Turks in Bulgaria
Encyclopedia
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
number 588,318 people and constitute 8.8% of those who declared their ethnic group and 8.0% of the total population according to the 2011 Bulgarian census. 605,802 persons or 9.1% of the population pointed Turkish language as their mother tongue. They are also the largest minority group in the country. The Turks in Bulgaria are descendants of Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
settlers who came from Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
across the narrows of the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
and the Bosporus
Bosporus
The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...
following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule. It has also been suggested that some Turks living today in Bulgaria may be direct ethnic descendants of earlier medieval Pecheneg, Oğuz
Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....
, and Cuman Turkic tribes. The Turkish community became an ethnic minority when the Principality of Bulgaria
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
was established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This community is of Turkish ethnic consciousness and differs from the majority Bulgarian ethnicity and the rest of the Bulgarian nation by its own language, religion, culture, customs, and traditions. DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
research investigating the three largest population groups in Bulgaria: Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
, Bulgarian Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
and Gypsies confirms with Y-chromosomal STR haplotype
Haplotype
A haplotype in genetics is a combination of alleles at adjacent locations on the chromosome that are transmitted together...
analysis that there are significant differences between the three ethnic groups. The study revealed a high number of population-specific haplotypes and a low degree of haplotype sharing between the three ethnic communities.
Summary
Ludogorie
The Ludogorie or Deliorman is a region in northeastern Bulgaria stretching over the plateau of the same name. Major cities in the region are Razgrad, Novi Pazar, Pliska and Isperih...
) and the Southeast (the Eastern Rhodopes). They form the absolute majority in the province of Kardzhali
Kardzhali Province
Kardzhali Province is a province of southern Bulgaria, neighbouring Greece with the Greek prefectures of Xanthi, Rhodope and Evros to the south and east. Kardzhali Province area is 3209.1 km². Its main city is Kardzhali.-History:...
(66.2% Turks compared to 30.2% Bulgarians) and relative majority in the province of Razgrad
Razgrad Province
Razgrad Province , former name Razgrad okrug) is a province in Northeastern Bulgaria, geographically part of the Ludogorie region. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre - the town of Razgrad...
(50.0% Turks compared to 43.0% Bulgarians).
It is important to note, that it is difficult to establish accurately the number of the Turks and that it's likely that the census numbers are an overestimate because some Roma, Pomaks
Pomaks
Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
(Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
), Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars in Bulgaria
After 1241 , the year of the earliest recorded Tatar invasion of Bulgaria, the Second Bulgarian Empire maintained constant political contacts with the Tatars. In this early period , "Tatar" was not an ethnonym but a general term for the armies of Genghis Khan’s successors...
and Circassians tend to identify themselves as Turks.
Turks settled in the territory of modern Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
during and after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late XIV and early XV centuries. Being the dominant group in the Ottoman Empire for the next five centuries, they played an important part in the economic and cultural life of the land. According to the historian Halil Inalcik, the Ottomans ensured significant Turkish presence in forward urban outposts such as Nikopol
Nikopol, Bulgaria
Nikopol is a town in northern Bulgaria, the administrative center of Nikopol municipality, part of Pleven Province, on the right bank of the Danube river, 4 km downstream from the mouth of the Osam river. It spreads at the foot of steep chalk cliffs along the Danube and up a narrow valley...
, Kyustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...
, Silistra
Silistra
Silistra is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country's border with Romania. Silistra is the administrative centre of Silistra Province and one of the important cities of the historical region of Southern Dobrudzha...
, Trikala
Trikala
Trikala is a city in northwestern Thessaly, Greece. It is the capital of the Trikala peripheral unit, and is located NW of Athens, NW, of Karditsa, E of Ioannina and Metsovo, S of Grevena, SW of Thessaloniki, and W of Larissa...
, Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
and Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...
and their vicinity. Ottoman Muslims constituted the majority in and around strategic routes primarily in the southern Balkans leading from Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
towards Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
and the Adriatic and again from the Maritsa
Maritsa
The Maritsa or Evros , ) is, with a length of 480 km, the longest river that runs solely in the interior of the Balkans. It has its origin in the Rila Mountains in Western Bulgaria, flowing southeast between the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains, past Plovdiv and Parvomay to Edirne, Turkey...
and Tundzha
Tundzha
The Tundzha is a river in Bulgaria and Turkey and the most significant tributary of the Maritsa, emptying into it on Turkish territory near Edirne....
valleys towards the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
region. According to Aubaret, the French Consul in Ruse in 1876 in the Danube Vilayet alone there were 1,120,000 Muslims and 1,233,500 non-Muslims of whom 1,150,000 were Bulgarian. Between 1876 and 1878, through massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
s, epidemics, hunger and war a large portion of the Turkish population vanished. Turkish flow to Anatolia continued in a steady pattern depending on the policies of the ruling regimes until 1925 after which immigration was regulated. During the 20th century Bulgaria also practiced forced deportations and expulsions, which also targeted the Muslim Pomak population.
The biggest wave of Turkish emigration occurred in 1989, when 310,000 Turks left Bulgaria as a result of the communist Zhivkov
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
regime's assimilation campaign, but around 150,000 returned between 1989 and 1990. That program, which began in 1984, forced all Turks and other Muslims in Bulgaria to adopt Christian names and renounce all Muslim customs. The motivation of the 1984 assimilation campaign was unclear; however, many experts believed that the disproportion between the birth rates of the Turks and the Bulgarians was a major factor. During the name-changing phase of the campaign, Turkish towns and villages were surrounded by army units. Citizens were issued new identity cards with Bulgarian names. Failure to present a new card meant forfeiture of salary, pension payments, and bank withdrawals. Birth or marriage certificates would be issued only in Bulgarian names. Traditional Turkish costumes were banned; homes were searched and all signs of Turkish identity removed. Mosques were closed or demolished. Turkish names on gravestones were replaced with Bulgarian names. According to estimates, 500 to 1,500 people were killed when they resisted assimilation measures, and thousands of others were sent to labor camps or were forcibly resettled. During this period the Bulgarian authorities denied all reports of ethnic repression and that ethnic Turks existed in the country. The official government stance was that the Turks in Bulgaria were really Bulgarians who were Turkified and that the entire Turkish population voluntarily chose to change their Turkish/Muslim names to Bulgarian/Slavic ones.
The fall of communism in Bulgaria led to a reversal of the state's policy towards its citizens of Turkish descent. After the fall of Zhivkov
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
in 1989, the National Assembly of Bulgaria
National Assembly of Bulgaria
The National Assembly of Bulgaria is the unicameral parliament and body of the legislative of the Republic of Bulgaria.The National Assembly of Bulgaria was established in 1879 with the Constitution of Bulgaria.-Ordinary National Assembly:...
passed laws to restore the cultural rights of the Turkish population. In 1991 a new law gave anyone affected by the name-changing campaign three years to officially restore original names and the names of children born after the name change. In January 1991, Turkish-language lessons were reintroduced as a non-compulsory subject for four hours per week if requested. In the 2001 census in Bulgaria, 746,664 self-identified as ethnic Turks in Bulgaria (9.4%) this figure declined to 558,318 (8.8%) in the latest 2011 census.
Statistic results of the 2000 census on the foreign-born population in Turkey showed that 480,817 residents were born in Bulgaria thus forming the largest foreign-born group in the country. The number of Bulgarian citizens from Turkish descent residing in Turkey is put at 326,000, during the 2005 Bulgarian parliamentary elections 120,000 voted either in Bulgaria or polling stations set up in Turkey.
History
Turks, although today numerically small – about 1 million people (about 2 percent of the total Balkan population) - have played a role in shaping the history of the BalkansBalkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
far beyond their numbers.
Possible settlement of Turks in Bulgaria During the pre-Ottoman Period
While most Turks settled during and after the Ottoman conquest, there are indications that some Turks settled before this period.According to early Ottoman historical compilations and translations of Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi is author of the primary source for the history of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum during the 13th century. He served as head of the chancellery of the Sultanate in Konya and reported on contemporary events....
’s History of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum a well founded account is presented of Turkish immigration from Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
to Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
. Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi is author of the primary source for the history of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum during the 13th century. He served as head of the chancellery of the Sultanate in Konya and reported on contemporary events....
’s historical memoirs cover the period 1192-1281 well before Ottoman rule over the Balkans. The work of Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi
Ibn Bibi is author of the primary source for the history of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum during the 13th century. He served as head of the chancellery of the Sultanate in Konya and reported on contemporary events....
finished in 1281 and was written in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
for one of the last Rum Seljuk Sultans Kaykhusraw III
Kaykhusraw III
Kaykhusraw III was between two and six years old when in 1265 he was named Seljuq Sultan of Rûm...
. In his Turkish translation called the Oghuz
Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....
name Yazicioğlu Ali describes how Seljuk Turk troops joined their Sultan 'Izz al-Din Kayka'us II (Kaykaus II
Kaykaus II
Kaykaus II or Kayka'us II was the eldest of three sons of Kaykhusraw II. He was a youth at the time of his father’s death in 1246 and could do little to prevent the Mongol subjugation of Anatolia. For most of his tenure as the Seljuq Sultan of Rûm, he shared the throne with one or both of his...
) to help the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos
Michael VIII Palaiologos
Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus reigned as Byzantine Emperor 1259–1282. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453...
in his military campaigns. It is thought that during this campaign Seljuks settled in Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
. This migration of Anatolian Turks to Dobruja and their mystic leader Sari Saltik
Sari Saltik
Sari Saltik was a 13th-century semi-legendary Turkish dervish, venerated as a saint by the Bektashis in the Balkans and parts of Middle East.-Historical figure:...
is also described in the works of Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta
Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta , or simply Ibn Battuta, also known as Shams ad–Din , was a Muslim Moroccan Berber explorer, known for his extensive travels published in the Rihla...
and Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi was an Ottoman traveler who journeyed through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years.- Life :...
