Secondly, the mechanisms and politics involved in constructing a nation are only involved in that discourse indirectly — as tangential arguments and positions in relation to other debates on the nature of the state, the general political situation, the role of religion, industrialisation etc. (Verdery) In other words, those in political power are faced with the task of editing history to provide a narrative that fits with a future they envisage using a veiled and thus quasi invisible discourse.

The upshot of this political thrust became efforts to sever the religious ties of the ethnic Turks and the Pomaks, to claim the latter as a ‘lost’ group of Bulgarians forcibly converted to Islam during the almost half-millennium of Ottoman rule. This put them in the paradoxical situation of being treated as a minority whilst not being officially recognised as such. Having constructed the myth, direct and visible action soon followed. Almost synchronous with the Balkan Wars (1912, 1913) to drive the Ottomans out of Europe, a campaign of mass Christianisation was forced on the Pomaks (Koinova, Marushiakova & Popov) — affecting between 150,000 and 200,000 of them. It not only changed their religion but also their names and traditional costume as well.

After World War I there was still pressure on the Pomaks to convert although under Stamboliiski minority education was given a certain amount of official support. Kemalist reforms in Turkey in the 1920s caused the junta in Bulgaria (from 1923 on) to pursue a policy of support for conservative Moslem forces within the Pomaks  as a whole in order to counter the perceived threat of an attractive, Turkish nationalist identity. The junta that took power in 1934, however, was generally anti-Islamic.

In the run up to the Second World War, and during it too, there was still enormous pressure on Pomaks to change their names exerted especially by the more or less forced registration of new-born children with Bulgarian names instead of Turkish and Islamic ones. In addition to this over 300 villages had their names changed in 1942.

When the communists came to power in 1944 their initial position was supportive of ethnic and religious minorities, the prevailing conviction being that they, too, had suffered under the class system and were potential equals as socialist workers. Thus, for example, the name changes effected during the war were reversed. As with the Roma there was in the background, the Marxist doctrinal expectation that, along with national divisions, religion and ethnicity would fade away to be replaced by a new socialist identity – atheist workers with an international identification. In the relatively rapid change from communist internationalism to communist nationalism—the acceptance of a doctrinal  paradox that was never to be overcome—post-1949 policy efforts were directed towards undermining Moslem identity. Other reasons for the political control of the exercise of religion and religious teaching include geopolitical strategic considerations. The majority of Moslem comrades were concentrated on the borders of Turkey and Greece both of which were, from 1952, members of NATO.

Despite industrialisation programmes the majority of Moslems were still employed in agriculture and by the mid-1950s the percentage of Moslems in the population was increasing rapidly. As a result of improved health facilities an accelerating birth rate was accompanied by a reduced child mortality rate and an increase in the average lifespan.