Revival Process

Revival Process

People protesting for the return of their birth names
Date	December 1984–December 1989
Location	Bulgaria
Type	Assimilation campaign
Target	Bulgarian Turksa
Perpetrators	People's Republic of Bulgaria Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP)
Outcome	Authorities forced about 850,000 people to change their names.b Some later reverted to their previous names. Restrictions were rescinded in late 1989.
Deaths	Various estimatese
Injuries	Several thousandc
Arrests	Several thousandd

The Revival Process (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, romanized: Vazroditelen protses) was a government-enforced assimilation campaign in the People's Republic of Bulgaria.¹ It began on Gregorian Christmas 1984 and continued until December 1989.² The state imposed new Bulgarian names on about 850,000 people, banned public use of the Turkish language, and restricted religious and cultural practices.³ The government declared the forced renaming complete on March 31, 1985, but restrictions on language, religion, and cultural practice remained until December 1989.⁴ In 1989, state pressure led more than 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to leave in a migration that began on May 29, 1989.^f5 After party leaders removed Todor Zhivkov on November 10, 1989, the new government under Petar Mladenov restored the right to hold Turkish names and eased religious and cultural restrictions on December 29.⁶

Officials argued that Bulgarian Turks were descendants of Bulgarians who had been forcibly converted to Islam and Turkish culture, and presented the campaign as a restoration of Bulgarian origins.⁷ Authorities implemented the renaming campaign by surrounding Turkish villages with security forces and military vehicles, while employers carried out some name changes at official direction.⁸ Language, religious, and cultural restrictions were enforced through fines, surveillance, detention, and internal exile.⁹ Deaths occurred during state suppression of protests and opposition to the campaign and in prison camps such as the Belene labor camp, though death toll estimates vary among sources.^g10

The campaign drew criticism from Turkish and Western officials and media outlets, human-rights organizations, and international bodies.¹¹ After 1989, the Revival Process was condemned by Bulgarian political, religious, and civic institutions.¹² Following the fall of communism in Bulgaria, legal mechanisms for name restoration were established and Bulgaria undertook minority-rights reforms.¹³ On January 11, 2012, the National Assembly of Bulgaria formally condemned the Revival Process.¹⁴

Scholars describe the term "Revival Process" as a euphemism, but economist Rumen Avramov writes that its use has become difficult to avoid.^15161718 The term was first used at a Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) Politburo meeting on January 18, 1985 by Georgi Atanasov.¹⁹²⁰²¹ The term was not widely used at first, but became more common.¹⁷ The policy has been described as an assimilation campaign.^15192223

In communist Bulgaria, Muslim communities overlapped, and some Slavophone Muslims and Muslim Roma identified as Turks, with the latter sometimes doing so to avoid stigma.²⁴²⁵²⁶ In Bulgaria, group identity often combined religion and ethnicity;²⁷²⁸ Slavophone Muslims living mainly among Turks tended to emphasize their Bulgarianness, while those living mainly among Bulgarians more often emphasized their Turkishness.²⁶²⁹ Officials used disputed ethnic categories, affecting people who did not fit official labels.³⁰³¹ Turks and Pomaks were sometimes confused with each other by the state – deliberately or otherwise.³²

Turkey's 1980 military coup led the nation to move away from some elements of Kemalism and undermined Turkey's "democratic credentials" internationally.³⁴³⁵³⁶ Turkey launched a military intervention in Cyprus in 1974, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983. The BCP leadership treated these developments as security concerns, though sources do not find evidence that the Bulgarian government expected a near-term invasion of Bulgaria.^34373839 Before the Revival Process, Turkey also faced Kurdish unrest and foreign-policy disputes with Greece, Iran, and the European Economic Community.⁴⁰⁴¹ Turkey also restricted some minority groups and naming practices.³⁷⁴² In 1981, Yugoslavia experienced unrest among its Muslim-majority Albanian minority.³⁷⁴³ Avramov writes that the final pre-campaign discussion of the "Turkish Problem" focused on security.³⁷ The Turkish minority also had a higher birth-rate than Slavic Bulgarians.^44454647 Laber reported contemporary projections suggesting that, if then-current trends continued, Turks could outnumber Slavs in the 21st century.⁴⁴

