'Religious Islam' in Postcommunist Bulgaria

Religion, State & Society, Vol. 36, No. 4, December 2008

‘Secular Orthodox Christianity’ versus ‘Religious Islam’ in Postcommunist Bulgaria

DANIELA KALKANDJIEVA

ABSTRACT This article discusses some problems of Christian-Muslim dialogue in postcommunist Bulgaria. It reveals the difficulty most people have in distinguishing the religious from the national and the secular from the atheist. It points to a tendency to regard the revival of minority religions, especially Islam, chiefly in terms of a threat to national unity. It also sheds light on the discrepancy between the high degree of tolerance of Orthodox rituals shared by the majority of Bulgarian citizens and the prevailing concerns about religious teachings of any kind as endangering scientific knowledge.

The current return of religion in the Bulgarian public space is a natural result of the collapse of communism. This process, however, is not restoring the pre-1944 religious situation in its original form, but in a modified one. Although the rule of atheism has been abolished, Bulgarian society continues to function on the basis of secular principles. The 1991 Constitution preserves the separation of church and state (Article 12, para. 2), introduced by the communist regime in 1947. None of the postcommunist Bulgarian governments has ever tried to restore the dominant status of Eastern Orthodoxy promulgated by Article 37 of the Tarnovo Constitution of 1879. Today many people consider any rejection of atheism as a sign of religiosity, while tending to regard state regulations in the religious sphere as an attack against religion: it seems that the major problem here for a postcommunist society such as Bulgaria is the confusion of secular principles with atheism. Meanwhile the majority of people are more sensitive to the secular basis of their state in the case of the use of Islamic symbols in the public space than in the case of the use of Orthodox symbols. Why is this so? Part of the answer is linked with the religious demography of Bulgaria. According to the 2001 census 82.6 per cent of Bulgarians affiliate themselves with Orthodoxy and 12.2 per cent with Islam.1 These figures, however, do not present the real state of religiosity in Bulgaria. The instructions for collecting these statistical data defined ‘religious affiliation’ as ‘the historically determined belonging of an individual or his/ her parents and forefathers to a particular group with specific religious views’ (Struktura, 2001). This approach blurs the difference between the active members of a given confession and those who are only culturally linked with it. It also hides the higher level of religiosity of the Muslim population in comparison with the Orthodox population.2 According to statistics the number of new Orthodox churches and ISSN 0963-7494 print; ISSN 1465-3974 online/08/040423-12 Ó 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09637490802451109

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chapels built over the 16 years to 2006 was 750 (750 novi, 2006), while the corresponding figure for mosques was 320 (Izselnitsi, 2006): in proportion to the number of their adherents, then, the Muslims have been more active in mapping their religious space. Participation in optional classes on religious instruction organised in state schools on the part of members of the two faiths reveals the same situation. In 2006 such classes were attended by 10,000 Orthodox children and 4000 Muslim children (Samo, 2006). The census results point to Orthodoxy and Sunni Islam as the most important factors in domestic religious harmony. In 1994 their relationship was the subject of a research project ‘Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility between Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria’, conducted by the International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations. According to its results, ethnic relations between Bulgarians and Turks are not determined by their religious affiliation (Zhelyazkova and Kepel, 1995). The project suffered from some weaknesses, however. It preserved the pre-1989 tendency to give priority to ethnicity over religiosity and underrated the long-term effects of the communist experience. We should bear in mind that the communist authorities were flexible about ethnic differences while more consistently pursuing the aim of destroying religion. At the beginning of the Cold War the authorities repressed the Turks out of a fear that their loyalty to Turkey, situated outside the Iron Curtain, made them unreliable (Krasteva, 2005); but until 1989 there were also periods of cooperation with this minority, followed by attempts to change its ethnic identity in 1984–85 (the so-called ‘renaming of the Bulgarian Turks’) (Dimitrov, 2000). This inconsistent ethnic policy contrasted with the ‘crusade’ against religion. There is also the point that the major focus of the ‘Compatibility’ research project was on rural regions, where this ethnically and religiously mixed population has a centuries-long tradition of peaceful coexistence. At the time, it was still too early to take into account the impact of Bulgaria’s democratisation and integration into Europe on the Christian–Muslim encounter: it did not take into consideration the intensified migration to the cities and growing Arab immigration (Elchinova, 2005). Ten years later, the situation has changed, especially among Pomaks, who are Muslims of Bulgarian ethnic origin. It seems that they are equally distanced from both Orthodox Bulgarians and Muslim Turks.3 They are separated from the former by religion and from the latter by ethnicity and language.4 At the same time, this minority has been experiencing a process of internal disintegration since 1989. Hundreds of Pomaks in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains, especially in the areas around its major city, K arzhali, were converted to Orthodoxy by acts of mass baptism initiated by Fr Boyan Sar aev.5 Himself a Pomak from that region, he started his career as an officer in the communist state security. In the late 1980s, immediately after the campaign to change Turkish names, he ‘discovered’ Orthodoxy and became a priest. In March 1990 he drafted an Appeal to Bulgarians Muslims (V azvanie k am b algaritemyusyulmani v stranata) (Sar aev, 1996, pp. 110–17). A month later he established the Movement for Christianity and Progress ‘St John the Baptist’ (Dvizhenie za khristiyanstvo i progres ‘Sv. Ioan Predtecha’), which adopted the Appeal as its guiding document (Sar aev, 1996, p. 119). It aim was to save Pomaks from further ‘turkification’ by returning them to Orthodoxy as their forefathers’ religion. The term ‘turkification’ was coined under the influence of the historical memory of Bulgarians and reintroduced in the postcommunist public space by Fr Saraev (Tasheva, 2007, p. 7).6 According to him, after 1989 the Bulgarian identity of the Pomaks was threatened by Turkish propaganda for a return to Arabic-Turkish names (Sar aev, 1996, pp. 110–17).7 In the early 1990s his movement was quite successful in

