Social Science Research Council

"Formation of Muslim Communities in the Early Modern Ottoman Balkans: the Case of Deliorman, 16th-17th Centuries"

My project will represent a case study of the nature and interplay of processes of demographic, ethno-religious, and socio-cultural change that led to the formation of one of the most sizable Muslim communities in the Balkans in the region of Deliorman (Wild Forest) in today's Northeastern Bulgaria under Ottoman rule by the early eighteenth century. My motivation to undertake this project has been twofold. On the more mundane side, the subject has been inadequately studied, while it is of considerable importance to the understanding of major issues in Ottoman Balkan history and the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans. Secondly, my intention is to approach the subject in its complexity, thus addressing a matrix of component processes emphasizing the interplay between them on the basis of a correspondingly wide variety of Ottoman (as well as Slavic) administrative, legal, and literary sources. By allowing for a dialogue between these sources, I hope to respond to a number of methodological deficiencies in the modern state of scholarship in the field. I will strive to place the subject of my study in the general context of Ottoman and Balkan history, putting to test traditional scholarly arguments about the nature of conversion to Islam in the Ottoman Balkans and the role of the Ottoman state in the processes of Turcoman migration and colonization in the region. A major premise in this study, based on my preliminary research and specialized knowledge in the field, is that there exist considerable differences with respect to the process of formation and nature of the Muslim communities in different parts of the Ottoman Balkans. In this relation, a case study of the type that I intend to carry out calls inevitably for a comparative approach with regard to other parts of the Balkans. To this effect, I intend to include a comparative chapter at the end of the study, which will integrate my research findings with the conclusions of other studies on similar processes in the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, and beyond.