By late 1984, communist Bulgaria belonged to organizations and treaties that protected minority rights, while continuing to implement assimilation policies in breach of those obligations.⁴⁸⁴⁹ The government was concerned about potential backlash from Turkey and Western nations, and it sometimes avoided extending previous measures to Turks.⁵⁰⁵¹ According to the 1975 census, Turks made up about 8.4 percent of Bulgaria's population.³³⁵² Turks lived mainly in northeastern and southern Bulgaria, notably Kardzhali Province.⁵³⁵⁴

Scholars date Islam's introduction to Bulgaria to the 14th century, after the Ottoman conquest.⁵⁵⁵⁶ Two theories explain the emergence of Turks in Bulgaria.⁵⁷ One theory traces the Turkish community to migration from Asia Minor, while the second rejects such migration.⁵⁷⁵⁸ The Bulgarian communist government said any members of the Turkish minority who felt connected with Turkey emigrated to Turkey under a limited migration treaty between Bulgaria and Turkey in effect from 1969 to 1979.⁵⁹⁶⁰⁶¹ It also said those who remained were Bulgarians Turkified in language and religion.^62636465 Bulgarian officials also cited physical-anthropological claims, including phrenological arguments, to assert that the studied Bulgarian Turks were morphologically Bulgarian.⁶⁶⁶⁷ The BCP framed the policy as part of building "real" communism and a classless society, both internally and in discussions with Soviet Union (USSR) officials.⁶⁸⁶⁵

Soviet stances on Bulgarian minority policy also influenced Bulgaria.²²⁶⁹ Academic Vesselin Dimitrov linked the timing of the Revival Process to changes in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s that reduced external constraints on Bulgarian domestic policy.⁷⁰ The renaming campaign coincided with a renewed phase of the Cold War, weakened Soviet leadership, and Konstantin Chernenko's extended illness.⁷⁰⁷¹ Avramov further refers to the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and changes in power in the USSR from 1982 to 1985.⁷² Bulgaria's consistently pro-Soviet foreign policy gave the Zhivkov government more room to pursue assimilation measures than other Soviet satellite countries had.⁷⁰⁷³ Academic Bojkov writes that Mikhail Gorbachev also gave tacit approval to Bulgarian minority policies.⁷⁴ Despite this, Bulgarian leaders denied Moscow's direct involvement in the Revival Process.⁷⁵

Academic İbrahim Karahasan-Çınar identifies several theorists of the campaign besides Zhivkov:⁷⁶

• Milko Balev - Central Committee secretary
• Georgi Atanasov - Central Committee secretary
• Pencho Kubadinski - Central Committee secretary
• Stoyan Mihaylov - Central Committee secretary
• Aleksandar Lilov^h - Central Committee secretary
• Dimitar Stoyanov (internal affairs minister) - Internal Affairs minister
• Petar Mladenov - Foreign minister
• Georgi Tanev - Kardzhali District Committee (Bulgarian: Окръжен комитет, romanized: Okrazhen Komitet) first secretary¹⁹

Georgi Tanev said Bulgarian Turks had a strong group identity expressed through "language, tradition and customs", and that their social environment separated Turks from the body of the Bulgarian nation.¹⁹ He submitted proposals to the BCP Politburo on how to address this situation, provided justification of grassroots support for renaming, and later rose through the communist state hierarchy.¹⁹⁷⁸ Tanev later became internal affairs minister and received the Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria award, though his receipt of the award was not publicized.¹⁹⁷⁸⁷⁹

Karahasan-Çınar does not list Lyudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of Todor Zhivkov.⁷⁶ She had been a member of the BCP's Central Committee from the mid-1970s until her death.ⁱ³⁰⁸⁰ Zhivkova championed Bulgarian culture and policies aimed at cultural revival.³⁰ Although she promoted a cultural revival that emphasized foreign ties, some figures around her favored a narrower understanding of Bulgarian culture.³⁰⁸¹⁸² After Zhivkova's death, many of her ideas and projects faded and her close associates were disfavored by the BCP.⁸³⁸⁴ Dimitrov writes that this helped non-inclusive ideas of cultural revival become dominant.³⁰

