Country: Bulgaria

Group: Bulgarian-speaking muslims (Pomaks)

Date: February 8, 2022

Team: Ash Pessaran (lead), Jocelyn Chen, Samantha Bradford, Blake Coram, Maki Davidson

Content Warning: Ethnocide

Approximate Time Period: 1912–present

Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Pomaks) are possible descendants of Bulgarian Christians who were converted to Islam during Ottoman rule (Minority Rights Group, 2018; islamweb.net, 2006). The Pomaks settled throughout the Balkans in the 9th century, and by 1936, the religion dominated Bulgaria under the Ottoman Empire. Christian kingdoms and Russian-backed Great Serbia contributed to the empire’s dissolution in the 1800s. The Pomaks are the main Muslim ethnic group in Bulgaria today, and are mainly located in the Rhodope Mountains and have an estimated population size of 160,000-240,000 people (Minority Rights Group, 2018).

            From 1912-1913, the Bulgarian government forced the Pomaks to change their religion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the predominant religion in Bulgaria (Neuburger, 2000). The communist-led government forced Bulgarian-speaking Muslims to drop their Muslim and Arabic names and adopt Bulgarian ones in the early 1940s, as part of a targeted assimilation campaign. Again, from 1970-1973, the government used lethal violence to coerce name changes (Eminov, 2007).

The communist and post-communist governments, ethnic Turkish community, Orthodox, and other religious groups have exerted pressure on and deny the existence of the identity of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims. Uniate and Protestant Christians have successfully forced conversion of some Pomaks in the eastern Rhodope Mountains.2 In 1991, the government defined Bulgaria as a homogenous, mono-ethnic state in the constitution (Minority Rights Group, 2018).  In 1997, the government formed the National Council of Ethnic and Demographic Questions and excluded Pomaks. In 2014, the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of Minorities omitted the Pomaks as well, limiting ethnic group choices to only Bulgarian, Turks, and Roma. Those wanting to register as “Pomak” were obstructed from doing so (Minority Rights Group, 2018).

We rate the data quality a 3/3.

Sources

  1. Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (pomaks). Minority Rights Group. (2021, February 5). Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bulgarian-speaking-muslims-pomaks/
  2. Islamweb. (n.d.). Bulgaria the sufferings of One Million Muslims. Islamweb. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.islamweb.net/en/article/136011/bulgaria-the-sufferings-of-one-million-muslims
  3. Eminov, A. (1987). The status of Islam and Muslims in Bulgaria. Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Journal, 8(2), 278–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666958708716040
  4. Macedonians. Minority Rights Group. (2021, February 5). Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/macedonians-2/
  5. Neuburger, M. (2000). Pomak Borderlands: Muslims on the edge of nations. Nationalities Papers, 28(1), 181–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905990050002506