Awards

• Winner of John D. Bell Memorial Book Prize 2018

Overview

Focusing upon a region in Southern Bulgaria, a region that has been the crossroads between Europe and Asia for many centuries, this book describes how former Ottoman Empire Muslims were transformed into citizens of Balkan nation-states. This is a region marked by shifting borders, competing Turkish and Bulgarian sovereignties, rival nationalisms, and migration. Problems such as these were ultimately responsible for the disintegration of the dynastic empires into nation-states. Land that had traditionally belonged to Muslims—individually or communally—became a symbolic and material resource for Bulgarian state building and was the terrain upon which rival Bulgarian and Turkish nationalisms developed in the wake of the dissolution of the late Ottoman Empire and the birth of early republican Turkey and the introduction of capitalism. By the outbreak of World War II, Turkish Muslims had become a polarized national minority. Their conflicting efforts to adapt to post-Ottoman Bulgaria brought attention to the increasingly limited availability of citizenship rights, not only to Turkish Muslims, but to Bulgarian Christians as well.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna M. Mirkova
Publisher:   Central European University Press
Imprint:   Central European University Press
Weight:   0.540kg
ISBN:  

9789633861615

ISBN 10:   9633861616
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   15 July 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

List of Maps, Tables, and Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Key Ottoman Turkish and Bulgarian Terms Note on Names, Transliterations, and Dates INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE The Eastern Crisis, Russia’s “Civilizing Mission” in the Balkans, and the Emergence of Eastern Rumelia CHAPTER TWO Repatriation, Postwar Reconstruction, and the Limits of Pluralism in Eastern Rumelia CHAPTER THREE An Experiment in Pluralistic Governance: Emigration and the Emergence of National Politics CHAPTER FOUR Anchoring Unified Bulgaria on “Muslim” Land CHAPTER FIVE Muslim Land vs. Bulgarian Labor: The Cost of Building a Modern Capitalist Nation CHAPTER SIX Land, Nation, Minority CHAPTER SEVEN Debating Community and Citizenship CONCLUSION Select Bibliography Index

Reviews

The author focuses on the judicial issues concerning land holdings and transference during the period of the revived Bulgarian state, especially in the ephemeral region of Eastern Rumelia, which is now the southern area of Bulgaria. As a part of the issues of land ownership transference, the author also examines the wider consequences of the emigration of the Turkish and other Muslim minorities of Bulgaria to Turkey. This is an excellent study for those who wish to understand the legal processes by which the Bulgarian nationalist order replaced the imperial Ottoman establishment in the agricultural economy. Overall Mirkova demonstrates the determination of the revived Bulgarian state to maintain its authority over a system of land ownership based upon law and to use this authority to develop or modernize the agricultural segment of the economy, even if this law was not always exercised fairly to Bulgaria's Muslim minorities. * Slavic Review *

Author Information

Anna M. Mirkova is Assistant Professor of History at the Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

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