Shortly before the Revival Process, the Bulgarian government introduced a new, unified identity system under the Unified System for Civil Registration and Administrative Services for the Population within the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works of Bulgaria.⁸⁵⁸⁶ The government tied the unified system to the planned mass issue of new documents by 1985.⁸⁵ State identification cards were required for access to banks, healthcare, and wages.⁸⁷ Those without identification cards bearing Bulgarian names were eventually prohibited from registering births or marriages as well.⁸⁷

Shortly before the renaming began, Internal Affairs Minister Dimitar Stoyanov stated the Bulgarian government's intentions:⁸⁸

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

From 1950 to 1951, the communist government expelled around 150,000 ethnic Turks from the country.⁸⁹⁹⁰ From 1962, the government barred Slavophone Muslims from attending Turkish-language schools, and in 1972, it banned Turkish-language schools.⁹¹⁹² The government forced many Muslims to change their names; by 1974, around 150,000 Slavophone Muslims and 200,000 Turks had been forced to adopt new names.⁹³⁹⁴⁹⁵

In 1971, the government adopted a new constitution that supported assimilation policies and weakened minority protections, though it still guaranteed rights relevant to the Revival Process.¹⁸⁹⁶⁹⁷ Officials replaced the term "national minorities" with "citizens of non-Bulgarian origin", and their discourse framed minority identities as compatible with eventual assimilation.^189899100

In 1978, the government tried to replace traditional and religious observances with approved socialist ones.¹⁰¹¹⁰² It sent officials to Islamic funerals to ensure participants carried out approved socialist rites and prayed in the Bulgarian language.¹⁰¹ The prescribed rituals combined Bulgarian Christian elements with Marxist-Leninist atheism.¹⁰³

In the period leading up to the Revival Process, the state intensified its assimilationist education policies by promoting mixed marriages and subjected Turkish-minority teachers to ideological training.⁶⁰¹⁰⁴ Between 1981 and 1983, authorities forced around 100,000 people, mainly Muslim Roma, to change their names.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁶ It then extended the measure to Crimean Tatars and Alians, a Bulgaria-based Shia group, shortly before the Revival Process began in 1984.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁷ The government also resolved to issue around 250,000 identity papers bearing new Bulgarian names to Muslim Roma.¹⁰⁸⁸⁵ Before it was implemented, many people already felt the government was moving toward a campaign like the Revival Process.¹⁰⁹¹¹⁰

The BCP resolved on June 19, 1984, to carry out a "unification" campaign, and informed leaders of regions with substantial Muslim populations that autumn.⁴¹ Orders to begin preparations for the implementation of the Revival Process were issued on December 10, 1984.^41111112 The Revival Process began on Gregorian Christmas 1984.^j40113 A Central Committee plenum in mid-February 1985^k endorsed the campaign after Zhivkov had already extended it nationwide.⁶⁴¹¹⁴

After disputes over which names should count as Bulgarian, officials compiled a list of approved names.^115116117 The list included many Christian names, including names linked to Eastern Orthodox saints and the church calendar, though it also included "neutral" names.¹¹⁵¹¹⁸ This list was originally meant for people in mixed marriages, but it later expanded in scope.¹¹⁰¹¹⁶ Officials did not complete the "Classifier of Bulgarian Names" before the start of the Revival Process, but the state provided indices from which people were required to choose their new names.¹¹⁶ Officials accepted some names of foreign origin, including Turkish, Armenian, and Arabic names, if they could be written in Bulgarian.¹¹⁶ In addition, some Bulgarian family names were of Turkish origin, which presented a dilemma to the state.¹¹⁶ The same body also sought to create an acceptable foreign-name classifier.¹¹⁶

By late 1984, Bulgarian authorities had already renamed many non-Turkish Muslims, and then extended the policy to Turks.¹¹⁹¹¹¹ Officials summoned individuals in their villages and required them to replace their Turkish names with Bulgarian ones chosen from approved lists.¹¹⁵ Officials enforced the name changes through intimidation, which was often backed by security forces and military vehicles.^120121119122 Employers also renamed Turks at the direction of officials.¹²³¹²⁴ The government required municipalities to enforce the use of the new names in public and private life.¹²⁵ Some Turks who accepted name changes were later labeled as "collaborators" by other Turks.¹²⁶ The government described the renaming as voluntary, although human rights groups and later scholarship described it as coerced.^127128129

