Front cover: drellez in the village of Semerdzhievo, near Ruse

Opposite page: Amulet against the "Evil Eye"

Anthony Georgieff Bozhidar Aleksiev Dimana Trankova Doroteya Dobreva

Galina Lozanova Ivanka Vlaeva Orlin Sabev Radko Popov Yordanka Bibina

THE TURKS OF BULGARIA

by Anthony Georgieff, Bozhidar Aleksiev, Dimana Trankova,
Doroteya Dobreva, Galina Lozanova, Ivanka Vlaeva,
Orlin Sabev, Radko Popov, Yordanka Bibina
Edited by Anthony Georgieff and Dimana Trankova
Copyedited by Jane Keating
Bozhidar Aleksiev, Dimana Trankova, Doroteya Dobreva, Galina Lozanova,
Ivanka Vlaeva, Orlin Sabev, Radko Popov, Yordanka Bibina, 2012 (text)
Anthony Georgieff, 2006-2012 (text and photography)
Vagabond Media Ltd, 2012
Sofia, Bulgaria

Translated from the Bulgarian by Tania Kirova and Anthony Georgieff

Graphic Design Gergana Shkodrova
Printed by Dimitar Blagoev Printing House

. ,
,
, ,
(, ,
) .
All rights reserved. Without limiting the copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or
otherwise), without the prior written consent of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-954-92306-9-7

THE TURKS
OF BULGARIA

HISTORY, TRADITIONS, CULTURE

All photographs Anthony Georgieff 2006-2012,

except the following

p19
Dimitar Karastoyanov, in 25 Years of the Principality of Bulgaria, by M. V. Yurkevich and M. Goryunin. Sofia, 1904
p22
Bulgarian Telegraph Agency
p25
A.D. Ivanov, in Russian State Archive for Film and Photo Documents. The picture is part of The Forgotten Photographs of the Russo-Turkish
War of 1877-1878 exhibition, curated by Ivo Hadzhimishev and sponsored by Sasho Donchev, Overgas Bulgaria
p28-29
Karnobat in the Past by Hristo Berberov, Karnobat History Museum, included in the catalogue 36 Works from the Karnobat History
Museum, Varna, 2008

CONTENTS
NOT IN BLACK-AND-WHITE
Preface by Anthony Georgieff

WHO ARE THE TURKS OF BULGARIA?

12

TURKISH AND MUSLIM MINORITIES IN BULGARIA

34

JOURNEY OF FAITH

54

ARCHITECTURE, ARTS, LITERATURE

70

FOLKLORE AND TRADITIONAL FEASTS

88

by Dr Orlin Sabev

by Dimana Trankova
by Radko Popov

p61
Miniature in a Persian edition of Kisas al-Anbiyya, now in Hamidie Collection of the Suleymanie Library, Istanbul,
Manuscript No980. Reproduction from Metin And, Minyaturlerle Osmanli-Islam Mitologyasi, Istanbul: YKY. 2010, 189

by Dimana Trankova

p116
Poster by Vasiliy Kovalevski, reproducted by The Bulgarian Poster, Svetlin Bosilkov, Sofia, 1973, 64
p158

by Dr Bozhidar Aleksiev, Dr Doroteya Dobreva, Dr Galina Lozanova

Turks leaving Bulgaria during the "Great Excursion", summer of 1989, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency
p165
The Tragedy of the Turkish Muslim Minority in Bulgaria, Foreign Policy Institute, Ankara, 1989, 76-77
p166
Man With a Pipe, by Hristo Berberov, Karnobat History Museum, included in the catalogue 36 Works from the Karnobat History
Museum, Varna, 2008
p167
Leonid Brezhnev and Todor Zhivkov in Sofia, 25-26 September 1971, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency
A rare picture of the vigil in Kornitsa, taken secretly by a local, Mehmed Oru. Courtesy of Velislav Radev
p169
Rally in suppor of Zhivkov's assimilation policies, held in front of the Turkish Embassy in Sofia, on 31 May 1989, Bulgarian Telegraph
Agency
"Great Excursion", Bulgarian Telegraph Agency
p176
"Great Excursion", Bulgarian Telegraph Agency
p177
Todor Zhivkov meeting Turks, middle of the 1990s, Bulgarian Telegraph Agency

MUSIC AND DANCE

128

TURKISH AND/OR BULGARIAN?

136

CUISINE

144

FORCED MIGRATIONS AND NAME-CHANGINGS

158

GLOSSARY

179

BIBLIOGRAPHY

180

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

186

by Dr Ivanka Vlaeva

by Dr Yordanka Bibina

by Dr Yordanka Bibina
by Dimana Trankova

NOT IN BLACK-AND-WHITE
Preface

by Anthony Georgieff

There were two reasons for starting on The Turks of Bulgaria, the
logical follow-up to A Guide to Ottoman Bulgaria (Vagabond Media,
Sofia, 2012 & 2012), and both are personal.
Firstly, there was the naivety with which I, along with many
Bulgarians of my generation, perceived what was going on around
us in the 1970s and 1980s.
Like many other Bulgarian children in those days, I had friends
called Asen and Angelina. We went to school with the Asens and
the Angelinas, then went out to play together and sometimes got
into mischief. It took us years to realise that Asen had, in fact, been
Ahmed, and that Angelina's real name was Ayshe. The Asens and
the Angelinas belonged to that generation of Bulgarians, whose
parents acting a decade prior to the horrors of the so-called
Revival Process had decided to continue their lives as citizens and
oppose history by becoming a part of it.
They had renamed their sons and daughters from Ahmed to Asen
and from Ayshe to Angelina to protect them from the mockery
of their classmates at school, and the future discrimination and
outright repression that they had been wise enough to foresee.
How did Asen and Angelina feel during all those years when we
were promoted to chavdarcheta and pionercheta, the Bulgarian
Communist equivalent of elementary and secondary school boy
scouts? How did they feel on 3 March, then not an official bank
holiday, when we all had to collectively watch Under the Yoke,
that black-and-white classic of early People's Republic of Bulgaria
film-making? How did the 19th Century haydut hats we had to
wear appear to their eyes, and how did the obligatory poems
describing in gruesome detail the chopping-off of legs, arms and

heads "because of our Christian faith" sound to them? Along with

the poems extolling our "double liberators" from the other side
of the Volga, these were compulsory features on the curriculum
in Bulgarian schools at that time. The "Revival Process" was yet to
come.
Secondly, there was the propaganda. Recently I met a doctor
from northern Bulgaria. A well-known surgeon in a large city, the
man was surprised to hear I planned to spend 10 days in the eastern
Rhodope. "Why would you want to go there?" he asked.
"It's very interesting," I said. "I like travelling in Bulgaria."
"But there are Turks there."
"So what? Isn't that Bulgaria?"
"But they want independence, don't they? They are Islamic
fundamentalists, aren't they?"
Unfortunately, the questions raised above have no unequivocal
answers of the sort that Bulgarians of the early 21st Century have
become used to. The reasons are many and varied.
On one side there is history. From the creation of the People's
Republic of Bulgaria in 1945 until it changed its name in 1990,
Bulgarian history textbooks as a rule presented the five hundred
years of Ottoman domination in these lands as a series of mass
murders, impalings and rivers of blood. Little was said about
architecture, culture and social life, and nothing at all about the
liberalism of the sultan, who cared more about the amount of
taxes collected than the faith of his subjects. Owing to the state
propaganda, which was very efficient, the literary fabrications
presented in the Time of Parting as historical truth are even now
largely accepted without question.

However, relations between Bulgar and Turk, and among the

Bulgarians themselves, were not so simple and can be illustrated
succinctly with the following two quotes.
One comes from an 18th Century French traveller. Writing in
1785, Count D'Autrive described life in the Shumen villages of
Divdyadovo, Stanovets and Takach: "Now these are half Turkish,
half Bulgarian; Muslims and Christians live side by side without
detesting each other, marry between themselves, drink together
bad wine, and violate both the ramazan and the Christian fast. They
know, as their clerics do, only the sign of the cross or Allah; but that
does not make them less honest people. Both the imams and the
priests treat with equal tolerance the marriages between those
belonging to the different religions. It is not a rare occurrence to
see under the same roof both Muslim turbans and icons, the Qur'an
and the Gospels right on top of one another. Two religions at such
a great variance with one another are being preached with equal
ease, and children are left to decide for themselves which one to
subscribe to."
The second belongs to the Patriarch of Bulgarian Literature, Ivan
Vazov, who wrote in his all-time bestseller Under the Yoke (18871888): "Consequently, notwithstanding all its evils, the yoke has a
bright side: it makes people merry... A casket of wine gulped under
the cool willow shade by the rambling crystal-clear brook makes
you forget the yoke; a hodge-podge baked with purple aubergines,
flavoursome parsley and fiery chilli peppers, eaten on the grass
under the overhanging branches through which the high blue sky
hovers, is kingdom come. Add a few fiddlers to play music and this
is ultimate happiness on earth."
Unless we have a special interest, we hardly think about the
Turkish words we use every day, or the Turkish dishes we eat at
home or in restaurants. We never question the Turkish habits, such
as eating sunflower seeds, that we have retained; and we impart
Turkish tales and proverbs to our children. Direct vestiges of the
Turkish legal system are still present in the Bulgarian courts. There
is that Turkish culture of family connections and interdependencies
among friends that every Bulgarian knows all so well; and then the
Turkish weltanschauung, or worldview, which determines the way
modern Bulgarians see their world a lot more than the concepts
imported by the Communists from the cold, faraway North. Apart
from the periods of the early Ottoman conquest in the 14th15th centuries and the empire's painful disintegration in the late
19th Century, Bulgar and Turk lived side by side in relative harmony
unlike, for example, the Irish after Oliver Cromwell.

