Between Empire and Nation: Muslim Reform in the Balkans

By Milena B. Methodieva

Between Empire and Nation tells the story of the transformation of the Muslim community in modern Bulgaria during a period of imperial dissolution, conflicting national and imperial enterprises, and the emergence of new national and ethnic identities. In 1878, the Ottoman empire relinquished large territories in the Balkans, with about 600,000 Muslims remaining in the newly-established Bulgarian state. Milena B. Methodieva explores how these former Ottoman subjects, now under Bulgarian rule, navigated between empire and nation-state, and sought to claim a place in the larger modern world.

Following the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877–1878, a movement for cultural reform and political mobilization gained momentum within Bulgaria's sizable Muslim population. From 1878 until the 1908 Young Turk revolution, this reform movement emerged as part of a struggle to redefine Muslim collective identity while engaging with broader intellectual and political trends of the time. Using a wide array of primary sources and drawing on both Ottoman and Eastern European historiographies, Methodieva approaches the question of Balkan Muslims' engagement with modernity through a transnational lens, arguing that the experience of this Muslim minority provides new insight into the nature of nationalism, citizenship, and state formation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781503614130

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Between Empire and Nation

Muslim Reform in the Balkans

Milena B. Methodieva

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Stanford, California

© 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Methodieva, Milena B., author.

Title: Between empire and nation : Muslim reform in the Balkans / Milena B. Methodieva.

Other titles: Stanford studies on Central and Eastern Europe.

Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2021. | Series: Stanford studies on Central and Eastern Europe | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2020021108 (print) | LCCN 2020021109 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503613379 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503614130 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Muslims—Political activity—Bulgaria—History—19th century. | Nationalism—Bulgaria—History—19th century. | Group identity—Bulgaria—History—19th century. | Bulgaria—Politics and government—1878-1944. | Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918.

Classification: LCC DR64.2.M8 M47 2021 (print) | LCC DR64.2.M8 (ebook) | DDC 949.9/022—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021108

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021109

Cover photograph: The Banya Başı mosque in Sofia, 1917. NBKM – BIA, C II 1225.

Cover design: Jordan Wannemacher

Typeset by Kevin Barrett Kane in 11/13.5 Adobe Garamond Pro

Stanford Studies on Central and Eastern Europe

Edited by Norman Naimark and Larry Wolff

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Dates, Place Names, Currencies, Translations

Map of Bulgaria in 1886

Introduction

1. The Ottoman Imperial Context

2. Untangling from Empire

3. Doing Away With Empire

4. A Quiet Upheaval

5. Negotiating Modernity

6. Navigating Politics

7. Homeland, Nation, and Community

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

I would like to start by thanking my advisor at Princeton University Şükrü Hanioğlu, as well as Stephen Kotkin, for their guidance, encouragement, and feedback. I am also particularly grateful to Kate Fleet and the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies at Newnham College, the University of Cambridge, for giving me the opportunity be part of a lively intellectual environment while I was working on this book manuscript. My conversations with Ebru Boyar were particularly stimulating.

Research was carried out in a number of institutions; I would like to thank the following archives and libraries and their staff: the (then) Prime Ministry Ottoman Archive in Istanbul; the Central State Archive and the National Library SS. Cyril and Methodius, particularly the Manuscripts and Old Printed Books Department, in Sofia; the State Archive in Vidin; the Ivan Vazov public library in Plovdiv; the Hakkı Tarık Us library, the Beyazıd library, and Atatürk Kitaplığı in Istanbul; the Firestone Library at Princeton University; and the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto. I must also thank the owners of the private archive of the Şefkat kıraathane for giving me access to the collection.

Along the way I have benefitted from the help and friendship of many mentors, colleagues, and friends. Rossitsa Gradeva has been a wonderful mentor and supporter. Nikolay Antov, Grigor Boykov, Maria Kiprovska, and Orlin Sǔbev were not only great friends but also helped me in various ways. Zorka Ivanova brought out treasures of documents for me. Peter Holquist offered encouragement and shared some ideas about his ongoing research on the Russian occupation of Bulgaria. I am grateful to several colleagues as the University of Toronto. Victor Ostapchuk read parts of this manuscript and offered feedback; he has also been a very supportive colleague. Jens Hanssen provided help and invaluable feedback on the general direction of this project. Jennifer L. Jenkins and Lynne Viola helped me in various ways. I would also want to thank the two anonymous manuscript reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Some material in chapter 5 originally appeared in my Muslim Culture, Reform and Patriotism: Staging Namık Kemal in Post-Ottoman Bulgaria (1878–1908), in Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, Eds., Entertainment Among the Ottomans (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 208–24. I thank Brill Publishers for allowing me to use it. Figure 1 is reproduced with permission of the National Library SS. Cyril and Methodius; figures 2, 4, and 5 are courtesy of the Hakkı Tarık Us library.

