Revival Process

Revival Process
People are shown protesting for the return of their birth names.
People protesting for the return of their birth names
DateDecember 1984[1][2]–December 1989[3][4][5]
LocationBulgaria
TypeForced assimilation
TargetBulgarian Turks
Perpetrator
Outcome
DeathsVarious estimates
Non-fatal injuriesSeveral thousand[11][12]
ArrestsSeveral thousand[11][12]

The Revival Process (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, romanized: Vazroditelen protses) was a forced assimilation campaign in the People's Republic of Bulgaria. It began on Gregorian Christmas 1984 and continued until December 1989.[2][10] The state imposed new Bulgarian names on about 850,000 people, banned public use of the Turkish language, and restricted religious and cultural practices.[10][13][14][15] The government declared the forced renaming complete on March 31, 1985, but many restrictions remained until December 1989.[2][16] In 1989, state pressure pushed more than 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to leave in a mass exodus that began on May 29, 1989.[17] After party leaders removed Todor Zhivkov on November 10, 1989, the new government under Petar Mladenov restored the right to hold Turkish names and eased religious and cultural restrictions on December 29.[8]

Officials claimed that Bulgarian Turks were descendants of Bulgarians who had been forcibly converted to Islam and Turkish culture, and presented the campaign as a restoration of Bulgarian origins.[18][19] Authorities implemented the renaming campaign by surrounding Turkish villages with security forces and military vehicles, while employers carried out some name changes at official direction.[20][21][22][23] Language, religious, and cultural restrictions were enforced through fines, surveillance, detention, and internal exile.[20][24] Deaths occurred during the repression of resistance and in prison camps such as the Belene labor camp, though death toll estimates vary among sources.[25][26]

The campaign drew criticism from Turkish and Western officials and media outlets, human-rights organizations, and international bodies.[27][28][29][30] After 1989, the Revival Process was increasingly condemned by Bulgarian political, religious, and civic institutions.[31] Following the fall of communism in Bulgaria, legal mechanisms for name restoration were established and Bulgaria undertook minority-rights reforms.[8][32] On January 11, 2012, the National Assembly of Bulgaria formally condemned the Revival Process.[33]

Terminology

The Revival Process

Scholars describe the term "Revival Process" as a euphemism, but economist Rumen Avramov writes that its use has become unavoidable.[34][35][36][37] The term was first used at a Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) Politburo meeting on January 18, 1985.[38] Scholar Alexei Kalyonski reports that the term was likely first used by Georgi Atanasov.[39][40] The term was not widely used at first, but became more common.[35] The policy has been described as forced assimilation and an "assimilation campaign".[37][39][41][42]

Bulgarian Turks

In communist Bulgaria, Muslim communities overlapped, and some Slavophone Muslims and Muslim Roma identified as Turks, with the latter sometimes doing so to avoid stigma.[43][44][45] In Bulgaria, group identity often combined religion and ethnicity;[46] Slavophone Muslims (culturally Slavic Muslims) living mainly among Turks tended to emphasize their Bulgarianness, while those living mainly among Bulgarians more often emphasized their Turkishness.[47] Officials used disputed ethnic categories, affecting people who did not fit official labels.[48][49] Turks and Pomaks were sometimes confused with each other by the state – deliberately or otherwise.[50]

Forced assimilation

Background

An image showing the distribution of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria according to the 1965 census. The image shows that Bulgarian Turkish populations were most concentrated in the country's south and northeast.
Distribution of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria according to the 1965 census

Lighter shades indicate higher population density, while darker shades indicate lower population density.

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983. Turkey's clear break with Kemalism worried the Bulgarian government.[51] The BCP leadership viewed these developments as a threat to Bulgaria, though there is no evidence that the Bulgarian government expected an imminent invasion of Bulgaria.[51][52][53][54] Before the Revival Process, Turkey also faced Kurdish unrest and foreign-policy disputes with Greece, Iran, and the European Economic Community (EEC).[1][40] Turkey also restricted some minority groups and naming practices.[52][55] Turkey's 1980 military coup weakened its "democratic credentials" internationally.[51] In 1981, Yugoslavia experienced unrest among its Muslim-majority Albanian minority.[52][56] The final pre-campaign discussion of the "Turkish Problem" therefore focused on security.[52] The Bulgarian government also feared the Turkish minority’s higher birth rate.[57][58][59] Extrapolating then-current trends suggested that Turks could outnumber Slavs in the 21st century.[57]

By late 1984, communist Bulgaria belonged to organizations and treaties protecting minority rights, but pursued assimilation policies instead.[60] The government feared a backlash from Turkey and sometimes avoided extending previous measures to Turks.[61] According to the 1975 census, Turks made up about 8.4 percent of Bulgaria's population.[62][63] Turks lived mainly in northeastern and southern Bulgaria, notably Kardzhali Province.[64][65]

Scholars generally date Islam's introduction to Bulgaria to the 14th century, after the Ottoman conquest.[66][67] Two theories explain the emergence of Turks in Bulgaria.[68] One theory traces the Turkish community to migration from Asia Minor, while the other rejects such migration.[68][69] The Bulgarian communist government said any members of the Turkish minority who felt connected with Turkey emigrated to Turkey under a limited migration treaty between Bulgaria and Turkey in effect from 1969 to 1979.[70][71][72] It also claimed those who remained were Bulgarians Turkified in language and religion.[19][18][73][74] Bulgaria justified this position through the use of phrenology, asserting that all studied Bulgarian Turks were morphologically Bulgarian.[75] To the Soviets, Bulgaria justified the renaming campaign as a realization of the social ideal of communism.[74]

