Аспекти на българската политика спрямо българомохамеданите (1912–1944)
Aspects of Bulgaria’s Policy towards the Bulgarian Mohammedans (1912–1944)

Summary/Abstract: The aspects of Bulgaria’s policy towards the Bulgarian Mohammedans from 1912 to 1944 show that the minorities policy of Bulgaria followed principles well known to other European countries: the modern national states have often turned minorities into instruments for the realization of irredentist, respectively revisionist, claims. At the same time the minorities that did not identify themselves with their own nation and state were regarded with suspicion. In the case of the Rhodope Bulgarian Mohammedans it was the question of the two sides of the same medal. These were also the motives for conducting a gross assimilatory policy of „Bulgarization“ towards this population. The fact that a large part of the Bulgarian Mohammedans at present are with a consolidated Bulgarian national self-awareness confirms also the rule that in the majority of cases „the State makes the nation“, i. e. the very existence of the fundamental institutions and mechanisms in organizing and governing public life was enough for making the first steps in the formation of a national self-consciousness. Here again Bulgaria made no exception to universal European development.

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