At first, authorities required only Turks living in or from the Rhodopes to change their names.^1241130131 Around 310,000 people in Haskovo and Kardzhali provinces had been renamed by January 18, 1985.^4064132 After receiving reports on the initial renaming actions, the BCP's Politburo ordered the expansion of the campaign.⁶⁴¹³³ Authorities implemented the order in February 1985, and on March 31 that year, the Bulgarian government declared the process completed and issued new identity documents to those affected.¹¹⁹¹³⁴ The government seized the old identity documents and planned a census that year using the new documents.^135136137 Authorities conducted the census from December 4 to 12 and gradually released the results until the end of 1987.¹³⁸ They did not publish the final census results until 1988.¹³⁸¹³⁹ "Turks" and "Muslims" disappeared as categories in this census.¹⁴⁰ Despite the census data, sources differ on the number of people renamed:

The Bulgarian government banned the use of the Turkish and Romani languages in public, although up to 70 percent of the Turkish minority could not speak Bulgarian.^146147148 The government extended the prohibition to Turkic Christian communities and banned public use of their language.¹⁴⁹ Signs warning it was "forbidden to speak" either "French"^l or "in a foreign language" were posted in public spaces in the majority Turkish areas.¹⁵¹ Authorities fined people who spoke Turkish in public five leva or more, and sometimes imprisoned or exiled them.^12115241153 One Turk was imprisoned for five years for persistently using Turkish, and another was exiled from Bulgaria for two years.¹⁵²

The government had already banned visible markers of Muslim identity, such as religious clothing, so people used substitutes.¹⁵⁴ For example, dark raincoats became substitutes for veils.¹⁵⁴ During the Revival Process, officials barred Islamic burials and traditional headstone shapes.¹⁵⁵ Washing the dead before burial was also outlawed.¹⁵⁶ The state further pressured Muslims to deface Islamic symbols and Arabic inscriptions on graves.¹⁵⁷ At times, Turkish families buried their deceased under headstones with only a photograph because religious symbols were prohibited and they did not wish to use the assigned "Bulgarian" name.¹⁵⁸ Local authorities ordered the defacement of the Turkish names of 2,000 individuals on gravestones near Pavel.¹⁵⁹ The graves of prominent Turkish-language writers in Bulgaria were destroyed in 1985.¹⁶⁰ Similarly, authorities occasionally had crescents that adorned minarets removed because the symbol is associated with Turkish symbols.^161162163

Authorities also barred stores and restaurants from serving women in traditional Islamic dress.¹⁶⁴ In some areas, the wearing of fez hats and traditional Turkish pants were banned.^165166167168 Authorities also destroyed Turkish-language books and other Turkish cultural items.¹⁵⁷ Officials inspected the mail of Bulgarian Turks, and sometimes demanded the translation of mail written in Turkish for inspection.¹⁶⁹ Turkish-language music was also banned.^170171172 Authorities additionally sought to promote traditional Slavic gatherings of young people (Bulgarian: седянки, romanized: sedyanki) among the policy's targets.¹⁷³ With respect to Roma specifically, semi-nomadic Mahala settlements were hidden behind concrete walls.¹⁷⁴

Authorities strictly enforced the ban on circumcision and required Muslim parents to sign documents promising not to circumcise their child.¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁶ Officials inspected boys for compliance;¹⁵³ parents and those who performed the circumcision faced punishment for violations.¹⁶⁴¹⁷⁷ In 1987, Amnesty International reported the state imprisoned four women for between six and eight months because they circumcised their sons or grandsons.¹⁴⁸ The maximum allowed punishment for violators was a fine of up to 1,000 leva or three years' imprisonment.¹⁷⁸

Communist Bulgaria appointed a chief mufti and regional muftis during the Revival Process.^164179180 The government chose these religious officials for their loyalty rather than for their religious training.¹⁶⁴¹⁷⁹ The state-appointed chief mufti said authorities did not prevent Muslims from performing rites and declared support for the renaming policy.¹⁶⁴¹⁷⁹ The national religious body for Muslims in Bulgaria at the time was known as the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Muslim Faith.¹⁷⁹¹⁸¹

