Islam and the Imagery of Fear in Bulgaria
A research project at the Free University Berlin on historical and present-day anti-Islamic stereotypes in Bulgaria has led to massive protests from Bulgarian nationalists. At the center of the conflict is a patriotic painting from the late 19th century. Sonja Zekri reports
Muslim glance indifferently at the white, glowing corpses of defiled Christian women. Antoni Piotrowski's painting was basically a propaganda tool against Ottoman colonial oppression
Today, Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, it will once again be time to ask if a country that puts a bounty on the heads of scholars has more in common with the Middle Ages than with the European Union. Every Wednesday and every Thursday, the Bulgarian broadcaster Skat TV calls upon its viewers to send in a photo and the address of the art historian Marina Baleva for a reward of 2500 leva, roughly 1250 euros.
Skat TV is owned by the right-wing extremist party Ataka, which has posted a video on the Internet showing an election rally where this appeal is even more inflammatory. It claims that Baleva belongs "on the scaffold," and that her colleague Ulf Brunnbauer, the "German Jew," should be "tied to the stake."
An intentionally fostered misunderstanding
This has been going on for months. When Martina Baleva tells how this all came about, she begins to falter. "I can't understand it to this day. It is all a great misunderstanding." It seems, however, to be an intentionally fostered misunderstanding.
Early this year, Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunnbauer, academics at the Institute for Eastern European Studies of the Free University Berlin, planned an exhibition and a conference on a picture by the Polish painter Antoni Piotrowski from the year 1892 entitled "The Massacre of Batak."
The struggle against the Ottoman tyrants
The painting is based on a historical event – the murder of Christian Bulgarians at the hands of their Muslim neighbors in the city of Batak in the year 1876.
Piotrowski, however, staged the event within the framework of the then awakening Bulgarian national consciousness. A local conflict was thereby transformed into a fateful struggle by the Bulgarian people against the Ottoman tyrants. Men in turbans glance indifferently at the white, glowing corpses of defiled women – a clear graphic image in the context of the time.
Piotrowski had previously made photographic studies in Batak for his painting, although this was already years after the crime and under the influence of a whole genre of anti-Ottoman literature and painting. Subsequent postcards from the church in Batak show mounds of sculls and arrangements of bones – a production after the fact in the service of the nation.
A "terrible provocation"
What is fact and what is legend? Why has Batak, of all places, become a site of pilgrimage? This is what Baleva and Brunnbauer wanted to discuss, but their plans were thwarted. In May, just before the exhibition in Bulgaria, both were hit by a wave of hate. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov called the project a "terrible provocation," because it supposedly denied the massacre – an accusation akin to an incendiary bomb.
"We never questioned the existence of the massacre, but, of course, we would have discussed the nationalist interpretation of the event," says Brunnbauer. Yet, no one was interested in such subtle differences. "The European election was underway and the Socialist Party was attempting to win right-wing votes.
Nationalist historians argued that Europe had already demanded a great deal from Bulgaria and was now ready to sacrifice the country's history."
The director of the national museum, Boschidar Dimitrow, even proposed the theory that the exhibition was being paid for by Turkey to present the Ottoman period in a better light in the hope of preparing Turkey for accession to the EU. Brunnbauer was given temporary police protection at his institute. His colleague, however, had it much worse.
Fanatics spray-painted the house of her parents in Bulgaria with slogans calling for her murder on the walls of every floor. And then came the Wednesday evenings on Skat TV.
Declaration of solidarity
Things have since calmed down. The tabloid press has let the topic drop and there are now articles in the respectable press and especially on the Internet that seriously discuss the conflict, says Baleva. Hundreds of Bulgarian academics have signed a declaration of solidarity. Although there are still defamatory posters hanging in the district where Baleva's parents live, the neighbors have removed the inflammatory graffiti.
Now that the catalogue has been printed and is available in Bulgaria, the hate could soon flare up again. "If things start up anew, hopefully my parents won't be held responsible once again," says Baleva.
Nonetheless, she is determined to see something good arising from all the trouble. "Today, eight million Bulgarians know that the term ‘legend' can refer to two different concepts – to a fairy tale and to a construction based on a historical event."
And even if not all eight million are up on the finer points of post-modern historical theory, the wider public has experienced a lesson in the political misuse of history. For this alone, says Baleva, "I am grateful to the bloodhounds and defamers."
Sonja Zekri
Translated from the German by John Bergeron
© Süddeutsche Zeitung/Qantara.de 2007
Qantara.de
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Around one million Muslims live in Bulgaria. Like all religious groups, they enjoyed more freedoms after the political changes of 1989. But the coexistence with Bulgaria's non-Muslim population is not free of political and social tensions. Mirko Schwanitz reports
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Tarnished Relationship to Ankara
Similar to western Europe, the new EU members in central and southeastern Europe initially gave positive signals regarding Turkey's EU membership bid, but these views have shifted toward skepticism or even rejection. A summary by Emil Mintchev
Printversion
The Barbarians of Batak
A research project at the Free University Berlin on historical and present-day anti-Islamic stereotypes in Bulgaria has led to massive protests from Bulgarian nationalists. At the center of the conflict is a patriotic painting from the late 19th century. Sonja Zekri reports
; "Antoni Piotrowski: 'The Batak Massacre', 1792 (courtesy: National Galery of Foreign Art, Sofia)")
Muslim glance indifferently at the white, glowing corpses of defiled Christian women. Antoni Piotrowski's painting was basically a propaganda tool against Ottoman colonial oppression
Today, Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, it will once again be time to ask if a country that puts a bounty on the heads of scholars has more in common with the Middle Ages than with the European Union. Every Wednesday and every Thursday, the Bulgarian broadcaster Skat TV calls upon its viewers to send in a photo and the address of the art historian Marina Baleva for a reward of 2500 leva, roughly 1250 euros. Skat TV is owned by the right-wing extremist party Ataka, which has posted a video on the Internet showing an election rally where this appeal is even more inflammatory. It claims that Baleva belongs "on the scaffold," and that her colleague Ulf Brunnbauer, the "German Jew," should be "tied to the stake."
