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Zur Ethnizitaet der Pomaken Bulgariens (On the Edinicity of Pomaks in Bulgaria)
EVANGELOS KARAGIANNIS, 1997
Muenster: Ut Verlag (Spektrum 51)
205 pp., ISBN 3-8258-3608-8
In his book Zur Ethnizitaet der Pomaken Bulariens (On the Ethnicity of the Pomaks in Bulgaria) Evangelos Karagiannis follows two objectives: to provide information about the ethnicity of the Pomaks in Bulgaria, and to contribute to the development of the theory of marginality. The theoretical elaboration makes the book much more than a vivid account of the Pomaks in Bulgaria.
In the past decades the Pomak ethnicity has mainly been described through publications out of Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish perspectives. These were too often imbued with the political ideologies of the respective countries. Publications from the 'Western' perspective focused largely on the Turkish minority in Bulgaria; and the Pomaks were only rarely investigated. About their ethnicity little is known, and even less about how they regard themselves. After the author has made an introduction into the geography of the researched area-the central part of the Rhodope mountains-he continues by presenting cultural aspects of the Pomaks and a summary on the relevant historical events in the area.
Within the framework of the nineteenth century nation-building in the Balkans, the rise of the 'Pomak Question' is elucidated. Karagiannis shows that before the rise of the Bulgarian nationalism, the Pomaks did not constitute a separate ethnic group. For Bulgarian nationalists and the majority of the Bulgarian population, the Pomaks do not fit into the concept of 'being Bulgarian', first because of their religion and, second, because being a Pomak is synonymous with being backward. The Turkish minority in Bulgaria also looks down on the Pomaks, whose missing knowledge in Turkish (and/or Arabic) and whose rather superficial knowledge of Islam disallows them 'to be Turkish', hence they cannot be regarded as 'real Muslims'. Thus, marginality becomes the...