The Bulgarian government controlled most of the country's media outlets, and many journalists came from politically acceptable backgrounds or were members of the ruling party.¹⁸²¹⁸³ In January 1985, Todor Zhivkov told the Communist Party's Central Committee the party should remain silent in the press and not issue information to particular groups to avoid speculation.¹⁹ In subsequent years, the media echoed official narratives of the essential Bulgarian origin of the Turkish minority.¹²¹ The press published the involuntary declarations of thousands of Turks affirming a Bulgarian identity, and it insisted that Bulgarian Turks, who were referred to as "New Bulgarians", approved of the renaming program.¹²¹¹⁸⁴ Opinion polling indicated indifference among the general public toward the nation's Turkish minority. According to Dimitrov, opposition to the campaign among ethnic Bulgarians was limited since the Turkish minority was heavily concentrated in two regions of the country. The government largely refrained from mobilizing ethnic Bulgarians in support of the Revival Process.¹⁸⁵

Many targets of the policy continued to perform circumcision and speak Turkish at home.¹²¹¹⁸⁶ However, public resistance was often limited and uncoordinated.¹²¹ Some individuals tried to avoid the renaming campaign by hiding in remote areas, but submitted after a few days.⁴¹ Those who attempted to escape the renaming were punished by being assigned names most closely associated with the Christian religion.¹⁸⁷

One group was the "Turkish National Liberation Movement in Bulgaria", founded in Varna on December 8, 1985.¹⁸⁸ Among the organization's early members were Ahmed Dogan^m and future co-founder and later chairman of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Kasim Dal.ⁿ Ahmed Dogan played a leading role as the organization's political theorist;¹⁹² he said the organization never sought secession or to undermine state sovereignty.¹⁹³ The movement also sought official recognition of Bulgaria's Turkish minority.¹⁹⁴

Dogan's role in the organization later became controversial; sources agree he was connected to the Committee for State Security (DS), the Bulgarian equivalent of the Soviet Committee for State Security, but they differ on whether he was among its founders or later assumed leadership.^195196197 Some scholars also say the DS played an active role in the Turkish National Liberation Movement in Bulgaria's creation and development.¹⁹⁷ In 1992, former senior intelligence officer Radoslav Raykov stated Dogan was infiltrated into the organization and convicted along with other leaders to build a legend for him.¹⁹⁸ According to Alexei Kalyonski, the term "Liberation Movement" suggests a connection to the DS.¹⁹⁹

Most of the organization's membership was arrested by mid-1986.²⁰⁰ Around 200 of its members were arrested and 18 stood trial.¹⁹⁹ Ahmed Dogan received a ten-year sentence.¹⁹⁹

While acts of political violence and sabotage were committed in Bulgaria during the Revival Process, observers have described resistance by Bulgarian Turks as mostly peaceful rather than as organized armed resistance.²⁰¹²⁰² Rumen Avramov, who was an economic advisor to Bulgaria's first non-communist president Zhelyu Zhelev, said the scale of state repression prevented the development of organized armed opposition.²⁰¹ The Bulgarian government undertook rearmament aimed at strengthening its internal security forces.²⁰³

Unorganized armed resistance occurred throughout the Revival Process.¹⁶⁹ Authorities reported more than 600 incidents they described as "terrorism", and attributed these to Turks and opposition groups, though the attribution and details of many cases are disputed.²⁰¹ For example, on March 9, 1985, an attack killed seven people in Bunovo when a train carriage reserved for mothers on a route between Burgas and Sofia was blown up.^o204205206 A court sentenced the attack's perpetrators to death and the executions were carried out in late 1988.²⁰⁵²⁰⁷ The government used such attacks to justify tightened security measures.²⁰⁷²⁰⁸

