By Krzysztof Popek, Ph.D
One of the most enduring after-effects of the Ottoman rule in the Balkans was the formation of Muslim communities there – the biggest ones still live in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Albania, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia. The question of their origin has been causing powerful emotions – the discussion about their ethnogenesis played an important role in the process of the formation of the nations and proving the communities’ rights to the territories they inhabited. In this context, Mary Neuburger writes about the blood mania which rules in the Balkans. Self-identification, language and faith are treated as secondary to the conviction about having common ancestors and more or less abstract theories about the national origin. It is no different in the case of Bulgaria and the Muslims who lived on that territory. Until the 19th century, their ethnogenesis was the subject of many theories and discussions.
The theories about the Bulgarian origin of the Pomaks and Turks were an important part of narrations during the forced assimilation campaigns in the 20th century: during the Balkan Wars, Second World War and Communist Regime. Discussions on this subject started with the formation of modern nations in the Balkans in the 19th century. Forced Islamisation was then considered to be crucial for the formation of the Muslim communities in the Bulgarian lands. However, these visions were not based on actual historical research; some of them were linked to 19th-century falsifications. Recent detailed studies of Ottoman archival materials showed that the process had a different character. Voluntary conversions did not fit the Romantic visions dominant in the 19th century: narratives about the “Turkish yoke”, the suffering of the Christian nation, and oppression suffered at the hands of Muslim barbarians. The most absurd theories about the Muslim origin, such as Cuman or Arabic ancestors, were created more recently, but the population was linked with Proto-Bulgarians already in the 19th century. Both in the 19th and the next century, the theories often did not attempt to search for the truth about the past, but they were linked to narrations about national unity and – in some circumstances – used to justify assimilation campaigns. Until today, some Bulgarian authors support the theory that the Bulgarian Turks and Pomaks are just Bulgarians “whose national identity is benighted by Islam”.