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Bulgarian Paradox

A different colonial yoke

by Keyvan Tabari
14-Jan-2010
The narrative of victimhood as a legacy of “colonialism” might feel proprietary to non-Europeans. Bulgarians offer a contrast. The “yoke” Bulgaria complains about is the one imposed by four centuries of Ottoman “oppression,” that separated it from the rest of “Christian Europe.” In this story the Church is the agent of liberation, as a result, ironically, of the distinct religious autonomy allowed to four groups of non-Muslims in the millet (community) system of the Ottoman Theocratic-Imperial rule. Still more paradoxes color the Bulgarian complaint >>>