10

But the Irish, Bulgarian "patriots" will immediately interject, were

"enslaved" by a "civilised nation"!
The parallel with Ireland is quite relevant, so let me elaborate.
When the Ottomans left Bulgaria, Bulgarians still spoke Bulgarian
and the economy was thriving, thanks to its lucrative contracts with
the Ottoman Army. When the English left southern Ireland, Irish
was almost defunct, and the Irish economy had been deliberately
stifled to prevent any competition with British businesses. Just ask
anyone whose forebears suffered in the Great Potato Famine about
the "civilisation" of the conquerors...
Our attitude to our own history is not constructive. To outweigh
the times of relative economic and cultural prosperity by the
periods of suffering and rebellions does no good either to history,
nor to the school children who study it, because they will develop
into citizens who perceive the world in simple, black-and-white
terms. This is an attempt to use the past as a means to escape from
the realities of the present and the challenges of the future.
My 10 days in the eastern Rhodope were followed by 10 more
days in the western Rhodope, then 10 days in northeastern Bulgaria,
then 10 days in the Aytos Balkan, and then 10 more days in... What
I encountered in these places as a traveller and photographer
can hardly be expressed in words (which explains why this book
contains so many images). The natural and completely spontaneous
hospitality of these people, young and old, led to long evenings
spent over coffee or rakiya in homes, where there were "under
the same roof both Muslim turbans and icons." Hundreds of
conversations about the life of politics and the politics of life, and
thousands of Turkish words spoken by me to which my Turkish
hosts replied in Bulgarian created a complex picture. These are the
main elements.
The Turks of Bulgaria have an exceptionally strong attachment
to their homeland because they have lived here for centuries,
notwithstanding the turbulence of the first decades after
Liberation, the Balkans wars, the waves of mass emigration, and the
inconsequential and in their sunset stages cruel policies of Todor
Zhivkov, Georgi Atanasov and the Communist establishment. In
spite of it all, the Turks of Bulgaria have remained loyal to Bulgaria.
At the same time, they think of themselves categorically as Turks.
Not just Muslims, but "Turks." The Turks of Bulgaria. There is no
contradiction between their self-identification as ethnic Turks
and their loyalty to Bulgaria as Bulgarian citizens. For the Turks of
Bulgaria, this is something of a matter of course, everyday. It is not
for discussion.

Obviously, the Turks of Bulgaria feel best when relations between

Bulgaria and Turkey are positive. They definitely do not want to
be used as a bargaining chip, a tug-of-war of sorts in any bilateral
dispute. Bilateral relations do not concern them much.
What does concern them greatly, however, is their own
opportunity to develop and succeed as citizens. The Turks of
Bulgaria are underrepresented in science, culture, sports, the civil
service, the armed forces, the police and the local authorities. Even
though speaking Turkish is not banned, just a few sentences uttered
in Turkish, especially in the context of a political campaign, usually
cause a media scandal. Various actions are periodically perpetrated
against the Turks of Bulgaria, one example being the attack on the
mosque in Sofia in May 2011. Another is the vociferous, but largely
ineffective campaigns to stop the broadcasting of Turkish-language
news on national television. The sometimes successful attempts by
local authorities to change Turkish place names, continuously in
use for centuries, prompt concerns that where the names of stones
are being changed, so may the names of the people be, yet again.
The Turks of Bulgaria want their children to be given a real rather
than just a theoretical opportunity to study Turkish at school. They
are not willing to accept the excuses given by some local authorities
why this cannot be implemented efficiently. They want to be able to
attend the mosque without fear of discrimination in the workplace
or in the media. Their greatest wish is to receive equal treatment by
the authorities and the general public, just like everyone else. They
are telling us: "You see that I am a Turk, but I am a Bulgarian citizen.
Treat me accordingly."
Bulgaria is now a member of the EU. In fact, it is the member
of the EU with proportionately the largest population of nonimmigrant Muslims. It may be useful to remember that one of the
reasons for the success of postwar Germany (which in absolute
terms has a larger Turkish minority than Bulgaria, but it is exclusively
immigrant) was the ability and the will of the German people to do
something that cannot even be accurately translated into Bulgarian:
Bewltigung der Vergangenheit, the ability to understand, accept and
overcome the past. It is a difficult process both on the personal and
the public level, but it is one of the things that Bulgarians must face
if they want to succeed in their perceived wish to achieve a German
standard of living (not only economically, but also politically and
socially).
As I was putting pen to paper to write this, the world media
broadcast a partly jocular, partly serious statement by former US
Vice President Al Gore. I quote from memory: There will come a

time when the EU will have to apply to be admitted to Turkey, not

vice versa. Obviously, this is not a recipe for action, nor a policy
directive, and in its original context it was voiced half-jokingly. Yet, I
think the Bulgarians of the 21st Century might benefit from giving it
some serious consideration.
I hope that The Turks of Bulgaria, which contains the opinions
of noted Bulgarian researchers and experts of history, ethnology,
religion, folklore, cuisine, philology and politics, will help to launch
a balanced and serious debate about the questions related to our
past and our present, as Bulgarians who are mature enough not to
accept black-and-white answers.

11

WHO ARE THE TURKS

OF BULGARIA?
by Dr Orlin Sabev

The Turks are the largest ethnic minority in Bulgaria accounting

for about eight percent of the country's population. In the 2011
census, 588,318 out of a total of 7,364,570 citizens identified
themselves as Turks. They live mainly in compact groups in the
eastern Rhodope, and northeastern and southeastern Bulgaria.
They are Muslims, with a large Sunni majority, and a small Shia
minority, known locally as Kzlba or Alevi.
Statistics, however, are barely capable of snapping the complex
processes of the formation of this big and diverse group of people,
the pattern of their migrations, settlements and life in the Balkans.
As every history, theirs is full of battles, numerous important
dates, personalities, disputable and controversial events and
contradictions. As every history, theirs is also a centuries-long
amalgamation of diverse human destinies in the Bulgarian lands
as they lay in two states the Ottoman Empire and independent
Bulgaria. To understand them is to explain the current picture
outlined by the National Statistical Institute's census.
Natural cataclysms often interfere in history and change it
dramatically. In some cases, they cause unexpected reversals,
while in others they catalyse events that would have happened
anyway. In both cases they make historians and those interested
in history wonder: "What would have happened, if" The
earthquake, which ruined the walls of the Byzantine fortress of
Tsimpe on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1352 is an example of one
such natural cataclysm.
The Ottomans, led by their ruler Orhan I (1326-1357), saw their
chance in the ruined walls. They stormed Tsimpe and settled
there. Two years later, they took the nearby fortress of Gallipoli,

12

turning this small conquered territory into a base for their

invasion of and settlement in the Balkans and Europe. It was a
crucial time. Prior to the 1350s this new group of people, still in
the process of becoming an integral whole, would come from Asia
Minor to the Balkans only for short raids. The Ottomans served as
mercenaries to the Byzantine Emperor, John VI Kantakouzenos
(1347-1354), helping him in his endless battles with Bulgarian
King Ivan Aleksandar (1331-1371) and Serbian King Stefan Dusan
(1331-1355).
At that time, the Ottoman Turks seemed to be simply one
of those warlike people to emerge unexpectedly from Central
Asia, cross Asia Minor and the Balkans and then disappear from
history, leaving behind only historical accounts of ruthless
invasions and sieges. Through the centuries many nomadic
peoples had a similar fate, the most prominent being the Huns
in the 5th Century and the Mongols in the 13th Century. The
Ottomans, however, were different. They conquered Asia Minor
and the Balkans, reached Central Europe and created an empire,
which lasted for several centuries. The Ottoman Empire was not
much loved in Europe, but nevertheless was strong enough to
become a major factor in international politics.
The issue of how the Ottomans arrived in the Balkans is open
to discussions, speculations and hypotheses. According to the
most popular theory, they originated from the Gk Trk, an
alliance of nomadic tribes, which existed in the 6-9th centuries in
Central Asia and Mongolia. In this environment, around the 10th
Century, the Oghuz clan was formed. It united several separate
tribes. In the 13th Century, when the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan

13

(1206-1227) began his legendary invasion of Europe, one of the

Oghuz tribes, Kay, also set forth westwards.
The men and women of the Kay tribe found their way on
horseback to Asia Minor. At that time this important crossroads of
civilisations was under the control of the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuks
also originated from the Oghuz. However, the appearance of
their poorer cousins, the Kay, from the east was not good news
for them. Confronted with the situation, the Seljuk sultans made
the only winning move they presented the newcomers with
the flatlands of western Asia Minor, which at the time were the
possession of the Seljuks' main rival, Byzantium.
In the last decades of the 13th Century Erturul, the chieftain
of one of the Kay branches, was given lands in northwestern
Asia Minor, between the modern towns of Bilecik and Eskiehir.
The newly-acquired beylik was of a strategic importance. If
Erturul wanted more lands and more profits, all he had to do
was to attack the non-Muslim lands to the west of the Bosporus
and the Dardanelles.
Erturul grabbed the rare historical chance. His son, OsmanI
(1299-1326), adhered to this policy and so did his successors.
The invasion of the young and ambitious Ottomans coincided
with a period of serious turmoil in the Balkans. Exhausted of
incessant mutual animosities, Byzantium, Serbia, Bulgaria and
the multitude of wayward Balkan rulers were too late to see the
common threat.
By the end of the 14th Century, the Ottomans had conquered
the Bulgarian territories. They ruled them until 1878-1913, when
independent Bulgaria was restored and the defeat in the First
Balkan War pushed the Ottoman Empire into a small corner
of Europe. However, the five centuries of Ottoman rule had
resulted in a dramatic and permanent change in both the ethnic
patchwork and the religious life in the Bulgarian lands.
While the Ottoman invasion of Bulgaria was still underway
in the second half of the 14th Century, the newly-conquered
territories acquired the status of vassalities. When the Ottomans
tightened their grip on the Balkans, however, the lands of the
Bulgarians became an integral part of the empire. Inevitably,
colonisation followed. A varied group of settlers arrived from
Asia Minor to the Balkans. Among them were the nomadic
tribes of cattle-breeders called Yuruks, as well as many farmers
skilled in the art of growing rice, one of the products of highest
demand in the young Ottoman state. The cattle breeders and
the farmers received lands and settlement in the Bulgarian