It has been a pleasure to work with Stanford University Press. I would like to thank Margo Irvin for her interest and guidance, as well as the entire production team of the press. I am honored that this project was appreciated by the series editors Norman Naimark and Larry Wolff.

My biggest debt is of a personal nature. My husband, Spyros, and daughter, Elena, offered endless love and support, particularly through some testing times, and put up with my long hours of work. My in-laws, Eleni and Aris, were always there for me. The greatest debt I owe to my mother, Tatiana, who, unfortunately, did not live to know about the completion of this book, and to my grandmother, Radka. Without their love and support I would have not even embarked upon this road. This book is dedicated to them.

Dates, Place Names, Currencies, Translations

At the time the Ottoman bureaucracy used the lunar Hicri and the Rumi calendars; so did Bulgaria’s Muslims in the sources they produced. Bulgaria used the Julian calendar. For simplicity, all dates in this book have been converted to the Gregorian calendar.

For places located in Bulgaria, this book uses the Bulgarian version of names common at the time: for example, Kurtbunar instead of Tervel. For places in the Ottoman Empire, it uses the Ottoman names: for example, Edirne rather than Adrianople or Odrin.

The national currency of Bulgaria—lev (sg.), leva (pl.)—was roughly equal to the French frank during the period under consideration. Contemporary sources occasionally used the two currencies interchangeably.

All translations are the author’s unless otherwise specified.

MAP 1 Bulgaria in 1886.

Introduction

IN 1907 THE MEMBERS of the newly founded Muslim Teachers’ Association of Bulgaria sent out an impassioned appeal that was simultaneously published in several local Muslim newspapers. In the appeal its authors drew in stark Darwinian terms the predicament of Bulgaria’s Muslims, pointing to the source of their troubles.

Today in the civilized human societies to guarantee one’s livelihood, to be able to earn a living every person must be capable of fighting in the field of life. To guarantee its lasting existence every society, every nation must be capable of fighting. It is in the sense of this Muslim truth that sociologists have said: for man to live means to fight, to struggle.

To score victory on this battlefield one must possess the perfect weapon and must have the power to use this weapon. . . . If in this struggle for life the most accomplished weapon is scientific knowledge, the power to use it in a beneficial way is intellectual discipline. . . .

Let us take a look at the social organization of the Turks in our homeland. We see that according to the law they have broad rights and privileges and, although, after the Bulgarians they are in the largest number, they can neither take advantage of these rights and privileges nor of their numbers. Why? Because to be able to take advantage of those rights and privileges, science and knowledge are necessary, intellectual discipline is necessary. But among us they do not exist.

In short, we Turks, who have had a glorious past and illustrious history, are nowadays condemned to live poor, humbled, and abused in our homeland among our other compatriots; in this poverty and degradation we cannot assert our rights and honor before anyone. Even though we are the children of this homeland, we are in the condition of being a foreign element. We live as strangers in our own homeland. Why is that? It’s all because of ignorance, because we are intellectually ill-equipped.¹

This proclamation is not a singular document expressing the views of a small group of idealistic people eager to publicize their enterprise but a vivid reflection of the sentiments among Bulgarian Muslims. Many of them were actively engaged in efforts to reform their institutions. The story of these endeavors has been overshadowed by preoccupation with issues such as nation- and state-building, imperial disintegration, and interest in the turbulent twentieth century. The current study is an attempt to reconstruct this obscured story; it seeks to pose new questions and to place the history of the Muslims of Bulgaria in a different framework.