Soviet minority policy also influenced Bulgaria.[76] Academic Vesselin Dimitrov linked the timing of the Revival Process to changes in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s that reduced external constraints on Bulgarian domestic policy.[77] According to Dimitrov, the renaming campaign coincided with a renewed phase of the Cold War, weakened Soviet leadership, and Konstantin Chernenko's extended illness.[77] Avramov further refers to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and changes in power in the USSR from 1982 to 1985.[78] Bulgaria's consistently pro-Soviet foreign policy gave the Zhivkov government more room to pursue assimilation measures than other Soviet satellite countries had.[77][79] Mikhail Gorbachev also gave tacit approval to Bulgarian minority policies.[80] Despite this, Bulgarian leaders denied Moscow's direct involvement in the Revival Process.[81]

İbrahim Karahasan-Çınar identifies several key theorists besides Zhivkov:[82]

  • Milko Balev - Central Committee secretary
  • Georgi Atanasov - Central Committee secretary
  • Pencho Kubadinski - Central Committee secretary
  • Stoyan Mihaylov - Central Committee secretary
  • Aleksandar Lilov[a] - Central Committee secretary
  • Dimitar Stoyanov (internal affairs minister) - Internal Affairs minister
  • Petar Mladenov - Foreign minister
  • Georgi Tanev - Kardzhali District Committee (Bulgarian: Окръжен комитет, romanized: Okrazhen Komitet) first secretary[39]

Karahasan-Çınar does not list Lyudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of Todor Zhivkov.[82] She had been a member of the BCP's Central Committee from the mid-1970s until her death.[b][49][84] Zhivkova championed Bulgarian culture and policies aimed at cultural revival.[49] Although she promoted an inclusive cultural revival emphasizing foreign ties, many around her favored cultural purity.[49][85] After Zhivkova's death, many of her ideas and projects faded.[86] Dimitrov writes that this helped non-inclusive ideas of cultural revival become dominant.[49]

Georgi Tanev said Bulgarian Turks had a strong group identity expressed through "language, tradition and customs", and that their social environment separated Turks from the body of the Bulgarian nation.[39] He submitted proposals to the BCP Politburo on how to address this situation and later rose through the communist state hierarchy.[39] Tanev later became internal affairs minister and received the Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria award.[39]

Shortly before the Revival Process, the Bulgarian government introduced a new, unified identity system under ESGRAON within the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works of Bulgaria.[87][88] The government tied the unified system to the planned mass issue of new documents by 1985.[87] State identification cards were required for access to banks, healthcare, and wages.[89][90] Those without identification cards bearing Bulgarian names were eventually prohibited from registering births or marriages as well.[90]

Shortly before the renaming began, Internal Affairs Minister Dimitar Stoyanov stated the Bulgarian government's intentions explicitly:[91]

The winter months must be used and the work must be basically completed within the specified time frame... I will mention a number that should remain between us. We are talking about several tens of thousands of people who we need to separate from the Bulgarian Turks, i.e. to reduce the so-called population of Bulgarian Turks in Bulgaria by 10-12 percent.

Initial campaigns

Todor Zhivkov, leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria during the period when the campaign was implemented
Todor Zhivkov, leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria during the period when the campaign was implemented.

From 1950 to 1951, the communist government expelled many Turks from the country. From 1962, the government barred Slavophone Muslims from attending Turkish-language schools, and in 1972, it entirely banned Turkish-language schools.[92] The government forced many Muslims to change their names; by 1974, around 150,000 Slavophone Muslims and 200,000 Turks had been forced to adopt new names.[93][94][95]

In 1971, the government adopted a new constitution that supported assimilation policies and weakened minority protections, though it still guaranteed rights relevant to the Revival Process.[36][96][97] Officials replaced the term "national minorities" with "citizens of non-Bulgarian origin", and their discourse increasingly framed minority identities as compatible with eventual assimilation.[36][98][99][100]

In 1978, the government tried to replace traditional and religious observances with approved socialist ones.[101][102] It sent officials to Islamic funerals to ensure participants carried out proper socialist rites and prayed in the Bulgarian language.[101] The prescribed rituals combined Bulgarian Christian elements with Marxist-Leninist atheism.[103]

Shortly before the Revival Process, the state made education policy more assimilationist, promoting mixed marriages, and requiring Turkish-minority teachers to undergo ideological training.[71][104] Between 1981 and 1983, authorities forced around 100,000 people, mainly Muslim Roma, to change their names.[105] It then extended the measure to Crimean Tatars and Alians, a Bulgaria-based Shia group, shortly before the Revival Process began in 1984.[105][106] The government also resolved to issue around 250,000 identity papers bearing new Bulgarian names to Muslim Roma.[107] Even before 1984, many people already felt the government was moving toward a campaign like the Revival Process.[108]

