there, in the Mountain:*******
Hung Ağa his head farewell to my children,
and to his sons he bespoke: to my children and my people;
“I know, my sons, I realize
what are those gifts they give me Farewell to my shepherds,
what is that garment they send me shepherds, also servicemen;
what are those favors bestowed on me. farewell to my companions,
companions and guardians.
Get ready, my sons, be gone I am going far away
to the Gümürcina city and I won’t soon return.”
appendices 269
Tidings of Ağa reached in Gümürcina town

Paşmaklı, the great township in the governor’s palace
screamed fair women on these tall balconies.”
on high balconies
cried little children * Istanbul
in their cradles; ** Modern city of Xanti in Greece.
wept young shepherds *** From Turkish, judge.
in the Mountains; **** A term conferring the title of governor
mourned faithful guardians (local, regional, or provincial) in the
in the konak******** of Salih Ağa; Ottoman Empire.
Imams for Salyo********* called ***** The Ottoman Sultan.
from the tall minarets. ****** Modern city of Smolyan in Bulgaria.
******* The Rhodopes.
Birds flew about crying ******** From Turkish, palace.
sorrowful songs of Salih Ağa: ********* The chief Friday prayer in Islam
“Slain lays, Salih Ağa
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Index
aba 218, 218n4. See also abla 218n4 Bulgarian Orthodox Church 42n21, 43,

