Родствена мрежа и солидарност при българите мюсюлмани от Тетевенско
Kinship Network and Solidarity of Bulgarian Muslims in the Region of Teteven

Summary/Abstract: An investigation of the kinship and family structure of the Bulgarian Muslims in the Teteven region raises a great number of highly interesting questions. The group is comparatively isolated from the bulk of such population, located in the Rhodopes. It lives in the purely Muslim villages of Galata, Glogovo, Gradeshnitsa and Babintsi in North Bulgaria, the object of the present work. The article aims at structuring the kinship system of the Bulgarian Muslims of theTeteven region, which embodies and reflects the individual’s ideas about his place in the social environment. For a clearer presentation, attention will be given to the origins of the clans from one common forefather and to the kinship genealogy. The specific characteristics of the kinship relations in the group discussed are determined by the Islamic norms – preference for the endogamous model and the restricted number of cases of polygamy existing in the past. In this context the ways of inheriting will also be discussed. The kinship terminology and the relation between the name and the kinship group are other important aspects in the working out of the subject, which will round up the circle of problem questions, associated with the kinship networks. The key thesis is that the well-preserved kinship network of the Bulgarian Muslims of the Teteven region is a steady and well operating mechanism for the preservation of the community in our time. The period of transition puts to the test the group’s solidarity, but it is precisely in such a critical situation that its viability is manifested. There has been a clearcut feeling of solidarity of the group, both in the past and today, which is particularly outspoken in economic mutual assistance. In periods, critical for the Bulgarian Muslims of the Teteven region, kinship solidarity, developing into settlement and community solidarity, helps the survival of the group.

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