Bulgarian Muslims between Empire and Nation | Milena Methodieva

E518 | In 1878, following the Congress of Berlin, Bulgaria became a de facto independent principality. Not anymore under Ottoman rule, the Muslims of Bulgaria navigated this political shift by redefining their place as a minority of a nation-state. The community underwent a political polarization between traditional notables and a group pushing for reforms within Muslim institutions. In this episode, we discuss how these reformists engaged with state and nation-building in Bulgaria by highlighting their connections with the broader Muslim world. Not only did Bulgarian Muslims contribute to the rise of the Young Turk movement, they were also part of a transnational space in which intellectuals and activists debated issues such as the place of Islam in modern society, the value of education, and the question of political relationship with non-Muslim rulers. This episode is cross-listed with The Southeast Passage: http://thesoutheastpassage.com/methodieva-bulgarian-muslims-empire-nation/ Milena Methodieva is a scholar of Ottoman, Balkan, and Turkish history. She is Assistant Professor at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her scholarship focuses on the political, social, and intellectual transformations in the late Ottoman empire, its successors in the Balkans, and modern Turkey. In her new research project, she focuses on migration to explore the unraveling of the Ottoman imperial world and the emergence of nation-states in the Balkans and modern Turkey. Andreas Guidi is Lecturer of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Konstanz, Germany. After his joint Ph.D. at the Humboldt University in Berlin and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, he is preparing a monograph tentatively entitled “Youth between Empires: Generations, Fascist Colonialism, and the post-Ottoman Mediterranean in Rhodes”. His post-doc project investigates how smugglers and illegal trade contributed to constructing a transnational modern Mediterranean. Jovo Miladinović is an academic staff member at University of Konstanz. His research explores the history of Balkan and Mediterannean borderlands during the 19th and 20th century. CREDITS Episode No. 518 Release Date: 24 January 2022 Recording Location: Toronto / Berlin Audio editing by Andreas Guidi and Jovo Miladinović Music: The Southeast Passage Theme, by Giulio Stermieri; Eridi Kalmadı Dağların Karı, performed by Seval Eroğlu; Kanun Taksimi Images and bibliography courtesy of Milena Methodieva available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/01/methodieva.html