Ablanitsa 67, 69–71, 76–81, 132 45, 45n28, 47, 51–58, 60, 64, 82–83, 86,
Acadian 16–17, 20, 26. See also Louisiana 86n101, 86n104, 88, 91, 93, 139, 252. See also
16, 16n27, 17, 20 Holy Synod 47, 58, 86, 86n101, 87–89,
activism 4, 5, 7–9, 11–12, 20 91, 93
Adzhi 224n23, 229–237. See also Mustafa Bulgarian-speaking 3, 13, 13n20, 23–24,
229–231, 233 26, 29, 32, 39, 44, 47, 51, 109, 131, 140, 172,
ağa 214n1 209–210, 220. See also Slavic-
Agush Ağa 237, 246 speaking 3, 13n20, 24, 29, 40, 44, 46,
Ahı Çelebi 26, 214, 214n1, 215, 219, 48, 82, 85, 175, 178, 209
221–223, 228, 230, 242–249 Byalkov, Ismail 126, 129–131, 157, 159–161,
Ahmed Ağa 77–78n86, 79, 79n88 165, 211n43, 245
Anderson, Benedict 20, 21, 35, 46
apparatchik(s) 99, 120, 127, 149, 155, Carnegie Report 32–33, 71–73, 255–256
211n43 Cesur, Ava 144, 160
Archbishop Maxim 54, 55, 57–58, 64, cheiz 26, 177, 181, 181n11, 184–185, 199–201,
65n65, 82–85, 87–90, 252–254 205, 207. See also dowry 26, 76, 175, 177,
181, 181n11, 182, 185, 199–201, 208, 212, 238–239
Balkan Wars 29, 39, 40, 43, 48, 69, 74 Chepelare 58n51, 84, 90, 223–224, 242, 246
Barutev, Mustafa 76–80. See also Ivan chetniks 69, 70, 73, 76, 79–82. See also
Tikvarev 75–80; Fatme 77–80; comitajis 3, 255; comitas 67,
Maria 75–77, 80 69–70, 73, 78n86, 80–81
Barzev hodzha (hoca) 1–3 Christianization 32–33, 46
Batak 75–77, 77n86, 78n86, 79, 79n88, cizya (cizie) 220
225n28, 226n28, 249, 250n97, 253. See also coercion 22, 30, 43n23, 60, 93, 116
Batak Massacre 77, 77n86, 78n86, 79, Colorful Fairytale Ribnovo 181, 209
79n88, 225n28, 226n28, 249, 250n97, 253 comitajis 73, 255. See also chetniks
Batak Massacre 77, 77n86, 78n86, 79, 69, 70, 73, 76, 79–82; comitas 67,
79n88, 225n28, 226n28, 249, 250n97, 253 69–70, 73, 78n86, 80–81
bayrak(s) 185–187 comitas 67, 69–70, 73, 78n86, 80–81. See
belilo 191, 193–195, 198 also chetniks 69, 70, 73, 76, 79–82;
Belinska, Melike 216–218, 231, 231n41 comitajis 73, 255
Borissov, Boyko 142 communism/communist regime 1, 2n3,
Breznitsa 126–127, 129, 148–149, 157–158, 6, 20, 24–25, 41, 97–100, 203, 106, 107n20,
161, 174, 191, 211n43 110–111, 113–114, 116–117, 119–122, 124,
bridal mask/decoration/make-up/adornment 126–129, 131, 133, 136, 138–139, 142–143
21, 61n59, 176n4, 177, 181, 185, 188–189, 191, conversion 3, 13, 24, 29, 32, 39, 40n18, 41,
191n18, 192, 193–197 42n21, 43, 43n23, 44n25, 46, 47, 47n32,
Bulgarian Communist Party 98, 100, 117, 48n35, 51, 53, 56–60, 64, 70, 82–86, 86n104,
135n66, 153. See also The Party 97, 99, 87–88, 91–94, 110–111, 140, 146–147,
101, 111, 118, 120–121, 142 252–254
Bulgarian Mohamedans 119, 140, 257, 259. cultural agency 4, 5, 7–8, 12, 14, 23, 31.
See also Pomaks 6, 7, 13, 13n20, 13n21, See also pluralism 8, 9, 11, 20, 27;
18, 19, 29, 29n47, 30–31, 40–46 inclusiveness 8, 9, 27; Kristen
Bulgarianness 30, 116, 172, 248–249 Ghodsee 6, 7; Mary Neuburger 6
276 index
DANS 18 haraç 220
Dechov, Vassil 63, 223–226, 228, 229n35, hayti (hayta) 221, 232–233, 234, 236.
230, 230n39, 231n41, 236–237, 238n62, 240, See also kŭrdzhalii, 220–222
243–246, 248, 250, 267n17 Haytov, Nikolay 26, 41, 75n82, 219, 221,
Deli Bey 216–217 224, 226n29, 248
Dolno Izvorovo 152, 154, 156–157, 159, 164, Herder, Johann Gottfried 35, 45
168 heritage practitioner 8, 11, 24. See also
Dövlen 55, 85 role of cultural interpreters/brokers/
Draginov, Methody 41 scholars 8, 9, 11
duvak 192 “Historical Diary,” 41–42, 42n21. See also
dvizhenie 202. See also promenading Stefan Zakhariev 41–42, 42n21
202 historical heritage 214
hoca 66, 77, 125, 129, 149, 192
Emin Bey 243–246 hodzha 1–3, 66, 77, 125, 129, 149, 150, 192
Eminov, Ali 99, 102, 106, 109, 126, 137–138, Holy Synod 47, 58, 86, 86n101, 87–89, 91,
138n71, 140–141, 173n43 93. See also Bulgarian Orthodox Church
European Institute-Pomak 18, 19, 19n32, 42n21, 43, 45, 45n28, 47, 51–58, 60, 64,
20. See also Kŭdri Ulanov 18 82–83, 86, 86n101, 86n104, 88, 91, 93, 139,