. According to sources these Seljuk Turks settled in area of Dobruja along the Black Sea coast in the borderland between what is now Bulgaria and their furthest outpost Babadag situated in Northern Dobruja.
Part of them returned to Anatolia, while the rest became Christianized and adopted the name of Gagauz
Gagauz people
The Gagauz people are Turkic speaking group living mostly in southern Moldova , southwestern Ukraine , south-eastern Romania and northeastern Bulgaria. Unlike most other Turkic speaking people, the Gagauz are predominantly Orthodox Christians...
. For these reasons it is unclear to which extent this group is connected with today's Turkish inhabitants of the region.. There are also some doubts about these events, which according to some scholars have the characteristics of a folk legend. Some historians have presented the view that the Turks in Deliorman are the descendants of Bulgars
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
, who had escaped Slavization and others that these are the descendants of Pechenegs or Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
who settled in the region around 1055. Islamization of this population before Ottoman rule has also been suggested.
Settlement of Turks in Bulgaria During the Ottoman Period
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, establishing a firm Turkish Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
base for further conquests in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Ottoman Empire used colonization as a very effective method to consolidate their position and power in the Balkans. The colonizers that were brought to the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
consisted of diverse elements, including soldiers, nomads, farmers, artisans and merchants, dervishes, preachers and other religious functionaries, and administrative personnel. Among the earliest arrivals were large numbers of pastoral peoples such as the Yürüks, Turcomans
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
(Oghuz Turks
Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....
), Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
from Anatolia and Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
(Qaraei
Qaraei
The Qaraei or Kara Tatar are an ethnic group who live between the Altay Mountains and the Black Sea, in Central Asia, the Middle East, Transcaucasia and Eastern Europe....
or Kara Tatar) led by their chieftain Aktav. As the Ottomans expanded their conquests in the Balkans, they brought nomads from Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
and settled them along the main highways and in the surrounding mountain regions. Densely populated Turkish colonies were established in the frontier regions of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, the Maritsa
Maritsa
The Maritsa or Evros , ) is, with a length of 480 km, the longest river that runs solely in the interior of the Balkans. It has its origin in the Rila Mountains in Western Bulgaria, flowing southeast between the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains, past Plovdiv and Parvomay to Edirne, Turkey...
and the Tundzha
Tundzha
The Tundzha is a river in Bulgaria and Turkey and the most significant tributary of the Maritsa, emptying into it on Turkish territory near Edirne....
valleys. The colonization policies already begun under Orhan were continued by his successors Murat I (1360–84) and Bayezit I (1389–1402). Additional colonists, mostly nomads again, were established along key transportation and communication routes in Thrace, Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, and Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
. The Ottoman authorities maintained these nomads in their tribal organization through the sixteenth century and began to settle them only during the seventeenth century.
In addition to voluntary migrations, the Ottoman authorities used mass deportations (sürgün) as a method of control over potentially rebellious elements in the Balkans and in Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
. Far away form their home bases, the potential threat of such elements was considerably reduced as in the case of the followers of the rebellious Karamani Pir Ahmed. Tribal resistance was followed by large-scale transfers of Karamanid Türkmen
Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....
nomads to Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
. Deportations in both directions occurred throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
After the defeat of Bayezid I
Bayezid I
Bayezid I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gülçiçek Hatun.-Biography:Bayezid was born in Edirne and spent his youth in Bursa, where he received a high-level education...
at the battle of Ankara
Battle of Ankara
The Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora, fought on July 20, 1402, took place at the field of Çubuk between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turko-Mongol forces of Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire. The battle was a major victory for Timur, and it led to a period of crisis for...
by the forces of Tamerlane in 1402, the Ottomans abandoned their Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
n domains for a while and considered the Balkans their real home, making Adrianople (Edirne
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...
) their new capital. The Timurid invasions and other upheavals in Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
brought additional Turkish settlers into the Balkans. Numerous Turkish colonists were settled as farmers in new villages. Vakıf deeds and regısters of the fifteenth century show that there was a wide movement of colonization, with western Anatolian peasantry settling in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
and the eastern Balkans and founding hundreds of new villages. Some other settlers came in search of military and administrative service, and still others to establish Islamic religious institutions. Muslims were settled densely along the two great historical routes of the Peninsula, one going though Thrace and Macedonia to the Adriatic and the other passing through the Maritsa
Maritsa
The Maritsa or Evros , ) is, with a length of 480 km, the longest river that runs solely in the interior of the Balkans. It has its origin in the Rila Mountains in Western Bulgaria, flowing southeast between the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains, past Plovdiv and Parvomay to Edirne, Turkey...
and Tundzha
Tundzha
The Tundzha is a river in Bulgaria and Turkey and the most significant tributary of the Maritsa, emptying into it on Turkish territory near Edirne....
valleys to the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. The Yürüks were settled mostly in the mountainous parts of the area. A census conducted between 1520-1530 showed that 19% of the Balkan population was Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
.
The greatest impact of Ottoman colonization in the Balkans, however, was felt in the urban centers. Many towns became major centers for Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
control and administration, with most Christians gradually withdrawing to the mountains. Historical evidence shows that the Ottomans embarked on a systematic policy of creating new towns and repopulating older towns that had suffered significant population decline and economic dislocation during the two centuries of incessant wars preceding the Ottoman conquest, as well as the ravages of the Ottoman conquest itself. Often re-colonization of old towns and the establishment of new towns were accompanied by bodily transplanting settlers from other areas of the Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
or with Muslim refugees from other lands.
Records show that by the end of the 14th century Muslim Turks formed the absolute majority in large urban towns in Upper Thrace such as Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
(Filibe) and Pazardzhik
Pazardzhik
Pazardzhik is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, Southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality...
(Tatar Pazarcik).
Ottoman Architecture in Bulgaria
in Bulgaria) who shared the responsibilities and tasks for the design and construction of all sorts of building projects. During Mimar Sinan's period as a chief imperial architect until the second half of the 16th century between forty and seventy architects produced designs for a very large labour force, controlled the construction of military and civil facilities, water and road infrastructure from Budapest to Cairo. The centralized has or hassa (sultan's property and service) system had allowed a small number of architects to control all significant imperial and most vakif building sites over the vast territories of the empire. In the 18th century the empire was opened to Western influence. By the late eighteenth century a growing number of Ottoman Christians were recruited. Until the very end of the Ottoman state the master builders maintained a cultural equilibrium between the Ottoman spirit and architectural innovation both in the Balkans and Anatolia. Turkish, Slavic, and Greek masters combining Western styles with Ottoman views extended the architectural landscape with one of the best examples being the Filibe-Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
symmetrical house. Innovations were derived from the Ottoman house and market (çarşı) buildings in Anatolia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.
Turks in Bulgaria from Liberation to Communist Rule (1878 to 1945)
_1892.jpg)
According to Justin McCarthy
Justin McCarthy (American historian)
Justin A. McCarthy is an American demographer, professor of history at the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds an honorary doctorate from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and is a board member of the Institute of Turkish Studies...
, who has been described as having a pro-Turkish bias, the Russian aim was to inflict massive Muslim civilian casualties. The victims are put into four categories: 1) battle casualties 2) murders by Bulgarian and Russian troops 3) denial of necessities for life leading to starvation and death from disease 4) death caused by refugee status. Members of the European press who covered the war in Bulgaria reported on the Russian atrocities against Muslims. Witness accounts from Schumla and Razgrad describe children, women and elderly wounded by sabres and lances. They stated that the entire Muslim population of many villages had been massacred.
It should be noted that the Ottoman army committed numerous atrocities during its retreat, most notably the complete devastation of Stara Zagora and the surrounding region, which might have provoked some of the attacks against ethnic Turks. There were also many Bulgarian refugees from those territories which remained part of the Ottoman empire.
During the War many Turks, including large and small landowners, left their lands. Though many returned after the signing of the treaty of Berlin they were soon to find the atmosphere of the lands they had left behind uncongenial and large numbers emigrated once again to the more familiar cultural and political atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. The decline in the Turkish-speaking population of Bulgaria in the period of 1880-1910 does not include these people and therefore give an absolutely accurate picture of the Turkish emigration for many Turks left before the first census was taken.
Bulgarian population increased from two and a half million in 1892 to three and a half million in 1910, and stood at over four and three-quarter million in 1920. This increase took place while a large number of Bulgaria's Turkish speaking inhabitants were emigrating. In 1881 the Turks represented almost a quarter of the population of Bulgaria and Rumelia, yet by 1892 the proportion was 17.21 percent and in 1910 11.63%; in the same years the Bulgarian speaking elements were 67.84%, 75.67% and 81.63% of the total.
During the Balkan Wars in August 1913 the majority Muslim population of Western Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
(including the regions of the Southern Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...
and the Kircaali/Kurdzhali region) established the Provisional Government of Western Thrace. The short-lived republic had a population of over 230 000 of which app. 80% were Turks and Pomaks. Western Thrace was left to Bulgaria with the Istanbul agreement signed on 29 September 1913 which guaranteed the rights of Turks living in the region. The region stayed
under Bulgarian control until 1919. Since Bulgarians comprised only a fraction of the population of Western Thrace ceding the territory to Bulgaria was seen as an unacceptable option by both the population of Western Thrace and Turkey at that time. Having lost the territory in 1913 the Ottoman State intended to keep the area mainly Turkish populated with hopes of one day regaining Western Thrace.