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the eastern Rhodope Mountains as a result of their specific demography. Ethnic Turks, who comprised 61 per cent of the local population, did not regard Pomaks as proper Muslims.8 This situation facilitated the Pomaks’ return to Orthodoxy because they found their common ethnicity with the Orthodox Bulgarian minority in the region more important than the diverse religious affiliation. Meanwhile the situation in the region of Smolyan – the major city in the central Rhodope Mountains, untouched by the baptism campaigns of Fr Saraev – was very different. The number of ethnic Turks and Orthodox Bulgarians there is insignificant, while the Pomaks are in an absolute majority.9 This ethno-religious structure, combined with economic difficulties and a high degree of unemployment in the years after 1989, has provoked tensions between the two groups of ethnic Bulgarians, Orthodox and Muslim, that contribute to their religious radicalisation. In the case of the Pomaks the effects work in two directions. It seems that those who have been secularised during the period of state atheism are now inclined to adopt Orthodoxy while the rest are more vulnerable to the influence of Arab Islam in its more radical forms.10 They learn the Quran by heart, study Arabic and go to Arab theological schools (mainly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan) to improve their theological knowledge. There is also a split between the younger and older generations. The former are stricter and more radical in their religious practices, while the older are semi-secularised and practise a more ritualistic type of Islam, strongly influenced by local, often pagan, customs. At the same time, there is not such a degree of religious radicalisation among the Muslim people of Turkish ethnic origin. One reason for this lies in their political representation and participation in the government of the country through the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Dvizhenie za prava i svobodi) (MRF).11 Another reason is that they have not experienced such a severe identity crisis as the Pomaks. A third factor is that Turkey’s secularism and efforts to integrate into Europe are restricting religious radicalisation among the Turkish population in Bulgaria. The first signs of some tensions in Orthodox–Muslim relations in Bulgaria have appeared recently. In August 2005 the appointment of provincial governors nominated by the MRF (often called the Turkish party) provoked sharp protests in several cities. Metropolitan Kiril of Varna declared his city a ‘stronghold of Orthodoxy’ (Ts arkoven, 2005; Parties, 2005). In the following year, however, the same metropolitan proposed the introduction of obligatory lessons in religion in state schools as a means of putting a stop to increasing violence among schoolchildren. Several representatives of the former communist intellectual elite supported this initiative as necessary for ‘preserving the Bulgarian spirit’. Moreover, of all the other confessions in the country, Metropolitan Kiril mentioned only Islam, as the faith which should be taught in regions with a compact Muslim population (Sinodat, 2006; Nikolova, 2006). The project was supported by the chief mufti’s office in Sofia (Stoyanova and Petrova, 2006). It seems that the leaderships of the two religions have united against the predominantly secular policy of the state and that the dialogue between them has been restored. After the collapse of communism some schools restored the precommunist tradition of inviting Orthodox priests to bless the students at the start of the school year and to pray for their health and progress. It also became normal to see students with crosses round their necks. This return of the Orthodox spirit in state schools has never provoked any protests on the part of the majority of Bulgarians. In 2006, however, the issue of religion in school became a source of passionate debates. They started in June, when two Muslim girls came to school in Smolyan wearing headscarves. The teachers decided that this was against the school rules insofar as they required special uniforms.

