Ethnic, Religious and Confessional Relations in the Balkans - Shopluk, Shopluk among other Things
Ethnic, Religious and Confessional Relations in the Balkans - Shopluk, Shopluk among other Things

Summary/Abstract: Report of the 4th International Conference of JUNIR onthis topic Can Shop (Shopsko), as a pavitly forgotten and neglected name of the central part of the Balkans, becomes nowadays, in this modern time, a factor of connecting peoples and countries of the Balkan Peninsula? Have the historical, political, social, cultural and other conditions developed, which would finally enable Shopluk to demonstrate its integrative possibilites and turn into "a connecting and linking bridge" out of "the seed of discord"? These, as well as many other questions dealing with Shopluk and Shops are the starting point of our research interest. Thus, in this article we shall strive to follow the trail of answering them. Namely, Shopluk as an ethnographic area, and Shops, as an ethnographic group, hide, in our opinion, certain possibilities of the regional cooperation and bringing together of Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians, as well as the countries in which these peoples live. Reducing their integrative possibilities to a real scope we are aware that their function of connection and cooperation cannot be great and important. However, we are sure that in this for centuries tumultuous area, even the least contribution must not be neglected. Thus, it is our wish to initiate again the discussion on the phenomenon of Shopluk and indicate some basic prerequisites of its Balkan integration. Although it has long been a nationally differentiated territory, it its ethnic layers, hides in the possibilities of a bridging character. Shopluk and Shops are patiently waiting for their researchers.

• Details
• Contents