This book is about the activities of a movement for cultural reform and political mobilization among Bulgaria’s Muslims. More broadly, it tells the story of how Bulgaria’s Muslims navigated between empire and nation-state and sought to be a part of an increasingly wider modern world. The initial goal of the movement was to reform education and encourage the pursuit of modern knowledge, as demonstrated by the quote above. But ultimately, its activists aimed to bring about a thorough transformation of Muslim society, reform Muslim institutions, and encourage effective political participation guided by patriotic ideals. Elsewhere in the world Muslims similarly grappled with the challenges of modernity and produced varying responses, ranging from complete rejection, through efforts for institutional reforms, to the formulation of new theologies. In Bulgaria reformist endeavors did not seek to produce reformist Islamic theology. The goal was not to reform religion, although there were discussions of how it could serve the Muslims in new ways; instead, efforts focused on reform of institutions, culture, and society.

A living legacy of Ottoman rule in the region, the Muslims were Bulgaria’s largest and politically most significant minority. At the beginning of the twentieth century they numbered six hundred thousand, making up one-fifth of the population. Most of them were Turks followed by smaller numbers of Slavic-speaking Muslims (Pomaks), Roma, and Tatars. The majority were Sunnis, but there were also representatives of unorthodox Muslim groups and Sufi orders. In spite of ethnic differences, during the period under consideration Muslims referred to themselves in religious terms, similar to those in the Ottoman Empire, although they occasionally also used ethnic names.

Reform activities in Bulgaria were spearheaded by a younger generation of Muslims, mostly teachers and journalists, but they involved many Muslims from other backgrounds. Although the reform movement did not become a mass one, it produced a considerable impact as it steered the Muslims into a more cohesive communal life. Just as importantly, it contributed to the spread of new ideas about knowledge, culture, and community. Reformist Muslims and their endeavors were also the targets of criticism. Because of their links with the Young Turks, they were treated with suspicion and sometimes open resentment by other local Muslims who were loyal supporters of the sultan.

The reform movement in Bulgaria also assumed some distinctive political characteristics. This was partly because of the specifics of the Bulgarian context. As the Muslims found themselves in the position of a minority, they became particularly conscious of their place in Bulgarian political strategies. They became a part of parliamentary and electoral politics from the very beginning. Even more importantly, Muslims began appealing to ideas such as rights, equality, and freedom and called for upholding the guarantees set by the constitution. By engaging in such discourses, Bulgaria’s Muslims sought to renegotiate their relationship with the state by seeking to be effectively accepted as full citizens.²

Bulgaria’s Muslims were not preoccupied only with local concerns. They took active interest in the developments in the Ottoman Empire. In fact, from their vantage point they could clearly see the predicaments it was facing, and their own experiences were a stark warning of what would happen to its Muslim inhabitants if imperial disintegration continued. Consequently, many were drawn into the realm of Ottoman politics. While some found a common cause with the Young Turks, others were staunch supporters of the regime of sultan Abdülhamid II, which they saw as the only possible advocate for their rights. Furthermore, as a result of the expansion of print, communication technologies, and travel, they began imagining themselves as part of a larger world in which many of their coreligionists shared a fate similar to theirs. Such awareness paved the way to expanding the boundaries of community and created a sense of new solidarities.

There is a considerable body of scholarship on the Muslims and Turks of Bulgaria in various languages, but its scope is uneven. Most of the literature on the subject provides a longer view, spanning a hundred-year period with a focus on twentieth-century history, and particularly the revival process, the forced name-changing assimilationist campaign of the 1980s.³ Scholarship was also influenced by the political circumstances in Bulgaria. There were more possibilities to write about the history of the Muslims and other minority communities after the end of the Communist regime.⁴ From the 1990s onwards there appeared numerous works in Bulgarian and other languages on questions related to the history of the Muslims and Turks in Bulgaria. While many offered little more than general observations, there were also a number of solid scholarly endeavors. Among them are works on the Ottoman period that considerably advanced our knowledge of the history of Ottoman rule and Muslim culture in Bulgaria and the Balkans.⁵ Scholars also turned to the period after the establishment of modern Bulgaria. Some explored the actions of the Bulgarian state, while others sought to reexamine the Bulgarian national imagination concerning the Muslims.⁶ However, most studies provided only limited understanding of Muslim perspectives and agency, though this trend is changing.⁷

The experiences of the Muslims in the first decades after the end of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria have remained understudied,⁸ while the reform endeavors among the Muslims have been almost completely neglected. There are two lasting narratives about the community during this period. The first is what can be called the death and exile narrative, to borrow the title of one well-known study.⁹ Such works have focused on the killing and expulsion of Muslims during major conflicts over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78 and the Balkan Wars (1912–13), as well as subsequent Muslim emigration to the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Undeniably, this narrative reflects true events. The Russo-Ottoman War alone led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. In its aftermath the number of Muslims on the territory of what would become Bulgaria dropped by at least 370,000, or about a third of the prewar Muslim population. Thousands of Muslims emigrated over the course of the next three decades, and the Balkan Wars (1912–13) produced another exodus from former Ottoman territories captured by the armies of the Balkan nation-states.