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The girls, however, refused to remove the headscarves, and explained that they were wearing the obligatory uniforms underneath the Muslim robes covering their bodies. In their view the headscarf was not simply a religious symbol: it was their duty as believers to cover their heads and bodies. The ban on headscarves was therefore religious discrimination. Their protests were supported by the Society for Islamic Development and Culture (Obshtestvo za islyamsko razvitie i kultura), a Muslim NGO situated in the same city of Smolyan. On behalf of the girls, this NGO referred the case to the Commission for Defence against Discrimination (Komisiya za zashtita ot diskriminatsiya) (Komisiyata, 2006a; S shamiya, 2006). The girls’ argument was also defended by the chief mufti’s office (Glavno myuftiistvo) in Sofia (Chertova, 2006; Myuftiistvoto, 2006a, b; Kis’ova, 2006a). The case provoked intensive public debate on the use of religious symbols in school. Some opposed it on the grounds that the secular nature of school education is prescribed by law (Karbovski, 2006). Others were concerned that permission for Muslim headscarves in school would lead to permission for Muslim students to pray five times a day, which would impede the teaching process (Interview, 2006a). It was argued that the principle of secular education in Bulgaria was necessary in order to guard against the absurd situation of students coming to school naked just because they belonged to an Adamite sect (Interview, 2006b). Finally, some participants in the debate saw in the Muslim headscarf a ‘fuse that could inflame the ethnic and religious peace’ in Bulgaria (D areva, 2006). They feared that the increase in Muslim activity in the country was a result of imported Arabic Islamic fundamentalism. Opponents of the headscarf looked for solutions in the experience of other European countries facing similar problems. They pointed to Turkey which despite its Muslim origins gives priority to secular principles and forbids headscarves in schools and universities (Interview, 2006b). They also drew attention to the fact that the headscarf case had happened in the central Rhodope Mountains, a region with a religiously mixed population, where Muslims are a majority in some towns and villages, and where most of the Muslim people are Pomaks, i.e. of Bulgarian ethnic origin. Some argued that religious fundamentalist propaganda among them could endanger their national identity (Interview, 2006b). Behind this concern lay the issue of the compatibility of the idea of national unity and loyalty to citizenship with that of the Muslim umma. The reaction of the state institutions to the Smolyan case was based on secular principles. The minister of education defended the secular nature of state schools. In his view, those Muslim girls who wanted to observe their religious practices and beliefs had an alternative – to continue their education in one of the several Muslim female colleges in the country. He also promised to take care that special clauses would be included in future laws on education explicitly forbidding the use of religious symbols in state schools and universities. In his view a more precise definition of the term ‘secular education’ would prevent its wrong interpretation and application (Ministar, 2006). This approach, however, does not take into account the fact that wearing the Muslim headscarf is regarded not as a religious symbol but as a religious duty on the part of followers of Islam (Interview, 2006a); nor does it take into account the fact that the majority of Bulgarian citizens would not accept a ban on wearing Christian crosses in school. In fact the state has not prohibited crosses. At the same time, there is an asymmetry: Christians perceive crosses as religious symbols, not as part of religious practice, as the Muslims do. Meanwhile, many Islamic universities in the Arab world are accepting Bulgarian Muslim girls who do not want to remove their headscarves. In fact, Muslim religious NGOs in Bulgaria are generally founded by graduates of such