14

lands in exchange for supplying the Ottoman army with staple

foods, such as meat and rice.
The Bulgarian urban settlements were also colonised. Some
towns had already been destroyed and almost abandoned as
a result of the countless internecine battles and wars between
the Balkan rulers. Others continued to resist chaos their streets,
houses and markets were bustling with life. In both cases,
however, the Ottoman administration introduced new settlers.
These were people needed for the functioning of the state:
soldiers and military commanders, civil servants, merchants and
craftsmen, associated in esnafs, or guilds.
Systematic colonisation was a continuous process that lasted
for centuries. The last big waves of settlers arrived in the first half
of the 16th Century under Sultan Selim I (1512-1520). During his
war with Shiite Iran in 1514-1515 he removed a large group of
Shia Alevi, known also as Kzlba, away from his sensitive eastern
border. They were resettled in today's northeastern Bulgaria,
mostly in the Deliorman, or Ludogorie, region. Later, as the Alevi
tried to avoid further persecution by the Sunni state, they joined
the Bektai order, whose doctrine included some Shia concepts.
Nevertheless, this religious order was enjoying the support of
the state as it was considered a spiritual patron of the janissary
corps, the key military unit of the Ottoman Empire.
The arrival of a prominent number of Muslims and Turks in the
Bulgarian lands was accompanied by a process of Islamisation of
local Christians. There are historical accounts for cases of forceful
change of religion, like that of St Georgi Sofiyski Novi in the
16th Century. In the early years of the Ottoman conquest, when
the newly-conquered territories were "producing" thousands
of war prisoners and slaves, the adoption of Islam became the
easiest way to recoup one's freedom. Through the centuries
later on, however, many Christians decided to swap religions for
purely practical purposes to avoid the poll-tax imposed by the
empire on non-Muslims or to protest against the heavy taxes
collected by the Constantinople Patriarchate from the Christian
parishes. Many of the "Sons of Abdullah," as the new converts
were called, and their successors gradually melted in the Muslim
environment and adopted the Turkish language and customs.
In many cases, however, mostly in the Rhodope and parts of
the Stara Planina, due to the gradual conversion in the 15-16th
centuries, the people preserved their Bulgarian language and
some of their customs. Such tendency was also evident among
the Christians in Bosnia and on Crete, resulting in the emergence

of the Slavophone Bosniaks. The Bulgarian-speaking Muslims

are known as Pomaks or as "Bulgar-Mohammedans."
The complex nature of the political and demographic changes
that took place in the first three centuries of Ottoman rule over
the Bulgarian lands created a diverse ethnic and religious picture.
Along with the prevailing Bulgarian Christian population, a large
Muslim community was formed from people mostly of Turkic
origin that practised Sunni Islam. However, there were separate
groups within it, such as the Shia Kzlba, the Sunni Pomaks and
the Gagauz. The Gagauz are a peculiar group of Turkophone but
fervent Eastern Orthodox Christians in northeastern Bulgaria. It
was probably formed as early as the 13th Century, long before
the arrival of the Ottomans.
The demography in the Bulgarian lands was further
complicated after the Crimean War of 1853-1856. When the
Ottomans lost the Crimea to Russia, tens of thousands of Tatar
Muslims emigrated to what is now northern Bulgaria.
The Muslim population needed its own religious, educational,
cultural and social institutions as well as the proper buildings
for them. Consequently, Ottomans erected many mosques,
primary and religious schools, or medrese, and libraries. The
Ottomans also introduced several types of public buildings and
infrastructure to be used by all subjects of the sultan regardless
of their religion or social status. Anyone could receive a free
bed and food in the hans, or inns, and caravanserays that were
funded by wealthy sponsors. They bathed in hamams, or public
baths, drank water from public fountains, observed their working
hours by the high-rising clock towers, and crossed broad and
dangerous rivers on stone bridges.
The religious buildings were crucial for the Muslims. Their
importance was recognised by the state, and many of the
mosques in major towns like Plovdiv, Vidin and Tarnovo
were built on a sultan's order. Others were constructed on
the initiative of viziers, nobles or local dignitaries. Within the
mosques there were primary schools, providing basic religious
knowledge and Qur'an reading skills for young Muslims.
Experts in the Sharia Islamic law, known as kadis and muftis,
were trained in special religious schools. The mosques and
the adjacent schools formed large architectural complexes. In
today's Bulgaria, only one has survived: the Tombul Mosque in
Shumen. It was built in 1744, and it had a medrese and a library,
where skilled calligraphers and miniaturists created richly
decorated copies of the Qur'an.

The Ottoman Turks brought into Bulgaria the theretofore

unknown Middle Eastern cuisine, as well the hamam culture.
The requirement for impeccable body cleanliness led to the
construction of hundreds of bath houses, and the hot mineral
springs, where they existed (in places such as Kyustendil and
Sofia), were turned into spa centres.
The tradition of Kzlba and Bektai to build monasteries and
to honour the memory and tombs of Muslim saints resulted in
the emergence of large religious complexes, the tekkes. The
trbes, or tombs, of the buried saints held central place in these
sanctuaries and attracted hundreds of pilgrims, regardless of
their religion. The Christians, for example, also believed in the
powers of saints like Demir Baba, whose tekke is near today's
town of Isperih; and of Akyazl Baba, whose cult complex is near
Balchik. Along with the Bektai and the Kzlba, Christians still
visit the trbes, praying and lighting candles in their belief that
these tombs actually belong to St George and St Elijah.
The existence of such dual sanctuaries exemplifies the specific
cohabitation pattern of the different groups in the Bulgarian
lands, imposed by the historical circumstances.
The political, economic and cultural penetration of Islam into
Bulgaria created both contacts and conflicts that would last for
centuries.
Islam acknowledged the Christians as people who were
acquainted with the holy books and would be allowed to
practice their religion freely within the Muslim state. The
German Protestant theologian, Stefan Gerlach, who visited
Constantinople in the 1570s, told an interesting story that
indicated this kind of tolerance as being elevated to state policy.
Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha tried to persuade Sultan Sleyman the
Magnificent (1520-1566) to impose Islam as the only religion in
the empire. The sultan picked up a flower with yellow and white
petals and asked the vizier whether he likes it. "I like it, Rustem
Pasha said, because this is how God created it." Then the sultan
tore off the yellow petals and asked his vizier whether he still
liked the flower. "No, I don't, he replied. Now it is not complete
because it lost its yellow petals." Then the sultan said: "Since you
like the flowers with the perfection of their colours, why do you
not do the same with the people that are also God's creation?
The more petals a flower has, the more beautiful it is. Similarly,
the Turks wear white turbans; the Muslims green; the Greeks
blue; the Armenians a combination of white, red and blue or
black; and the Jews yellow. Therefore, God likes all faiths."

15

There is a multitude of evidence about the good contacts and

cooperation in everyday life between Bulgarians and Christians,
on the one hand, and Turks and Muslims and the other. It is present
in various sources: travel notes of Western diplomats, Ottoman
judicial documents, memoirs and so on. Croat Ruer Bokovi
from Dubrovnik, for example, who visited the Bulgarian lands in
the 18th Century, noted that in certain regions marriages between
Bulgarians and Turks were the rule rather than the exception.
The prolonged everyday contacts between the followers
of Christianity and Islam created mutual understanding and
respect. In the villages and towns with mixed populations, the
important religious feasts were often celebrated together at
least to a certain level. According to an unwritten rule, on Easter
Christians would present their Muslim neighbours and friends
with red-dyed eggs and Easter bread. On Kurban Bayram, for
their part, Muslims would give Christians meat from the sacrificial
animal. There is even recorded evidence that in the past Muslim
children waited so impatiently for the red eggs to come that
their mothers and grandmothers would finally boil and dye
some eggs themselves, in spite of the fact that Islam does not
recognise the resurrection. Christians and Muslims would also
extend mutual invitations to weddings, birth celebrations and
funerals, a sign of confidence and compliance with the lifestyle
of people of a different religion.
However, under Ottoman rule these relations were not blackand-white. For the Ottoman invaders, the Christians were
kafir, or infidels. For their part, the Christians used a number
of pejoratives for the Muslims: infidels, Agaryani (derived from
Hagar, Abraham's servant who gave birth to Ishmael, the father of
the Arabic branch of the Semitic people), Ishmaelites, Saracens,
and Black Arabs. "Black" had a negative connotation, especially
in folk songs where the antagonist Black Arab countered the
image of the "white" and beautiful Bulgarian woman.
This was how the negative side of the relationship between
Bulgarians and Turks emerged. The negative stereotype generally
remained in use throughout the five centuries of Ottoman rule
up until the 1870s.
The Muslim community was also divided between the majority
of Sunni Turks and the minorities of Shia, on the one hand; and
of Pomaks, who were Sunni but not ethnic Turks, on the other.
These boundaries were clearly defined and rarely crossed, even
between neighbours. Here another piece needs to be added to
the mosaic the Muslim Gypsies, who were generally Sunni.

16

The 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War which ended with the

creation of the independent Principality of Bulgaria, brought
about another change in the demography of the Bulgarian lands.
Insecure about their future in the new state, thousands of Turks
and Muslims left their homes and moved to what remained of the
Ottoman Empire. Most of them were from the cities. As a result,
the Muslim population of the young Bulgarian state emerged as
predominantly rural.
The restoration of the independent Principality of Bulgaria
was enshrined in the Berlin Treaty of 13 July 1878. One of its
clauses, adopted at the behest of the Great Powers, compelled
the Bulgarian state to observe the rights of all citizens, regardless
of their ethnicity and religion, Turks included. This principle was
cemented in the 1879 Tarnovo Constitution, and was also included
in the Treaty of Neuilly of 27 November 1919 after Bulgaria's
defeat in the Great War. The stipulation obliged Bulgaria, among
other things, to give its minorities the right to have mothertongue schools. On 18 October 1925, in Ankara, Bulgaria and
Turkey signed a friendship treaty as well as an agreement, which
again guaranteed the rights of Muslims in Bulgaria. It also set the
rules for migration of Bulgarians from Turkey and of Turks from
Bulgaria.
Generally speaking, between 1878 and 1944 the rights of
the Turkish minority in Bulgaria were upheld. Schools usually
associated with mosques provided education in Turkish, while
the community was officially represented before the state by the
Chief Mufti. In military action Turks were drafted in the Bulgarian
army. Curiously, a Muslim prayer was devised to be read out
before battle. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey
by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk and the enforced modernisation it
involved, the Turks in Bulgaria were completely free to wear
their traditional costumes, unlike their fellows in Turkey, which
was Europeanising itself.
For the Turks, however, as well as for other minorities such as
the Jews, life in Bulgaria had a "glass ceiling" attached to it. By
1944 there were hardly any Turks in senior positions in the state
administration, the civil service or the army.
In the meantime, the other Muslim groups in the country did
not enjoy the same tolerance. Centuries-strong stereotypes that
all Muslims were successors of Bulgarian Christians who had
adopted Islam by force or deceit, or had Turkicised themselves,
served as a justification for the state to act. During the First
Balkan War of 1912-1913, with the complicity and the support of