Turkish Press in Bulgaria 1879–1945
The Turkish press in Bulgaria established its self almost simultaneously with the foundation of the Bulgarian Principality in 1878. Under the new (”foreign”) Bulgarian administration the Turkish intellectuals felt the need to communicate the new laws and regulations to the Turkish population by first providing translations of the Bulgarian State Gazette. During the years the number of Turkish newspapers and publications published in the Principality of Bulgaria rose to 90.The Turkish Press in Bulgaria was faced with many difficulties and a significant amount of newspapers operated on the verge of being banned and their journalists being expelled from the country. Turkish journalists and teachers organised by establishing the Islamic Teachers Community in Bulgaria (Bulgaristan Muallimi Islâmiye Cemiyeti) and the Union of Turan Communities in Bulgaria (Turan Cemiyetleri Birliği) which was a youth organisation. The leaders of these organisations met during National Congresses held each year in different locations in Bulgaria. The largest National Congress was held in Sofia in 1929 with over 1000 participants.
Between 1895–1945 there were several well known Turkish newspapers in Bulgaria:
GAYRET:
The newspaper was founded in Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
in 1895 and printed by Filibeli Rıza Paşa.
In 1896 the famous Turkish thinker and intellectual Übeydullah Efendi wrote columns in Gayret and in a later stage became the newspaper’s head columnist.
MUVAZENE:
The weekly newspaper was first published in 20.8.1897 in Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
by the graduates of the Mektebi Mülkiye Ulumu Siyasie and printed by Filibeli Rıza Paşa. The newspaper’s operations temporarily moved to Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
before returning to back to Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
. One of the most known writers in Muvazene was Ali Fefhmi Bey who promoted the unionisation of the Turkish teachers in Bulgaria and was the instigator of the first Turkish teacher’s congress in Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
. During the congress the Islamic Teachers Community in Bulgaria (Bulgaristan Muallimi Islâmiye Cemiyeti) was founded.
RUMELİ – BALKAN:
Founded in 1904 by Etem Ruhi Balkan. After the first three editions the newspaper’s name was changed to Balkan. Daily editions were published until the eruption of the Balkan Wars in 1912. The newspaper was also printed by Maullimi Mehmet Mahri and Halil Zeki Bey. Since Etem Ruhi was often imprisoned the management of the newspaper shifted to Hüsnü Mahmut in 1912 and 1917 Halil Ibrahim became the head editor. The newspaper ended its publications in 1920.
UHUVVET:
Founded by unknown group of journalists in 24.5.1904 the weekly newspaper was printed in Rousse
Rousse
Ruse is the fifth-largest city in Bulgaria. Ruse is situated in the northeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the Danube, opposite the Romanian city of Giurgiu, from the capital Sofia and from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast...
and focused on politics and daily events. In 1905 Mehmet Teftiş became the manager of the newspaper.
TUNA:
Founded in 1.9.1905 by Mehmet Teftiş, Tuna was a daily newspaper printed in Rousse
Rousse
Ruse is the fifth-largest city in Bulgaria. Ruse is situated in the northeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the Danube, opposite the Romanian city of Giurgiu, from the capital Sofia and from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast...
. After 415 editions the newspaper ended its operations, however on 13.10.1908 the publications of Tuna resumed after a group of intellectual Turks established a separate company designated to meet the needs for a Turkish daily newspaper in the region. The main contributors in the new Tuna newspaper were Tahir Lütfi Bey, Hafız Abdullah Meçik and Kizanlikli Ali Haydar.
TERBİYE OCAĞI:
Established in 1921 by the Islamic Teachers Community in Bulgaria (Bulgaristan Muallimi Islâmiye Cemiyeti) and printed in Varna between 1923–1925. Known contributors in Terbiye Ocaği were Osman Nuri Peremeci, Hafız Abdullah Meçik, Hasip Ahmet Aytuna, Mustafa Şerif Alyanak, Mehmet Mahsum, Osmanpazarli Ibrahim Hakki Oğuz, Ali Avni, Ebuşinasi Hasan Sabri, Hüseyin Edip and Tayyarzade Cemil Bey.
YOLDAŞ:
Founded in 1921 by Hafız Abdullah Meçik and published every second week in Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
. Yoldaş was one of the first Turkish children’s publications in Bulgaria.
DELİORMAN:
Owned by Mahmut Necmettin Deliorman the newspaper started its publications in 21.10.1922 in Razgrad with Ahmet Ihsan as its head editor. Between 1923–1925 Mustafa Şerif Alyanak took on the job of head editor with weekly editions. Deliorman also functioned as the main publication for the Turkish Union of Sport’s Clubs in Bulgaria. Turkish columnists such as Hasip Saffeti, Ahmet Aytuna, Hafiz Ismail Hakki, Yahya Hayati, Hüsmen Celal, Çetin Ebuşinasi and Hasan Sabri were household names in Deliorman.
TURAN:
Founded on 6.5.1928 in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...
, Turan was a channel for the Union of Turkish Youth Communities in Bulgaria. The newspaper was also printed in Kardzhali
Kardzhali
Kardzhali or Kurdzhali is a town in Bulgaria, capital of Kardzhali Province in the Eastern Rhodopes. Near the town is the noted Kardzhali Dam.-Geography:...
and Varna until it was closed in 1934.
TEBLİGAT:
Founded in 1929 and published by the office of the Grand Mufti and Islamic Foundations in Sofia.
RODOP:
Founded in April 1929 in Kardzhali
Kardzhali
Kardzhali or Kurdzhali is a town in Bulgaria, capital of Kardzhali Province in the Eastern Rhodopes. Near the town is the noted Kardzhali Dam.-Geography:...
by Lütfi Takanoğlu. Rodop focused on the rights, freedoms and national matters of the Turkish population in Bulgaria. Most known writers in Rodop were Mustafa Şerif Alyanak and Ömer Kaşif Nalbandoğlu. As many other Turkish newspapers in Bulgaria Rodop was forced to stop its operations during 1934 and its writers were either expelled or forced to seek refuge in Turkey.
Professor Ali Eminov from Wayne State College has compiled an extensive list: “Works by Native Turkish Writers in Bulgaria/Turkish Newspapers Published in Bulgaria”
With the right-wing coup d'état of 1934, Turkish-language press was suppressed. Only in the course of the first year, ten of the newspapers were closed down (including Deliorman and Turan), and by 1939, a single newspaper Havadis ("The News") survived, only to be closed down in turn in 1941. The explanation cited was that the newspapers were disseminating Kemalist (Turkish nationalist propaganda.
Transfer of Land
The transfer of land from TurkishTurkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
to Bulgarian ownership which was the most important effect of Turkish emigration was a complex process. Such transfers had taken place before 1878, for example parts in the Tatar Pazardzhik
Pazardzhik
Pazardzhik is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, Southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality...
district, where Bulgarian landowners had been unknown in 1840 , some two thousand plots had been bought by them between 1872 and 1875. In 1877 and in the following years the process of transfer took place on an immensely greater scale, both here and elsewhere. In 1875 some 50% of the land in Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
was owned by Turks. A decade after 1878 as much as a quarter of the arable land in Bulgaria transferred from Turkish to Bulgarian ownership.
With the outbreak of war some Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
sold their property, mostly to wealthy local Bulgarians. Other Turks rented their lands, usually to dependable local Bulgarians, on the understanding that it would be handed back if and when the owners returned. Most departing Turks, however, simply abandoned their land and fled, the fall of Pleven
Pleven
Pleven is the seventh most populous city in Bulgaria. Located in the northern part of the country, it is the administrative centre of Pleven Province, as well as of the subordinate Pleven municipality...
had made it clear that the Russians
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
were to win the War. As the Turks fled many Bulgarians seized some of the land now made vacant. The incidence of seizure varied regionally. In the north-east the Turks were numerous and, feeling safety in numbers, few of them had left and those remaining were therefore strong enough to discourage seizures by Bulgarians. In the north and south-west on the other hand almost all Turks had fled and their lands were immediately taken over by local Bulgarians who often divided up the large estates found in these areas. In the remainder of northern Bulgaria transfers, often under the cloak of renting, took place in approximately one third of the communities. In the Turnovo
Veliko Tarnovo Province
Veliko Tarnovo is a province in the middle of the northern part of Bulgaria. Its capital city, Veliko Tarnovo, is of historical significance as it is known as the capital of Medieval Bulgaria...
province, for example, there were seventy-seven Turkish mixed Turkish-Bulgarian villages of which twenty-four (31.0%) were seized by Bulgarians, twenty two (28.5%) were later repossessed by returning Turkish refugees, and another twenty-two remained unaffected; the fate of the remaining nine is unknown. In the south-west there was much more tension and violence. Here there was no provisions about renting and there were cases of Bulgarian peasants not only seizing land but also destroying buildings.
In vast majority of the cases it was local Bulgarians who seized the vacant land but Bulgarians from other parts of Bulgaria where there had been little Turkish emigration and Bulgarian refugees from Ottoman repressions in Macedonia and Western Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
also took part in the seizures. In later months the publication of the terms of the Treaty of Berlin naturally intensified the flow of refugees from these areas and according to the prefect of Burgas
Burgas
-History:During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Debeltum was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian. In the Middle Ages, a small fortress called Pyrgos was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower...
province as helping themselves to émigré land “in a most arbitrary fashion” .
In Burgas
Burgas
-History:During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Debeltum was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian. In the Middle Ages, a small fortress called Pyrgos was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower...
and the rest of Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
the Treaty of Berlin intensified the land struggle by making Bulgarians more determined to seize sufficient land before Ottoman sovereignty was restored. It also encouraged the former Turkish owners to return. With these problems the Russian Provisional Administration had to contend.