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universities. There is therefore no guarantee that the measures suggested by the Ministry of Education would solve the problem. On the contrary, one could expect an increase in religious fundamentalism in Bulgaria after such girls return home. The decision of the Commission for Defence against Discrimination on the Smolyan case, issued on 1 August 2006, silenced the protests of the mufti’s office and the Society for the Development of Islamic Culture. Most probably this reaction was not uninfluenced by political considerations, since religious conflict, especially in regions with mixed populations, was not welcome in the run-up to the presidential elections scheduled for 22 October 2006.12 According to the decision, the ban on headscarves in those state schools that had special requirements for uniforms was not discrimination. Fines were imposed on all the participants in the dispute. According to the Commission for Defence against Discrimination, the Society for the Development of Islamic Culture was blamed for ‘instigating activities that brought about discrimination’ (Voinova, 2006; Zabranata, 2006). The school administration was found guilty of allowing the two Muslim girls not to wear uniforms because in this way they had discriminated against students who observed the uniform rules. The Ministry of Education was also sanctioned, since in the course of investigation it was discovered that in 2003 the former minister had given written permission to one of the girls to wear a headscarf (Komisiyata, 2006b; Aneva, 2006). The story finished by September 2006, the beginning of the next school year, when the girls, who were about to finish their higher education, agreed to be private students in the same school (Kis’ova, 2006b). The decision of the Commission for Defence against Discrimination was questioned in January 2007, when a similar case arose in one of the villages near Smolyan (Nova, 2007; Nov, 2007). Although the school involved had no requirements for uniform, its administration and the state authorities proceeded as in the first case. As a result, the two new two girls agreed to remove their headscarves while in school, in order to be able to continue their education as regular students (Kis’ova, 2007). At about the same time a Muslim girl studying at the Higher Institute for Islamic Studies in Sofia was attacked in a supermarket by a man who removed her headscarf. The man was not punished on the grounds that he was drunk (Stefan, 200713). The Smolyan case coincided with another conflict that challenged Christian– Muslim relations in Bulgaria. It arose around two cases concerning the ezan, the call to prayer from minarets. The protests were initiated by the nationalist party Ataka (Kmet at, 2006; I v Ruse, 2006; Raionnoto, 2007; Petrova, 2006). The campaign was against the noise made by the loudspeakers used for the ezan. The muftis replied that Christian church bells were doing the same. They also pointed out that the Muslim community in Sofia had the ezan only three times a day instead of the five required by Islam. The first and the last calls, which are too early in the morning and too late in the evening, were omitted in order not to disturb people living near the mosque. The removal of the loudspeakers was supported by all major political parties, with the exception of the MRF (VMRO, 2006; Spored, 2006; SDS, 2006; Ot ‘Ataka’, 2006). This measure was also welcomed by the Orthodox Church, the national ombudsman, the Directorate of Religious Denominations and the municipal authorities (Borisov, 2006; Direktsiyata, 2006; Natsionalniyat, 2006; Slavcheva, 2006). Although the speakers were removed, the attacks against mosques continued, now carried out by separate groups of hooligans in the form of arson attacks. The most serious case, the fire at the mosque in the city of Kazanl ak, was the occasion for a special denunciation by the Bulgarian parliament of this and similar cases as ‘a crude provocation against ethnic and religious tolerance’ (Parlament at, 2006).

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The events described above reveal that in the case of Islam the growth of religiosity in Bulgaria is often not welcomed, especially when it is too visible or audible. Meanwhile, however, the Orthodox majority is not such a zealous defender of Christianity in the ongoing discussion on the introduction of obligatory religious instruction in school. It supports its optional study in state schools but strongly resists its introduction as a mandatory subject. By 2006 about one per cent of students (14,000) from all school years were attending lessons on religion (Dukhovnitsi, 2006). According to a survey conducted by the National Centre for Studying Public Opinion (Natsionalen tsent ar za izuchavane na obshtestvenoto mnenie) general support for religious education in state schools dropped from 70 per cent in March 2007 to 55 per cent in March 2008 when a concept for mandatory nonconfessional study of religion was proposed by a commission of experts appointed by the Ministry of Education. It seems at the same time, however, that public opinion is much more in favour of the ritualistic aspects of Orthodoxy in school. At the beginning of the 2006–07 school year there were many articles in the newspapers critical of the fact that the ‘traditional prayers’ and blessing of water in schools had not taken place, as a result of an unofficial order issued by the Ministry of Education (Parviyat, 2006). The order was explained with reference to the discrimination law: the presence of Orthodox clergy only in school would constitute discrimination against students of other faiths. Some schools organised blessing ceremonies in secret, and their example was presented by the mass media as good practice (2 blagoevgradski, 2006). Meanwhile the Holy Synod held a special liturgy in the patriarchal St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia; it was attended by the minister of education as well as officials from his ministry, and there were also students who attended voluntarily (Patriarkhat, 2006). Similar events also took place in the provinces (see for example Moleben, 2006). This approach could be interpreted as a gesture of respect for the separation of church and state; it would be more difficult so to interpret the blessing of 100 school flags by Orthodox hierarchs in Sofia on 1 November, the day dedicated to those who have contributed most to the advancement of Bulgarian education and culture (Uchenitsi, 2006). The cases discussed in this article indicate that the return of religiosity in postcommunist Bulgarian society involves dialogue between the secular and the religious. There is a high degree of tolerance of Orthodox rituals, shared by the majority of Bulgarian citizens, but serious concerns about religious teachings of any kind. There is also a tendency to regard the revival of minority religions chiefly in terms of a threat to national unity (see Komisiyata, 2006b). This is especially true in the case of Islam resurgence among Pomaks. On 20 February 2007 several Pomaks and former Orthodox Bulgarians who had converted to Islam were arrested in connection with allegedly spreading Wahhabist ideology and preaching jihad on several Islamist websites (Interview, 2007). Reports paid special attention to the profiles of those who had set up the websites. One of them explained that their leader, Ali Khairedin, a Pomak, a former mufti and now chairman of the NGO the Union of Muslims in Bulgaria (S ayuz na myusyulmanite v B algariya) (UMB),14 was spreading his radical Islamic propaganda among ‘Christians and Pomaks’ because ‘the Muslims in Bulgaria belong to traditional Islam and thus would not support his ideas’ (Pumpalova, 2007). The assumption seems to be that that only Turks, and not Pomaks, are proper Muslims. Another commentator stressed the fact that meetings of the UMB were also attended by ‘Bulgarians who have repudiated Christianity [sic] and adopted Islam as their faith’ (Otkrikha, 2007). It seems that the constitutional right to change one’s religion clashes with the stereotype that proper Bulgarians must be Orthodox. Some even said that the alleged activities of Khairedin’s organisation


