The Balkan Muslim Communities in the Post-Communist Period

Abstract

The question which this chapter addresses is whether the collapse (partial or total, depending on the region) in the Eastern European countries of ‘Marxism-Leninism’ had any impact at all on the situation of the Muslim communities in the Balkans. Even if the answer to this question seems incontestably to be ‘yes’, it is still very difficult to gauge the extent of this phenomenon (except, of course, in the case of the disaster which has befallen the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina) let alone to try to describe it. None the less, it appears worthwhile to make some analysis along these lines following on from my study of Balkan Islam (Popovic, 1986). Even so, a sketch of the situation is likely to be overtaken by events by the time this chapter appears, since this part of the world is currently evolving very fast.