The Provisional Administration did not have the power, even if it had had the will, to prevent so popular a movement as the seizure of vacant Turkish land, but nor could the Administration allow this movement to go completely unchecked for this would give the Turks and the British the excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of the liberated territories. Given these dangers the Russians handled the agrarian problem with considerable skill. In the summer of 1877 Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
and Ottoman Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
had been allowed to harvest the crops left by Turkish émigrés and in September all Bulgarians, the incoming refugees and the indigenous, were allowed to sow vacant Turkish land, though it was insisted that this did not in any way signify a transfer of ownership. With the mass exodus of Turks after the Treaty of San Stefano
Treaty of San Stefano
The Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano was a treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78...
the Provisional Administration had little choice but to allow the Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
to work the vacant land with rent, set at half the value of the harvest, to be paid to the legal owner. In many cases the Bulgarians simply refused to pay this rent and the Russians were not over-zealous in collecting such monies.
When the Treaty of Berlin guaranteed Turkish property rights and restored southern Bulgaria to the Sultan's
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
sovereignty at least 80,000 of the 150,000 Turkish émigrés had returned by September 1878. This caused enormous problems including housing the returning Turks whose property had been taken over by Bulgarians or destroyed. In September local authorities ordered that any houses taken over by Bulgarians were to be restored to their former owners on the latter's demand, whilst other returning Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
were given Tatar or Circassian land.
These problems were insignificant compared to those raised when the returning Turks demanded the restitution of their lost lands.
In July 1878 the Russian Provisional Administration had come to an agreement with the Porte by which Turkish refugees were allowed to return under military escort, if necessary, and were to have their lands back on condition that they surrendered all their weapons. In August 1878 it was decreed that those returning would not be immune from prosecution and anyone against whom any charges were substantiated would be deprived of his lands. This decree, more than anything else, discouraged the return of more Turks and from the date of this enactment the flow of returning refugees began gradually to diminish. There were, however, many claims still to be dealt with and in November 1878 mixed Turkish and Bulgarian commissions were established in all provinces to examine these claims. The decisions were to be made in accordance with rules drawn up by the Russian embassy in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
in consultation with the Porte, and under them Bulgarians could secure the legal right to a piece of land if they could produce the authentic title-deeds, tapii, and thereby prove that the land at dispute had originally been taken from them forcibly or fraudulently.
After the departure of the Russians
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in the spring of 1879 the administration in Plovdiv ordered to enforce court decisions returning land to the Turks. Only half of the courts had recorded such decisions. Other actions were even less emotive and in 1880 the position of the Bulgarians in Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
had improved. The Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
government introduced new methods for authenticating claims, allowing local courts to issue new title deeds if they were satisfied that existing documentation proved ownership, or if local communal councils had issued certificates attesting ownership. Most local councils were entirely Bulgarian or were dominated by Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
and decided in favour of their co-nationals far more often than did the mixed commissions with whom the prerogative of adjunction had previously rested. In many instances, too, Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
refused to relinquish land they had seized and as late as 1884 there were still Turkish landlords demanding the implementation of court orders restoring their property.
The Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
in Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
were also helped from 1880 onwards because the Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
began to drift once more into exile. This was very much the result of disappointed hopes for a full restoration of Turkish power south of the Balkan range. By 1880 the Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
had gained complete control of the province and to this many Turks, and particularly the richer and previously more influential ones, could not adapt. The Turks had never allowed the Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
social or legal equality. Now they were forced to concede their superiority and for many Turks this was too much to bear and they gratefully accepted offers of land from the Sultan and returned to the more familiar atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
The Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
were also encouraged to emigrate from Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
by regulations which affected the cultivation of rice - which was originally introduced to the region by the Turks. This was part of a project to eradicate malaria that included also draining of swamps in the Tundzha, Arda, and Maritsa Basins. The project succeeded in eradicating malaria, however, it also exacerbated droughts in those regions. Rice was a staple crop for the Turks and in its prohibition many of them saw yet another sign of unacceptable Bulgarian domination. An even more important impulse to Turkish emigration was the Bulgarian land tax of 1882. By Moslem law all land was owned by God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
but after the abolition of feudalism in the 1830s use of that land conferred temporary wardship upon the user, and thus the tithe which had been the main levy on land until 1882 conformed to traditional Moslem codes of thought and practice. The land tax did not. Furthermore land tax applied to all land in a man's possession not, as under the tithe, merely to that part which had been cultivated. This hit the Turks hard for they customarily left large proportion, in many cases as much as half, of their land fallow. Taxation now fell on the fallow land too but production and earnings could not be increased by the same proportion and as a result many of the remaining Turkish owners of large estates left Rumelia. Significantly 1882 was the peak year for the sale of larger Turkish properties in Rumelia, though the sale of such properties continued steadily throughout the first half of the 1880s. From the end of the war to the summer of 1880 only six large Turkish chifliks in Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
had been sold but the five years before union with the Principality of Bulgaria
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
in 1885 saw the sale of about a hundred. That most of the larger Turkish owners and many smaller ones left Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
was undoubtedly an important factor in the easy attainment of Bulgarian supremacy in Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
during the early 1880s.
In Principality of Bulgaria
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
as in Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
the chaos of war had allowed a number of seizures to go unrecorded meaning that the new occupiers were to be left in untroubled possession of their land. The Constituent Assembly had considered a proposal to legislate such illegal transfers but no action had been taken as Karavelov
Lyuben Karavelov
Lyuben Stoychev Karavelov was a Bulgarian writer and an important figure of the Bulgarian National Revival....
had easily persuaded the Assembly that it was pointless to legislate about so widespread a phenomenon. The Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
in the Principality
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
could afford such bold stance as there was little danger of direct Ottoman intervention over the land question. There was a constant stream of emigration by Turks from Bulgaria and by the early 1890s so many Turks had left the former Turkish stronghold of north-eastern Bulgaria that the government in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
began to fear that the area would be seriously under-populated. In 1891 the Minister of Finance reported to the Subranie that there were 26,315 vacant plots in the country, many of them in the north-east and most of them under twenty dekars in extent.
In Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
the government also took possession of Turkish land which had been vacant for three years. A number of returning Turkish refugees who demanded restitution of or compensation for their lands were denied both on the grounds that they had without duress left their property unworked for three years. Land rights of Muslim owners were largely disregarded despite of being guaranteed by the powers. De-Ottomanization of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia
Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia was an administratively autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire and Principality of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1908. It was under full Bulgarian control from 1885 on, when it willingly united with the tributary Principality of Bulgaria after a bloodless revolution...
led to the economic decline in the region.
Human rights
Bulgaria's constitutionTarnovo Constitution
The Tarnovo Constitution was the first constitution of Bulgaria. It was adopted on 16 April 1879 by the Constituent National Assembly held in Veliko Tarnovo as part of the establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria...
and various international treaties required it to grant minorities, including the Turkish population, equal treatment before law (however, the Tarnovo constitution also required, discriminatorily, direct government control over all minority religious communities). The policy of equal treatment was pursued inconsistently. All in all, Turks and other Muslims were able to freely maintain their own cultural life during most of the time until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but with periods of gross human rights violations, including a major onslaught during the right-wing authoritarian regime in the last decade of that period. Other abuses included denied access to public service
Public services
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...
and refusal of tax relief
Tax cut
A tax cut is a reduction in taxes. The immediate effects of a tax cut are a decrease in the real income of the government and an increase in the real income of those whose tax rate has been lowered. Due to the perceived benefit in growing real incomes among tax payers politicians have sought to...
and agricultural loans as a way to encourage emigration, as well as state appointment of Muslim mufti
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
s.
The condition of Turks and Bulgarian Muslims worsened gravely after the 1934 coup d'état and the establishment of Boris III's quasi-dictatorship and remained so until the Communist takeover. Muslim minority teachers were deprived of pensions and the participation of the Muslim community in political and cultural life was minimized. As mentioned above, there was an immediate assault on Turkish-language press and by 1941 all Turkish-language newspapers were banned. This was justified with the claim that it promoted Kemalist ideas. In general, pro-Kemalist organizations were systematically dissolved, as Kemalism was regarded as a form of pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism
Pan-Turkism is a nationalist movement that emerged in 1880s among the Turkic intellectuals of the Russian Empire, with the aim of cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples.-Name:...
that turned the Bulgarian Turks into a fifth column
Fifth column
A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within.-Origin:The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War...
of Turkey. Ironically, emigration to Turkey was nevertheless banned during this until the early 1940s, when the government decided to issue emigration permits en masse in order to get rid of the "fifth column". Turkey, on the other hand, was very reluctant to admit any huge immigration from Bulgaria. At the same time, the overall conditions worsened even more, as the pro-Nazi regime closed all Muslim minority schools as well as schools with a significant number of Muslim or Turkish members, shut down mosques and even medical centres in predominantly Muslim areas, and systematically distributed smaller wartime foodstuff portions to Turks and other Muslims than to non-Muslim Bulgarians.
The Turks were not targets of violent assimilation attempts during most of this period, although Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Pomaks
Pomaks
Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
) were targeted in two such state-organized campaigns - once during the Balkan wars
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
(which was later revoked by the Liberal Party government elected also with Pomak votes), and once in 1942, by the notorious “Bulgarian-Mohammedan Cultural-Educational and Charitable Association - Rodina”. This also involved a ban on Pomak-Turkish intermarriage and coercive replacement of the Pomaks' Muslim names with Christian ones.
Language and Education
After the Russo-Turkish War in 1878 the Turks in Bulgaria lost their social and political domination in Bulgaria. The official Turkish language became the language of a minority. In 1875 there were 2,700 Turkish primary schools, 40 secondary schools and 150 medreses in the Danube Vilayet. By 1913 the number of Turkish schools was reduced to 1,234 all of which had to be financed by the Turkish community.Following the First World War the Bulgarian government provided financial assistance to the Turkish schools and their number grew to 1,712 with 60,481 pupils. As the fascist regime gained power in 1934, Turkish school, which had adopted the Latin alphabet following the reforms in Turkey, were forced to teach in the Arabic script. This in order to reduce the nationalistic influences coming from Turkey.