Start of the Revival Process

The BCP resolved on June 19, 1984, to carry out a "unification" campaign, and informed leaders of regions with substantial Muslim populations that autumn.[40] Orders to begin preparations for the implementation of the Revival Process were issued on December 10, 1984.[40][109][110] The Revival Process began on Gregorian Christmas 1984.[c][1][2] A Central Committee plenum in mid-February 1985[d] endorsed the campaign after Zhivkov had already extended it nationwide.[73][111]

Approved name lists

After disputes over which names should count as Bulgarian, officials compiled a list of approved names.[112] The list included many Christian names, including names linked to Eastern Orthodox saints and the church calendar, though it also included "neutral" names.[112][113] This list was originally meant to guide people in mixed marriages, but it later expanded in scope.[114] Officials did not complete the "Classifier of Bulgarian Names" before the start of the Revival Process, but the state provided indices from which people were required to choose their new names.[114] Officials accepted some foreign names, including Turkish, Armenian, and Arabic names, if they could be written in Bulgarian.[114] In addition, some Bulgarian family names were of Turkish origin, which presented a dilemma to the state.[114] The same body also sought to create an acceptable foreign-name classifier.[114]

Renaming

By late 1984, Bulgarian authorities had already renamed many non-Turkish Muslims, and then extended the policy to Turks.[25][109] Officials summoned individuals in their villages and required them to replace their Turkish names with Bulgarian ones chosen from approved lists.[112] Officials enforced the name changes through intimidation, which was often backed by security forces and military vehicles.[12][20][25][21] Employers also renamed Turks at the direction of officials.[22][23] The government required municipalities to enforce the use of the new names in public and private life.[115] Some Turks subsequently labeled as "collaborators" by other Turks accepted name changes under other measures.[116] The government described the renaming as voluntary, but outside observers called it coerced.[117][118][119]

At first, authorities required only Turks living in or from the Rhodopes to change their names.[40][120][31] Around 310,000 people in Haskovo and Kardzhali provinces had been renamed by January 18, 1985.[1][73][89][121] After receiving reports on the initial renaming actions, the BCP's Politburo ordered the expansion of the campaign.[73][122] Authorities implemented the order in February 1985, and on March 31 that year, the Bulgarian government declared the process completed and issued new identity documents to those affected.[25][123] The government seized the old identity documents and planned a census that year using the new documents.[124][125][126] Authorities conducted the census from December 4 to 12 and gradually released the results.[127] They did not publish the final census results until 1988.[127][128] "Turks" and "Muslims" entirely disappeared as categories in this census.[129] Despite the census data, sources differ on the number of people renamed:

Number renamed Time frame / scope Notes
800,000[109][31] Christmas 1984–January or February 1985 —
822,588[130] Revival Process up to June 1985 —
850,000[6][7][74] Revival Process —
850,000–1,100,000[131] Revival Process —
Nearly 1 million[132] December 1984–January 1985 —
1,306,000[130] 1984–1985 According to the source, this estimate might combine totals for Turks, Gypsies, and Pomaks, including name changes from mixed marriages.

Other policies

The Bulgarian government banned the use of the Turkish and Romani languages in public, although up to 70 percent of the Turkish minority could not speak Bulgarian.[133][134][30] The government extended the prohibition to Turkic Christian communities and banned public use of their language.[135] Signs warning it was "forbidden to speak" either "French"[e] or "in a foreign language" were posted in public spaces in majority Turkish areas.[137] Authorities fined people who spoke Turkish in public five leva or more, and sometimes imprisoned or exiled them.[20][24][40][138] One Turk was imprisoned for five years for persistently using Turkish, and another was exiled from Bulgaria for two years.[24] Authorities also eavesdropped on and sometimes interrupted Turkish-language calls.[89]

The government had already banned visible markers of Muslim identity, such as religious clothing, so people used substitutes.[13] For example, dark raincoats became substitutes for veils.[13] During the Revival Process, officials barred Islamic burials and traditional headstone shapes.[139] Washing the dead before burial was also outlawed.[89] The state further pressured Muslims to deface Islamic symbols and Arabic inscriptions on graves.[140] At times, Turkish families buried their deceased under headstones with only a photograph because religious symbols were prohibited and they did not wish to use the assigned "Bulgarian" name.[141] Local authorities ordered the defacement of the Turkish names of 2,000 individuals on gravestones near Pavel.[142] The graves of "well-known" Turkish-language writers in Bulgaria were destroyed in 1985.[143] Similarly, authorities had crescents that adorned minarets removed because the symbol is associated with Turkish symbols.[144]

Authorities also barred stores and restaurants from serving women in traditional Islamic dress.[15] In some areas, the wearing of fez hats and traditional Turkish pants were banned.[145][146][147] Authorities also destroyed Turkish-language books and other Turkish cultural items.[89][140] Officials inspected the mail of most Bulgarian Turks, and sometimes demanded the translation of mail written in Turkish for inspection.[148] Letters addressed to Turkish names were returned to sender as "unknown".[89] Turkish-language music was also banned.[149] Authorities additionally sought to promote traditional Slavic gatherings of young people (Bulgarian: седянки, romanized: sedyanki) among the policy's targets.[150] With respect to Roma specifically, semi-nomadic Mahala settlements were hidden behind concrete walls.[151]