the state, the Pomaks of the Rhodope were forced to Christianise

themselves. These actions were replayed, albeit more delicately,
in 1937-1944, affecting not only Pomaks but also Muslim
Gypsies.
Place names were also changed. The first toponym changes
were implemented soon after 1878, but continued throughout
the years. In 1913, for example, the town of Mustafa Pasha, which
was formed in the 16th Century around the eponymous Ottoman
bridge over the Maritsa River, was renamed to Svilengrad. The
toponym changes intensified in 1934, when the government of
Kimon Georgiev issued a decree to Bulgarianise the names of
over 1,000 towns and villages.
In an attempt to minimise the possible influence of Kemalist
Turkey over the Turkish communities in Bulgaria, a series of
governments began encouraging traditional Turkish culture. This
policy stretched a lot further than giving the Turks in Bulgaria the
opportunity to wear traditional Turkish costumes and to study
at mosque schools. The state even turned a blind eye to some
conservative educators at the Shumen medrese, who openly
opposed Turkey's secularisation. After 1934, however, the Turkish
language press was gradually prohibited and Turan, the cultural
organisation of the Turks in Bulgaria, was shut down.
The Bulgarian state's attitudes towards the Turks changed
dramatically after the Communist takeover in 1944. Until 1989,
when Communism collapsed, the policies of BKP, or Bulgarian
Communist Party, towards the Turks in Bulgaria went through
a series of sharp and often self-contradictory turns. The
consequences of these decisions and concrete political acts are
still felt today.
Initially, internationalism and encouraging the diversity of
ethnic minorities dominated, and the state was tolerant towards
the Turks. Islam could be preached freely, people were allowed
to dress traditionally, and the state sponsored schools where the
language of instruction was Turkish. However, the main reason
for this freedom was not to preserve cultural diversity. Rather,
active Communist state propaganda aimed at creating a new
Turkish cultural elite with secular and Communist views.
In 1947 a new Constitution was adopted. It was in effect until
1971 and recognised the Turks as an ethnic minority with their
inherent language and culture rights. Studying Bulgarian was
mandatory.
Yet, as early as 1948, the Communist Party leader, Georgi
Dimitrov, told a plenum of the BKP Central Committee that Turks

living near the border with Turkey were an "ulcer" for national
security. The Cold War had already begun and Bulgaria and
Turkey were on the opposed sides of the Iron Curtain. In Bulgaria,
the Turkish minority began to be viewed as a potential threat.
The natural result of the changed policy was a "spontaneous"
migration wave in 1950-1951, when about 150,000 Turks left the
country.
In the 1950s the BKP leadership radically changed its attitude
towards the Turks in particular and Muslims in general. The idea
to create a Communist state, where ethnicity did not matter, was
replaced by the concept to set up an ethnically "pure" Socialist
Bulgarian nation. The policy change was implemented within
just a few years. In the early 1950s the Turkish minority enjoyed
positive discrimination in university admission, read papers and
books in Turkish, visited Turkish libraries and studied in Turkishlanguage primary schools. A Turkish Philology Department was
set up at Sofia University, while Turkish men of age were drafted
in the army, albeit in the non-prestigious Construction Troops.
When Todor Zhivkov ascended to the leadership of the BKP
in 1956, the policy changes became evident. By the end of the
1950s Turkish-language instruction at schools was abolished.
The number of Muslim clergymen was considerably reduced
and many mosques were demolished under the pretext of
implementing new urban development plans in city centres.
These actions continued in the decades to follow. Turkishlanguage theatres were closed, Turkish schools were merged
with Bulgarian ones, the Turkish Philology Department in the
Sofia University was transformed into a Department of Oriental
Studies. State Security, the political police of the Communist
regime, began to recruit agents among the Muslim clergy, and
the first campaigns to ban traditional Muslim costumes started.
The restrictions imposed on the "cultural autonomy" of the
Turkish minority prompted another wave of emigration. In 19691978 a significant number of Turks left Bulgaria. The official
explanation trumpeted by the Sofia regime was to allow "family
reunions" for those separated in the 1950-1951 migratory wave.
In the 1960s the Communist authorities started to apply
against the Bulgarian Muslims a specific assimilation method, the
changing of proper names, a key sign of identity. The first wave
of name-changing was targeted at the Pomaks in the Smolyan
region of the Rhodope, in 1962-1964. Persuasion was the main
method, but open resistance was met with force. Pomaks in other
areas were renamed in 1970-1972. The main explanation being

17

given in this period was to "halt the Turkicisation of "BulgarMohammedans." The campaign involved not only administrative
pressure but military force as well. In spite of the repercussions,
a small part of the Pomaks refused to change their names. They,
however, were forced to do that in the winter of 1984-1985, when
nearly 800,000 Turks in Bulgaria were subjected to a forcible
name-changing campaign, euphemistically referred to as the
"Revival Process."
The main reasons for the massive name-changing of the Turks
in the 1980s were nationalism and the fear that the higher birth
rate of ethnic Turks would in the near future overwhelm the ethnic
Bulgarians. Indeed, in 1946 the Turkish population numbered
675,500 people out of total 7,029,349 Bulgarian nationals. In
1975 it was already 730,728 of a total of 8,727,771 people. The
emigration waves of 1950-1951 and 1969-1978 inevitably affected
the number of Turks in Bulgaria, but regardless of this they were
still lingering around the 10 percent mark of the total population.
The growth of Turks, particularly in the rural regions, was quite
higher (up to three- or four-fold) compared to the Bulgarians.
The situation fuelled fears that if "measures were not taken" the
size of the Turkish population would exceed the psychologically
acceptable threshold of 10percent.
The preparation of the forcible name-changing campaign
began as early as the 1970s, when the general public in Bulgaria
was increasingly told by the propaganda machine that all Turks
in Bulgaria were the successors of Bulgarian Christians forcibly
converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule. This hypothesis
was the main ideological justification for the mass namechanging campaign of 1984-1985. Propaganda pictured the
name-changing as "voluntary" and "spontaneous," as a "revival
process" to restore Bulgarian national identity obliterated under
Ottoman rule. In practice, the Turks had their names changed
through administrative coercion, and in some places, especially
in the villages, with military blockades and violence.
The 1985 census did not have a question about ethnicity. Bulgaria,
at least statistically, had become a homogeneous nation.
The Communist authorities viewed the name-changing as
a simple bureaucratic act. For those affected, however, the
impact was tremendous. For Muslims, a proper name was not
just a formal indicator of identity and belonging to a particular
community. It also had deep religious implications. Muslims
believe that on Judgement Day they will be summoned to
answer for their deeds by their proper names. Consequently, the

18

name-changing triggered active resistance, which escalated, in

May 1989, into mass protests and demands for restoration of the
original names. These protests were suppressed, sometimes with
force, while the Communist government found an easy solution
to the escalating tension: Todor Zhivkov publicly announced
that those Turks, who wished to go to Turkey, were free to do
so. The decision was extremely important as seen against the
background of the tight restrictions imposed by Communist
Bulgaria on any travel abroad. The Turkish community in Bulgaria
was gripped by a mass psychosis. In the summer of 1989 about
350,000 Turks left the country on the so-called Big Excursion, the
largest forced migration of people in post-Second World War
Europe.
On 10 November 1989 Todor Zhivkov was ousted in an internal
party coup and Bulgaria falteringly embarked on the road to
democracy. At the beginning of 1990 the Bulgarian Muslims were
allowed to restore their birth names. During the first democratic
elections in June 1990 they obtained political representation in
parliament through a political party the DPS, or Movement for
Rights and Freedoms which garnered 6.3 percent of the vote.
In the following years studying Turkish as a mother tongue in
schools was reintroduced. National radio and television started
Turkish news broadcasts. Turkish theatres, cultural centres and
newspapers were reinstated.
Today, the Turks in Bulgaria are no longer predominantly
village folk. The years of urbanisation have brought many to the
cities. The villagers' staple, tobacco growing, requires hard labour
and is strongly dependent on state subsidies. The transition
from the planned Socialist economy to the free market affected
considerably the Turkish-populated regions, as many factories
closed down.
Politically, the Turks in Bulgaria are represented in parliament
and in the administration of the state mainly through the DPS,
though in recent years that party's monopoly on the Turkish vote
is loosening. However, the consequences of the so-called Revival
Process are difficult to overcome. Some extreme nationalist
Bulgarian political parties openly conduct xenophobic and antiTurkish policies, putting out messages that outshine the "Revival
Process" propaganda slogans. At the present time tensions
between Bulgarian and Turk are dormant, but the balance is very
fragile. In all likelihood many years will go by before the two can
live again in confidence and mutual trust in their common home,
Bulgaria.

A photograph by the Bulgarian photographer, Dimitar Karastoyanov, published in the

Russian compendium 25 Years of the Principality of Bulgaria, by M. V. Yurkevich
and M.Goryunin; Sofia, 1904. According to the book, in 1887 in the Principality of
Bulgaria there were 2,424, 371 Eastern Orthodox and 676,215 Muslims. In 1900 their
numbers were 3,019,296 and 643,300 respectively.

