The Clash between Latin and Arabic Alphabets among the Turkish Community in Bulgaria in the Interwar Period (original) (raw)
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Balkan Politics and Society Series - Ibidem Verlag, 2021
What is the relationship between writing systems and nationalism? How can different alphabets coexist in the same country? What is the destiny of the Cyrillic alphabet in Europe? Giustina Selvelli’s original work provides detailed answers to these far-reaching and potentially divisive questions and many more by examining several intriguing debates on topics of alphabets and national identity in a number of countries from the Balkan area over the course of the last 100 years. Following an encompassing perspective on alphabetic diversity, Selvelli, an expert on Southeast European Studies, reconstructs the ideological context of national discourses connected to the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, also taking a look at the Arabic and Glagolitic scripts, and interweaving issues on the symbolism of the alphabet with the complex recent history of the region, marked by the parallel influences of the East and the West. She also sheds light on the impact of a range of alphabet policies on ethnolinguistic minorities, proposing a new definition of “alphabetic rights” with special regard to the multiethnic legacy of the former Ottoman and Habsburg empires. This comprehensive book makes us discover the privileged role that writing systems played in the region’s delicate post-imperial and post-socialist transitions, leaving us captivated by peculiar stories such as that of the utopian “Yugoslav alphabet”.
The Post-Classical Use of Latin in Bulgaria
Litteraria Copernicana, 2019
The article summarizes the evidence about the use of Latin in Bulgaria during the Middle Ages and the early modern period and comments the reasons for the lack of knowledge or the indifference to the literary tradition of the Latin West till the end of the nineteenth century. Beginning with the transformation of the Roman world in the Late Antiquity, the post-classical fate of Latinitas in the Bulgarian lands tells us for the most part a story about cut threads, periods of forced isolation from the Latin West (the spread of humanism and the access to the great achievements of the following cultural epochs in Europe were blocked by the Turkish invasion in 1396), and reconsidered confessional and political choices. My intention, however, is to present the few separate channels of transmitting Latin language and literary culture to the educated élite in Bulgaria, i.e. the diplomatic contacts with the Papacy and the European rulers, the direct or indirect translations from Latin sources, and the original works written in Latin by the Bulgarian Catholics in the seventeenth century. In these times, and later, indirect translations dominated, it was only in 1873 that the first major direct translation of a Latin text into Bulgarian appeared. Keywords: Greek and Latin in the East Balkans, Latin in medieval Bulgaria, Latin works of the Bulgarian Catholics.
Bulgarian Historiography on Ottoman Written Culture in Bulgaria / ORLİN SABEV
WRITTEN CULTURE is probably one of the signs of any civilization that on the one hand leaves the deepest imprint on national consciousness, but on the other hand, oddly enough, deserves much less historiographical interest. Though there could be impressive studies on the history of written culture of a given society or region, 1 the names of historians, who work in the field of political, economic and social developments, are obviously more popular among even literati than those who have written valuable books on cultural issues. From time to time, however, the latter have the chance to leave the background and come to the forefront, especially when political, economic and social issues are insufficient to serve ideological aims. Yet, perhaps art and culture constitutes more fruitful ground for any national or political ideology than other issues. In this respect, when the Bulgarian historiography is taken into consideration one should keep in mind that it was more or less influenced by nationalism and by communist ideology during 1947-1989. 2 Yet, the high level of academic research and methodology, along with both the nationalist and for half a century, the communist ideologies formed the framework within which the Bulgarian historiography on Ottoman rule in the Central Balkan lands and Muslim written culture, in particular, could be reviewed. In addition, when examining its trend, one can identify roughly three major periods of development. These include the period between the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878 and the beginning of the communist regime in the late 1940s, the communist or old (from our perspective) regime that lasted until late 1989, and its aftermath, when the ideological * Prof., Institute of Balkan Studies, Sofia.
Contesting Bulgaria's Past Through New Media: Latin, Cyrillic and Politics
Published in: Europe-Asia Studies, October 2012, Vol. 64, No. 8, Special Issue: New Media in New Europe-Asia Guest Editors: Jeremy Morris, Natalia Rulyova & Vlad Strukov (October 2012), pp. 1486-1504, 2012
This essay investigates the conflict between two different ways of writing in Bulgarian on the Web: using the standard Cyrillic alphabet and using the Lalin script. Initially, the reason for using the Latin script was purely technical: the absence of appropriate software for decoding Cyrillic fonts. However, the Latin script remained popular even after the encoding problems were solved, acquiring new ideological meanings and provoking political controversies. This essay discusses the subcultural, cultural and political consequences of these developments.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2020
This paper explores the history of the alphabet revolutions in the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, beginning in the 1860s and culminating with the new Turkish alphabet and the Soviet latinization movement in the 1920s. Unlike earlier works that have treated these movements separately, this article traces the origins of the alphabet revolutions to the 19th-century communications revolution, when the telegraph and movable metal type challenged the existing modes of knowledge production and imposed new epistemologies of writing on the Muslims in the Russo-Ottoman space. This article examines the media technologies of the era and the cross-imperial debates surrounding various alphabet proposals that predated latinization and suggests that the history of language reform in the Russo-Ottoman world be reevaluated as a product of a modernizing information age that eventually changed the entire linguistic landscape of Eurasia.
BULGARIAN SCRIPT A EUROPEAN PHENOMENON
2008
By Assoc. Prof. Dr Plamen Pavlov, Dr Atanas Orachev and Antoniy Handjiysky; pp. 80 with 127 colour and black-and-white illustrations, hardcover with a jacket, size 16х22 cm; published in Bulgarian, English, French and Russian. The book consists of two parts. The first part presents the work of the saint brothers Cyril and Methodius, while the second part examines the appearance and the presence of different script systems in Bulgarian lands down the millennia.
Bibliography: Turks and Other Muslims in Bulgaria and the Balkans
Most Bulgarian letters are pronounced as in English except for the following: Ж, ж (Ž, ž) pronounced s as in treasure; Й, й (Y, y) pronounced y as in yes; С, с (S, s) pronounced s as in soon; У, у (U, u) pronounced oo as in broom; X, x (Kh, kh) pronounced ch as in Bach; Ц, ц (C, c) pronounced tz as in quartz; Ч, ч (Č, č) pronounced ch as in church; Ш, ш (Š, š) pronounced sh as in should; Щ, щ (Št, št) pronounced shed as in washed; Ъ, ъ (Ǔ, ǔ) pronounced u as in urgent; Ю, ю (Yu, yu) pronounced you as in youth (but shorter); Я, я (Ya, ya) pronounced ya as in yard (but shorter). Most Turkish letters are pronounced as in English except for the following: C, c pronounced j as in jam; ğ (soft g) is not pronounced; serves to lengthen slightly the preceding vowel; I, ı pronounced u as in urgent; İ, i pronounced i as in bit; J, j pronounced g as in montage; Ş, ş pronounced sh as in ship. O, o (with umlaut above it) pronounced eu as in peu; U, u (with umlaut above it) pronounced ew as in few; and C, c (with cedilla below it) pronounced ch as in chat.