During the Revival Process, the Bulgarian authorities reactivated the Belene labor camp, situated on an island in the Danube River, to detain people whom they arrested for resisting the campaign.²⁰⁹²¹⁰ The BCP used Belene as a labor camp until 1959, when it was converted into a prison.²⁰⁹²¹¹ Authorities typically held Turks who resisted in Belene for two-to-three months, though they held some for much longer.¹¹¹ In 1985, authorities incarcerated more than 500 Turks there for resistance to the renaming measures.²⁰⁹²¹¹ Authorities often held detainees without judicial sentences at Belene.²¹² In April 1986, prisoners in Belene began a hunger strike that lasted around 30 days.²⁰⁹²¹¹ In May 1986, authorities released most of the prisoners and then exiled them to different regions of Bulgaria.²⁰⁹²¹¹ Authorities released the remaining detainees in early 1987 in districts populated by ethnic Bulgarians.²¹³

On December 26, 1984, in Mogilyane, security forces opened fire on demonstrators during protests against the forced replacement of Turkish names with Bulgarian ones, killing three people, including the young child Türkan Feyzullah.²¹⁴ Security forces shot Türkan while her mother carried the child on her back.²¹⁵ Mogilyane residents later erected a monument in her memory.²¹⁴

Some Bulgarian Turks were killed, injured, or detained at protests, like the one in Mogilyane in 1984, in opposition to official policies.^216120217 Others died in prison camps associated with the Revival Process, such as Belene.²¹⁷ Estimates of the number of people killed, injured, and arrested during the Revival Process varied:

Turkish president Kenan Evren discussed minority and emigration issues with Todor Zhivkov in 1982; Bulgarian officials interpreted the talks as closing the emigration question and treating ethnic policy as an internal matter.¹⁹²¹⁸ Zhivkov denied the claims, as Bulgarian authorities did at first.¹⁹¹²⁹ Following the start of the Revival Process, Turkish diplomatic responses were restrained.¹⁹²¹⁹ Evren first formally protested the Revival Process in January 1985, sending Zhivkov a message asking that the forced assignment of Bulgarian names be stopped.²²⁰²²¹ Despite official restraint, some Turkish and Western media described the Revival Process with terms such as "genocide" and "state crime" or used specific sensational headlines.²³²²²

Bulgarian Turkish children left behind after their parents fled to Turkey drew particular concern from the Turkish public.²²³²²⁴ The street outside the Bulgarian embassy in Ankara was temporarily renamed after one of these children.²²⁵ In 1987, Turkish state television aired a dramatization titled To Be Reborn (Turkish: Yeniden Doğmak) about families separated by events in Bulgaria, prompting a sharp response from the Bulgarian government.²²⁶²²⁴ Often, Bulgaria responded to these denunciations with comparisons to the Kurdish issue in Turkey.²²⁷²²⁸ In line with the Helsinki Accords, the Bulgarian government reduced efforts to obstruct the reception of critical Western and Turkish broadcasts to Bulgaria, though jamming of Turkish-language broadcasts in particular did not cease completely.²²⁹²³⁰ During the media dispute, Bulgaria promoted the film Time of Violence, a nearly five-hour historical epic about forced conversions to Islam under Ottoman rule.²²⁶²³¹ Subsequent diplomatic negotiations between Bulgaria and Turkey concerned the broadcast of Time of Violence and the Turkish film Belene, which documented the Belene labor camp.²³²

Turkey also raised the Revival Process before several international bodies.²³³²³⁴ The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), predecessor to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, tabled the issue in both its May 7–June 17, 1985 and October 15–November 25 meetings.²³³²³⁵ The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization did the same at its October 8–November 12, 1985, meeting.²³³ The Council of Europe (CoE) adopted Resolution 846, calling on Bulgaria to end violations of the social, cultural, and religious rights of the affected minorities.²³³²³⁶

In 1987, the Islamic Conference, a predecessor to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, sent a delegation to Bulgaria.¹⁴⁸²³⁷ Following this visit, the organization published a report that was critical of Bulgaria.¹⁴⁸²³⁸ Other international organizations echoed this condemnation, including the United Nations, whose Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance listed Bulgaria among countries preventing the peaceful practice of religion.^220239240