19

FOLKLORE
AND TRADITIONAL FEASTS
by Dr Bozhidar Aleksiev, Dr Doroteya Dobreva, Dr Galina Lozanova

Interest in folklore traditions appeared in the 18th and the

beginning of the 19th centuries, leading to the creation of a new
science: ethnology. At that time it was believed that every nation
kept its highly specific and invariable peculiarities and carried
them through the centuries. Today, it is a generally accepted
fact that the culture as well as the social structure of every
community is the result of a continuous process of influences
and counterinfluences conditioned by a chain of historical and
social events.
The Turkic people of Anatolia and Europe are an interesting
example of the complexity of this process. This community was
formed mostly by Oghuz and Turkmen nomadic tribes, which
in the course of centuries moved from Central Asia to the west,
adopted Islam, and played an important role in the political
life of the Arab Caliphate prior to reaching Asia Minor. There, at
the border between the Islamic and the Christian world, they
settled down, establishing many principalities. The formation
of a new culture and a new ethnic community began. It was a
process which continued within the Ottoman Empire, to be later
transferred to southeastern Europe.
Its main peculiarity was the coexistence of two civilisations
which had been at loggerheads with each other for centuries,
and it manifested itself in many ways. One was the transition
from nomadic cattle-breeding to farming and settled urban life.
The local lords of the fringe Turkic principalities, the progenitors
of the Ottoman Empire, recruited theologians, law scholars,
architects, painters and poets from all over the Islamic world, but
they also employed local craftsmen. Thus a new, hybrid culture

88

was generated. It united the mandatory Islamic norms with local

artistic and polity traditions, centred on the Ottoman court. This
culture evolved into a model to be followed throughout the
vast empire, notwithstanding the various interpretations and
modifications in keeping with the needs and the propensities of
the people in the different urban centres.
The adoption of Islam by the local populations was another
way of merging the Islamic culture, with its Arabic and Persian
roots, with local Byzantine and Slavic traditions. In the medieval
Muslim states, Christians paid higher taxes and did not have the
right to participate in the governance of the state. Consequently,
anyone tempted by a career in the civil service for himself or
for his family, as well as everyone searching for greater security
for his business or wealth had a single choice: adopt Islam. The
continuous and sometimes unpredictable twists and turns in the
rivalry for prestige and power played an important role in the
formation of the Turkish people. The would-be Ottoman "nation"
now incorporated a significant part of the local populations who
brought along their customs, but necessarily and not always
abandoned them completely in the course of Islamisation.
This diverse picture of local Muslim traditions was
complemented by a community of followers of a heterodox
form of Islam influenced by Shia. These were the Kzlba, or RedHeaded, who would later refer to themselves as Alevi, and would
also be known as Aliani in Bulgaria.
The folk culture of the Turks in Bulgaria is one of the blank
areas of Bulgarian ethnology as academic studies are scarce and
field research data is in short supply.

89

The reasons are many and varied. Some are political and
ideological. Almost a century after Bulgaria's liberation from
Ottoman rule in 1878 and the restoration of Bulgarian statehood
the prevailing public attitudes towards the Turks in Bulgaria
and their culture is still one of "undesired Ottoman heritage." Its
religion, Islam, is also perceived with heavy prejudices as "the
religion of the enslaver."
Another serious reason is the methodological approach to
traditional culture studies, including the folklore of the Bulgarians,
that was dominant until the 1990s. In this line of thought,
traditional culture was seen as a self-styled "reservation" of archaic
beliefs and rituals influenced by religion only marginally. The
approach was used during the so-called Revival Process of 19841985, when the archaic components of the culture of the Turks in
Bulgaria were interpreted as "evidence" that they were, culturally
and ethnically, a "part" of Bulgarian people. Thus ethnography
was used to "prove" the homogeneity of Bulgarian nation.
Then there is the habitual lack of experienced researchers who
speak Turkish and know what Islam is about.
After the democratic changes in 1989, ethnology and folk
studies in Bulgaria opened themselves up to new issues, such as
the culture and identity of different ethnic and religious groups
and communities, including the Turks; migrations, social and
economic changes and so on. Studying traditional culture was
played down as an "anachronism."
Regardless of urbanisation and the proliferation of new media
and technologies, certain elements of Turkish folklore are still alive
and old traditions and rites are still being observed. These are but
a part of the diverse mosaic of Bulgaria's cultural heritage.

Traditional Holidays
Islam has influenced the rhythm of both the everyday and the
high seasons: five daily prayers, the common weekly prayer on
Fridays and the two main religious holidays still called by their
Persian name, bayram. For religious purposes, the Muslims adhere
to the lunar calendar. According to it, the year is shorter than the
astronomical one and therefore the bayram is not related to a
specific date. Beliefs and practices unsanctioned by the religious
authorities were impossible to append to these holidays.
The bayrams have a similar structure. The two days preceding
them are used to remember the departed, and special food such
as aktma, or pancakes; and rek, or baked dough, is handed out.

90

The belief is that the dead feel and feed on its smell. The holiday
begins with a common prayer in the mosque, followed by festive
lunches, food treats, exchange of visits and presents between
neighbours and relatives, and fun for the young: dances, songs
and merry games.
The difference between the two bayrams is mainly in the oru,
the fast preceding Ramazan Bayram which is named after the
month of fasting. This is the ninth in the Muslim calendar. It is
also known among the Turks as Kk Bayram, or Small Feast.
On this day people ask and grant each other pardon and give
out alms.
Kurban Bayram occurs 70 days later. Its central event is the
offering of a sacrificial animal. A young and healthy ram is to
be selected at least a month earlier and then taken good care
of. On the eve of Kurban Bayram it will be dyed in henna. It is
to be killed on the festive day, after the common prayer, and
with a specially consecrated knife. The butcher has to take care
to cause as little suffering as possible. The sacrifice is dedicated
to a member of the family. The belief is that the sacrificial ram
will carry his or her soul along the dangerous road to Cennet, or
Paradise, via a bridge as narrow as a hair and as sharp as a razor's
edge. It would suffice if this offering is made once in a lifetime
but Muslims are making it every year to hedge their bets: there
is really no way to know whether Allah has accepted it. Some of
the meat is brought out for a general offering at the mosque,
and some is given to the poor. The righthand kidney, roasted on
coals, is the first bite of the sacrifice and is eaten by whoever the
offering is dedicated to. The sacrifice is believed to be a way of
talking with God. On different occasions, such as a disease or an
accident, people would pray for help or express their gratitude
for their deliverance by an adak, or vow, to make an offering
every year.
Aura, or "ten" in Arabic, which is the 10th day of Muharram, the
first month of the Muslim calendar, is another holiday, related to
the moon calendar. The Alevi are fasting, depriving themselves
mostly of liquids, in the course of 10 days in memory of the death
and the suffering of Husayn, the son of Ali and the son-in-law
of the Prophet Muhammad, and his fellows besieged in the
desert. However, they also celebrate Husayn's redemption. On
the 10th day, they prepare a dish of seven components (wheat,
maze, broad beans, chickpeas, raisins, figs and black pepper),
like the Sunni do. The sweet meal is known as a among the
Alevi in northeastern Bulgaria. The aure evokes Noah, who had

prepared a similar a meal after he came out of the ark after the
Flood. Some communities in the eastern Rhodope would also
throw in the tail of the sacrificial Kurban Bayram animal, specially
preserved for the occasion.
Mevlid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, is marked on the
12th of Rabi Al-Awwal, the third month of the Muslim calendar.
Special dishes are prepared, mostly sweets, and a poem praising
the Prophet and recalling his biography is read out. The poem of
Sleyman elebi, who died in 1421, is the most popular among
the Turks. A mevlid may be organised on other occasions as well,
for example, in memory of a deceased person.
The lunar calendar in use by Muslims revealed its shortcomings
as early as the 11th Century, when a calendar corresponding to
the astronomical years was introduced in the Islamic world. The
new calendar had its origins in Persia, which explains why the
Persian New Year, called Nevruz or Nawruz, falling during the
spring equinox, became a popular holiday. It is of far greater
importance for the Alevi, who also call it Krklar, or Forty (referring
to the 40 invisible and immortal world guardians), and mark it as
the birthday of Ali. On that day they boil 40 eggs and bake ritual
bread. The congregation gathers for what is the last meeting
for the year. On the following day they go out in the open and
collect crocuses whose orange colour is considered to be the
symbol of their community.
Another holiday is Hdrlez or Hdrellez, which is 45 days after
Nevruz and coincides with the Christian St George's Day. Unlike
the latter, however, which is observed on 6 May, Hdrellez lasts for
three days, from 5 May to 7 May. It is named after the prophets,
Hzr and Ilyas. According to the legend, Hzr and Ilyas help
people on earth and at sea, and meet each other on that day.
In fact, the holiday coincides with an important moment of the
annual cycle of the Pleiades constellation, one of the brightest in
the night sky: the beginning of its period of invisibility. Therefore,
Hdrellez is considered to mark the beginning of summer. Along
with Kasm, observed on 8 November, it divides the year into two
seasons. Kasm coincides with the culmination of the Pleiades,
when they are visible through the night.
In the night to Hdrellez girls would place flower bunches with
signs in cauldrons filled with water from seven water fountains.
The cauldron is placed under a rose bush. In the morning the
bunches are taken out one by one, telling the fortune of their
owners. It is believed that Hdrellez also has healing powers. In
the early morning hours people would pass through narrow

rock openings, believing they would heal themselves in this way.

They believe that some springs, such as the trickling water tap
in the Dambal region in the eastern Rhodope, acquire healing
powers for a few hours during the night of 6 May.
In the southeastern Rhodope, now in Greece, the period
between Hdrellez and Kasm is a time of pilgrimage to trbes
and of massive gatherings, organised around the 40th, 90th and
110th day after Hdrellez. Around the 40th day after Hdrellez,
when "the cherries ripen," the inhabitants of the village of
Yablanovo, near Kotel, and some neighbouring villages pay
tribute to Ali Baba, whose trbe is at the top of a nearby hill. On
2 August, when St Iliya's Day used to be celebrated by Christians
before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, preceding by two
days yaz doksan, or the 90th day of the summer, a big gathering
takes place at Demir Baba tekke, near Isperih.
Around Kasm, at the end of October or beginning of
November, the custom of Yedi kzlar a, or the Meal of the Seven
Girls, is performed in the eastern Rhodope. Girls and young
women gather together during the night in a house where
no man is allowed. Each of them brings wheat from the new
harvest, in some regions also beans, maze or other cereals, as
well as rek, brek, baklava and wood for the fire. Nowadays the
custom involves preparing of a ritual dish, kekek, which takes a
long time to cook. Seven girls, overseen by an elderly woman,
alternate in stirring the meal, while the wheat and the poultry
crushed earlier in the day by the girls gets boiled into a paste.
Finally, the girls and the young women sit behind a big table and
treat themselves to the meal. If a girl falls asleep, the others paint
her face with soot and sew her clothes to the bedding. When
she wakes up, the girl has to ask to be "released," to everyone's
laughter. In some villages the boys try to steal a hen and roast it
in a different place.
In the village of Chiflik, near Kardzhali, the girls would weave a
mat and donate it to the mosque. In Bashtino, seven girls would
weave a seven-meter-long piece of cloth. The custom signifies
the girls' transition to age, with the weaving being used as a
test. From the standpoint of mythology, the seven girls might
be seen as personifying the seven brightest stars of the Pleiades
constellation.
Approximately at the same time in autumn, when farming
activities cease the unmarried men in Turkish villages would
mask themselves and perform a bachelor custom, the sayclar
or camalclar games. Sayclar is a team of young boys, who roam

