With the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe the
west has been confronted with the existence of
several, little-understood Muslim ethnic groups in
this region whose contested histories can be traced
back to the Ottoman period and beyond. Previously
overlooked Muslim ethnies, such as the Bulgarian
Turks, Bosniaks, Pomaks, Kosovars, Chechens, and
Crimean Tatars, have begun to receive considerable
attention from both western scholars and the general
public. Much of the interest revolves around the
question of the identity of these Muslim communities
and the history of their formation as distinct
ethnic groups. The history of the formation of these
groups has in many cases been contested terrain as
Bulgarian authorities, for example, attempted in the
1980s to prove that the Bulgarian Turks were
actually “Turkified Bulgarians”, as the Greek
government sought to demonstrate that the Pomaks
(Slavic Muslims) were actually Islamicized Greeks,
and as Bosniaks were labelled “Turks” by their
Serbian nationalist foes in spite of their Slavic
background.