Authorities strictly enforced the ban on circumcision and required Muslim parents to sign documents promising not to circumcise their child.[152] Officials inspected boys for compliance;[138] parents and those who performed the circumcision faced punishment for violations.[15][153] In 1987, Amnesty International reported the state imprisoned four women for between six and eight months because they circumcised their sons or grandsons.[30] The maximum allowed punishment for violators was a fine of up to 1,000 leva or three years' imprisonment.[154] Despite this, Muslims continued to practice circumcision.[20]

Communist Bulgaria appointed a chief mufti and regional muftis during the Revival Process.[15][155] The government chose these religious officials for their loyalty rather than for their religious training.[15][155] The state-appointed chief mufti said authorities did not prevent Muslims from performing rites and declared support for the renaming policy.[15][155] The national religious body for Muslims in Bulgaria at the time was known as the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Muslim Faith.[155][156] Remaining government funding for religious officials outside of the party was ended.[89]

State media and propaganda

The Bulgarian government controlled most of the country's media outlets, and many journalists came from politically acceptable backgrounds or were members of the ruling party.[157] In January 1985, Todor Zhivkov told the Communist Party's Central Committee the party should remain silent in the press and not issue even general information to particular groups to avoid speculation.[39] In subsequent years, the media echoed official narratives of the essential Bulgarian origin of the Turkish minority.[20] The press published the involuntary declarations of thousands of Turks affirming a Bulgarian identity,[20] and it insisted Bulgarian Turks, who were referred to as "New Bulgarians", approved of the renaming program.[158] Opinion polling indicated indifference among the general public toward the nation's Turkish minority.[159] The government largely refrained from mobilizing ethnic Bulgarians in support of the Revival Process.[159] According to Dimitrov, opposition to the process among ethnic Bulgarians was limited.[159]

Reaction and resistance

Many targets of the policy continued to perform circumcision and speak Turkish at home.[20] However, public resistance was often limited and uncoordinated.[20] Some individuals tried to avoid the renaming campaign by hiding in remote areas, but submitted after a few days.[40] Those who attempted to escape the renaming were punished by being assigned names most closely associated with the Christian religion.[160]

Turkish National Liberation Movement

One group was the "Turkish National Liberation Movement in Bulgaria", founded in Varna on December 8, 1985.[161] Among the organization's early members were Ahmed Dogan[f] and future co-founder and later chairman of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Kasim Dal.[g] Ahmed Dogan played a leading role as the organization's political theorist;[165] he said the organization never sought secession or to undermine state sovereignty.[166] The movement also sought official recognition of Bulgaria's Turkish minority.[167]

Dogan's role in the organization later became controversial; sources agree he was connected to the Committee for State Security (DS), the Bulgarian equivalent of the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), but they differ on whether he was among its founders or later assumed leadership.[168][169][170] Some scholars also say the DS played an active role in the Turkish National Liberation Movement in Bulgaria's creation and development.[170] In 1992, former senior intelligence officer Radoslav Raykov stated Dogan was infiltrated into the organization and convicted along with other leaders to build a legend for him.[171] According to Alexei Kalyonski, the term "Liberation Movement" suggests a connection to the DS.[172]

Most of the organization's membership was arrested by mid-1986.[173] Around 200 of its members were arrested and 18 stood trial.[172] Ahmed Dogan received a ten-year sentence.[172]

Armed resistance

While acts of political violence and sabotage were committed in Bulgaria during the Revival Process, scholars generally find no evidence of organized armed resistance to the Revival Process.[174] Rumen Avramov, who was an economic advisor to Bulgaria's first non-communist president Zhelyu Zhelev, said the scale of state repression prevented the development of organized armed opposition.[174] The Bulgarian government undertook reforms aimed at modernizing its internal security forces, including rearmament.[175]

Unorganized armed resistance occurred throughout the Revival Process.[148] Authorities reported more than 600 incidents they described as "terrorism", and blamed Turks and opposition groups, though the attribution and details of many cases are disputed.[174] For example, on March 9, 1985, an attack killed seven people in Bunovo when a train carriage reserved for mothers on a route between Burgas and Sofia was blown up.[h][176][177][178] A court sentenced the attack's perpetrators to death and the executions were carried out in late 1988.[177][179] The government used such attacks to justify tightened security measures.[179][180]

Belene labor camp

The image shows Belene Island, which is an island located along the Danube riverine border between Bulgaria and Romania.
Belene Island in the Danube River, where the authorities reactivated the Belene labor camp during the Revival Process

During the Revival Process, the Bulgarian authorities reactivated the Belene labor camp, situated on an island in the Danube River, to detain people whom they arrested for resisting the campaign.[181][182] The BCP used Belene as a labor camp until 1959, when it was converted into a prison.[181] Authorities typically held Turks who resisted in Belene for two–three months, though they held some for much longer.[109] In 1985, authorities incarcerated more than 500 Turks there for resistance to the renaming measures.[181] Authorities often held detainees without judicial sentences at Belene.[183] In April 1986, prisoners in Belene began a hunger strike that lasted around 30 days.[181] In May 1986, authorities released most of the prisoners and then exiled them to various regions of Bulgaria.[181] Authorities released the remaining detainees in early 1987 in districts populated by ethnic Bulgarians.[184]

