No Balkan Muslim identity is more contested, more wrapped in multiple intertwining twisted webs of myth and history than the Slavic-speaking Muslims or “Pomaks” of the Southern Balkan range.Standing at the crossroads of language, ethnicity and religion, the identification of Pomaks as a minority has been highly controversial. Throughout the Balkans, the case of Pomaks has not only challenged the nationalist versions of the history and assimilation campaigns but also the  established understanding of the notions such as ethnicity, identity, group boundaries, kin vs host-states within the scholarly debate surrounding them.  Despite the intellectual curiosity and perplexity that it creates among the scholars, even the use of the traditional name Pomak triggers a sharp criticism and a derogatory look in general public. They could only be “Muslim Bulgarians” for Bulgaria, “Slavic Speaking Greeks” for Greece and “Slavicized Turkish Brothers” for Turkey. Accepting their Pomakness without any ethnic, religious or linguistic hyphenation seems to be hardest of all for the Pomaks themselves as well as the nation-states surrounding them.  After all, Pomaks has never been a self-proclaimed nation or ethnic group with a solid distinct mass group consciousness. In the conflict-ridden politics of Balkans where the ethnicities, nationalities or identities seldom match the territories that confine them in nation-states, like any other minority Pomaks has always been treated as the “other within”. Many local discourses of co-existence have been dictated by contesting nationalisms, between which identities were defined and contrasted, primarily from the outside. In other words, official identities ascribed to Pomaks have been tied to seemingly solid classificatory boundaries; yet, these boundaries themselves created questions about Pomakness which itself could not easily be classified. The manipulation of the ethnic boundaries employed by the nation-states in accordance with political considerations, foreign policy issues, and of course also economic interests as well as corresponding reactions of Pomaks in terms of shifting self-and group-identities demonstrate the porous and dynamic nature of ethnicity and identity.