91

through the village at night and bless the landlords, who in their
turn present them with dried fruit and small change. The boys
do not wear masks but are dressed in old clothes and paint their
faces with soot. In the olden days they wore animal hides and
fastened bells around their waists. Central to the band are the
figures of a male and a female goat, dressed in white. Once at
the gates of a house, the boys would bless the hosts while the
goats "fight" with their horns. A highlight in the custom is an
attempted kidnapping of the doe while the male is trying to
protect her or take her back. Sometimes, symbolic fights with
the goat are simulated.
In the camalclar ritual the doe is substituted with a female
figure. The custom is widespread in Turkey and has numerous
analogues in the Balkans and the Carpathians. Its idea is to
present the death and the revival of a mythical creature, a source
of fertility in the new annual cycle. This is indicated by the term,
camalclar, which originates from jamal, the Arabic word for
camel. Until a hundred years ago camels were kept and used for
work in the southeastern parts of contemporary Bulgaria. The
other name of the custom probably originates from the word
sayc, a tax clerk in charge of counting small cattle.
In the Alevi villages in Kubrat and Silistra regions there is a
carnival custom called beikli. It is performed in daytime on 7 May
by girls and women, dressed as men. Beikli is the main character
in the masque: the most beautiful girl wears on her waist a
light wooden structure covered with white cloth. The beikli is
accompanied by 12 kraylar, heroes or military officers, and nine
or more moors covered in soot. The ritual involves the shoeing
of beikli by a male and a female Gypsy farriers, impersonated
by two elderly women. The procession goes around the village
three times, whence the participants amuse themselves with
merry games. It is believed that a girl who has participated in
beikli only once will be unhappy. If beikli is to be interpreted as
a horseman, then it is yet another image of the annually revived
monster on whom all living things depend. According to some
sources, however, the custom reproduces a historical event, a
dramatic battle in which women fought.
The Turks attach great importance to certain days between
Hdrellez and Kasm and between Kasm and the following
Hdrellez.
The 60th day of winter is called Bocuk and roughly coincides
with Christmas. It is believed that the coldest time in winter is
between the 80th and the 90th day.

92

Kurban, or animal sacrifice, is offered on specific occasions, often when a mortal risk
has been overcome. The tradition is practised also by Christians

93

The Hzr Baba feast takes place near his tekke in the village of Gorna Krepost,
near Kardzhali, on 1 May

94

95

Pehlivan Wrestling
Regardless of the occasion a religious or a family holiday
like wedding in a wealthy family or circumcision the Turkish
traditional festivities include an element that is always interesting
if slightly unusual for outsiders.
This is the wrestling of pehlivans. This type of wrestling is known
since Antiquity. Wrestling contests were organised in pre-Islamic
Arabia as well, and are also a favourite entertainment in Iran.
They are not characteristic of Turks only, but are a favourite type
of popular amusement. The pehlivan wrestlers enjoy respect
usually reserved for wealthy and highly educated people.
The Turkish wrestling is "oily" because prior to a fight
opponents pour over their bodies olive oil mixed with water. The
idea is to prevent the competitor from being able to grab any
"firm" part of the body, and make the wrestle longer and more
spectacular. The winner is he who manages to press his rival's
back to the ground.
There are no time limitations for the fight. Before the start of
the fight the wrestlers parade in front of the audience in a special
march or dance, called perev or alay. They perform rhythmic
movements under the accompaniment of music, which continues
during the wrestle. The pehlivans squat touching the earth with
their left knee. They touch their belly, mouth and forehead with
their right hand, and then lift their heads to the sky as a sign of
honour to Allah. The contest has an animator, called cazgr, who
presents the fighters to the audience, tells of their achievements
and praises their power in verse.
The spread and popularity of sports contests has prompted
anthropologists to analyse their deeper, hidden implications
for society. If the analysis of Claude Lvi-Strauss is applied to
pehlivan fights, it transpires that the contest transforms the
group of participants. The fight begins as a rivalry among equal
men, treated on the same footing and obeying the same rules. In
the end, the group changes hierarchically and asymmetrically
some are defeated, one is the winner. This transformation of
relations in the game makes it possible to simulate, reconsider
and reconfirm symbolically some basic social principles, such as
equality among people and its opposite, social hierarchy.
A tale about the adolescence of Demir Baba, who is worshiped
in northeastern Bulgaria, confirms this interpretation. Young
Hasan, before he got the nickname Demir (Iron), gatecrashed
on the wrestling contest organised for a big wedding party.

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Surprisingly, he defeated everyone, even Kayakran (Rock

Crusher), "the strongest wrestler between the Danube and the
Aegean." At this point some local dignitaries ordered poor Hasan
arrested and imprisoned. This reaction cannot be explained but
with the fact that Kayakran's defeat was also their defeat.
Gaddar Kel Alio, a legendary pehlivan, who in the course of
26 years, in 18611886, was the winner of the big tournament
in Krkpnar, near Edirne, was persecuted because he refused
to accompany Sultan Abdlaziz I (1861-1876) and represent him
during his travel to England in 1867. The aspiration of those
in power to identify themselves with the winner of wrestling
contests and the pride, which various settlements and regions
take on their wrestlers, are directly related to the image of the
bapehlivan, or champion: success is possible through hard work,
will and strong spirit.

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The pehlivan oil wrestling games in the village of Kochan, near Satovcha, attract Turks,
Pomaks and Bulgarians from the whole area of the western Rhodope

98

99

Folk Tales and Jokes

Nastradin Hodzha and Hitar Petar Partners, a Bulgarian movie from 1939, director
Aleksandar Vazov. In Bulgaria, Nasreddin Hoca is referred to as Nastradin

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"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived" is the
typical beginning of a tale in any country and in any language. But
what are the different tales about? Who invented each of them,
and when? Who told it for the first time, and retold it later?
The issues of the origins and migrations of the so-called
wandering stories, of the cultural and historical ties and interborrowed tales among different ethnic groups and peoples,
have occupied scholars since the beginnings of folklore studies.
The Balkan narrative tradition is an exceptional amalgam of local
elements and diverse cultural influences from both the Orient
and the Occident.
A specific characteristic feature of the Balkans is that there is a
dynamic exchange of story plots and content, probably because
oral lore was preserved up to the end of the 20th Century.
Different ethnic and religious groups exchange stories among
themselves, and in the process these change from the written
to the oral and back again. Thus the folk narratives, preserved
among Turks and Bulgarians to the present day contain the
results of centuries-long interactions and mutual influences,
coincidences and blendings.
Here is a contemporary example from an interview with a
well-known Bulgarian storyteller from the village of Kamenovo,
near Kubrat. His rich and diverse repertoire derives from
different sources: old fellow villagers, the military service, travels
around Bulgaria, the readings of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales and
Bocaccio's Decameron. His fellow villagers say that this man is
"the living history of the village." He knows that the local church
was built in 1864, that both Turks and Bulgarians worked on its
construction, and that they consecrated it together. "We have
always been good neighbours with the Turks. They lived in the
upper end and we lived in the lower end of the village. We have
had no quarrels or disputes between us."
He knows many tales and jokes about Nasreddin Hodja, which
he has learnt from Turks at common gatherings. "Since we have
lived together we would listen to one another," he says. "Then
the Turks would tell stories in Turkish and the Bulgarians in
Bulgarian."
By the middle of the 20th Century story-telling formed a
part of the communication among adults in Bulgaria. Data
collected in northeastern Bulgaria shows that story-telling was
for men only in the evening, at night-time, in the living room,

or in the coffee-shops. A Turk from the village of Svalenik, near

Ruse, known as "the best story-teller" among both Muslims and
Christians, recalls that men would alternate and compete to tell
stories in the coffee-shops.
Obviously, there is considerable evidence about female storytellers with a rich repertoire as well. Hungarian linguist and Turkic
studies expert Gyula Nmeth (1890-1976), who studied Turkish
dialects in Bulgaria in the 1930s, collected rich documentary
evidence about the language, folklore and religion of Turks in
Vidin. The testimonies he published included 20 tales, told by
50-year-old story teller Hacer Abla.
The role of family in the story-telling tradition has been
preserved up to the present day. Many contemporary storytellers have learnt their tales in a family environment.
It has been established during fieldwork in Shumen, Razgrad
and Kardzhali that the collection of Turkish oral lore by
Bulgarian researchers is impeded by language barriers. With a
few exceptions, in these cases tales and jokes are recorded in
Bulgarian with a simplified vocabulary and lacklustre nuance.
The collecting activities of Hasan Y. Hasan and Sabri M. Con
and their bilingual publication Turkish Tales from Gerlovo and
Tuzluk Regions/Gerlova ve Tozluk trk masallar, which includes
22 folktales recorded in villages from the Omurtag region, is very
useful.
The limited studies of Turkish folklore are insufficient to draw
more profound conclusions about Turkish tales in Bulgaria. All
types of tales are represented in the available records: animal
tales, fairy tales, novelistic or humorous. Legends and religious
tales are few and far between, while jokes about Nasreddin
Hodja are the most popular. There is a number of common
features between Bulgarian and Turkish tales and parallels could
be drawn between plots, topics, characters and realities.
Both Turks and Bulgarians tell tales that are spread in other
parts of the world as well. For example, a lad marries a frog, a
turtle or a bird, which later turns into a beauty.
The main characters of fairy tales often have supernatural
powers. Thus, a brother and a sister are born with miraculous
signs like a moon, a sun or a star on their foreheads, or with
golden hair. In another fairy tale a rose would appear when the
girl smiles and a pearl, when she cries.
The characters may also be ordinary folk. They often get
rewarded, like the golden girl of the world-famous fairy tale
about the stepmother and the stepdaughter. They also learn the

