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Hugh Poulton & Suha Taji-Farouki (eds), Muslim Identity and the Balkan State. London: Hurst & Company, 1997, 250 pp.
Sabrina Ramet, Whose Democracy? Nationalism, Religion and the Doctrine of Collective Rights in Post-1989 Eastern Europe. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997, 233 PP
THESE TWO VOLUMES ADDRESS CRUCIAL ISSUES in the post-communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe, yet they are quite different in both approach and scope. Nevertheless, they both focus on states struggling with post-communist identities, and both include detailed chapters on the problems in Serbia's Kosovo province. I shall discuss the two books separately and then conclude with some general observations on both volumes.
The collection edited by Poulton and Taji-Farouki provides an overview of the littlediscussed Muslim minorities in the Balkans-the Slavic-speaking Muslims, the Roma, the Turks and the Albanians. The focus of the volume is on the relationship of Muslim minorities to non-Muslim Balkan states. This would exclude the Bosnian Muslims, who enjoy a `non-minority' status. Despite this, Poulton provides a short update on the status of the Bosnian Muslims in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina (pp. 232-242), including an analysis of the 1996 Bosnian elections. Other essays by Poulton in this volume include a historical overview (pp. 13-22), the plight of Muslims in Thrace and Macedonia (pp. 82-102), and Turkish foreign policy with regard to Muslim minorities (pp. 194-213). The overview focuses on Islam and ethnicity in the Balkan states, with emphasis on the Ottoman millet system and its intertwining of national and religious identities. The essay on Muslims of Thrace and Macedonia is a survey of the status of Turks, Roma and Albanians in northern Greece and Macedonia. The article on Turkey as a `kin-state' and its relations vis-a-vis Turkish minorities in Bulgaria, Greece, the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere (including Cyprus!) provides a useful introduction to the complex issues regarding the role of the kin-state in the affairs of the minority groups in neighbouring states.
Poulton is the co-author of the introduction with Suha Taji-Farouki (pp. 1-12) and of the article on the Kosovo Albanians with Miranda Vickers (pp. 139-169). Other contributors include Yulian Konstantinov on the Bulgarian Pomaks (pp. 33-53), Wolfgang Hoepkin on the Turks of Bulgaria (pp. 54-81), Natasha Gaber on the Muslims in Macedonia (pp. 103-114), Nathalie Clayer...