Casualties

On December 26, 1984, in Mogilyane, security forces opened fire on demonstrators during protests against the forced replacement of Turkish names with Bulgarian ones, killing three people, including the young child Türkan Feyzullah.[185] Security forces shot Türkan while her mother carried the child on her back.[186] Mogilyane residents later erected a monument in her memory.[185]

Some Bulgarian Turks were victimized at protests like the one in Mogilyane in 1984 in opposition to official policies.[11][12][187] Others died in prison camps associated with the Revival Process, such as Belene.[187] Estimates of the number of people killed, injured, and arrested during the Revival Process varied:

Number killed Number injured Number arrested Time frame / scope[i] Notes
800–2,500[187] — — November 1984–February 1985 This estimate covers those killed, injured, or arrested in opposition to the initial wave of name changes owing to the use of the military to facilitate the campaign.
1,000+[187] — — November 1984–February 1985 This estimate covers those killed, injured, or arrested in opposition to the initial wave of name changes. The source notes that the 1,000+ estimate may be higher if deaths from neglect or suicide in Belene are included as death certificates in Belene were regularly falsified.
300–1,500[11] Several thousand Several thousand Late 1984–early 1985 This estimate covers those killed, injured, or arrested in opposition to the initial wave of name changes.
300–1,000[12] Several thousand Several thousand Late 1984–early 1985 This estimate covers those killed, injured, or arrested in opposition to the initial wave of name changes.

International reaction

Turkish president Kenan Evren expressed concern about Bulgarian policy toward the Turkish minority and pressed Todor Zhivkov on planned renaming measures as early as 1982.[39] Zhivkov denied the claims, as Bulgarian authorities generally did at first.[39][119] Following the start of the Revival Process, Turkish diplomatic responses were restrained.[39] Evren first formally protested the Revival Process in January 1985.[188] Despite official restraint, some Turkish and Western media described the Revival Process with terms such as "genocide" and "state crime".[42]

Bulgarian Turkish children left behind after their parents fled to Turkey drew particular concern from the Turkish public.[189] The street outside the Bulgarian embassy in Ankara was temporarily renamed after one of these children.[190] In 1987, Turkish state television aired a dramatization titled Revival Process about the plight of families separated by events in Bulgaria, prompting a sharp response from the Bulgarian government.[191] Often, Bulgaria responded to these denunciations with comparisons to the Kurdish issue in Turkey.[192] In line with the Helsinki Accords, the Bulgarian government did reduce efforts to obstruct the reception of critical Western and Turkish broadcasts to Bulgaria.[193] In response to the Revival Process dramatization, Bulgaria produced a five-hour-long film titled Time of Violence about violent, forced conversions to Islam in Bulgaria under Ottoman rule.[191]

Turkey also raised the Revival Process before several international bodies.[29] The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), predecessor to the OSCE, tabled the issue in both its May 7–June 17, 1985 and October 15–November 25 meetings.[29] UNESCO did the same at its October 8–November 12, 1985, meeting.[29] The Council of Europe condemned the Revival Process.[29]

In 1987, the Islamic Conference, a predecessor to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, sent a delegation to Bulgaria.[30] Following this visit, the organization published a report that was critical of Bulgaria.[30] The same body later adopted a resolution expressing concern about the Revival Process and reminding Bulgaria of its obligations toward minorities.[194] Other international organizations echoed this condemnation, including the United Nations, whose Human Rights Committee labeled Bulgaria as one of seven countries preventing the peaceful practice of religion.[194][28]

Muslim clerics from nations like communist South Yemen and eastern-aligned Syria made pro-Bulgarian statements.[39] Soviet-aligned nations were initially silent or neutral about events in Bulgaria.[39] The Soviet Union considered minority affairs an internal Bulgarian issue.[195] The Soviet press remained silent on the issue.[80] Only Greece supported Bulgaria among the nations of the European Community, despite Greek membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).[196]

Second wave of resistance

In the late 1980s, ranking members of the Bulgarian government expressed internal concern about the shortcomings of the Revival Process and the ineffectiveness of the assimilation policies.[197] The government undertook limited resettlement of Turks to western and northwestern Bulgaria, and the placement of Turkish children in assimilatory boarding schools.[198] Minister Pencho Kubadinski suggested people from the Soviet Union should be settled in place of resettled Turks.[198]

A second wave of organized popular resistance emerged and shaped open civil opposition to the communist government.[165][199] Most of the groups openly declaring opposition to the Revival Process, such as the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights, the independent trade union Podkrepa, and the Club for Support of Glasnost and Perestroika (Ekoglasnost) formed in the context of Perestroika.[200] On November 13, 1988, the Democratic League for the Protection of Human Rights in Bulgaria was established with Mustafa Yumer as chairman and grew to include several thousand members.[172][201] In April 1989, the Support Society–Vienna 89 was founded in the town of Djebel.[182]

These associations were at the heart of the "May Events" (Bulgarian: Майските събития, romanized: Maiiskite subitiya) from May 19–27, 1989.[202] Demonstrators, estimated at 30,000–53,000, carried out hunger strikes and mass protests, and at times clashed with police.[170] They aimed to attract the attention of the world community, especially the CSCE symposium "Freedom of the Spirit and the Human Dimension in Europe", which was held from May 30–June 23, 1989[j] in Paris, France.[141][203] Academic Mihail Ivanov notes that from May 19–27, 1989, between 25,000 and 30,000 demonstrators took to the streets in northeastern Bulgaria.[204] Some demonstrations turned violent.[172]