252
Fatme 77–80. See also Mustafa Barutev horo 180, 185
76–80; Ivan Tikvarev 75–80; Maria
75–77, 80 identity crisis 25, 96, 104, 106
faulty passport photo 170–171 Imam, Ibrahim 69–71, 76–77, 79–81
ferezhe(s) 81, 110, 112–114, 118, 120–121, See also Senem Konedareva 69–71,
126–127, 132, 192, 198 76–77, 79–81
ferman 221, 221n13, 228, 233, 235, 241, ispençe 220, 220n9, 232
243–244 Istanbul 25, 127, 136, 144–145, 160, 165, 168,
fezzes 57, 61–62, 67, 80, 89, 90, 104, 112, 114, 173–174, 211n43
118, 120, 146, 191n18, 229, 253. See also fez
57, 61–62, 67, 80, 89, 90, 104, 112, 114, 118,
Karamandzhukov, Khristo 62–64, 111
120, 146, 191n18, 229, 253 kaurs 2
Fikrie 144, 160 kaza 214n1, 216, 219, 221–222, 228, 247n88
kilt 21–22, 22n39. See also tartan 21,
gelina 199 21n37, 22, 22n39
Geshov, Ivan 65, 85–86, 93 konak 10, 216, 217, 218, 219, 224, 226, 227,
Geta, Bayram 157, 165 231, 231n41, 233–234, 236, 239, 245–246,
givey 192 248, 250, 269. See also the konak of Salih
godezh 205 Ağa 215, 216, 219, 227, 231n41
Gotse Delchev 18, 81, 110, 111, 128, 132, 157, Konedareva, Senem 69–71, 76–77, 79–81.
178, 181 See also Ibrahim Imam 69–71, 76–77,
The Gorge of Salih Ağa 10, 215, 222–223, 79–81
238, 250 Kornitsa 31, 126–131, 144, 148–149, 151–152,
Great Divan 244. See also Divanı Kebir 154, 156–161, 165, 174, 194, 211n43
244 Kör Hodzha (Hoca), Mehmed 219, 224,
Greece 2, 3n5, 22, 28n46, 37n11, 49, 50–51, 228, 229n35, 247
66, 73, 75–76, 92, 146n2, 176n3, 209, 219, Kurban Bayram 102, 125
220n8, 233, 237, 242–243, 247 kŭrdzhalii 220–222. See also hayti
Gümürcina (Gumurdzhina) 91, 230, 233, (hayta) 221, 232–233, 234, 236
243–247, 267–269 Kurucu 126
index 277
labor unit of the army 122–123, 147 116, 124, 133, 215–219, 222, 226, 229, 238n62,
live music 177, 181, 185–186, 201, 212 243, 246, 249, 250, 260, 264
Lŭzhnitsa 126–128, 148, 156–158, 161, perestroika 138, 172
211n43 Plovdiv 23, 54, 57–58, 61–63, 77, 77n86,
87, 138, 152, 225, 226n28, 240, 241, 252–254
Macedonia 43, 48–49, 51–52, 57, 72–73, pokrŭstvane 3, 23–24, 28–29, 32, 39, 40,
91, 209 43, 43n25, 46–48, 51, 53–54, 56–64, 64n64,
makhala 112 65, 65n65, 69, 74–75, 82, 84–87, 89, 91,
Maria 75–77, 80. See also 93–95, 97, 103, 106, 110–114, 119, 136, 143, 146,
Fatme 77–80; Mustafa 191n18, 225–226, 250, 252. See also Balkan
Barutev 76–80; Ivan Tikvarev Wars 29, 39, 40, 43, 48, 69, 74;
75–80 Christianization 32–33, 46; of
Marinov, Petŭr 111–113, 119, 224–227, 1912–1913, 3, 23–24, 32–33, 39, 40, 43,
235–236, 237n56, 238, 238n62, 238n63, 46–47, 61–62, 65, 93–95, 106, 146, 191n18,
239–242, 250 225–226, 250, 252; of 1938–1944, 97, 106,
master narratives 8, 12, 15, 26–27 110–114, 119, 146, 191n18, 225–226
madrassa 66, 77. See also Politburo 98, 101, 118
medresse 66, 77 Pomaks 6, 7, 13, 13n20, 13n21, 18, 19, 29,
medresse 66, 77. See also 29n47, 30–31, 40–46. See also Bulgarian
madrassa 66, 77 Mohamedans 119, 140, 257, 259
Melungeon 17–18, 18n31, 26. See also Pomak heritage 4, 5, 7, 12–14, 19–20,
Appalachia 17 23–25, 27, 31–33, 142, 173–174, 176, 178,
millets 45. See also Millet-i-Rum 45 212–213, 214–215, 249–250
Millet-i-Rum 45 Pomakness 4, 11, 28
militsia 129–130, 148–151, 154–155, 159–162, prisoners of war (POWs) 82–91
171
militsioners(s) 128–129, 158, 162 Ramazan 102, 125
mufti 31, 87, 111, 119 Ramazan Bayram 125
Radoslavov, Vassil 91–92, 119
name changing 2n2, 29, 95–96, 129, 154, raya 45, 249, 249n95. See also
156–157, 168–170 rayah 45, 249, 249n95
narod 27, 143 rayah 45, 249, 249n95. See also raya 45,
nationalism 13, 20, 22, 27–30, 32, 33, 33n1, 249, 249n95
34–39, 43n23, 44–46, 49 rebirth 2, 2n3, 23, 96, 101
nationalism and violence 32, 33. See also renaming 2n3, 6, 24, 96–97, 100–101,
nationalism of violence 33, 37, 38, 94 115–116, 126, 129–130, 135, 151, 153, 156–159,
nationalism of violence 33, 37, 38, 94 191
revivalist 25, 96, 118, 120–121, 123–124,
Ottoman Empire 13, 26, 30, 44–45, 48–50, 127–130, 132, 137, 142, 149–151, 154–155, 157.
