ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the massive civil and political mobilisations that gained momentum in many towns throughout the country as a reaction to the claims of the Grand Mufti's Office. It highlights the intensity and the impact of feelings and affects, alongside what might more commonly be called 'rationality', on the selection, creation and narration of cultural heritage. The lands of contemporary Bulgaria were part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries. As the Ottoman period is currently seen and characterised mainly in negative tropes of cruelties and forced Islamicisation, characterised as 'dark ages', and publicly narrated as a 'yoke'. The symbolism of the performative acts was obvious–the building, which until some time ago had been perceived as part of the complex historical and often rejected picture of the Ottoman past, was then narrated, defended and legitimised as 'Bulgarian'.