As the Communists took control in Bulgaria in 1944 they delivered on their promises for more liberties for the ethnic minorities. Turkish schools were reopened and the usage of the Latin script allowed. The new regime however nationalised the schools and took them under state control. In 1944 there were 84,603 Turkish children in school age, 40,388 of whom did not attend school. According to the law graduates from Turkish schools were considered as illiterate.
In 1956 the number of Turkish schools is put at 1,149 with 100,843 pupils and 4,527 teachers. After 1958 the Turkish language in these schools was replaced with Bulgarian as the official language and Turkish became an elected subject. After 1970 teaching Turkish in schools was abolished and by 1984 the use of the Turkish language its self was deemed illegal. The only two remaining bi-lingual journals Yeni Işık and Yeni Hayat were printed in Bulgarian only.
Initial Improvements (1944-1956)
After the Communist takeover in 1944, the new regime declared itself in favour of all minorities and inter-ethnic equality and fraternity (in accordance with the classic doctrine of proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
) and annulled all the "fascist" anti-Muslim decisions of the previous government. This included banning the "Rodina" organization, re-establishing the closed Turkish minority schools and founding new ones. The new constitution had many provisions regarding minority protection and in particular guaranteed the right to mother tongue education and free development of culture for all national minorities. Further legislation required new Turkish minority textbooks to be issued and allocation of air time for radio broadcasts in Turkish. For the first time since the ban by the previous regime, Turkish-language newspapers and magazines and Turkish-language editions of Bulgarian press were launched, starting in 1945, including Vatan ("Fatherland"), Işık ("Light"), Halk Gençliği, Yeni Işık and Yeni Hayat ("New Life"). In 1947, even an "affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
"-like policy was implemented, as Turkish minority members were accepted to higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
institutions without an entrance examination; such practices would continue in later years, as special efforts were made to further the active involvement of Muslims in the Communist Party and in the political life of the country; but this special treatment may have been motivated also by the hope that such integration could encourage their cultural assimilation as well. However, the emigration of Turks and Pomaks to Turkey was periodically banned starting in 1949; Turkey also obstructed immigration from Bulgaria with tough requirements. Also, Turks and other minorities were not admitted into military service
Military service
Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...
for some time, and even after the official decision to allow it in 1952, their admission would still require them to meet certain undefined political criteria.
The Assimilation Policy (1956–1989)
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
constitution" of 1971 replaced the term "national minorities" with "nationals of non-Bulgarian origin".
Campaign against the Pomaks
The assimilation policy targeted first the Bulgarian speaking Muslim population, the Pomaks
Pomaks
Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
, continuing the practice of the pre-Communist regime. Some of the methods used by “Rodina” were adopted by the Communist regime and the Pomaks were systematically targeted mainly in 1964 and 1970-1974. There are numerous examples of the brutality employed during these forced assimilation operations such as the events in March 1972 in the village of Barutin
Barutin
Barutin is a village in southwestern Bulgaria. It is located in the municipality of Dospat, Smolyan Province.- Geography :The village of Barutin is located in the Western Rhodope Mountains. It is situated in the Chech region.- History :...
where police and state security forces violently crushed a demonstration against the assimilation policies of the regime by the majority Muslim population killing 2 civilians and inflicting gunshot wounds on scores of others. In March 1973 in the village of Kornitsa
Kornitsa
Kornitsa is a village in the municipality of Gotse Delchev, in Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria.-References:...
situated in the mountainous region of South-West Bulgaria the local Muslim population resisted the forced name changing and attempted to demonstrate against the government’s suppressive actions. As a response the Bulgarian security forces killed 5 villagers and wounded scores of civilians. By 1974, 500 of the 1,300 inmates of the notorious Belene labour camp
Belene labour camp
The Belene labour camp, also referred to as Belene concentration camp, was part of the network of forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria...
were Pomaks who had resisted pressure to change their names.
The "Revival Process"
The assimilation attempts culminated between 1984-1989 when the target became Bulgaria’s Turkish community and the Bulgarian government forced 900,000 people, 10 percent of the country's population, to change their names. The people affected were all ethnic Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
. By 1984 other Muslims, mostly the Muslim Roma
Muslim Roma
Muslim Roma or Muslim Gypsies are Romani people who adopted Islam. Romanies have usually adopted the predominant religion of the host country. Islam among Romanies is historically associated with life of Romanies within the Ottoman Empire...
and the Pomaks
Pomaks
Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
had already been forced to give up their Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
or Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
names for Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
names. The government had been encouraging the educated Turks to voluntarily adopt Bulgarian names.
The exact reasons for Zhivkov's mass-scale assimilation programme are unclear, but it is believed that one of the main factors was the projection that by 1990 the Bulgarian population would experience a zero or negative population growth resulting in increasing Muslim population and declining Bulgarian population.
In June 1984, the Politbureau voted a policy named “For the further unification and inclusion of Bulgarian Turks into the cause of socialism and the policies of the Bulgarian Communist Party". The plan was to re-name all Islamic minorities with Slavic names, ban the wearing of distinctive Turkish clothing, to forbid the use of the Turkish language and close down the mosques. The assimilation campaign was sold to the ethnic Bulgarian majority as an attempt for national “revival” and was called by the authorities the “The Revival Process”. The ideology behind the term, originally used for the less publicized attempts at assimilation of the Pomaks in the early 1970s, was that the targeted minority had "originally" been Bulgarian before its conversion or assimilation during the period of Ottoman rule. Thus, the assimilation was supposedly justified by its being a restoration of the population's original, "real" identity.
As it was later to turn out the regime was misled by its own agents among the Turkish minority and taken aback when the Turkish minority refused to submit to the aims of the assimilation campaign. The regime found its self in a position where they had to use violence.
On December 24, 1984 Bulgarian police and security forces fired the first shots against the Turkish community in the village of Mlechino (Present name of Süt Kesiği). While Mlechino was held under siege by Bulgarian security forces some 200 Turkish villagers from the smaller nearby towns attempted to break the siege and protest for the return of their passports and reinstatement of their Turkish names. This pattern repeated in many areas in Bulgaria populated with Turks. People from smaller towns and villages attempted to march and enter larger towns and villages to find a government official with greater jurisdiction who would be able to explain why the Turks were being targeted and when they would be able to reinstate their Turkish names and receive back their original identification documents. Often these larger towns of central administration were unreachable since they were besieged by Bulgarian security forces.
On 25 December 1984, close to the town of Benkovski, some 3,000 Turkish protesters from the nearby smaller villages confronted Bulgarian security forces and demanded to have their original identification papers back. The Bulgarian security forces managed to disperse the crowd claiming that they have no idea where their identification papers were and urged them to go back to their villages and inquire from the local mayors. The large police presence was explained with undergoing security forces “exercise manoeuvres”. After returning to their towns and discovering that the local municipality didn't have their passports and ID documentation the crowd headed back, this time more decisively, towards the town of Benkovski on the next day (26 December 1984). The Bulgarian police and security forces were prepared and awaiting with some 500 armed men in position. When the crowd of 2,000 Turkish villagers approached the Bulgarian security forces opened fire with automatic weapons wounding 8 people and killing 4. One of the killed was a 17-month old Turkish baby. The killed were from the villages of Kayaloba, Kitna and Mogiljane. Judging from the wounds of the dead and wounded the police and security force had been aiming at the mid-section of the bodies. The captured demonstrators were faced down on the snow for 2 hours and blasted with cold water coming from the fire fighting trucks. In a report by Atanas Kadirev the head of the Ministry of Interior Forces in Kardzhali
Kardzhali
Kardzhali or Kurdzhali is a town in Bulgaria, capital of Kardzhali Province in the Eastern Rhodopes. Near the town is the noted Kardzhali Dam.-Geography:...
it is stated “It was interesting that they were able to absorb all the water from the fire fighting trucks in a standing position”. The temperature that day was minus 15 degrees Celsius.
On the same day, 26 December 1984, the Turkish community in the village of Gruevo, situated in Momchilgrad
Momchilgrad
Momchilgrad , is a town in the very south of Bulgaria, part of Kardzhali Province in the southeastern part of the Eastern Rhodopes. It is largely settled by ethnic Turks....
county, resisted the entry of security forces vehicles into the village by burning truck tires on the main road. The villagers were temporarily successful, but the security forces returned later that night with reinforcements. The electricity to the village was cut. The villagers organised at the village entrance but were blasted with water mixed with sand coming from the hoses of the fire fighting trucks. Some of the security forces opened fire directly at the villagers and several civilians were wounded and killed. The wounded from bullets attempted to seek help from hospitals but were refused medical treatment. There are reports of incarcerated Turks committing "suicide" while held for police questioning. In demonstrations in Momchilgrad
Momchilgrad
Momchilgrad , is a town in the very south of Bulgaria, part of Kardzhali Province in the southeastern part of the Eastern Rhodopes. It is largely settled by ethnic Turks....
at least one 16 year old youngster was shot and killed and there are reports of casualties also in Dzhebel
Dzhebel
Dzhebel is a town in Kardzhali Province, southern Bulgaria. It has 3,312 inhabitants. Dzhebel is the administrative center of a municipality, which apart from Dzhebel itself, contains 47 other villages and has a population of 9093. The municipality is mainly populated by ethnic Turks, which are...
. According to the Bulgarian “Ministry of Interior” during these few Christmas days there have been some 11 demonstrations in which approximately 11,000 Turks participated. A large number of the arrested protesters were later sent to the “Belene labour camp
Belene labour camp
The Belene labour camp, also referred to as Belene concentration camp, was part of the network of forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria...
