Between Integration and Migration: Re-Defining Sephardic-Jewish Group Identities in Bulgaria, 1878-1950

• In Event: Migration, Minorities, Religion, and the State in East and Southeast Europe

Abstract

The paper will address some of the problems the Bulgarian Jewish community was confronted with after the founding of the Bulgarian nation state, which resulted from the Russian-Ottoman War of 1877/78. Without any transition period, the Jews of Bulgaria, who had identified themselves up to this point as part of the Sephardic Jewry within the Ottoman Empire, found themselves being forced to find their position as a community inside a nation state that defined its identity on the basis of ethnicity. The developments resulting from this situation were complicated and influenced by factors such as the continuing language separation (Judezmo vs. Bulgarian) or the overwhelming growth of Zionism among the Bulgarian Jews during the decades following the events of 1878.

Author

• Markus Wien, American U (Bulgaria)