A PODCAST ABOUT HISTORY IN THE MAKING
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 | Since the 19th century, different forms of missionary activities and preaching have been shaping the role of religion within the societies of the Middle East and North Africa. Not only Christian congregations, but also Muslim and Jewish institutions participated in this phenomenon. Emulation but also competition existed across confessional boundaries and intersected with colonialism, wars, emancipation projects, and state authority. In this episode, we approach the galaxy of missions and preaching in the longue durée with the three editors of a recently published edited volume, Missions and Preaching: Connected and Decompartmentalised Perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (19th-21st Century). |
 | #041 - MILENA METHODIEVA: Bulgarian Muslims between Empire and Nation In 1878, following the Congress of Berlin, Bulgaria became a de facto independent principality. Not anymore under Ottoman rule, the Muslims of Bulgaria navigated this political shift by redefining their place as a minority of a nation-state. The community underwent a political polarization between traditional notables and a group pushing for reforms within Muslim institutions. In this episode, we discuss how these reformists engaged with state and nation-building in Bulgaria by highlighting their connections with the broader Muslim world. Not only did Bulgarian Muslims contribute to the rise of the Young Turk movement, they were also part of a transnational space in which intellectuals and activists debated issues such as the place of Islam in modern society, the value of education, and the question of political relationship with non-Muslim rulers. |
 | #040 - NADÈGE RAGARU: A History of Knowledge about the Holocaust in Bulgaria Since the immediate aftermath of the end of World War II, a narrative concerning the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from deportation and genocide has nurtured the self-representation of the governments in Sofia and the public discourse in the country. From the decades of state socialist rule to the post-1989 political transformations which led to Bulgaria's entry into the European Union, the international framework of Holocaust remembrance as well as some references in this discourse have changed, yet the bulk of the rescue narrative which sees the Jews as passive entity persists. This episode discusses how historiography can critically engage with the complex and fragmented knowledge of the Holocaust in Southeast Europe through a journey into different voices and different sources, from trial attestations to popular fiction movies to visual material. |
 | #039 - ÜMIT KURT: The Armenian Genocide and Property Usurpation in Aintab The Armenian community of Aintab, nowadays Gaziantep, was among the most flourishing of Ottoman Anatolia. The Armenian Genocide not only brought an end to the community's coexistence with the Muslim population but also paved the way to the pillage and usurpation of Armenian houses and shops. In this episode, we discuss the characteristics of the community in Aintab and the upsurge of violence in 1915. While addressing the implications of researching this sensitive topic, we focus on the role of local perpetrators as well as the broader juridical configuration which prevented the return of Armenian survivors and legalized material usurpation by local Muslim families. |
 | #038 - GAËLLE FISHER: German Resettlers and Jewish Survivors from Bukovina after 1945 Before World War II, Bukovina was a region marked by multiconfessional coexistence and ruled by the Habsburg Empire (1774-1918) and then by Romania (1918-1940). Two among Bukovina’s population groups, the Germans and the Askhenazi Jews, left the region as a result of the World War and the Holocaust. Thousands of the former were “resettled” in Germany, while a great number of the latter who had survived the persecutions immigrated to Israel. In this episode, we discuss how both groups maintained a link with their homeland region, how they organized into voluntary associations, and how their destiny became interwoven when negotiating the limits of belonging to the respective national societies. |
Cover drawing © Clara Delboé