Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe
eBook - PDF

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe

Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria

  1. 280 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe

Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria

About this book

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe examines how gender identities were reconfigured in a Bulgarian Muslim community following the demise of Communism and an influx of international aid from the Islamic world. Kristen Ghodsee conducted extensive ethnographic research among a small population of Pomaks, Slavic Muslims living in the remote mountains of southern Bulgaria. After Communism fell in 1989, Muslim minorities in Bulgaria sought to rediscover their faith after decades of state-imposed atheism. But instead of returning to their traditionally heterodox roots, isolated groups of Pomaks embraced a distinctly foreign type of Islam, which swept into their communities on the back of Saudi-financed international aid to Balkan Muslims, and which these Pomaks believe to be a more correct interpretation of their religion.


Ghodsee explores how gender relations among the Pomaks had to be renegotiated after the collapse of both Communism and the region's state-subsidized lead and zinc mines. She shows how mosques have replaced the mines as the primary site for jobless and underemployed men to express their masculinity, and how Muslim women have encouraged this as a way to combat alcoholism and domestic violence. Ghodsee demonstrates how women's embrace of this new form of Islam has led them to adopt more conservative family roles, and how the Pomaks' new religion remains deeply influenced by Bulgaria's Marxist-Leninist legacy, with its calls for morality, social justice, and human solidarity.

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Yes, you can access Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe by Kristen Ghodsee in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Sozialwissenschaften & Kultur- & Sozialanthropologie. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Illustrations
  6. A Note on Transliteration
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction: The Changing Face of Islam in Bulgaria
  9. Chapter One: Names to Be Buried With
  10. Chapter Two: Men and Mines
  11. Chapter Three: The Have-nots and the Have-nots
  12. Chapter Four: Divide and Be Conquered
  13. Chapter Five: Islamic Aid
  14. Chapter Six: The Miniskirt and the Veil
  15. Conclusion: Minarets after Marx
  16. Appendix
  17. Notes
  18. Selected Bibliography
  19. Index