The other commonly reiterated narrative concerns those Muslims who remained in Bulgaria. According to it, during the war and following the establishment of Bulgaria the members of the higher Ottoman military, administrative, and intellectual elites left the country. Those who stayed were mostly the uneducated masses. Deprived of competent leadership and the guidance of an enlightened state, the remaining Muslims succumbed further to ignorance, conservatism, and discord, which the Bulgarians readily exploited. Muslims made only sporadic efforts to reorganize their communal life with the initiative coming from somewhere else. The Ottoman state was deemed to be their natural leader, and certain authors have even suggested that coordinated reform initiatives emerged as a result of Bulgarian Muslims’ contacts with the Tatar jadid movement in the Russian Empire.¹⁰ It was only in the 1920s, with the establishment of the Turkish republic, that sparkles of enlightenment emanating from the Kemalist reforms, another state-led reform project, enlivened Bulgaria’s Muslims.¹¹ Although this historical narrative refers to some real events—Muslim education, for example, was in a dire condition—its main argument is largely inaccurate.

The goal of this book is to bring to light another story: that of Muslim experiences of modernity. It emphasizes the Muslims’ agency and seeks to shift the focus toward the Muslims and away from the prevailing state-centered approaches, although at times discussion of state actions is inevitable. Understanding the transformations that took place in this formative period is important for tracing the subsequent history of Bulgaria’s Muslims, their relationship with the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, and Bulgarian nationalism.

This book also seeks to contribute to the scholarship of Islam, Muslims, reform, and modernity. There is a considerable body of literature on modernist Muslim movements. Yet, most such works have focused primarily on Muslim-majority societies, including the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire, and more sizable Muslim populations, such as those in South Asia.¹² The original scholarship of Adeeb Khalid has shown how debates on culture and reform of society animated the Muslims in Central Asia under Russian imperial rule.¹³ In comparison, such questions have seldom been explored in relation to Muslim communities in the Balkans in the post-Ottoman period, particularly those that came to be in the position of minorities. Most works dealing with reform of communal institutions have focused on Bosnia, an area with a historically substantial Muslim population. Recently, there have been efforts to revisit these phenomena within a new theoretical framework.¹⁴

This book looks at the experiences of a minority community; however, it should not be read simply as the history of this community or interpreted within the narrow frame of minority studies. Parallel to this, it tells a history of Bulgaria during its formative period as a modern nation-state from the vantage point of a minority population. At the same time this book looks at the Ottoman Empire at a particularly challenging time, when external pressures and territorial losses raised fears about its future.

The first decades of Bulgaria’s existence were a crucial period during which it embarked upon nation- and state-building initiatives. While all Ottoman Balkan successor states came to incorporate Muslims as part of their populations, Bulgaria’s case was somewhat different because its Muslim population was especially numerous. In 1879 the Principality of Bulgaria, which at the time comprised roughly the territories north of the Balkan mountains, was inhabited by 580,000 Muslims, who made up more than a quarter of its population. In Eastern Rumelia, which remained an autonomous Ottoman province until 1885, there were 190,000 Muslims, comprising a fifth of its residents. Although the number of Muslims decreased to 600,000 by the beginning of the twentieth century, they still represented a considerable part of Bulgaria’s inhabitants.

