Author: Ghodsee, Kristen

Source: Historical Reflections, Volume 34, Number 3, Winter 2008 , pp. 105-125(21)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

This article examines another European iteration of the headscarf debate, this time in postcommunist Bulgaria, the European Union member with the largest Muslim minority. Bulgaria is a country that has always been at a crossroads between East and West, and women's bodies and their fashion choices have increasingly become the symbols of the "backward Orient" or the "corrupt and decadent West" for those on either side of an ongoing national identity crisis. For the Orthodox Christian/Secular majority, the headscarf represents all that is troubling about the country's Ottoman past and Islam's presumed oppression of women. For a growing number of Bulgarian Muslims, the miniskirt has come to represent the shameless commodification of women's bodies and the moral bankruptcy of global capitalism.

Keywords: BULGARIA; EASTERN EUROPE; GENDER; HEADSCARVES; ISLAM; MUSLIM MINORITIES; SECULARISM

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/hrrh2008.340307

Publication date: 2008-12-01

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• Historical Reflections/Reflections Historiques has established a well-deserved reputation for publishing high quality articles of wide-ranging interest for over thirty years. The journal, which publishes articles in both English and French, is committed to exploring history in an interdisciplinary framework and with a comparative focus. Historical approaches to art, literature, and the social sciences; the history of mentalities and intellectual movements; the terrain where religion and history meet: these are the subjects to which Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques is devoted.
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