Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T14:17:49.724Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Difference Unveiled: Bulgarian National Imperatives and the Re-dressing of Muslim Women, 1878-1989

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Mary Neuburger
Mary Neuburger*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Recent scholarship has poignantly argued that the founding of modern “Western” nation-states is to a large degree a product of their drawn out colonial encounters with “the East.” It is convincingly argued that “the West” constructed its own self-assured, national and supra-national identities in the process of “discovering” and “inventing” the exotic yet inferior “East.” Furthermore, a diverse body of scholarship has delineated the central role of discourses on gender and sexuality in the development of Western societies and, in particular, nation-states. If the image of “pious mother” became key to Western national self-images, it was the counter-image of the women of the harem—veiled, oppressed, and mysterious—that typified representations of Eastern barbarism. Furthermore, Western economic and political penetration of its colonies was to a large degree justified by the “gendering” of the “irrational Orient” versus the “rational Occident.” The “liberation” of Islamic women from their “oppression” as typified by the veil became central to Western “civilizing” missions, which had far-reaching echoes on the frontiers of European society.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 169 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).Google Scholar

2. Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1990); and Mosse, George, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe (Madison, WI: Univeristy of Wisconsin Press, 1985).Google Scholar

3. Mosse, See, p. 23; Julie Marcus, A World of Difference: Islam and Gender Hierarchy in Turkey (London: Allen and Unwin, 1992), p. 32; and Molloy, Maureen, “Imagining (the) Difference: Gender, Ethnicity and Metaphors of Nation,” Feminist Review, No. 51, 1995, pp. 94–112, 105.Google Scholar

4. On the Balkans see Maria Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” Slavic Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, 1992, pp. 453-482. On Russia see Francesca Wilson, Muscovy: Russia Through Foreign Eyes 1553-1900 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 218; and Tibor Szamuely, The Russian Tradition (New York: McGraw Hill, 1974), p. 83.Google Scholar

5. Bakic-Hayden, Milica, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 5, 1995, pp. 917–931, 917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Slezkine, See Yuri, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 414–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Baron, Beth, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth Century Egypt: Practical and Symbolic Considerations,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1989, pp. 370–386, 370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Cole, Juan, “Gender, Tradition, and History,” in Fatma Göcek, M. and Shiva Balaghi, eds, Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity, Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 23–29, 26.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., p. 24.Google Scholar

10. For discussion of veiling, de-veiling and re-veiling in Iran, see Nahid Yeganeh, “Women, Nationalism, and Islam in Contemporary Political Discourse in Iran,” Feminist Review, Vol. 44, 1993, pp. 3–18; for a discusion of the same issue in Turkey see Ayse Kadioglu, “Women's Subordination in Turkey: Is Islam Really the Villain?” Middle East Journal, Vol. 48, No. 4, 1994, pp. 645-660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Kadioglu, pp. 646-647; and Nermin Abadan-Unat, Women in the Developing World: Evidence From Turkey (Denver, CO: University of Denver Monograph Series in World Affairs, 1986), p. 28.Google Scholar

12. Arai, Massami, Turkish Nationalism in the Young Turk Era (New York: E. J. Brill, 1992), pp. 65–68.Google Scholar

13. Arai, p. 92; and Lazzerini, Edward, Ismail Bey Gaprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia, 1878-1914 (Seattle: University of Washington, 1974), pp. 237–251.Google Scholar

14. Kadioglu, p. 646.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 651.Google Scholar

16. Abadan-Unat, p. 23; and Nayereh Tohidi, “Soviet in Public, Azeri in Private: Gender, Islam, and Nationality in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan,” Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 19, Nos 1/2, 1996, pp. 111–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Clay, Catherine, “Russian Ethnographers in the Service of the Empire,” Slavic Review, Spring 1995, pp. 45–62, 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Tohidi, p. 133.Google Scholar

19. Nuriev, Shakher, Zhenskii Vopros: Problemi i Resheniya (Ashkhabad: Izdatelstvo “Turkmenistan,” 1991), p. 3.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., p. 6; Bibi Palívanova, Emansipatsiya Musulmanki: Opit Paskreposhcheniya Zhenshchini Sovetskovo Vostoka (Moskva: Izdatelstvo “Nauka,” 1982), p. 15; and Alimova, Dilorom, Resheniye Zhenskovo Voprosa v Uzbekistanye (1917-1941 gg.) (Tashkent: Izdatelstvo “FAN,” 1987), p. 12.Google Scholar

