Dr. Mila Maeva.

Dr. Mila Maeva is an ethnologist from Sofia University. She has specialised in Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Norway. Her main interests focus on migration, culture and self-identification in minority groups – primarily the Muslim minority in Bulgaria. Her first book “The Bulgarian Turks” was published in 2006 and is dedicated to the migration from Bulgaria to Turkey in 1989 due to the so-called ‘Revival Process’.

Why did you decide to write a book about Bulgarian migration to the UK? Talk more about how the idea became a reality.

Like with most of my research, the topic finds me. My brother – Ivo Maev – was the first editor of the Bulgarian emigrant newspaper ‘Budilnik’. During his time as editor I was involved with contributing to the newspaper, having a column on Bulgarian festivities. The connection with immigration from Bulgaria from the beginning of the 21st century was the starting point of my research on the topic. During that period, Bulgarian immigration was still relatively small in number, whereas its organisation – in a process of coming to life. The book presents the first complete and in-depth analysis of Bulgarian emigration to England from the Bulgarian Revival to present day. My research is based on British archives and my own field work collected in the period between 2007 and 2015 in places like Manchester, Birmingham, Rochester, and London, amongst others. I analyse changes the in ways borders are crosses, the motifs, and the socio-economic specificities of Bulgarian immigrants in England in the period after 1989 to 2015. I focus on the Bulgarian institutions from the prism of subgroups created by the emigrants. The book also presents the changes in religious views when in the process of arriving to a new country. It analyses language as a key emigration component in view of starting a new life in a new society, as well as the changes in every day life and festive culture. My key aim is to present the view point of the emigrants in England – why and how they migrate, what their reflections are on the topic of migration, how they learn a new language and create a new home, how they integrate into British society, what they change in their own culture and traditions, how they feel in Britain, and understanding how and why they create their subgroups and zones of comfort.

Can you share an interesting story from the process of writing the book?

Every piece of research has its own interesting story. My story connected to the writing of this book is concerned with the difficulty I experienced when trying to infiltrate Bulgarian immigrant groups in England. Despite knowing a few Bulgarians, I wanted to produce much more expansive research. This approach connected me with different highly qualified immigrants. Interviews with less qualified and less educated Bulgarians created a number of problems. I encountered the fear of the immigrant from his fellow countrymen, as they saw in me not a researcher, but a competitor, who’s after their jobs. Other striking stories include the emotional traumas of migration. Quite often, my interviews showed that many of the stories of migrating to England were connected primarily with emotional difficulties, as opposed to social and cultural obstacles – an unexplored avenue in this field of research.

What is the most important lesson you’ve taken out from writing the book? 

In writing this book I realised how multi-faceted Bulgarian immigration in the United Kingdom is. My initial desire was to write about as many immigrants as possible, from different countries. However, in the end I decided to limit my research exclusively to the Bulgarians living in England. I realised that despite my initially held beliefs that immigration is a product of economic motifs, in the course of the research, it became obvious that people come with different reasons – searching for security, personal growth, or plainly, because their friends and families are leaving.

The book is available online in Bulgarian from the Paradigma Publishers website.

Dimitar Bechev’s new book ‘Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe’, (Yale University Press, 2017).

Dimitar Bechev is currently a research fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has extensive experience in the world of policy and is affiliated with the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington, D.C.  In 2015, Dimitar Bechev became the founding director of the European Policy Institute, a small but dynamic outfit based in Sofia, Bulgaria.  His area of expertise cover EU external relations, especially enlargement and neighbourhood policy, the politics of Turkey and the Balkans, and Russian foreign policy. Prior to the University of North Carolina, Bechev held fellowships at Harvard’s Center for European Studies and the London School of Economics. Having authored or edited several books and articles in academic journals, he also publishes on current affairs in outlets such as the American Interest, Al Jazeera Online, Foreign Policy, openDemocracy and others.  In 2010-14, he headed the Sofia Office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Prior to that Dimitar Bechev taught International Relations at Oxford where he obtained his D.Phil. in 2005.

Dimitar Bechev is in conversation with the Executive Editor of SLOVO Journal, Borimir Totev, about his latest book ‘Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe’ published by Yale University Press.

Where do you position of social sciences within wider society? 

I have not pursued a typical academic career but have been moving back and forth between universities and think-tanks, which does have its disadvantages but also helps one get a better perspective on world affairs. Academic training provides the means to think a rigorous manner.  There are far too many pundits and current affairs analysts who juggle terms and conceptual shortcuts uncritically. Or who lack historical depth to see through the latest hype.  Equally, academic researchers are better off if they keep up-to-date with global political events which, admittedly, develop at breakneck speed and think more clearly about what their particular project means for those outside the university circuit.  Navel-gazing is not what social science should be about.

How does ‘Rival Power’, as a Russia focused project, differ to your previous book publications?

Rival Power is an attempt to bridge the divide between scholarship and current affairs writing. It looks at Russia’s growing footprint in Southeast Europe – a region comprising the post-communist Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, and even Turkey, heir to the Ottoman Empire, which once dominated the area.  I argue that Russia has no strategic ambitions nor is it driven by the rich historical legacies which link it to the Balkans. It simply exploits opportunities to poke a finger into the eye of the West, at a moment when relations with the US and EU are at their lowest point thanks to the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine.  Yet, contrary to other authors, I put a great deal on emphasis on local players too (governments, individual leaders, business lobbies, political parties etc.).  Rather than being mere pawns or proxies of Moscow, they often leverage their connection to the Russians to advance their own, often parochial interests.  It is a two-way street. And more than once, Russia has suffered setbacks – a point that many writing about the standoff with the West and Putin’s talents as a foreign policy chess master often fail to appreciate.  Readers can also learn much about the twists and turns in the ambiguous relationship between Russia and Turkey, a marriage of convenience, as I call it.  My hope is to draw in both readers following Southeast Europe, who may or may not know much about Russia beyond the usual stereotypes, and those interested in the broader subject of Russian foreign policy and Moscow’s influence beyond the confines of the former Soviet Union.

The book is available on Amazon or from Yale University Press’ website. Excerpts will be published by The American Interest.