64n64, 88n109, 104, 141, 175n1, 209–210, 214, See also revival process 2, 2n3, 23, 96
218–219, 219n8, 220, 242, 247n88 revival process 2, 2n3, 23, 96. See also
Ottoman/Turkish yoke 75, 102 revivalist, 25, 96, 118, 120–121, 123–124,
127–130, 132, 137, 142, 149–151, 154–155, 157
The Party 97, 99, 101, 111, 118, 120–121, 142. Rhodopes 3, 3n5, 7, 11, 23, 29, 43n23, 47,
See also Bulgarian Communist 54–56, 58, 60, 62, 76–77, 77n86, 99, 107n20,
Party 98, 100, 117, 135n66, 153 109–110, 113, 123–125, 126–127, 131, 133, 138,
paşa 214n1 140–141, 143, 148, 149n12, 153–154, 156, 159,
Pașmaklı 215–216, 219, 228, 230, 230n39, 174, 176n3, 177, 180, 198, 205, 210–212, 216,
242–243. See also Smolyan 110–112, 114, 218, 220–221, 225–226, 242
278 index
Rhodope Mountains 28, 40, 56, 77n86, tartan 21, 21n37, 22, 22n39. See also kilt
92, 144, 178, 183, 216. See also 21–22, 22n39
Rhodopes 3, 3n5, 7, 11, 23, 29, 43n23, Thrace 43, 48–49, 51, 52, 57, 77, 91, 216
47, 54–56, 58, 60, 62, 76–77, 77n86, 99, Tikvarev, Ivan 75–80. See also
107n20, 109–110, 113, 123–125, 126–127, 131, Maria 75–77, 80; Fatme 77–80;
133, 138, 140–141, 143, 148, 149n12, 153–154, Barutev 76–80
156, 159, 174, 176n3, 177, 180, 198, 205, Todorova, Maria 7, 39, 41–42, 42n21, 44
210–212, 216, 218, 220–221, 225–226, 242 tombstones 103–104, 107n20, 132
Ribnovo 25–26, 126, 151, 175–186, 189, Turkey 2, 22, 25, 37, 37n11, 47n32, 48n35,
198–202, 205–211, 211n43, 212 50–51, 66, 76, 82, 89, 91–93, 96–98, 100, 127,
Ribnovo bride 28, 189, 198 129, 136–138, 138n71, 141, 144, 151, 165, 168,
Ribnovo wedding 10, 12, 25–26, 28, 31, 172–173, 173n43, 176n3, 209
175–176, 176n4, 177, 178, 180–181, 183–186,
199–201, 206–207, 211–212. See also Ribnovo Ulanov, Kŭdri 18
bride 28, 189, 198 Umma 45, 175, 175n1
rite of passage 177, 205 UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of
Rodina 25, 110–114, 119–120, 225, 225n26 Intangible Cultural Heritage 5, 8
Romantic nationalism 22, 29, 34, 34n2,
35, 44–46, 94. See also Johann Gottfried vakıf 228
Herder 35, 45 vernacular 9–12, 14–15, 17, 20, 26, 31
Runtov, Ramadan 25, 31, 123, 127–129, 134, vilayet 214n1, 247n88
144–157, 159, 161–174, 211n43. See also violence 22, 24–25, 32–34, 36–39, 64,
Ramadan Kurucu 126 93–94, 111, 143
Russian-Turkish War 37, 48, 78n86, 88 Vŭlkossel 1–3, 65, 67–68, 76, 103, 132, 144,
180, 192–197
Salih Ağa 26, 214–250, 267–269 vŭzhroditelen protses 2, 6, 23–25, 28–29,
Salihağovitsa 230, 234, 236–241. See also 39, 95–98, 100–101, 104–106, 108, 110–111,
The Wife of Salih Ağa 230, 236 113–119, 122, 122n46, 124–126, 129–133,
sancak 214n1 135–140, 142–145, 148, 150–154, 156, 159, 161,
Scottishness 21. See also kilt 21–22, 164, 168, 172, 172n40, 173, 173n41, 174, 178,
22n39; and tartan, 21, 21n37, 22, 22n39 189, 191, 191n18, 198, 210, 211n43, 213. See also
Serbia 22, 28n46, 37, 37n11, 45n28, 46, 49, revival process 2, 2n3, 23, 96;
50, 51, 72, 74, 146n2. See also Ser[b] rebirth 2, 2n3, 23, 96, 101
ia 72, 74, 255
shalvars 113, 120–121, 132, 134, 135n66, 191 The Waterfall of Smolyan 10, 215, 250. See
Shari’a 26, 214, 220, 237n59, 248 also The Gorge of Salih Ağa 10, 215,
Shehov, Mehmed 65–66, 75–77 222–223, 238, 250
Shishkov, Stoyu 48n35, 53–55, 87, 209 Western heritage discourse 8–12
Smolyan 110–112, 114, 116, 124, 133, 215–219, Western Rhodopes 1, 33, 61n59, 65, 75, 77,
222, 226, 229, 238n62, 243, 246, 249, 250, 77n86, 81, 109, 120–121, 126, 132, 148, 158,
260, 264. See also Pașmaklı 215–216, 177–178, 183–185, 189, 191, 191n17, 191n18,
219, 228, 230, 230n39, 242–243 192–194, 201, 211–212, 215
Sofia 23, 120, 123, 138, 151–152, 163, 169, 252
State Security 150, 163. See also yashmak(s) 58, 113, 135n66, 253–254
Dŭrzhavna Sigurnost 150
Süleyman 218–219, 229–230, 230n37, Zakhariev, Stefan 41–42, 42n21. See also
230n39, 244 “Historical Diary” 41–42, 42n21
Zhivkov, Todor 137–139, 142, 171
Zhizhevo 65, 76, 79–80