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constituted ‘conversion to Turkish identity’ (‘poturchvane’). Meanwhile the chief mufti’s office considered that the arrest was a result of some mistake (Govoritelyat, 2007). The release of the alleged Islamists after 72 hours provoked sharp criticism of the authorities. One critic claimed that the process of islamisation in Bulgaria had political and legal support because the law provided only for a three-year jail sentence and a fine of e250 for terrorist activities (Tasheva, 2007). Another declared that Bulgarians ‘suffered from real confessional, rather than ideological, terrorism long before the world was shaken by it on 11 September 2001’ (referring, that is, to the five centuries of Ottoman rule) (Terorizm at, 2007). The dangerous possibility evidently exists that religious tensions or conflicts might be transformed into political ones. It seems that the Orthodox majority in postcommunist Bulgaria has no clear notion about the border between the secular and the religious. It regards Orthodoxy as a source of national identity, but turns into a guardian of secular principles when faced with the growing religiosity of some religious minorities. It is especially sensitive about Islam, not only because of past experience, but also because of the still influential communist historiography, which was designed to deepen the ideological gulf between Bulgaria and Turkey as countries on either side of the Iron Curtain. Orthodox people have developed different attitudes to the various ethnic groups in the country. They have a more liberal attitude towards the religious practices of Turks than towards those of the Pomaks. While the religious radicalisation of the former is restricted by Turkey’s secularism, the religious resurgence of the latter has no such limitations. Moreover, the Pomaks are experiencing serious identity problems. Considered neither ‘proper Bulgarians’ nor ‘proper Muslims’, they are trying to find a solution either by becoming Orthodox, a process which is going on in some parts of the Rhodope Mountains, or by moving towards a religious radicalisation based on Arabic Islam as an alternative to the Turkish variety in other parts. Meanwhile the Pomaks who are inclined towards Arab Islam rather than Turkish Islam tend to regard the secularist policy of the state as aimed against their ethnic and religious identity. To some degree, their attitude is also provoked by the inclusion of elements of Orthodoxy in some civil procedures (the president and government members take an oath on the Bible, and neck crosses as well as some Orthodox rituals are allowed in schools). The successful development of a dialogue between ‘secular Orthodoxy’ and ‘religious Islam’ is thus a necessary condition for inter-religious peace in postcommunist Bulgaria. Notes 1 The majority of Muslims in Bulgaria are Sunni and only 7.7 per cent of them are Shiite (85,733). Ethnically the Muslim population consists of about 730,000 ethnic Turks, 130,000 ethnic Bulgarians and 90,000 Roma. See http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Census.htm (last accessed 21 August 2005). 2 In 1962 the Institute of Philosophy at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences carried out a mass sociological survey of religiosity. According to its results more than two thirds (64.44 per cent) of all respondents (100 per cent¼42,664 persons) declared that they were ‘not religious’, and one third (35.51 per cent) that they were ‘religious’. Of all believers 75.2 per cent (11,399) were Eastern Orthodox: 26.72 per cent of all adult believers in the country. Although the survey registered a similar tendency in Islam, this was much weaker than in Orthodoxy – in other words, the level of religiosity among Muslims was higher (see Protsesat, 1968; Mizov, 1965). 3 Maria Schnitter of Plovdiv University has done research in this area on field trips to the Rhodope Mountains with her anthropology students. Daniela Kalkandjieva and Ina Merdjanova have also done research, mostly through focus groups in the course of the Sofia

