Abstract
The Sandžak, or Sanjak of Novi Pazar, is a strategically important region situated between modernday Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Kosovo. It is well known for its great cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity.
As such, the area represents an interesting field for research of inter-ethnic and interconfessional relations. The article traces the ethno-national emancipation of the local Slavic Muslim community since the early nineteenth century until the late 1980s and its confrontation with the nationalisms and expansionisms of the nascent Christian nations and states in the Balkans.
It argues that the identity of the Sandžak Muslims transformed from a predominantly religious identity to a national one no earlier than during the socialist modernization in Yugoslavia in the post-WWII period.