
Mary Neuburger, “The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Cornell UP, 2004)
New Books in Eastern European Studies
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The Transition From Turks to Mosques in the Great War
In pre-World War II period the Bulgarian regime more or less supported and encouraged conservatism among Turkish Muslims. For co-ops on the other hand there was continuity because even in the interwar period they encouraged modernizing Islam. But by 1984 this culmination of this process among Turks happened when the Silphabriburg process was announced and Turks were forced to take Bulgarian names. At that point the regime essentially said there are no Turks in Bulgaria. There are only Bulgarian Muslims so interestingly enough although they discouraged Islam, they always left it in place in a sense and even worse through it.
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