Bulgaria became increasingly isolated from its Eastern bloc allies during the Revolutions of 1989.[172] Diplomatic pressure on Bulgaria from Turkey also increased.[172] The president of France, François Mitterrand, visited Bulgaria in January 1989 and held meetings with dissidents at the French embassy in Sofia.[205]

The Bulgarian government responded to the protests by sending soldiers, fire brigades, and the national police (then styled as the people's militias) against the demonstrators.[206] The soldiers, who were serving a mandatory two-year stint in the army, were loaded into trucks covered with opaque tarps, without prior information about their assigned task.[206] Violent riot-control methods, including the deployment of tear gas and occasionally firearms, were used.[172] Sources differ on the number of protesters killed; Alexei Kalyonski estimated between seven–ten protesters were killed, and that hundreds were injured.[172] Tomasz Kamusella estimated that 30–102 protesters were killed and hundreds were injured.[141] According to Bulgarian authorities, only seven deaths occurred.[141] Opposition leaders were subsequently removed from Bulgaria;[172] Mustafa Yumer, for example, was expelled to Turkey.[172]

1989 forced migration

The Bulgarian government concluded that part of the Muslim population could not be assimilated and shifted toward promoting emigration.[25] At the end of May 1989, after prominent dissidents were removed, authorities enabled mass departures by loosening travel restrictions, intimidating individuals, and later opening the border with Turkey.[207][208] Authorities framed the departures as temporary tourist travel, and propaganda referred to the episode as the "Big Excursion".[208]

From May 29 to August 1989, over 300,000 people left Bulgaria for Turkey under state pressure.[17] In August 1989, Turkey temporarily closed the border with Bulgaria, ending the forced migration.[209]

Economic effects

In the 1980s, Bulgaria entered economic decline, and its government undertook reforms in response.[210] As early as 1987, Bulgarian state media discussed the looming financial insolvency of the country.[211] The events of 1989 brought the crisis to a head.[211] These events made the negative effects of the Revival Process on the Bulgarian economy clear.[212]

Aftermath

On November 10, 1989, party leaders forced Todor Zhivkov to resign.[25] The new Bulgarian government restored the right of Bulgarian citizens to have Turkish names on December 29 that year.[8] The new government denounced the Revival Process as a "deviation from 'Leninist' norms".[3] Less than two years after Zhivkov's resignation, the new government reopened religious and Turkish-language schools across Bulgaria and adopted a new national constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion.[26]

Restoration of original names

Although the legal right to use Turkish names was restored, those affected still faced obstacles when restoring their previous names.[213] In March 1990, Bulgaria adopted legislation enabling that restoration, but its early implementation was burdensome, requiring a court procedure and two supporting witnesses.[8][213][214] The law required people who restored their names to keep Bulgarian suffixes, such as "-ov" and "-ova".[213] By late May 1990, Bulgarian officials indicated about one-fifth of eligible people had applied to restore their names, although the total continued to grow.[8] For example, academic Yelis Erolova restored her Turkish name only after 1990.[9] In some areas, older Bulgarian Turks more commonly restored their names than younger people.[215] On November 16, 1990, the government adopted a reform that replaced the court procedure with a "less cumbersome administrative process".[8]

Strengthening of Turkish identity

The Revival Process strengthened Turkish self-identification among the targeted minority, who increasingly emphasized Turkishness over Bulgarian character.[20][216][217] This was tied to the Islamic religious traditions that separated Turks from ethnic Bulgarians, and was associated with the influx of foreign elements from Muslim-majority countries.[216] People described themselves as "Turks of Bulgaria" rather than "Bulgarian Turks".[217] Gruev and Kalyonski said these changes also sharpened boundaries between Bulgarian Turks and other communities.[218] According to Yelis Erolova, her family made her think of Turkey as her "mother nation".[9]

Nationalist backlash

Some local governments conceded to nationalist demands;[219] for example, the city of Razgrad bowed to nationalist pressure and decided not to teach the Turkish language in schools.[219] On October 25, 1990, the MRF club in Shumen was bombed.[219] When the National Assembly discussed measures related to the restoration of Turkish names, around 200 people protested outside.[219] Post-communist prime minister Andrey Lukanov expressed concern regarding the possible "unconstitutional" extension of the Turkish language to Pomaks through the teaching of the language in schools.[219] His successor, Dimitar Iliev Popov, similarly warned of "Muslim aggression".[219]

Impact on the Cold War

The alliances of the Cold War in 1989. The Eastern Bloc, including Bulgaria, is depicted in red, while the Western Bloc, including Turkey, is in blue.
The alliances of the Cold War in 1989

The Eastern Bloc, including Bulgaria, is depicted in red, while the Western Bloc, including Turkey, is in blue.

