Islam In Post Communist Eastern Europe

In Islam in Post-communist Eastern Europe Egdūnas Račius reveals how governance of religions and practical politics in Eastern Europe are permeated by churchification and securitization of Islam, and Muslim religious organizations have been turned into ecclesiastical-bureaucratic institutions akin to ‘Muslim Churches’.

The history and contemporary situation of Muslim communities in Eastern Europe are explored here from three angles. First, survival, telling of the resilience of these Muslim communities in the face of often restrictive state policies and hostile social environments, especially during the Communist period. next, their subsequent revival in the aftermath of the Cold War. And last, transformation, looking at the profound changes currently taking place in the demographic composition of the communities and in the forms of Islam practiced by them. The reader is shows a picture of the general trends common the Muslim communities of Eastern Europe, and the special characteristics of clusters of states, such as the Baltics, the Balkans, the Višegrad states and the European states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe examines how gender identities were reconfigured in a Bulgarian Muslim community following the demise of Communism and an influx of international aid from the Islamic world. Kristen Ghodsee conducted extensive ethnographic research among a small population of Pomaks, Slavic Muslims living in the remote mountains of southern Bulgaria. After Communism fell in 1989, Muslim minorities in Bulgaria sought to rediscover their faith after decades of state-imposed atheism. But instead of returning to their traditionally heterodox roots, isolated groups of Pomaks embraced a distinctly foreign type of Islam, which swept into their communities on the back of Saudi-financed international aid to Balkan Muslims, and which these Pomaks believe to be a more correct interpretation of their religion. Ghodsee explores how gender relations among the Pomaks had to be renegotiated after the collapse of both Communism and the region's state-subsidized lead and zinc mines. She shows how mosques have replaced the mines as the primary site for jobless and underemployed men to express their masculinity, and how Muslim women have encouraged this as a way to combat alcoholism and domestic violence. Ghodsee demonstrates how women's embrace of this new form of Islam has led them to adopt more conservative family roles, and how the Pomaks' new religion remains deeply influenced by Bulgaria's Marxist-Leninist legacy, with its calls for morality, social justice, and human solidarity.

This book discusses the evolution of state governance of Islam and the nature and forms of local Muslims’ rediscovery of their ‘Muslimness’ across post-communist Eurasia. It examines the effects on the Islamic scene of the political and ideological divergence of Central and South-Eastern Europe from Russia and most of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Of particular interest are the implications of the proliferation of new, ‘global’ interpretations of Islam and their relationship with existing ‘traditional’ Islamic beliefs and practices. The contributions in this book address these issues through an interdisciplinary prism combining history, religious studies/theology, social anthropology, sociology, ethnology and political science. They analyse the greater public presence of Islam in constitutionally secular contexts and offer a critique of the domestication and accommodation of Islam in Europe, comparing these to what has happened in the international Eurasian space. The discussion is informed by the works of such thinkers as Talal Asad, Bryan Turner, Veit Bader, Marcel Maussen and Bassam Tibi, and utilises primary and secondary sources and ethnographic observation. Looking at how collectivities and individuals are defining what it means to be Muslim in a globalised Islamic context, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology.

Provides an overview of the history and current trends in Muslim communities in 21 post-Communist Eastern European countries.

This is the first comprehensive and comparative examination of Islamic radicalisation in the Muslim regions of the former Soviet Union since the end of Communism. Since the 1990s, the ex-Soviet Muslim Volga-Urals, Caucasus and Central Asia have been among the most volatile and dynamic zones of Islamic radicalisation in the Islamic East. Although partially driven by a wider Islamic resurgence which began in the late 1970s in the Middle East, the book argues that radicalisation is a post-Soviet phenomenon triggered by the collapse of Communism, and the break-up of the de facto unitary Soviet empire. The book considers the considerable differences in perceptions and manifestations of radical Islam in the republics, as well as the level of its doctrinal and political impact. It demonstrates how the particular histories of the regions’ Muslim peoples - especially the length and depth of their Islamisation - have influenced the nature and scope of their radicalisation. Other significant factors include the mobilising power of the global jihadist network, and most significantly the level of social and economic hardship. Based on extensive empirical research including interviews with leading members of the political and religious elite, the Islamist opposition as well as ordinary muslims, the book reveals how unofficial radical Islam has turned into a potent ideology of social mobilisation. It identifies the different dynamics at work and how these relate to each other, assesses the level of foreign involvement and evaluates the implications of the rise of Islamic radicalism for particular post-Soviet states, post-Soviet Eurasia and the wider international community.

The increasing significance and visibility of relationships between religion and public arenas and institutions following the fall of communism in Europe provide the core focus of this fascinating book. Leading international scholars consider the religious and political role of Christian Orthodoxy in the Russian Federation, Romania, Georgia and Ukraine alongside the revival of old, indigenous religions, often referred to as 'shamanistic' and look at how, despite Islam’s long history and many adherents in the south, Islamophobic attitudes have increasingly been added to traditional anti-Semitic, anti-Western or anti-liberal elements of Russian nationalism. Contrasts between the church’s position in the post-communist nation building process of secular Estonia with its role in predominantly Catholic Poland are also explored. Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries gives a broad overview of the political importance of religion in the Post-Soviet space but its interest and relevance extends far beyond the geographical focus, providing examples of the challenges in the spheres of public, religious and social policy for all transitional countries.