Previously founded Balkan nation-states had had to deal with miniscule Muslim communities in the first years following their inception. In 1828 in newly independent Greece there were 11,000 Muslims, or less than 2 percent of its population. In 1833 in newly founded Serbia there were 4,500 Muslims, or less than 1 percent of all inhabitants. In terms of the size of its Muslim population, Bulgaria was comparable to Bosnia. The former Ottoman province, which came under Austro-Hungarian occupation in accordance with the Berlin Treaty, had 450,000 Muslim inhabitants in 1879. Over time the number of Muslims increased, and by the first decade of the twentieth century its Muslim population was comparable to Bulgaria’s Muslim community.¹⁵

In facing the task of administering a large Muslim-minority population implicitly linked to the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria encountered a situation with which other Ottoman Balkan successor nation-states did not have to deal. And whereas the Austro-Hungarian authorities could count on their experience of administering a multiethnic and multireligious empire, Bulgaria had to forge its own path in these endeavors while also elaborating its own national project. Eventually what determined Bulgarian endeavors were not just nationalist aspirations but also calculated strategic considerations. The Muslims in Bulgaria and the Christian Slavic populations in Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace, claimed by many Bulgarians as their fellow-nationals, came to be regarded as counterparts in a particular hostage populations strategy pursued by both Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. This awareness prevented the pursuit of more aggressive Bulgarian nationalist assimilationist actions at the time; such projects appeared later.

For the Ottoman state this was a challenging period. In 1878 the empire lost vast territories, most of them in Europe, undermining its standing in an area where it had a strong historic presence. Bulgaria was founded on what had been core Ottoman lands in relative proximity to Istanbul, where the far-ranging Tanzimat reforms had scored major success. The Danube, whose symbolism as the Ottomans’ spring of life was celebrated in the patriotic works of Namık Kemal, was lost for good. The new political settlement came on the heels of a turbulent three-year period marked by rebellion, international outcry, and a devastating war with Russia, when Russian armies reached the outskirts of the Ottoman capital. The war also precipitated the flight of thousands of Muslims, leading to a major humanitarian crisis.

The fate of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians featured prominently in these critical events. The suppression of the 1876 Bulgarian uprising led to outpourings of sympathy, calls for action, and anti-Ottoman rhetoric in Europe; Gladstone’s pamphlet The Bulgarian Horrors was the most notable example. The Russo-Ottoman War was similarly waged in the name of bringing justice to the Bulgarian cause. These events galvanized leading Ottoman figures and public opinion that pointed instead to Bulgarian and Russian assaults against the Muslims. Such arguments continued even after the dust settled, turning into a lasting counter-rhetoric underscoring European and Bulgarian duplicity. They were motifs in the discourses of the Hamidian regime and the Young Turks, but they were also echoed among Muslims elsewhere in the world.

The separation of sizable Muslim populations who were also former Ottoman subjects presented dilemmas about maintaining relations and providing protection. The Ottoman state had lived through similar crises before with the establishment of Serbia and Greece, while the influx of Tatars and Circassians from the Russian Empire in the 1860s put considerable pressures on it. Yet, in 1878 the situation was different. The number of former Ottoman Muslim subjects remaining beyond Ottoman control was much larger than in the case of the previously established Balkan nation-states. As the Ottoman authorities grappled with such questions, for the Young Turks the experiences of the Muslims in Bulgaria were crucial in strengthening nascent Turkish nationalist ideas. Furthermore, what went on in these years in the Balkans was important for the part the region assumed in the Ottoman imagination.¹⁶

Finally, I have made special efforts to reconstruct the lives and activities of many of Bulgaria’s Muslims involved in the events under discussion. In this way I have tried to bring out faces and reconstruct real historical figures from what has so far remained an impersonal mass of people. This book is as much about their ideas and endeavors as it is about them.

Note on Structure, Scope, and Sources

Chapter 1 sets the background for the events discussed in this book, including the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78 and the subsequent Berlin settlement. Chapter 2 examines how Bulgaria imagined, organized, and governed its Muslim subjects within the complex backdrop of Ottoman-Bulgarian relations. Chapter 3 follows Bulgarian efforts to do away with the vestiges of the Ottoman imperial legacy in the cities and the countryside, as well as the impact on the Muslims. Chapter 4 looks at the intellectual and social origins of the Muslim reform movement. The chapter also introduces some of the main figures who played a crucial role in the events under consideration. Chapter 5 examines in detail the initiatives undertaken to reform the community. Chapter 6 deals with Muslim efforts to navigate Bulgarian parliamentary politics along with the struggles over the leadership of the Muslim community. The final chapter turns to questions of identity and community. The nation, with its various characteristics and forms, stood at the center of such discussions. But at a time of a growing globalization, Bulgaria’s Muslims also began to imagine themselves and seek connections with the wider world. The book closes with the tense standstill of Muslim life following Bulgaria’s declaration of independence and evaluates this crucial period against subsequent events.