Prior to the start of the Revival Process, relations between the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Turkey were particularly strong.[58][196] Todor Zhivkov had even visited Turkey in 1983.[196] While the Revival Process was addressed in exchanges between the two sides of the Cold War, for a while, interactions proceeded mostly as they had before the campaign began.[142] The campaign strained relations and drew condemnation from NATO, but diplomatic channels remained partly open.[192][29] The Turkish ambassador to Bulgaria, Ömer Engin Lütem, described the most difficult phase of relations during this period as a "war of notes".[39] Because key Russian and U.S. records remain inaccessible and scholarship is limited, the campaign's late-Cold-War effects remain unclear.[220]

Relations sharply deteriorated in 1989; in August of that year, the United States recalled its ambassador to Bulgaria.[221][222] The United States Senate officially condemned that year's events in Bulgaria, and international actors organized a fact-finding mission without participation from any Eastern Bloc nation.[223] The Soviet Union refused to mediate between Bulgaria and Turkey when official tensions grew, although it engaged in shuttle diplomacy via its diplomatic mission in Ankara.[223][224] According to Dimitrov, the failure of these efforts convinced the Soviet leadership that Zhivkov had "outlived his usefulness" and led them to support an anti-Zhivkov faction within the Bulgarian government led by foreign minister Petar Mladenov.[225]

Further information: Todor Zhivkov § Trial and acquittal

In 1990, Bulgaria implemented an amnesty for those convicted of political crimes.[226] Authorities released 31 of 81 Turks imprisoned for resistance, but kept 50 convicted under the criminal code in prison.[226] Similar legal distinctions between "political" and "criminal" offenses existed in other states where dissidents faced criminal charges.[227]

On January 18, 1990, authorities issued a warrant for Zhivkov's arrest, and months later, he was moved to house arrest.[228] While formally under house arrest, he was reportedly allowed to travel around Bulgaria.[229] Prosecutors charged a number of defendants for abuses associated with the Belene camp, and Zhivkov faced additional charges unrelated to the Revival Process.[228][230] Some perpetrators of the Revival Process were never charged.[230] Although legal proceedings began in 1991, they were still ongoing when Zhivkov died in 1998.[231] In 2022, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges after the final defendant, Georgi Atanasov, died.[232] The case was initially terminated after Atanasov's death, but after protests from families of Belene camp victims, the Sofia Court of Appeal ordered the Military Prosecutor's Office to continue the investigation.[232][233] The court ruled that the procedural rights of victims of the Revival Process were not respected and that the case could not be terminated without a declaration from the Prosecutor's Office as to what crime had allegedly been committed.[233]

Legacy

Domestic

Memorial to victims of the Revival Process, Barutin, Bulgaria
Memorial to victims of the Revival Process, Barutin, Bulgaria

Kutlay writes that the reversal of the Revival Process, together with moderation by both the new government and the Bulgarian Turkish community, contributed to Bulgaria's democratic transition.[234] For example, Bulgaria's first democratically elected president, Zhelyu Zhelev, treated the Turkish political movement as political allies.[234] Zhelev worked to defend the nascent Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) against a legal challenge from nationalists and the post-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party that could have led to the MRF's dissolution.[234][235] MRF leader Ahmed Dogan worked to marginalize ultra-nationalist elements within the Turkish community, and refrained from calling for autonomy or independence.[234] The MRF also subsequently joined many of early post-communist Bulgaria's governing coalitions, though it failed to address many of the key problems of the Turkish minority.[32]

Kutlay writes that the allure and moderating influence of the prospect of European Union (EU) membership contributed to the reintegration of Turks into Bulgarian society.[236] In 2000, the EU adopted the Race Equality Directive and later formally requested Bulgaria's compliance with it.[237] The desire to join NATO and the EU created the political will to implement rapid reforms in order to reintegrate Turks and address the communist past.[32]

In November 2002, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church declared all victims, including non-Christians, of the Bulgarian communist government, to be "martyrs".[31] On January 11, 2012, the Bulgarian National Assembly officially condemned the Revival Process, although according to Tomasz Kamusella, scholars largely ignored the parliamentary recognition.[33][220] Kamusella described continued public commemorations of Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, including statements by national political figures praising him.[238]

After the recognition of the event by the National Assembly, the political party Ataka, described as far-right, introduced a new bill officially contesting the declaration.[239][240][241][242] According to the bill's authors, the declaration represented a boost for separatists, possibly a reference to Bulgarian Turks and Muslims.[242] Ataka's leader, Volen Siderov, said the 2012 declaration could open Bulgaria to substantial compensation payments and raised the possibility the country would be labeled as one that conducted policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing.[243] However, the parliament rejected the bill.[243]

Academic Trupia writes that, as part of the collective trauma of the Revival Process, some Bulgarians of Muslim origin were left to wonder what their names would have been but for it.[244] Scholars treat the renaming campaign not as a closed historical episode, but as a trauma whose effects have been passed down within families and carried into everyday life.[245]

Academic Natalya Lunkova notes that an anthology of memoirs focused on renaming by people targeted in the Revival Process received mixed reactions in Bulgaria.[246] Nationalists associated with the party Revival criticized the choice of topic and said attention should instead have been paid to transgressions carried out by Turks during the Ottoman occupation of Bulgaria.[246]

Every year, Bulgarian Turkish groups commemorate the official end of the Revival Process – December 29 – as "Liberation Day" (Turkish: Kurtuluş Bayramı).[247] In 2013, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms called for the inclusion of information about the Revival Process in schoolbooks.[248]