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Identity, Nationalism, and Cultural Heritage under Siege

Balkan Studies Library

Zoran Milutinović (University College London)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsl

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

1 Heritage of Pluralism or Having Cultural Agency:

5-16 Wedding of Nadzhibe and Natŭk Dermendzhiev of Vŭlkossel,

Heritage of Pluralism or Having Cultural Agency:

Making Sense of the Past

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi 10.1163/9789004272088_002

4 See chapter two for details.

is an enormous need at present to study and preserve the surviving remnants.

Having Cultural Agency

The premise of cultural agency bestows the capacity to every member of a

disposed communities, whose very identity is at stake as a result of historical

In Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe, on the other hand, Kristen Ghodsee is

influenced religious tendencies in the Rhodopes, particularly in matters

9 Fatme Myuhtar-May, “The Pokrasvane (Christianization) of Pomaks during the Balkan

The Role of Heritage Brokers

As a pundit of the prevalent Western philosophy of heritage preservation,

11 Robert R. Archibald, A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (Walnut

vernacular and mainstream cultures that Mondale offers is through commod-

designating songs or stories as “Pomak” without the usual “patriotic” outburst

19 For details, see chapter two.

Heritage as an academic concept has an amorphous character because it

sense of belonging together as a community or as a nation-state. Ultimately,

1 Heritage as Vernacular (Dissenting) Identity

25 Peter Howard, Heritage: Management, Interpretation, Identity (London: Continuum

(re‑)invention, which is not an easy undertaking. In Southern Heritage on

32 Infomreja.bg, “DANS privika na razpit rŭkovodstvoto na institute ‘Pomak,’” Infomreja.bg,

that—the authorities, both police and DANS, resort to “proven” communist

2 Heritage as National (Dominant) Identity

34 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

obsolete, rather than being a predetermined order of things.35 The modern

certain segments of the population outside of the identity discourse, ruling

Five Case Studies

Formulating a comprehensive narrative of the Pomak heritage is a daunt-

41 See chapter two for more details.

violence against them drew surprisingly little international attention in com-

which the entire community celebrates, putting a particular emphasis on the

Whereas Acadian, Melungeon, or Pomak heritages, among others across the

44 See chapter two and six for details.

a society projecting itself as democratic, at the very minimum, to foster a pub-

to read stories about the vŭzhroditelen protses or peruse through myriad of

46 Not unlike its neighbors Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania.

Balkans and imbued the subjugated Christian populations of the Ottoman

48 See the relevant sections of chapters two and three.

community, anywhere—need not be told—much less forced into—what to

49 “S vŭzpomenatelen miting DPS otbelyaza 40-godishninata ot sŭbitiyata v gotsedelchevs-

Nationalism and Violence: The Case of Pomak

The history of forced assimilation is the defining aspect of Pomak heritage in

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi 10.1163/9789004272088_003

The Nationalism Premise

What I have come to regard as the classical definition of nationalism, estab-

2 George W. White, Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identities in Southeastern

It was the “founding father” of Romantic nationalism, Johann Gottfried

of the nationalism of violence was to consolidate territory and national iden-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi 10.1163/9789004272088_002

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi 10.1163/9789004272088_003

c onsequence of the Turkish barbarism. . . . Hereby I ask Your Holiness to