” at the gates of which it is written “All Bulgarian citizens are equal under the laws of the People's Republic of Bulgaria”
One of the most notable confrontations between the ethnic Turk population and the Bulgarian State Security apparatus and army was in the village of Yablanovo during January 1985 where the Turkish population resisted the tanks of the 3rd Bulgarian Army for 3 days. When the village was overrun by the Bulgarian Army the town hall was made a temporary Command Centre and became the scene of terrifying acts of brutality in the name of “Bulgarisation”. The torture and violation of the captured resisting Turks was later continued in the underground cellars of the Ministry of Interior in the city of Sliven
Sliven
Sliven is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality. It is a relatively large town with 89,848 inhabitants, as of February 2011....
. The interrogation methods applied on the captured villagers were depicted with the torture of “Jesus Christ before his crucifixion”. Over 30 people are reported killed during the events in Yablanovo.
The regime’s violence did achieve its immediate aims. All Turks had been registered with Slavic names, Turkish was forbidden in public and the mosques abandoned. This however was not the end of the matter but the beginning of the revival of the Turkish identity where the oppressed minority strongly re-defined itself as Muslim and distinct. Bulgarians came to be seen as occupiers and oppressors and protest demonstrations took place in some of the bigger villages in the southern and northern Turk enclaves. Moreover, the Turkish community received the solidarity of Bulgarian intellectuals and opponents of the regime.
Militant attacks
Several militant attacks were committed in the period between 1984 and 1985. Some of the acts were committed before the start of the "Revival Process" (December 1984). The first attack was on August 30, 1984, when one bomb exploded on Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
's railway station and another one in the Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
airport on a date when Todor Zhivkov
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
was scheduled to visit the two towns. One woman was killed and 41 were wounded. On March 9, 1985, an explosive device was planted on the Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
-Burgas
Burgas
-History:During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Debeltum was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian. In the Middle Ages, a small fortress called Pyrgos was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower...
train and exploded on Bunovo station in a car that was specifically designated for mothers with children, killing seven people (two children) and wounding nine. The accused perpetrators, three Turkish men from the Burgas
Burgas
-History:During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Debeltum was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian. In the Middle Ages, a small fortress called Pyrgos was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower...
region who belonged to the illegal Turkish National Liberation Front (TNLF), were arrested, sentenced to death and executed in 1988. According to other sources the Turkish National Liberation Front was not founded until June 1985 (three months after the Bunovo attack). Certain publicists, such as Bulgarian politician and lawyer Yanko Yankov, have suggested that the three men were actually associates of the Bulgarian State Security Service
Committee for State Security
The Committee for State Security , popularly known as State Security was the name of the Bulgarian secret service during the Communist rule of Bulgaria and the Cold War ....
, drawing the conclusion that the terrorist acts were provocation
Provocation
Provocation and provoke may refer to:* Provocation , a type of legal defense in court which claims the "victim" provoked the accused's actions...
s, organized by the regime., though this is not a widely accepted theory.
Apart from these acts, the ethnic Turks in Bulgaria used nonviolent ways to resist the regime's oppression, though as noted above there were some violent clashes during the actual renaming process. Notably, intellectuals founded a movement, which was claimed to be the predecessor of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms
Movement for Rights and Freedoms
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms is an ethnic Turkish party in Bulgaria. The MRF is a member of the Liberal International and considers itself a liberal party, rather like the Swedish People's Party - party of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland...
(MRF). It used civil disobedience and focused on providing information to the outside world of the physical persecution and suppression suffered by the Turks in Bulgaria. The activities of the movement consisted of peaceful demonstrations and hunger strikes with the goal of restoring civil liberties and basic human rights.
The "Big Excursion"
In May 1989 there were disturbances in regions inhabited by members of the Turkish minority. In the so called “May events” of 1989 emotions reached the boiling point and tens of thousands Turkish demonstrators took to the streets in the north-eastern and south-eastern provinces. The demonstrations were violently suppressed by police and the military forces. On the 6th of May members of the Turkish community initiated mass hungers strikes and demanded the restitution of the their Muslim names and civil liberties in accordance with the country’s constitution and international treaties signed by Bulgaria. The participants were member of the “Democratic League” and the “Independent Association”. The regime responded with mass detentions and the deportation of activists to foreign countries such as Austria and Turkey. Individuals were driven to the Yugoslav, Romanian or Turkish borders presented with a tourist passport and extradited without even having a chance of contacting their families first. The mass demonstration in major cities and the regions like Razgrad
Razgrad
Razgrad is a city in northeastern Bulgaria, administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Razgrad Province. As of February 2011, it has a population of 33,238 inhabitants.-History:...
, Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
, Kardzhali
Kardzhali
Kardzhali or Kurdzhali is a town in Bulgaria, capital of Kardzhali Province in the Eastern Rhodopes. Near the town is the noted Kardzhali Dam.-Geography:...
and Silistra
Silistra
Silistra is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country's border with Romania. Silistra is the administrative centre of Silistra Province and one of the important cities of the historical region of Southern Dobrudzha...
continued systematically all through May 1989. According to the Turkish government 50 people were killed during the clashes with Bulgarian security forces. The Bulgarian government has put the death toll at only 7. On 10 May 1989 travel restrictions to foreign countries were partly lifted (only for the members of the Turkish minority). Todor Zhivkov
Todor Zhivkov
Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....
gave a speech on 29 May 1989, in which he stated that those who didn't want to live in Bulgaria could emigrate to Turkey and demanded that Turkey open its borders in order to receive all "Bulgarian Muslims", who wanted to live there. There followed an exodus of over 300,000 Turks to Turkey, which became known as "The Big Excursion". The first wave of refugees was forcefully extradited from Bulgaria. These first deportees consisted of the prisoners of the Belene labour camp
Belene labour camp
The Belene labour camp, also referred to as Belene concentration camp, was part of the network of forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria...
their families and other Turkish activists. People were given 24 hours to gather their luggage before being driven to the border with Turkey in special convoys. Under psychological pressures and fear these were followed by hundreds of thousands. There were also cases were activists of Turkish movements pressured Turks to leave. During the protests in May the Turkish population effectively abandoned their workplaces in the industrial and agricultural sector. The loss of hundreds of thousands of workers had severe consequences on the production cycle and the whole Bulgarian economy.
Migration and Expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey
| Years | Total |
|---|---|
| 1877–78 | 130,000 1,000,000 |
| 1912–1930 | 240,000 |
| 1931–1939 | 100,000 |
| 1950–1951 | 150,000 |
| 1969–1974 | 52,000 |
| 1979 | 50,000 |
| 1989 | 320,000 (to 1990 150,000 of them returned in Bulgaria) |
Official Recognition of Ethnic Cleansing
The Bulgarian Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Religious Freedom approved in February 2010 a declaration, condemning the Communist regime's attempt to forcefully assimilate the country's ethnic Turkish population. The Committee declared the forceful expulsion of 360 000 Turks in 1989 as a form of ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
. The committee requested the Bulgarian judiciary and the Chief Prosecutor to renew the case against the architects of the Revival Process
Revival Process
The Revival process was the official name of the attempted forceful assimilation of the ethnic Turks of Bulgaria in the period 1984 - 1989....
.
Collapse of Zhivkov regime and civil liberties given to Turks
On November 10, 1989 Bulgaria's Communist regime was overthrown. On December 29 a governmental decision was made allowing the Turks of Bulgaria to re-adopt their Turkish names. This was ratified as a law in March 1990. Within one year some 600 thousand applications were received for the reinstatement of Turkish birth given names. In the same year the Institutition of the Spiritual leader of the Muslims in Bulgaria, the Grand Mufti’s Office was founded. In 1991 a new Constitution was adopted granting citizens of non-Bulgarian origin a wide range of rights and lifting the legislative ban on teaching in Turkish. In January of the same year another law was adopted allowing the Turks to change their names or «strike out» their Slavonic endings like «ov», «ova», «ev», «eva» within three years http://www.noravank.am/file/article/257_en.pdf.As in other parts of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, the repeal of single-party rule in Bulgaria exposed the long-standing grievances of an ethnic minority. The urban intelligentsia that participated in the 1990 reform movement pushed the post-Zhivkov governments toward restoring constitutionally guaranteed human rights to the Turks. But abrogation of Zhivkov's assimilation program soon after his fall brought massive protests by ethnic Bulgarians.
In January 1990, the Social Council of Citizens, a national body representing all political and ethnic groups, reached a compromise that guaranteed the Turks freedom of religion, choice of names, and unimpeded practice of cultural traditions and use of Turkish within the community. In turn the Bulgarians were promised that Bulgarian would remain the official language and that no movement for autonomy or separatism would be tolerated. Especially in areas where Turks outnumbered Bulgarians, the latter feared progressive "Islamification" or even invasion and annexation by Turkey—a fear that was based on the traditional enmity after the Ottoman rule and had been stirred up after the 1974 invasion of Cyprus. This had been part of the propaganda during by the Zhivkov assimilation campaign and was revived by politicians in post-Communist Bulgaria. Because radical elements of the Turkish population did advocate separatism, however, the non-annexation provision of the compromise was vital.
The Bulgarian governments that followed Zhivkov tried to realize the conditions of the compromise as quickly as possible. In the multiparty election of 1990, the Turks won representation in the National Assembly by twenty-three candidates of the predominantly Turkish MRF (The Movement for Rights and Freedoms). At that point, ethnic Bulgarians, many remaining from the Zhivkov regime, still held nearly all top jobs in government and industry, even in the predominantly Turkish Kurdzhali Province. Parts of Bulgarian society felt threatened by the rise of the MRF. The Bulgarian National Radical Party (BNRP) threatened to surround the Bulgarian Parliament building on the day of the newly elected legislature was scheduled to convene. The BNRP protested the participation of ethnic Turks in the National Assembly and the teaching of Turkish language as a standard curriculum in secondary school with large numbers of Turkish students.