An intentionally fostered misunderstanding
This has been going on for months. When Martina Baleva tells how this all came about, she begins to falter. "I can't understand it to this day. It is all a great misunderstanding." It seems, however, to be an intentionally fostered misunderstanding.
Early this year, Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunnbauer, academics at the Institute for Eastern European Studies of the Free University Berlin, planned an exhibition and a conference on a picture by the Polish painter Antoni Piotrowski from the year 1892 entitled "The Massacre of Batak."
The struggle against the Ottoman tyrants
The painting is based on a historical event – the murder of Christian Bulgarians at the hands of their Muslim neighbors in the city of Batak in the year 1876.
Piotrowski, however, staged the event within the framework of the then awakening Bulgarian national consciousness. A local conflict was thereby transformed into a fateful struggle by the Bulgarian people against the Ottoman tyrants. Men in turbans glance indifferently at the white, glowing corpses of defiled women – a clear graphic image in the context of the time.
Piotrowski had previously made photographic studies in Batak for his painting, although this was already years after the crime and under the influence of a whole genre of anti-Ottoman literature and painting. Subsequent postcards from the church in Batak show mounds of sculls and arrangements of bones – a production after the fact in the service of the nation.
A "terrible provocation"
What is fact and what is legend? Why has Batak, of all places, become a site of pilgrimage? This is what Baleva and Brunnbauer wanted to discuss, but their plans were thwarted. In May, just before the exhibition in Bulgaria, both were hit by a wave of hate. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov called the project a "terrible provocation," because it supposedly denied the massacre – an accusation akin to an incendiary bomb.
"We never questioned the existence of the massacre, but, of course, we would have discussed the nationalist interpretation of the event," says Brunnbauer. Yet, no one was interested in such subtle differences. "The European election was underway and the Socialist Party was attempting to win right-wing votes.
Nationalist historians argued that Europe had already demanded a great deal from Bulgaria and was now ready to sacrifice the country's history."
The director of the national museum, Boschidar Dimitrow, even proposed the theory that the exhibition was being paid for by Turkey to present the Ottoman period in a better light in the hope of preparing Turkey for accession to the EU. Brunnbauer was given temporary police protection at his institute. His colleague, however, had it much worse.
Fanatics spray-painted the house of her parents in Bulgaria with slogans calling for her murder on the walls of every floor. And then came the Wednesday evenings on Skat TV.
Declaration of solidarity
Things have since calmed down. The tabloid press has let the topic drop and there are now articles in the respectable press and especially on the Internet that seriously discuss the conflict, says Baleva. Hundreds of Bulgarian academics have signed a declaration of solidarity. Although there are still defamatory posters hanging in the district where Baleva's parents live, the neighbors have removed the inflammatory graffiti.
Now that the catalogue has been printed and is available in Bulgaria, the hate could soon flare up again. "If things start up anew, hopefully my parents won't be held responsible once again," says Baleva.
Nonetheless, she is determined to see something good arising from all the trouble. "Today, eight million Bulgarians know that the term ‘legend' can refer to two different concepts – to a fairy tale and to a construction based on a historical event."
And even if not all eight million are up on the finer points of post-modern historical theory, the wider public has experienced a lesson in the political misuse of history. For this alone, says Baleva, "I am grateful to the bloodhounds and defamers."
Sonja Zekri
Translated from the German by John Bergeron
© Süddeutsche Zeitung/Qantara.de 2007
Islam in Bulgaria
New Freedoms and New Conflicts
Around one million Muslims live in Bulgaria. Like all religious groups, they enjoyed more freedoms after the political changes of 1989. But the coexistence with Bulgaria's non-Muslim population is not free of political and social tensions. Mirko Schwanitz reports
Interview with Selim Mehmet
"A Living Example of Inter-Religious Dialogue!"
The Grand Mufti of Bulgaria, Selim Mehmet, was one of the most prominent guests at Cologne's Open Mosque Day, an event, which he said, he would like to introduce in his own country. Arian Fariborz took the opportunity to speak to him
The Countries of Central and Southeastern Europe
Tarnished Relationship to Ankara
Similar to western Europe, the new EU members in central and southeastern Europe initially gave positive signals regarding Turkey's EU membership bid, but these views have shifted toward skepticism or even rejection. A summary by Emil Mintchev
Printversion
Comments
1. Batak klane
Every nations kill other nations. Bulgarian when came to the land of today Bulgaria, they killed all the lokal people (traks), they kill all the time the greeks people. Why today they still crying for Batak kiling? History is past time. They must be gratefull to Osman turks for the culture of eating and clothing and religion, respect to the old people for many many thinks. The turks gave them so much freedom, which the fashist, comunist and today the democrats did'nt gave them. Because of the Osman turks today they are still seperate country, culture, language and religion.
fes cherven | 06.01.2010 - 18:26
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