The focus of this book is the Muslim reform movement, so by necessity certain topics have received limited attention. The Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78, a formative experience for Bulgaria’s Muslims and the Ottoman Empire, the period of the Russian provisional administration, the Muslim refugee crisis, and Muslim emigration merit more extensive consideration. Finally, while the book looks at the attitudes of Ottoman representatives and the sentiments of members of the Young Turk opposition organization towards Bulgaria’s Muslims, it does not present a comprehensive discussion of the views of a broader spectrum of Ottoman society.

I have used Bulgarian and Ottoman sources, both archival and published, in addition to other primary source materials. But above all, I have sought to utilize sources produced by the Muslim community. The local Muslim press of the time, which was published almost exclusively in Ottoman Turkish, is a particularly important source, and one that has remained largely undervalued. However, it is only by looking at the press that one can grasp the full range of lively debates, struggles, and aspirations of the local Muslims. Ottoman and Bulgarian archival records provide valuable information about Ottoman and Bulgarian aspirations, as well as insights into the context that engendered the rise of reform initiatives. Yet, taken by themselves they do not reveal much about the Muslims’ activities. Bulgarian sources repeat a narrative of Muslim ignorance and apathy. A similar story emerges when one looks only at sources produced by the Ottoman authorities, except that it is enhanced with laments about communal discord and vitriol against the spread of Young Turk sedition. Muslim periodicals are important in other ways. Certain publications, above all the main reformist organ Muvazene, actively solicited and published readers’ letters. These contributions, whose veracity is undisputed, give a voice to many ordinary Muslims and attest to the spread of reform ideas. Periodicals are supplemented by documentation from the archival collections of mufti offices and regional Muslim boards, petitions Muslims sent to the Ottoman and Bulgarian authorities, and pamphlets. The few published memoirs have proved particularly valuable. Poetry was the only kind of literary work produced by Bulgaria’s Muslims during this period. The poems that made appearance on the pages of the Muslim press in many cases give a sense of the intense emotions with which members of the community responded to the world around them.

The records of sharia courts, sicills, have traditionally been an important source for the study of the social, economic, and legal history of the Ottoman Empire and Muslim societies. In Bulgaria sharia courts continued to function after 1878, but they resolved only matters of family law, such as marriage, divorce, and in some cases inheritance. Consequently, the information their records provide is limited to such matters.

Reconstructing the experiences of certain groups during this period is difficult because of the scarcity of original documentation relating to them. There are no sources reflecting the perspectives of unorthodox Muslims, such as Alevi, Bektashi, and Kızılbaş; other documentation provides only scant insights, so it is difficult to draw even a partial picture of their life in those years. The Roma, Muslim and non-Muslim, remained a marginalized group. Although there is more information about them in Bulgarian and Ottoman sources, invariably reflecting the perceptions and prejudices of those who produced them, it is still largely insufficient to provide a more detailed account of their experiences. With limited information on certain subjects, sometimes conjecture is inevitable.

1

The Ottoman Imperial Context

Ottoman Rule in the Balkans and the Formation of Muslim Communities

The Balkans had only sporadic contacts with Islam and Muslims prior to the fourteenth century. From the eighth century onward, the Byzantines felt the growing military pressure of Arab armies, which besieged the capital Constantinople twice. In the thirteenth century a group of Seljuk Turks seeking refuge in the Byzantine domains were resettled in the area between the Danube delta and Varna. Those who stayed permanently converted to Christianity, setting the beginning of the Gagauz community.¹ Turkish mercenaries also served in the Byzantine civil wars. Yet, it was the Ottoman conquest of the region that brought it into more extensive contacts with Islam and led to the permanent establishment of Muslim communities.