There have also been a number of linguistic effects on Bulgarian Turkish language use that have persisted to the modern day.[249] Additionally, these same communities exhibit a notable degree of codeswitching.[249] During the Revival Process, knowledge of Bulgarian among younger generations became nearly universal.[59]

International

In Turkey, a number of dissident and migrant organizations were formed by victims of the Revival Process and the 1989 migration.[250] Book-length works published in Turkey have often focused on individual accounts of the 1989 events and have usually appeared in limited numbers.[251] Turkish media widely praised the 2012 Bulgarian National Assembly's parliamentary declaration condemning the events.[252]

In a 2000 speech at Duquesne University, American National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, who had been stationed in Sofia during the campaign, referred to it only generally, later saying his audience lacked the background to follow a fuller account.[131]

Throughout the Revival Process, many targeted people sought refuge in countries other than Turkey, especially Austria, Germany, and Sweden.[253] Many found refuge in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[253][254]

Responsibility

The image shows the headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party, and later the Bulgarian Socialist Party, known as the Party House, in 1984. The building had a red star on its spire at the time when the photograph was taken and it retained that star at the time of the 1990 fire.
The "Party House" in 1984

The red star on its spire remained at the time of the 1990 fire.

The ruling communist party later placed personal blame on Todor Zhivkov.[255] The 2012 parliamentary declaration described the Revival Process as an abuse by the totalitarian communist government as a whole.[33] One 1994 study found that 71 percent of ethnic Bulgarians described the Revival Process as criminal.[256] The same study found that Bulgarian Muslims generally blamed politicians for the Revival Process.[256] Only 2 percent blamed ethnic Bulgarians as a whole.[256]

On August 26, 1990, a fire broke out at the Party House in central Sofia, then the headquarters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), successor to the BCP.[257][258][259] Different sources estimated the fire burned for between four–seven hours, destroying forty rooms and several documents.[257][258] Academic Kamusella wrote that records related to the Revival Process may have been destroyed in the fire, though the extent of any such loss was unclear.[257][258] Claims regarding responsibility for the fire varied.[258] Former National Assembly member and Sofia municipal councillor Vili Lilkov later stated in the first months after 1989, DS officers had been tasked with destroying or appropriating archives, and that many Ministry of Interior records had been stored in the Party House.[259]

Naim Süleymanoğlu (Bulgarian: Наим Сюлейманоглу) was an ethnically Turkish Olympic weightlifter born in Bulgaria in 1967 as Naim Suleimanov (Bulgarian: Наим Сюлейманов).[260] During the Revival Process, authorities forced Süleymanoğlu to change his name to Naum Shalamanov (Bulgarian: Наум Шаламанов), under which he first became a world champion representing Bulgaria.[261][262] He later defected to Turkey and gave speeches about the Revival Process, bringing attention to the campaign.[262] Bulgaria alleged that "Turkish secret services" had kidnapped Süleymanoğlu, though he was able to subsequently live freely in Turkey.[263] Süleymanoğlu competed for Turkey in international weightlifting competitions thereafter.[261][262] Following his defection, Süleymanoğlu won the gold medal in his weight class at the Summer Olympic Games in 1988, 1992, and 1996, representing Turkey.[264] The story of Naim's life leading up to his defection and subsequent 1988 Olympic performance is depicted in the film Pocket Hercules: Naim Suleymanoglu.[265]

The Turkish television presenter Gülhan Şen (Bulgarian: Гюлхан Шен), who was born in Bulgaria in 1978, was also affected by the policy.[266] In 1985, authorities forced her to change her name to Galina Hristova Mihailova (Bulgarian: Галина Христова Михайлова), and in 1989 she moved to Turkey.[266] The 2005 film Stolen Eyes depicts a romance between a Bulgarian Turkish woman and a non-Muslim man during the Revival Process.[267] In 2004, author Hristo Kyuchukov published the children's book My Name Was Hussein in the United States, covering the events of the Revival Process from the point of view of a young Muslim Roma boy who is forcibly renamed.[268]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Lilov was removed from power in September 1983. He later returned and even delivered the Mladenov government's official denunciation of the Revival Process in December 1989.[83]
  2. ^ Sources differ on the exact date that Zhivkova held certain positions from.[49][84]
  3. ^ There is some disagreement in sources as to whether the campaign began on the 24th or the 25th.[1][2]
  4. ^ Some sources give the date of the plenum as February 13–14, while others give February 18.[73][111]
  5. ^ The authorities sought not to refer to the Turkish language directly.[136]
  6. ^ Also referred to at this time as Medi Doganov.[162][163]
  7. ^ Also referred to at this time as Diman Sabinov Kisimov.[164]
  8. ^ Some sources instead give the number of victims as six.[176][177][178]
  9. ^ These estimates exclude events such as the 1989 unrest and expulsion.
  10. ^ This conference was held after the forced expulsion began, an eventuality unknown to protesters at the time.

References

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  247. ^ Sofia Globe 2018.
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  254. ^ Hillgren 2009.
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  258. ^ a b c d Vladimirova 2023.
  259. ^ a b Kolev 2020.
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  261. ^ a b Socrates Dergi.
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  265. ^ NTV 2022.
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  267. ^ Bulgarian National Film Archive 2026.
  268. ^ Kyuchukov 2004.

Bibliography

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