Though put out in 1988 Bulgaria, still very much ruled by the Communist Party and suffering all the shortages which accompanied living in a socialist nation, no expense was spared in this colorful and very entertaining production about the effect of Turkish rule in 17th Century Bulgaria. While it would be almost another 300 years before the Turks would be pushed out of Slavic and Balkan Europe as a ruling force, the slowly-dying Ottoman Empire felt it best to flex its muscle and show its dominance by forcibly converting a part of Bulgaria to Islam ... or exterminating those who refused.  This movie is the story of a village in the mountains of Bulgaria which became the target for this forcible islamization and how both the inhabitants and the conquerors reacted to this intention.

It should be borne in mind that this film was put out at a time when the Bulgarian government was carrying out a forced Bulgarization of the Turkish minority in the country and the film's contents, while not propaganda, help the viewers to feel little sympathy for those Turkish descendents who lived in Bulgaria at the time.  The film also reveals why many of the Slavic Balkan population in current-day Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, etc. etc. have a very volatile relationship with the Turks and with Albanians, who were forcibly and effectively converted to Islam by the Turkish invaders many hundreds of years before the events which take place in this film.  I do not suggest that the film's main purpose was to stir up hatred, nor do I challenge the historical accuracy the film tries to portray.  I do suggest that this film is not "Moslem friendly" and while that may not be politically correct, it portrays the historical reality pretty fairly and accurately. 

DVD-R IS 271 minutes long.  In Bulgarian with English subtitles.  Very good VHS quality, with some film distortion and pixellization in parts of the 2nd DVD.

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