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seminars on Youth and Interreligious Dialogue in 2004–06. According to a Muslim Bulgarian woman interviewed by Schnitter, a Muslim Bulgarian (Pomak) would prefer tj marry an Orthodox Bulgarian rather than a Turk despite the fact that the latter shares the same faith. These conclusions are based on field studies carried out by Maria Schnitter in the region of Asenovgrad, a city near Plovdiv. The Bulgarian journalist Rada Domuschieva discussed the new developments in the town of Dzhebel, inhabited mainly by Pomaks, in a television programme on 16 September 2005. She described how the new imam, who had recently come to the town, had closed the Muslim graveyards and forbidden the Pomaks to bury their dead there because they did not wish to follow the Islamic custom of burying the bodies naked rather than clothed. They also used to inscribe the names of the dead on the gravestones. This caused despair among the local Muslims, who had nowhere to bury their dead. The municipal authorities and the local representatives of the influential Muslim ethnic party the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Dvizhenie za prava i svobodi) (MRF) offered no help. Similar observations were made by Antonina Zhelyazkova in a lecture on Islam delivered in Sofia on 29 November 2006, and in the article Zhelyazkova (2007). A documentary about Fr Saraev’s mass baptising campaigns was shown on national television. Tasheva blames the authorities for giving political support to the process of islamisation. She also states that the turkification of Bulgaria is supported by legislation. The Law on the Names of Bulgarian Citizens (Zakon za imenata na b algarskite grazhdani) (Zakon, 1990), adopted in 1990, allowed the resumption of names that had been changed by force in communist times. According to Fr Sar aev, a return to the Arabic-Turkish names among Pomaks will bring about their turkification and will tear them from the Bulgarian nation. I do not agree with the ideological basis for this view, but I find one of Fr Sar aev’s arguments quite reasonable. In the early 1990s the MRF organised a campaign among the Pomaks in the Karzhali region urging them to apply for Arabic names on an equal footing with the Turks whose names were changed to Bulgarian by force in the 1980s. On the one hand the choice of name is a human right. On the other hand, as Fr Sar aev argues, being linked with the religious affiliation of Bulgarian citizens, it creates opportunities for a religion-based alliance between the Muslims of Bulgarian and Turkish ethnic origins in favour of the MRF that could be used for political ends. The results of elections in regions with an ethnically mixed Muslim population reveal such a tendency. According to the 2001 census the population of the K arzhali region was 164,019, the number of ethnic Turks there was 101,116 and the number of Muslims (Turks, Pomaks and a few Roma) was 114,217. The population of the Smolyan region is estimated at 140,066. It consists of 6,212 ethnic Turks and 122,806 ethnic Bulgarians (Orthodox, Muslim and a few of other denominations). Meanwhile, the number of Muslims in the region is 58,758, which means that about 89 per cent of all Muslims are Pomaks. Orthodox Bulgarians, estimated at 41,599, are a smaller group than Pomaks or Muslim Bulgarians. Since the summer of 2006 the penetration of radical Islamist propaganda in this region has been regularly reported in the Bulgarian press. This explanation has been advanced by the Bulgarian sociologist Professor Pet ar Emil Mitev, who took part in the Compatibility project. See Zhelyazkova and Kepel (1995). The pre-election campaign coincided with Ramadan, one of the holiest periods for Muslims, which in 2006 began on 24 September and continued until 22 October (see Sveshteniya, 2006). Captain Petko Voivoda, referred to in the title of this article, was a leader of the Bulgarian resistance against the Turks in the second half of the nineteenth century. In July 2008 court cases were filed against the Union of Muslims in Bulgaria, registered in Sofia, and the Society for Islamic Development and Culture, registered in the city of Smolyan. The latter case was connected with the headscarves case in Smolyan. The two organisations are accused of maintaining religious activities that had not been listed in their statutes at the time of their registration (Zabranikha, 2008).


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