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language of birds or how to practice magic like the pupil of the

magician Black Arab Oh. Flying horses, grateful fish and similar
creatures are the usual assistants of the main heroic characters.
In many Turkish and Bulgarian tales the protagonist is called
Kelo, Kele or Keli, meaning Scaldhead. Initially considered a
fool, ridiculed and despised by everyone, Scaldhead achieves
various heroic deeds, overcomes difficult situations and wins
the hand of the sultan's daughter. In other tales he is weak and
cowardly, but shows artfulness and inventiveness thanks to
which he emerges successfully from any dire straits.
Kse, or Beardless, is also a popular character in Turkish and
Bulgarian tales. The word kse has penetrated the Bulgarian
language from Turkish. Beardless is a cunning villain, but usually
fails as he is either outwitted or exposed.
Peri and dev are the most common supernatural creatures in
Iranian mythology and are present in beliefs, demonic legends
and tales of many Turkic peoples.
A popular fairy tale character is the beauty Perikz, known also
as the Maiden Peri or the Devil Maiden. She is in equal measure
beautiful and dangerous as she has the power to turn every
living creature into stone. On his way to marry her, the hero is
supposed to overcome many risks. But once they do marry, she
would use her skills for the benefit of their family.
The supernatural creature called dev, div or dev, is very large
and has fantastic features: a horn on his head and a mirror on
his navel. It emerges as a mythical, demonic or grotesque figure
and is often confused, merged or replaced with supernatural
beings belonging to other fairy tales and characters of the folk
mythology, mostly, the giant, ogre or dragon. Like the dragon,
dev is a monster with many heads seven, eight, nine or 40. He
inhabits an underground kingdom and holds beautiful girls in
captivity.
Dev is described as very big and strong, ugly and dreadful.
He reveals unrestrained anger and hostility towards people. This
character may be female, an ogress.
The monster's mother, wife or children often participate in
the plot. If the ogre's mother gives the hero her breast milk, she
recognises him as her son and becomes his "milk mother" and
patron, while her sons will be his sworn brothers and helpers.
Regardless of his physical superiority and supernatural powers,
the monster is credulous, nave and even stupid. Therefore, he
or she is outwitted and often physically destroyed by the weaker
but cleverer human. The youngest brother Kk Hasan, or

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Thumbling, manages to deceive the ogre into eating his own

daughters. In other fairy tales the monster is outwitted and
defeated by a pseudo-hero, Deli Osman or Asan Bubaan, the
local analogue of the world-famous Brave Little Tailor.
Good story-tellers will update their plots, making fast transitions
between past and present, connecting events from fairy tales
with specific locations and settlements, historical events or
personalities. They insert modern concepts and images into the
fairy world. For example, by telling a highly popular Turkish tale
about an expelled woman, who named her three children with
the unusual names Neydim?, Ne oldum? and Ne olacam?, or What
Was I?, What Am I? and What Will I Be?, the teller makes reference
to the forcible name-changing campaign in Bulgaria in 1984-1985.
"Then the king heard the woman call her children Neydim? Ne
oldum? Ne olacam?. This is the same as the change of our names.
What will I be? One will be named Yury. The other Gagarin, for
example."
The stylistics and poetics of Turkish folk tales entail different
opening and closing formulas. A typical example is the
introduction to the legendary tale "The White Bearded Man"
of the H. Hasan and S. Con collection: "Once upon a time, when
goats were barbers, sheep were beauties, horses were tame and
donkeys were warriors, there lived a white-bearded old man."
The Bulgarian tales usually begin with "once upon a time, when
God walked on Earth"
Regardless of the different introductions, the Turkish tale
about the white-bearded man is also popular in Bulgarian
folklore. It concerns God and how he taught men to plough
and women to weave. In the Turkish tale, a pious whitebearded old man blessed the ploughman who thanked for
God's help, but cursed the woman who was arrogant and
standoffish.
Often, lyrical poetic texts are included in Turkish prose tales, as
in the tale about Mehmed the Orphan in the same collection.
One of the most popular comic characters in the folklore of
both Christians and Muslims up to the present day is Nasreddin
Hodja, pronounced also as Nastradin, Nasratin, Stradin. His
Bulgarian analogue, Hitar Petar or Witty Petar, is often his
companion or rival. According to a story, narrated in the village
of Bashtino, near Kardzhali, Nastradin Hodzha was born in
Turkey, while Hitar Petar in Bulgaria. Hitar Petar went on a trip
to Turkey, where he met Nastradin Hodzha. The latter said that
an enormous pumpkin has grown in Turkey. Then Hitar Petar

said that a cauldron with 40 holds was made in Bulgaria. "Is it

possible to have a cauldron with 40 holds?," Nastradin Hodzha
asked. "Such a big pumpkin needs a big cauldron to be boiled
in," Hitar Petar replied.
In a similar anecdote from Haskovo, Nastradin Hodzha headed
from Asia Minor to Bulgaria and met Hitar Petar in Thrace.
He lied that he was running away from an enormous bird in
Constantinople. Then Hitar Petar said that he, on his part, was
running from a huge egg that fell in Bulgaria. "How can there be
such a big egg?," Nastradin Hodzha asked. "Well, the same bird
that laid the egg over Bulgaria went on to Constantinople," Hitar
Petar replied.
In other tales the two would ally: one is telling lies and the
other follows him whitewashing, and thus confirming his lies.
Whether Nasreddin Hodja was ever a real-life person, where did
he live and when, what are his origins, who were his prototypes
are still questions that researchers seek answers to.
The anecdotes about Nasreddin Hodja are thought to be
ancient, but it is difficult to connect his cosmopolitan character
geographically and historically to a single tradition. Turkish
historiography has accepted that Nasreddin is related to a real
historical personality of the 13th Century. For centuries different
stories have been mixed and blended around this popular
hero.
Some Nasreddin plots can be traced back to earlier
manuscripts. Stories told about the Arabian trickster Djuha from
the 9-12th centuries were later attached to Nasreddin Hodja, and
vice versa. A relatively limited number of stories about Nasreddin
are to be found in Turkish manuscripts of the 16th Century but
after that their number gradually increased. They are contained
in sources ranging from handwritten collections to hundreds of
lithographic and print editions of the 19-20th centuries, up to the
present day.
The first printed publication, in Istanbul in 1837, contained
134 anecdotes about Nasreddin Hodja. In the second half of the
19th Century Nasreddin Hodja became a favourite character in
popular literature multiple mass market books were targeted
to the broad public. Nasreddin "got" a complete biography, the
tales about him were grouped in cycles and some improper
jokes were chucked out.
At the same time but independent of the books, a rich oral lore
developed. It was not limited solely to Muslim and Turkophone
peoples, but spread out to all countries where Islamic culture

had an influence. The biggest collection of M. S. Haritonov,

Twenty-Four Nasreddins, containing 1,238 anecdotes translated
into Russian from 24 languages, indicates that he is equally well
known in the Middle East and in Central Asia, and that his stories
are spread among different peoples and languages in Asia, Africa
and Europe.
Nastradin Hodzha, along with Hitar Petar and other national
and regional comic characters, is a favourite personality in the
folklore and popular literature of the peoples of the Balkan
Peninsula that were once subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
Crossing over language and cultural barriers, the character
and the stories related to him have undergone different
transformations and have been adjusted to cultural, historical,
religious and social conditions. The meeting of Nasreddin Hodja
and Hitar Petar in Bulgarian territory turns out to be useful for
both as they complement and enrich each other through oral
and written folklore.
In the jokes, spread in Bulgaria among Turks and Bulgarians,
Nastradin Hodzha is at the same time a clever and wise man, but
also a fool. He cuts off the branch on which he sits, falls down
and takes seriously this jocular premonition for his death. He
cannot count his donkeys correctly because he does not include
the one he is riding upon. He appears in court as a cute defender
of the accused, or teaches a corrupt judge a lesson.
It is the anecdotes about Nastradin Hodzha that prevail among
Turks in Bulgaria. According to many story-tellers, Nastradin
Hodzha and Hitar Petar are the two sides of the same coin:
ahiretlik arkada, or friends, sworn brothers. Some even believe
that they are "one and the same person, referred to by Bulgarians
as Hitar Petar and by Turks as Hodzha."
The outcome of the rivalry between Hitar Petar and Nastradin
Hodzha is not settled unequivocally in favour of either. In the folk
anecdotes they are equal competitors in contests of outwitting.
In a merry story told in the Silistra region the two jointly opened
a pub on the brink of a forest, but had no customers. Then Hitar
Petar hit Nastradin's back with a thorny stick. When Nastradin
asked what was happening, his partner replied that he could not
see him as it was "too crowded" inside.
According to another popular story, recorded in the village of
Svalenik, Nastradin outwitted Hitar Petar: he scared him and ate
a grilled lamb the two of them had purloined.
Regardless of the outcome of the mutual outwitting, the
jokes about Nastradin Hodzha and Hitar Petar set an example of

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tolerance and balanced sympathies because they keep the nature

of the game their stories are told to make people laugh.
One Turkish legend about the origin of Nasreddin Hodja
suggests that he was a student of a prominent spiritual leader.
While the tutor was away, Nasreddin and two other students
killed his ram and ate it. Then they gathered the bones and tried
to revive the animal by prayer as their tutor usually did, but they
failed. Two of the students were punished with death, while
Nasreddin was cursed. The curse, according to a popular Serb
publication from the beginning of the 20th Century, said: "May
you be always laughed at by all people of any faith as long as this
world exists!"
The legend is told even today in the village of Malak Porovets,
near Isperih.