The Fatherland Party of Labour (FPL) was established as the political wing of the National Committee for Defense of National Interests (CDNI). According to its own historiography the FPL emerged due to pressure from ordinary Bulgarian citizens who were outraged by the fact that the MRF was allowed to participate in the 1990 elections. CDNI members were mainly small-shop owners, artisans, farmers and elements of the local communist nomenklatura. The CDNI did not limit its self to rhetoric but also arranged protests against ethnic Turks returning to Bulgaria to claim back their names and property. In October 1991 violent outbreaks occurred between Bulgarian nationalists and Turkish activists in Razgrad
Razgrad
Razgrad is a city in northeastern Bulgaria, administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Razgrad Province. As of February 2011, it has a population of 33,238 inhabitants.-History:...
.
Bulgarian nationalist forces tried to take advantage of the country’s hard economic and uncertain political conditions. In November 1990 massive protests were staged by Bulgarian nationalists in Razgrad
Razgrad
Razgrad is a city in northeastern Bulgaria, administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Razgrad Province. As of February 2011, it has a population of 33,238 inhabitants.-History:...
area inhabited by a large number of Turks. The nationalists declared an “independent Bulgarian republic” and refused to recognize Sofia’s authority over the region. In late November the “Razgrad Republic” was renamed the Association of Free Bulgarian Cities, linking several towns with large Turkish population. The CDNI and other groups opposed restoration of Turkish names, Turkish language lessons in Bulgarian schools and the recognition of ethnic Turks as a national minority in Bulgaria.
These conditions forced the government to find a balance between Turkish demands and demonstrations for full recognition of their culture and language, and some Bulgarians' concerns about preferential treatment for the ethnic minority. In 1991 the most important issue of the controversy was restoring Turkish language teaching in the schools of Turkish ethnic districts. In 1991 the Popov government took initial steps in this direction, but long delays brought massive Turkish protests, especially in Kurdzhali. In mid-1991 continuing strikes and protests on both sides of the issue had brought no new discussions of compromise. Frustration with unmet promises encouraged Turkish separatists in both Bulgaria and Turkey, which in turn fueled the ethnocentric fears of the Bulgarian majority —and the entire issue diverted valuable energy from the national reform effort. The problem was mostly solved in 1991. In the same year a new constitution was adopted which guaranteed citizen with a native language other than Bulgarian the right to study and use their language.
Some developments noted by the US Department of State 2000 report include the fact that Turkish-language classes funded by the government continued, and that on 2 October 2000 Bulgarian national television launched Turkish-language newscasts.
Since 1992, the Turkish language teachers of Bulgaria have been trained in Turkey. At the initial stage only textbooks published in Turkey were used for teaching Turkish, later on, in 1996, Bulgaria's Ministry of Education and Science began publishing the manuals of the Turkish language. A number of newspapers and magazines are published: the «Müslümanlar» («Muslims»), «Hak ve Özgürlük» («Right and freedom»), «Güven» («Trust»), «Jır-Jır» («Cricket», a magazine for children), «Islam kültürü» («Islamic culture»), «Balon», «Filiz». In Turkey summer holidays for the Turkish children living in Bulgaria are organized. During the holidays the children are taught the Koran, Turkish literature, Turkish history and language http://www.noravank.am/file/article/257_en.pdf.
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms
With 120,000 members, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) was the fourth largest political organization in Bulgaria in 1991, but it occupied a special place in the political process. The leader of the movement, Ahmed DoganAhmed Dogan
Ahmed Demir Dogan is a Bulgarian politician.- Biography :He is the founder and leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms , a liberal party that represents the interests of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria...
, was imprisoned in 1986 for opposition to the Zhivkov policy of assimilating ethnic Turks. Founded in 1990 to represent the interests of the Turkish ethnic minority, the MRF gained twenty three seats in the first parliamentary election that year, giving it the fourth-largest parliamentary voting bloc. Its agenda precluded mass media coverage or building coalitions with other parties, because of the strong anti-Turkish element in Bulgaria's political culture. By mid-1991, the UDF had held only one joint demonstration with the MRF; their failure to reconcile differences was considered a major weakness in the opposition to the majority BSP. In early 1990, the MRF protested vigorously but unsuccessfully its exclusion from national round table discussions among the major Bulgarian parties.
In 1991 the MRF broadened its platform to embrace all issues of civil rights in Bulgaria, aiming "to contribute to the unity of the Bulgarian people and to the full and unequivocal compliance with the rights and freedoms of mankind and of all ethnic, religious, and cultural communities in Bulgaria." The MRF took this step partly to avoid the constitutional prohibition of political parties based on ethnic or religious groups. The group's specific goals were ensuring that the new constitution protect ethnic minorities adequately; introducing Turkish as an optional school subject; and bringing to trial the leaders of the assimilation campaign in the 1980s. To calm Bulgarian concerns, the MRF categorically renounced Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, and ambitions for autonomy within Bulgaria. Political overtures were made regularly to the UDF, and some local cooperation occurred in 1991. Although the MRF remained the fastest growing party in Bulgaria, however, the sensitivity of the Turkish issue caused official UDF policy to keep the MRF in isolation. This did not prevent the UDF from accepting the MRF as a coalition partner after the 1991 parliamentary elections.
Participation in Bulgarian politics
Vezhdi Rashidov
Vezhdi Letif Rashidov is a Bulgarian sculptor, GERB politician and Minister of Culture of Bulgaria.Rashidov was born in Dimitrovgrad to ethnic Turkish parents; however, he moved to Haskovo with his parents at age two. His mother Kadrie Lyatifova, a singer of Bulgarian and Turkish folk songs, died...
, though he's not a MRF member. In the previous 2005 parliamentary elections the result was 12.8% of the total vote providing for 34 seats in parliament. Back in the end of 1984 an underground organization called «National Liberation Movement of the Turks in Bulgaria» was formed in Bulgaria which headed the Turkish community's opposition movement. On January 4, 1990 the activists of the movement registered an organization with the legal name «Movement for Rights and Freedom» (MRF) (in Bulgarian: Движение за права и свободи: in Turkish: Hak ve Özgürlükler Hareketi) in the Bulgarian city of Varna. At the moment of registration it had 33 members, at present, according to the organization's website, 68 thousand members plus 24 thousand in the organization's youth wing http://www.dps.bg/cgi-bin/e-cms/vis/vis.pl?s=001&p=0368&g=. As a result of elections held in 2001 and 2005, the MRF was included in the coalition government. At the parliamentary elections held on June 17, 2001, the MRF got 21 deputy mandates by 7.45% of votes. In the parliament, there was also an independent Turkish deputy, Osman Ahmed Oktay. The Turkish party was one of the parties in the coalition government in a non-Turkic country. Mehmet Dikmen, Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment represented the MRF. Filiz Hyusmenova, presently working at the European Parliament, held the post of the State Minister for minorities. Earlier she was the Deputy Mayor on humanitarian issues in her native town Silistra; she was appointed Minister on July 17, 2003.
On June 25, 2005 the previous parliamentary elections were held. The party's success was very impressive: it won 12.8% of the votes, 34 MRF members entered the parliament; two of them were Bulgarians. A new coalition was formed which at this time consisted of three parties: the Bulgarian Socialist Party, (31.0%) «National Movement of Simeon II»(19.9%) and the MRF(12.8%), the second time when the party was has been in the coalition government.
In the budget of 2008, MRF directed a large parts of the subsidies for agriculture to tobacco growers (which are predominantly Turks, Pomaks, and Romani) leaving staple crops, like wheat, without subsidies for buying the seed for sowing. This evoked protests by farmers in the regions of Vratsa, Knezha, and Dobrudzha. During the May 2007 Bulgarian European Parliament elections the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF) gained 20,26% of the vote and currently has 3 MEPs in the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
, this high result is due to minimal vote acitivity of the ethnic Bulgarians - 75-80% of them didn't vote in these elections, while most of the Turks voted. Another political party founded in 1998 and representing a smaller fraction of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria is the «National Movement for Rights and Freedoms» (NMRF) (offshoot from MRF). The party is headed by Güner Tahir and has on several occasions formed an alliance with the MRF during nationwide local elections. During the 1999 local elections the NMRF gained some 80 000 votes.
Official / Historical Turkish names of cities, towns, villages and geographical locations
Over 3200 locations in Bulgaria are also known by some Turks in their Turkish names.Over 3200 locations in Bulgaria are also known by some Turks in their Turkish names.