The Ottoman state emerged from a small Turkoman principality, or beylik, in northwestern Anatolia. It was one of many such entities that sprung up in the area following the movement of Turks from Central Asia from the eleventh century onward and the dissolution of the Seljuk Empire that had displaced the centuries-old Byzantine supremacy. The people of these principalities were predominantly nomads-pastoralists, but at the same time they engaged in a particular kind of warfare, gaza, fueled by religious fervor and the prospects of booty.²

The start of the rule of Osman in 1299 is usually taken as the birth of the Ottoman state, although it would take a while for the modest principality to turn into a large empire. Being conveniently located next to the rump of the Byzantine domains, Osman’s people launched upon steady expansion at the expense of the ailing empire and some of their Muslim gazi neighbors. Along the way they attracted more followers. In 1354 under the leadership of the second ruler, Orhan, the Ottomans gained a foothold on the Gallipoli peninsula; from there they made their way into the Balkans. They skillfully navigated local politics, taking advantage of the region’s volatility. The Byzantine Empire was torn by civil wars waged by rival imperial factions, with Thrace bearing the brunt of military and punitive action. Although they initially backed one of the Byzantine factions, the Ottomans broke off the alliance to continue their own advance. Other Balkan states were in a similarly weak condition. Bulgaria was divided into three: the Vidin and the Tǔrnovo kingdoms and the despotate of Dobrudja. Serbia was split into two competing entities. Several smaller principalities under the authority of independent rulers existed in Macedonia, whereas the Peloponnesus was a patchwork of statelets governed by Byzantine and Venetian families.

By the end of the fourteenth century the Ottomans established control over most of the central, eastern, and southern parts of the region. They put an end to the Bulgarian states and reduced the Byzantines and the Serbian principality of Raška to vassal status. Some of the Balkan rulers recovered, temporarily revoking vassalage at the beginning of the fifteenth century, after the Ottomans collapsed at the hands of the Mongols. Yet, the Ottomans were able to rebound and resume their advance. In 1453 Mehmed II (r. 1444–46; 1451–81), subsequently styled the Conqueror, took Constantinople, bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end. The city became the new Ottoman capital. Under his reign the Ottomans extended their control over other Balkan territories, such as Bosnia, Albania, and the remnants of Serbia.

Over the sixteenth century the Ottomans drove further into Europe, taking over the bulk of Hungary and imposing vassal status over Wallachia and Crimea. In 1529 they laid their first siege on Vienna. Meanwhile, Ottoman rulers extended their control over the rest of Anatolia, Egypt, and most Arab lands of the Middle East. Through skillfully brokered alliances with local rulers, the Ottomans claimed considerable territory in North Africa, including Libya, Algeria, and Tunis, as part of their domains. The once-small beylik had turned into a formidable empire. Ottoman rulers saw their state as the embodiment of several legacies, which were reflected in the titles they assumed. In addition to sultan, with the takeover of Constantinople Mehmed II took the title Caesar of Rome. In the years following the conquest of Egypt, which at the time was the home of an offshoot of the Abbasid caliphal family, Ottoman rulers adopted the title of caliph. In this way they claimed the supreme spiritual leadership of the Sunni Muslim world.³ The Balkans, the bulk of which came to be known as Rumeli, became one part of this expansive and diverse empire.

In the Balkans the Ottoman conquest brought a change of political order. Local dynasties and ruling elites came to an end. Many of their members were killed or exiled or passed in oblivion, but some became part of the new Ottoman order.⁴ While the Ottoman state saw itself as the champion of Sunni Islam, generally it did not try to impose its faith upon the non-Muslim inhabitants, including those in the Balkans. As people of the book, Christians and Jews were given the status of protected subjects, or zimmis.⁵ They were allowed to practice their religion, and matters of internal religious organization were largely left in their hands. In return they recognized the political supremacy of their Muslim rulers. In addition, they had to pay a special tax, the cizye, and were the subject to other limitations, such as restrictions on the construction and repair of religious buildings.⁶ Ottoman tolerance was a function of the empire’s efforts to manage difference and govern effectively. It did not mean equality and it could fluctuate, depending on many factors, such as the state of relations with European Christian powers.⁷ Non-Muslim groups were organized through the millet system. According to this system, Orthodox Christians, Gregorian Armenians, and Jews interacted with the state on communal matters via their supreme religious leaders. The system took some time to develop, and other millets were established later, particularly in the nineteenth century, when millet became largely synonymous with nationality.

The first Muslim communities in the Balkans emerged over the course of the Ottoman conquest in the fourteenth century. The number of Muslims increased over the next centuries through migration and conversion to Islam. Following the early conquests, the Ottomans encouraged Turks from Anatolia to settle in Thrace, Macedonia, and later in the northeastern parts of the peninsula in order to strengthen their hold on the region. Another aim was the need to revive the local economy as these areas had suffered extensive devastation and depopulation.

