Ethnicity, religion and politics

The disintegration of the totalitarian-communist system has led to a total crisis of society, a radical and dramatic restructuring, a reassessment of all values, a clearly evident prevalence of negatively defined freedom. For the Balkan region, these general conditions were further complicated by the neighbourhood of different etno-religious communities. Ethnic mobilization, various cultural, religious and political tensions, are rooted here both in the history of the region's cultural and religious identities and in the totalitarian system of the recent past.
Among Balkan countries, Bulgaria is a case that does not deserve to be overlloked: it holds our hopes for the possibility of ethnic tolerance in the region, and offers a new preception of multiculturalism and democracy.