Demographics
| Districts Provinces of Bulgaria Since 1999, Bulgaria has been divided into 28 provinces which correspond approximately to the 28 districts that existed before 1987. In 1987, during the Communist regime of Todor Zhivkov, the districts were consolidated into nine larger provinces , which survived until 1999.Each province is named... |
Turkish population (2011 census) |
Percentage of Turkish population |
Province's population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kurdzhali | 86,527 | 66.2% | 152,808 |
| Razgrad Razgrad Province Razgrad Province , former name Razgrad okrug) is a province in Northeastern Bulgaria, geographically part of the Ludogorie region. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre - the town of Razgrad... |
57,261 | 50.02% | 125,190 |
| Silistra Silistra Province Silistra Province is a province of Bulgaria, named after its main city - Silistra. It is divided into 7 municipalities with a total population, as of December 2009, of 127,659 inhabitants.... |
40,272 | 36.09% | 119,474 |
| Targovishte Targovishte Province Targovishte Province is a province in northeastern Bulgaria, named after its main city - Targovishte. As of December 2009, it has a population of 129,675 inhabitants.-Municipalities:... |
38,231 | 35.80% | 120,818 |
| Shumen Shumen Province -Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Transportation:Shumen lies on the main route between Varna and Sofia and is served by numerous trains and buses serving the city. The city is also very well connected with Istanbul which serves the large Turkish community in... |
50,878 | 30.29% | 180,528 |
| Dobrich Dobrich Province Dobrich Province is a province in northeastern Bulgaria, part of Southern Dobruja geographical region. It is divided into 8 municipalities with a total population, as of December 2009, of 199,705 inhabitants.-Municipalities:... |
23,484 | 13.50% | 189,677 |
| Burgas Burgas Province -Municipalities:The Burgas province contains 13 municipalities . The following table shows the names of each municipality in English and Cyrillic, the main town or village , and the population of each as of 2009.-Demography:The Burgas province had a population of 423,608 -Municipalities:The Burgas... |
49,354 | 13.32% | 415,817 |
| Ruse Ruse Province Ruse Province is a province in northern Bulgaria, named after its main city - Ruse, neighbouring Romania via the Danube. It is divided into 8 municipalities with a total population, as of December 2009, of 249,144 inhabitants.... |
28,658 | 13.23% | 235,252 |
| Haskovo Haskovo Province Haskovo Province is a province in southern Bulgaria, neighbouring Greece and Turkey to the southeast, comprising parts of the Thracian valley along the river Maritsa. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre - the city of Haskovo... |
28,444 | 12.51% | 246,238 |
| Sliven Sliven Province Sliven Province is a province in southeastern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre - the city of Sliven. It embraces a territory of 3,544.1 km² that is divided into 4 municipalities, with a total population, as of December 2009, of 204,887... |
16,784 | 9.69% | 197,473 |
| Varna | 30,469 | 7.17% | 475,074 |
| Veliko Tarnovo Veliko Tarnovo Province Veliko Tarnovo is a province in the middle of the northern part of Bulgaria. Its capital city, Veliko Tarnovo, is of historical significance as it is known as the capital of Medieval Bulgaria... |
15,709 | 6.71% | 258,494 |
| Plovdiv Plovdiv Province Plovdiv Province is a province in central southern Bulgaria. It comprises 18 municipalities on a territory of 5,972.9 km² with a total population, as of December 2009, of 701,684 inhabitants... |
40,255 | 6.49% | 683,027 |
| Blagoevgrad Blagoevgrad Province Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns... |
17,027 | 6.00% | 323,552 |
| Pazardzhik Pazardzhik Province Pazardzhik Province is a province in Southern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre - the town of Pazardzhik. It embraces a territory of 4,456.9 km² that is divided into 11 municipalities with a total population of 290,614 inhabitants, as of December 2009.-History:The... |
14,062 | 5.72% | 275,548 |
| Gabrovo Gabrovo Province Gabrovo Province , former name Gabrovo okrug) is a small province lying at the geographical centre of Bulgaria. It is named after its main town - Gabrovo. In 2009 the total population of the area is 130,001.-Municipalities:... |
6,464 | 5.60% | 122,702 |
| Smolyan Smolyan Province -Religion:The Smolyan province along with the Kardzhali Province is a province where the predominant religion is not Orthodox Christianity but Islam. However, unlike Kardzhali where the majority of the population is Turkish, the Muslim population of the Smolyan province is made up almost entirely... |
4,696 | 4.93% | 121,752 |
| Stara Zagora Stara Zagora Province Stara Zagora is a province of south central Bulgaria. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre—the city of Stara Zagora—the sixth-biggest town in the country... |
15,035 | 4.88% | 333,265 |
| Pleven Pleven Province Pleven Province is a province located in central northern Bulgaria, bordering the Danube river, Romania and the Bulgarian provinces of Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo and Lovech. It is divided into 11 subdivisions, called municipalities, that embrace a territory of 4,333.54 km² with a population, as... |
8,666 | 3.61% | 269,752 |
| Lovech Lovech Province Lovech Province is one of the 28 provinces of Bulgaria, lying at the northern centre of the country. It is named after its main city - Lovech. As of December 2009, the population of the area is 151,153.-Municipalities:... |
4,337 | 3.33% | 141,422 |
| Yambol Yambol Province Yambol is a province in southeastern Bulgaria, neighbouring Turkey to the south. It is named after its main city Yambol, while other towns include Straldzha, Bolyarovo and Elhovo... |
3,600 | 2.93% | 131,447 |
| Sofia-cap. Sofia Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated... |
6,526 | 0.55% | 1,291,591 |
| Vratsa Vratsa Province Vratsa Province , former name Vratsa okrug) is a Bulgarian province located in the northwestern part of the country, between Danube river in the north and Stara Planina mountain in the south. It is named after its main town - Vratsa... |
565 | 0.35% | 186,848 |
| Pernik Pernik Province -Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Ethnic groups:Ethnic groups in the province according to 2001 census:145 642 Bulgarians ,3 035 Roma and 1155 others and unspecified .-Economy:... |
231 | 0.18% | 133,530 |
| Sofia Sofia Province Sofia Province is a province of Bulgaria. The province does not include Sofia in its territories, but Sofia however remains its administrative center... |
422 | 0.18% | 247,489 |
| Montana Montana Province Montana Province is a province in northwestern Bulgaria, bordering Serbia in the southwest and Romania in the north. It spreads its area between the Danube river and Balkan mountain. As of February 2011, the province has a population of 148,098 inhabitants, on territory of 3,635.5 km²... |
171 | 0.12% | 148,098 |
| Kyustendil Kyustendil Province -Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Language:Mother tongues in the province according to 2001 census:* 153,242 Bulgarian * 7,929 Roma * 1363 others and unspecified -Ethnic groups:... |
105 | 0.08% | 136,686 |
| Vidin Vidin Province Vidin Province is the northwesternmost province of Bulgaria. It borders Serbia to the west and Romania to the northeast. Its administrative centre is the city of Vidin on the Danube river. The area is divided into 11 municipalities... |
85 | 0.09% | 101,018 |
| Total | 588,318 | 8.81% | 7,364,570 |
| (Source: 2011 census) Source: | |||
Literature by Turks in Bulgaria
The Turks in Bulgaria have produced perhaps the most substantial amount of literature in Turkish language outside Turkey. The list of noted writers includes: Aşık Hıfzi, Hüseyin Raci Efendi, Ali Osman Ayrantok, Mehmet Müzekka Con, İzzet Dinç, Mustafa Serit Alyanak, Muharrem Yumuk Mehmet, Behçet Perim, Ali Kemal Balkanlı, Lütfi Erçin, Osman Kesikoğlu, Mehmet Fikri, Oğuz Peltek, Mehmet Muradov, Selim Bilalov, Osman Kılıç, Riza Mollov, Mustafa Kahveciev, Nuri Turgut Adalı, Yusuf Kerimov, Kemal Bunarciev, Salih Baklacıev, Süleyman Gavazov, Hasan Karahüseyinov, Sabri Tatov, Ahmet Timisev, Hüseyin Oğuz, Ahmet Şerifov, Mülazim Çavuşev, Mefkure Mollova, Niyazi Hüseyinov, Lütfi Demirov,Muharrem Tahsinov, Mehmet Bekirov, İshak Raşidov, Nadiye Ahmedova, Sabahattin Bayramov, Halit Aliosmanov, Mehmet Sansarov, İslam Beytullov, Ismail Çavusev, Turhan Rasiev, Ismail Yakubov, Naci Ferhadov, Mukaddes Akmonova – Saidova, Yasar Gafur, Ali Boncuk, Ahmet Mehmedov, Isa Cebeciev, Mustafa Aladag, Ahmet Eminov, Ibrahim Kamberoglu, İsmail Bekirov, Mehmet Davudov, Hüsmen İsmailov, Kazım Memişev, İsmail İbişev, Mehmet Çavuşev, Muhammet Yusufov, Yusuf Ahmedov, Recep Küpçüev, Nevzat Mehmedov, Ömer Osmanov, Ali Bayramov, Latif Aliev, Mustafa Mutkov, Ali Kadirov, Halim Halilibrahimov, Faik İsmailov, Ali Pirov, Mustafa Çetev, Süleyman Yusufov, Durhan Hasanov, Mehmet Memov, Nazmi Nuriev, Osman Azizov, Sabri İbrahimov, Ali Durmuşev, Alis Saidov, Fehim Şentürk, Fevzi Kadirov, Saban Mahmudov, Sahin Mustafaov, Latif Karagöz, Kadir Osmanov, Mustafa Ömer Asi, Ahmet Aptiev, Necmiye Mehmedova, Lamia Varnalı, Ahmet Aliev, Nevzat Yakubov, İsmet Bayramov, Nebiye İbrahimova, Ahmet Kadirov, Avni Veliev, Arzu Tahirova, Durhan Aliev, Saffet Eren, Emine Hocova, Aysel İsmailova Süleymanova, Kadriye Cesur, Nafize Habip, Naim Bakoğlu, Beyhan Nalbantov, Ali Tiryaki, Fatma HüseyinDistribution of Turkish dialects in Bulgaria
There are two main dialects; the first one is spoken in every area in south-east Bulgaria and is also used in the neighbouring countries (Greece and Turkey). It can be identified from the second one by looking at the "present continuous time"; it has the suffix forms -yirin, -yisin, -yiri. In formal Turkish they are -yorum, -yorsun, -yor. In the second dialect, used near Kurdzhali, the forms are; -værin, -væsin, -væri.Turkish Language/Dialects in Bulgaria/Balkans and Related Materials
Further reading
- Library of Congress – Federal Research Division, Country Profile: Bulgaria, October 2006