In many cases migrants from Anatolia arrived on their own initiative. Among the most significant migrant groups were the yürüks. In times of peace yürüks engaged in transhumant pastoralism, but during war they participated in Ottoman military campaigns. Yürük groups settled in Thrace, Macedonia, and the eastern and northeastern Balkans, including Dobrudja. Some subsequently migrated further north and northwest. Place names, such as Saruhanlılar, Maraş, and Karamanlı point to the origins of their first settlers.⁸

Another method of population settlement were the forced migrations, sürgün, that entailed the movement of entire communities from one location to another. The purpose was to repopulate particular regions, while easing demographic pressures elsewhere.⁹ Relocating rebellious populations was another motive. In the sixteenth century, for example, when the Ottoman Empire was engaged in wars with the Safavids and faced continuous rebellions of Kızılbaş groups in Anatolia, the Istanbul authorities exiled many of them to Dobrudja and the Deli Orman.¹⁰

The migration of Tatars and Circassians added to the diversity of Muslims in the region. Similar to the yürüks, Tatar groups were brought to the area from Anatolia and Crimea from the late fourteenth century onward. In the seventeenth century members of the Giray family, who ruled the Crimea, were given estates in various places throughout northeastern and eastern Bulgaria. In the 1860s another larger wave of Tatars and Circassians from the Russian Empire were settled in the Bulgarian lands.¹¹

The activities of prominent Ottoman military leaders also contributed to the Islamization processes. Notable gazis, such as Evrenos Bey, were awarded estates in the newly conquered regions. The legendary warrior and his descendants, for example, sponsored the establishment of various institutions, including tekkes, imarets, and baths. In turn they spurred the development of economic and cultural centers in southern Macedonia and western Thrace, attracting more settlers, while also providing conditions suitable for conversion.¹² Another notable gazi family, the Mihaloğlu, were awarded the administration of lands around Nikopol and Pleven.¹³ Such patterns were repeated elsewhere throughout the region.

Sufi groups and leaders played an important part in the conquest and the strengthening of Ottoman rule. Dervishes were an integral part of the early Ottoman armies, but they also contributed to the spread of Muslim spiritual institutions, such as zaviyes and tekkes, which in turn led to the expansion of Muslim communities. By the sixteenth century there were a number of Sufi convents in the Bulgarian lands, among them those of Otman Baba near Haskovo, Akyazılı Baba near Varna, Kademli Baba in Nova Zagora, and the most renowned local Muslim saint, Demir (Timur) Baba near Razgrad.¹⁴ As the Balkans were incorporated into the Ottoman administrative system, representatives of the authorities, migrants from Anatolia, and new converts also moved throughout the region. Finally, the introduction of the timar system, which combined administrative and military functions, contributed to the movement of Muslims throughout the Balkans and around other parts of the Ottoman Empire.

With the Ottoman conquest and the influx of Muslim settlers came conversion to Islam.¹⁵ Conversion has been a divisive topic not only in the Bulgarian but generally in the Balkan historical tradition and popular perceptions. In the nineteenth century, prominent Bulgarian intellectuals began arguing that most local Muslims were Bulgarians who had accepted Islam as a result of coercion. The Pomaks, the Bulgarian-speaking Muslim populations who lived in the Rhodopi mountain region and some parts of north-central Bulgaria, were frequently cited as examples of this phenomenon. Such claims assumed wider popularity after the establishment of Bulgaria.¹⁶ While there is little credible substantiation for the arguments about mass forced conversion, there were indeed some instances of involuntary conversions. The most significant example was the devşirme, the levy of Christian peasant boys for the janissary corps and the ranks of the higher imperial bureaucracy. After the collection, the boys were converted to Islam.¹⁷ Furthermore, at certain periods, particularly with the consolidation of confessionalism in the seventeenth century, society became less inclined to show tolerance, and there were instances of involuntary conversions.¹⁸

However, most conversions were not a result of force but a product of a combination of social, economic, religious, and cultural circumstances, as well as regional specifics. Most conversions were individual, and many were followed by linguistic assimilation. In certain areas in the Balkans, conversions occurred on a larger scale, so such communities preserved their native language. This was the case in Bosnia and Albania and for the Pomaks in the Rhodopi. In the Balkans, conversions to Islam began as early as the Ottoman conquest, and the process reached a peak in the seventeenth