Bulgarisation

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Bulgarisation (also known as Bulgarianisation; Bulgarian: побългаряване or българизация) is the spread of Bulgarian culture within various areas in the Balkans.

A number of government policies are considered to be examples of Bulgarisation, including the attempt of the former communist regime in 1980s to assimilate a Turkish minority living in Bulgaria and, more recently, allegedly similar efforts towards the Slavic-speaking people inhabiting Pirin Macedonia.[1][2][3] This view is disputed because the ethnic Macedonian identity and nationalism emerged in the 20th century outside Pirin Macedonia[4][5][6][7][8][9] and actually the local Slavic people in Pirin Macedonia have always been Bulgarians since Middle Ages, with no other than Bulgarian self-identification, and de facto never could have been bulgarisated.[10][11][12][13]

Turks

During the Communist period of Bulgarian history, the Turkish minority (mainly in the south-east and north-east) of the country was forced to change their names from Turkish or Arabic to Bulgarian in 1984, during the Todor Zhivkov regime. Back then, as well as nowadays, the supporters of this policy refer to it as the "Process of Rebirth" (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, Vǎzroditelen proces), while critics call it "the so-called Vǎzroditelen proces". Turkish culture and language as well as Islamic beliefs were also suppressed. The argument was that the Turkish population of Bulgaria were allegedly Bulgarians forced to convert to Islam during the Ottoman rule.[14]

This project met forceful resistance in the form of large-scale protests, international pressure and cases of terrorism. After the collapse of the Zhivkov regime, people were free to revert to previous names or adopt the names they wished, Arabic/Turkish or other. Some people continued using both names.[15]

In 2003 the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed that religious discrimination remained a major problem, but this has not been noted by other human rights organizations.[citation needed]

Gagauz

According to Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, people from the Gagauz ethnic group remaining in Bulgaria were noted to have been Bulgarianised at the end of the 19th century.[16]

See also

Notes

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20150214150611/http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/bulgaria/report-2007
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20150214150611/http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/bulgaria/report-2008
  3. 1999 report of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
  4. Krste Misirkov, On the Macedonian Matters (Za Makedonckite Raboti), Sofia, 1903: "And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?"
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  10. Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1-85065-534-0, p. 19-20.
  11. Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија, Иван Микулчиќ, Македонска академија на науките и уметностите — Скопје, 1996, стр. 72.
  12. Formation of the Bulgarian nation, Academician Dimitŭr Simeonov Angelov, Summary, Sofia-Press, 1978, pp. 413-415.
  13. Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe, Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE) - "Macedonians of Bulgaria", p. 14.
  14. Briefing: Bulgaria’s Muslims: From Communist assimilation to tentative recognition, Islamic Human Rights Commission
  15. Legal Problems Arising of Using Both the Turkish and Bulgarian Name
  16. Les Gagaouzes Etat des recherches et bibliographie = The Gagauz Research and bibliography