The Experience of 1913: Dynamics of War and Peace, Collective Memory and the Identity of Bulgarian Refugees

Wars, the annexation of populations to different states, and violent and turbulent migrations (including in conditions of crossing a “moving” border), are all periods of extreme suffering well known in modern nation-states. In such stressful situations, populations are displaced, value systems are transformed, the usual rhythms of life are destabilised, societies are polarised, traditions are destroyed or changed, identities are encapsulated or transformed. The article traces how the events of the period of the Balkan wars strongly affected the relationship between Bulgarians and Muslims in Western Thrace and how the refugees’ memory and identities were transmitted from generation to generation. The study is based entirely on autobiographical archival accounts. In the text, a discursive approach is combined with social and cultural historical methods (description and explanation, study of the object in its entirety, empirical analysis to establish the system of relations and interactions of the subject with the surrounding reality).