21. Bilíshai, Vera, Resheniye Zhenskovo Voprosa v SSSR (Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatestvo Politicheskoi Literaturi, 1956), p. 146.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., p. 146.Google Scholar

23. Palivanova, p. 279; and Tohidi, p. 113.Google Scholar

24. The Muslim Gypsy population, although significant, is a separate case and, therefore, will be omitted from this study. The increasingly rural character of the Turkish popultion was in direct contrast to the Bulgarian population which was primarily rural into the nineteenth century and became increasingly urban after independence.Google Scholar

25. Shishkov, Stoyu, Bulgaro-Mozhamedanite (Pomatsi): Istoriko-Zemepisen I Narodoychen Pregled c Obrazi (Plovdiv: Turgovska Pechatinitsa, 1936).Google Scholar

26. See Ibid.; and Stoyu Shishkov, Pomatsi v Trite Bulgarski Oblasti: Trakia, Makedonia i Mizia (Plovdiv: Pechatnitsa “Makedonia,” 1914).Google Scholar

27. Khristov, See Khristo, Iz Minaloto na Bulgarite Mozhamedani v Rodopite (Sofia: Izdatelsvo na Bulgarskata Akademia na Naukite, 1958).Google Scholar

28. Shishkov, 1936, p. 64.Google Scholar

29. Branchev, Nikolai, Bulgari-Mokhamedani (Pomatsi): Zemepisnite Predeli (Sofia: Izdaniya na Bulgarsko Narodnoychno Druzhestvo, 1948), p. 32.Google Scholar

30. Kirdjail ODA, 14K-1-96 (1934-1947), pp. 1–599.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 55.Google Scholar

32. Smolyan, ODA, 26K-1-2 (1939), p. 7.Google Scholar

33. Smolyan, ODA, 42k-15-2 (1938), p. 142.Google Scholar

34. Smolyan, ODA, 42k-15-10 (1942), p. 142.Google Scholar

35. Marinov, Petur, ed., Sbornik Rodina, Book 1 (Smolyan: Izdaniye na “Rodina,” 1939), p. 34.Google Scholar

36. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-15-222 (1946), p. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. Haskovo, ODA, 182K-1-92 (1946), p. 20.Google Scholar

38. Haskovo, ODA, 675-1-66 (1950), p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Haskovo, ODA, 675-1-62 (1953), p. 31.Google Scholar

40. Kirdjali, ODA, 44-2-24 (1951), p. 77.Google Scholar

41. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-26-9 (1952), p. 1.Google Scholar

42. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Haskovo, ODA, 675-1-113 (1958), p. 16.Google Scholar

45. Haskovo, ODA, 675-1-112 (1951), p. 71.Google Scholar

46. Sofìa, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 21.Google Scholar

47. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 36.Google Scholar

48. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 23 and p. 16.Google Scholar

49. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 10.Google Scholar

50. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 106.Google Scholar

51. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 15.Google Scholar

52. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 125 and p. 51.Google Scholar

53. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 21.Google Scholar

54. Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1960), p. 16.Google Scholar

55. Haskovo, ODA, 675-1-112 (1951), p. 73; and Sofia, , TsDA, 28-16-49 (1955), p. 23.Google Scholar

56. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-5-509 (1962), p. 27.Google Scholar

57. Sofia, , TsDA, 747-1-19 (1965), p. 165.Google Scholar

58. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-5-509 (1962), p. 94.Google Scholar

59. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-5-509 (1962), p. 90.Google Scholar

60. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-5-509 (1962), p. 127.Google Scholar

61. Sofia, , TsDA, 1B-5-509 (1962), p. 37.Google Scholar

62. Yeni Isik, 13 December 1971, p. 3.Google Scholar

63. Ibid., p. 3.Google Scholar

64. For complete discussion see Kemal Karpat, ed., The Turks of Bulgaria: The History, Culture, and Political Fate of a Minority (Istanbul: The ISIS Press, 1990); and Kemal Karpat, “Bulgaria's Methods of Nation Building—The Anihilation of Minorities,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1989, pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

65. See Muslulamlar, April 1993, p. 2.Google Scholar