Title: Muslim lives in Eastern Europe : gender, ethnicity, and the transformation of Islam in postsocialist Bulgaria /
Authors: Ghodsee, Kristen Rogheh, 1970-
Publisher: Princeton University Press,
Year: 2010
Subjects: Muslims Bulgaria Madan (Smoli︠a︡nski okrŭg) Social conditions.; Muslims Bulgaria Social conditions Case studies.; Islam Social aspects Bulgaria Case studies.; Islam and politics Bulgaria Case studies.; Sex role Bulgaria Case studies.; Ethnicity Political aspects Bulgaria Case studies.; Social change Bulgaria Case studies.; Communism Social aspects Bulgaria Case studies.; Muslims Bulgaria Madan (Smolëiìanski okræug) Social conditions.; Bulgaria History; Bulgaria Religious life and customs Case studies.
Abstract: "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. -- Back cover.
Contents: Introduction : the changing face of Islam in Bulgaria -- Names to be buried with -- Men and mines -- The have-nots and the have-nots -- Divide and be conquered -- Islamic aid -- The miniskirt and the veil -- Conclusion : minarets after Marx.