Demons
Demonology is the layer of the popular worldview of the Turks
in Bulgaria that has preserved the highest number of pre-Islamic
elements Turkic and Balkan.
In the Islamic tradition, the cins have originated from
"smokeless fire" and were the first thinking inhabitants of the
earth. Most of them refused to obey God and to adopt his religion,
and even rebelled. Others, subsequently, became followers
of other religions. This is how, in the popular imagination,
the Muslim and the Christian cins appeared. The cins kept on
inhabiting the earth even after the creation of man but in a
parallel world, invisible for the people the world of demons.
Sometimes they get into direct contact with humans.
In some folk stories, cins are invisible spirits harmless to humans.
In others, however, they intermingle with peri, the most popular
demon among Turks, as exemplified by the name cin-peri. Others
believe that cin is a male demon, while peri is a female. Both cin
and peri move in large groups, marry and have children.
Weddings of demons, which are known as karakondzhul or
bugbear in Bulgarian, are made on a road or somewhere steep.
The wedding, or alay of cin-peri, is invisible but not inaudible:
the sound of drums and zurnas can be heard. On the following day
footprints can be seen. According to one story, several children
had to spend the night in a mill. During the night they saw small
creatures with short legs and large heads take out hot coals from
the fire. Then they went to dance the horo around a nearby well,
as if there was a wedding. On the next morning the children told

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everything to their father but he warned them that it is best not

to talk about a meeting with a peri to avoid getting ill.
Peri have their own territory and often inhabit "dirty" places
dumps, places where slops, dirty soap water, ashes or blood of
slaughtered animals are disposed of.
The peri's sini, or dining table, is the most dangerous place. If a
man steps on it, he may have a stroke and even die, if he treads
on its centre. The diseased people are sometimes referred to as
caused periler balam, meaning that peri has "tied people up."
When the sick talk in their sleep, they supposedly "communicate"
with peri. To cure themselves, they have to go to the imam to be
read a prayer.
Peri also live in mills. According to a popular plot of demonic
tales, a man who spent the night in a mill overheard a conversation
between peri about a hidden treasure. On the following day he
went to the hideout and took the gold. He boasted around the
village about what he had done, but the next man who tried to
sleep at the mill was discovered by the peri and killed.
Another popular story tells about a man who entered the
territory of a peri and saw there a beautiful girl. He wished to
marry her but she jumped on his back. As they reached the
boundary of her territory she turned into a bird and flew away.
It is believed that there are 44 types of peri, all appearing in
different forms and sometimes transforming themselves from
one creature into another. They go out at night from midnight
to the first rooster-crow and most often appear as wind or
a whirlwind. They may also look like a white-clad bride near a
fountain, like a buffalo bathing in a river, like a lamb, a cat, a dog
or a goat with fiery eyes lurking at the rakyia distillery. In the
village of Perperek, near Kardzhali, peri would regularly emerge
as a hen with chicken or as a horse. One can hear the clatter of
horseshoes, but the shadow is human-shaped. This fostered the
belief that some peri had evolved from humans.
A type of peri, called with the general name for demon, eytan,
and in Momchilgrad villages sr, would cross the way of people
late at night. The sheytan would scare the animals, climb into the
cart or hop on the man's back, making himself felt as a burden.
This kind of peri would usually disappear in front of the person's
home.
A tried-and-tested method of getting rid of a demon is to
hide in a "ploughed place," a symbol of human cultural territory,
because peri cannot go there as they are able only to step on the
headland. For the same reason peri would not go to a cemetery,

fearing dugout graves. Peri should be chased away with a stone

tossed with the left hand. It is believed that if the right hand is
used the demon would not let his victim go.
In the Shumen region, a roadside demon does not come in
contact with humans but chases them, often taking the shape of
an egg or a bean. A man met one such egg, and it turned into a
pig. He chased the pig, which disappeared when they reached a
shoemaker's house. According to a story recorded in the village
of Kapitan Petkovo near Omurtag, a man caught one such egg
and stuck it on a hedge. On the following morning a human
body appeared impaled on that hedge.
People in the village of Chiflik, in the Kardzhali region, say that
earlier the imam of the nearby village of Zvezdelina stayed for
the night in the mosque during the month of Ramazan. Yet, one
night he was overrun by a sr. No one would stay at the mosque
at night any more.
The eytan is most often presented as a one-eyed and lame
demon, or one with his feet facing back. Unlike peri and cin, the
eytan is always alone, he has no wife or children. His main role,
as in the Qur'an, is to incite people to do bad things.
The most dangerous creature in the Turkish demonology is
the vampire azgn, or cad. A vampire originates from a dead
person who has been jumped over by an animal, in most cases
a cat. To protect a dead man or woman from turning into a
vampire, a knife is placed over the body while it is still in state at
the house. If a dead person does turn into azgn, he or she would
go back home to search for food. People in the village of Gorna
Krepost, in the Kardzhali region, say that an elderly woman, who
had just died, was jumped over by a cat. Forty days later she was
seen to be eating flour in the barn. The woman who saw her died
in fear.
The azgn may cause pestilence among people and animals. If
this happens, a cinci hoca, or imam who makes amulets and has
magical powers, has to be called. He finds the demon using sheets
of paper with verses of the Qur'an written on them. Then he
catches it with a wooden wheel and hits it with an iron bar. Spots
of blood can be seen at the place where the azgn was killed.
Often the imam does not kill the demon but chases it back to
the cemetery. There he reads prayers by the grave from which
the demon had popped out. Finally, the grave is poured over
with water or thorns are burnt over it. The worst type of azgn is
believed to eat human liver by entering the body of the victim
and drinking blood.

The stories about azgn are terrifying. A widowed woman in

labour sought a midwife but came across an azgn instead. The
"midwife" roasted the newborn and ate some of the meat. Then
she tried to force the mother to eat as well, and threatened her
that if she refused she would call her dead husband from the
cemetery. In the morning the neighbours found the miserable
woman, who had almost lost her mind in horror. The corpse of
her husband was stuck into the chimney the first rooster-crow
was heard before the azgn had finished its business.
There are also stories of azgn who swap newborns thus
killing them as they would not want to be fed by other women.
Newlyweds should also keep themselves from azgn. It is believed
that they should not go out on their own on their first wedding
night.
particular kind of demon guards buried treasures. Sometimes
these are peri. They have been seen as midget soldiers who
come out from the ground. To prevent trouble, humans should
not look at them or engage them in conversation. A grass snake,
which materialises as the result of magic worked by the man,
who has buried the treasure, also stands guard. The man had put
a belt, a strap or a turban on the money and says: "You shall be
the guardian of the money!"
Will-o-the-wisp appears over a place with buried treasure.
Most often, this happens in the morning of Hdrellez, 6 May.
Those who decide to approach should throw a sieve or a garment
over the fire. It is believed that many people have become rich
in that way. In order to take the treasure, they first search for
the guardian demon by spreading ashes around the location
of the treasure. On the following morning they check what
footprints there are in the ashes. Once they have identified the
animal, they must make an offering of the same kind. However,
it is supposed that this type of money often requires a human
sacrifice.
Ecer and evryan, known in some dialects also as evren, are
dragons, big snakes, which fall from the sky, when there is a
strong wind. When they find an ecer, people take care of it and
treat it with milk, to prevent it from doing evil. Then the evryan
becomes the master of the village and guards it. After a while it
goes up in the sky again with a storm or heavy rains, and goes to
live in another place, for example, a forest.
The belief in the cad, or magicians, and their power is close
to the demonic idea. Magicians are countered by imams with
written amulets. An interesting case of breaking magic is

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registered in Kardzhali. Though the imam was aware that his

actions contravened religion, he sat naked on a big loaf of bread
and read out a prayer over some hairs and nails of the victim to
cure him.
In the Shumen region, cad are also genies who come out on
Wednesday evenings and play pranks. People are advised not to
go out on Wednesdays because cad would come in the village,
scatter the yarn and weave on the looms.
Turks in Bulgaria also believe in the evil eye which brings bad
luck, mostly by blue-eyed people. In order to break the evil spell,
they go to an old sorceress. She puts out burning coals and
melts lead in water. On the following day she throws the water
in the street or at a crossroads. It is believed that bad luck can
be brought not only to people but also to a cow, whence she
would produce less milk. In order to protect it, the owners fasten
a red thread on the tail and smear its udder with ashes. The belief
is that the black colour protects against the evil eye. To protect
themselves, people wear a small triangle-like brunch of a thorny
bush, garlic and blue beads on the inner side of their clothes,
and white thread with blue beads are fastened on the left hand
of newborns.

Transformations of Folklore
During the 19th and 20th centuries traditional popular culture
and folklore of the Turks in Bulgaria underwent significant
changes, a process common for all traditional cultures.
Modern education has promoted a new interpretation of
Islam. Gradually, folklore and traditional beliefs have come to
be perceived as the remains of the past and as cultural heritage.
Holidays with a social function, such as the transition to wedding
age and holy days offering celebrations, persisted. Holidays have
gradually become entertainment. In the oral lore mythical stories
have been replaced with historical ones.
Some holidays are celebrated because they provide a larger
community living in different areas with the opportunity to
display its unity. Such are the trbe gatherings of Alevi groups.
They are strengthening the unity and the solidarity among the
Turks in northeastern Bulgaria. Traditional holidays have always
been a tool to boost the standing of community leaders.
Some private holidays, such as weddings and circumcisions,
turn into community feasts in some villages. Whole villages
gather together for a treat to the couple's health and to present

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them with some extra cash. Sometimes during snnet, several

boys are circumcised simultaneously, clergymen preach at
the public square, while local mayors and other dignitaries
hold speeches. A fair and pehlivan fights are organised for the
community.
A third important factor that has influenced modern folklore
and traditional Turkish culture in Bulgaria has been the
establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the Mustafa Kemal
Atatrk-led reforms. Although for a period of time the Kingdom
of Bulgaria provided sanctuary for some more conservative
Turks, the changes being implemented in secular Turkey spread
among the Turks in Bulgaria as well. It was tangibly felt in the
gradual replacement of Muslim-specific names of Arabic origin
with traditional Turkic names. Traditional costumes and their
Muslim symbolism were also being abandoned, owing to
influences from across the Bosporus.
Men replaced their full-bottomed breeches with modern
trousers as well as their turbans and fezzes with new types of
hats and caps.
Among women, mostly in villages, baggy trousers remain
an ethnically differentiating piece of clothing. Covering the
face with a veil and wearing an yamak as part of the Islamic
requirements towards women have been dropped out or in
some places modified. When the Communist authorities, for
example, banned traditional women's wear, Muslim women
began wearing dark blue or dark green overalls, imposed by the
same authorities as the "uniform" of factory and farm workers.
Some elderly women keep on wearing them even today.

Patches for health, Demir Baba tekke. People from all ethnic and religious groups
in Bulgaria believe that tying a shred from one's own clothes to a tree at a sacred
site has healing powers

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