Bulgarian authorities publicized supportive visits by Muslim clerics, including the chief muftis of eastern-aligned Syria and communist South Yemen in 1986 and the chief mufti of Ghana the next year.¹⁹²⁴¹ The Soviet Union considered the treatment of Bulgaria's Turkish minority an internal Bulgarian issue, and the Soviet press remained silent on the subject.⁷⁴²⁴² Only Greece supported Bulgaria among the nations of the European Community, despite Greek membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alongside Turkey.²³⁴

In the late 1980s, ranking members of the Bulgarian government expressed internal concern about the shortcomings of the Revival Process and the ineffectiveness of the assimilation policies.²⁴³ The government undertook limited resettlement of Turks to western and northwestern Bulgaria, and the placement of Turkish children in assimilatory boarding schools.²⁴⁴ Minister Pencho Kubadinski suggested people from the Soviet Union should be settled in place of resettled Turks.²⁴⁴

A second wave of organized popular resistance emerged and shaped open civil opposition to the communist government.¹⁹²²⁴⁵ Most of the groups openly declaring opposition to the Revival Process, such as the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights, the independent trade union Podkrepa, the Club for Support of Glasnost and Perestroika, and Ecoglasnost formed in the context of Perestroika.²⁴⁶ On November 13, 1988, the Democratic League for the Protection of Human Rights in Bulgaria was established with Mustafa Yumer as chairman and grew to include several thousand members.¹⁹⁹²⁴⁷ In April 1989, the Support Society–Vienna 89 was founded in the town of Djebel.²¹⁰

These associations were at the heart of the "May Events" (Bulgarian: Майските събития, romanized: Maiiskite subitiya) from May 19–27, 1989.²⁴⁸²⁴⁹ Demonstrators, estimated at 30,000–53,000, carried out hunger strikes and mass protests, and at times clashed with police.¹⁹⁷ They aimed to attract the attention of the world community, especially the CSCE symposium "Freedom of the Spirit and the Human Dimension in Europe", which was held from May 30–June 23, 1989^q in Paris, France.¹⁵⁸²⁵⁰ From May 19–27, 1989, between 25,000 and 30,000 demonstrators took to the streets in northeastern Bulgaria.²⁵¹ Some demonstrations involved violence.¹⁹⁹

Bulgaria became isolated from its Eastern bloc allies during the Revolutions of 1989.¹⁹⁹²⁵² Diplomatic pressure on Bulgaria from Turkey also increased; Turkey raised the issue in a number of international forums.¹⁹⁹ The president of France, François Mitterrand, visited Bulgaria in January 1989 and held meetings with dissidents at the French embassy in Sofia.²⁵³

The Bulgarian government responded to the protests by sending soldiers, fire brigades, and the national police (then styled as the people's militias) against the demonstrators.¹⁹⁹²⁵⁴ Soldiers were loaded into trucks covered with opaque tarps, without prior information about their assigned task.²⁵⁴ Riot-control methods, including tear gas and occasionally firearms, were used.¹⁹⁹²⁵⁵ Sources differ on the number of protesters killed; Alexei Kalyonski estimated between seven and ten protesters were killed, and that hundreds were injured.¹⁹⁹ Tomasz Kamusella estimated that 30–102 protesters were killed and hundreds were injured.¹⁵⁸ Bulgarian authorities reported seven deaths.¹⁵⁸ Opposition leaders were subsequently removed from Bulgaria;¹⁹⁹²⁵⁵ Mustafa Yumer, for example, was expelled to Turkey.¹⁹⁹

The Bulgarian government concluded that part of the Muslim population could not be assimilated and shifted toward promoting emigration.¹¹⁹ At the end of May 1989, after prominent dissidents were removed, authorities enabled mass departures by loosening travel restrictions, intimidating individuals, and later opening the border with Turkey.²⁵⁶²⁵⁷ Authorities framed the departures as temporary tourist travel, and propaganda referred to the episode as the "Big Excursion".²⁵⁷

From May 29 to August 1989, over 300,000 people left Bulgaria for Turkey under state pressure.⁵ In August 1989, Turkey temporarily closed the border with Bulgaria, ending the forced migration.²⁵⁸

In the 1980s, Bulgaria entered economic decline, and its government undertook reforms in response.²⁵⁹ As early as 1987, Bulgarian state media discussed a possible near-term financial insolvency of the country. The events of 1989 intensified the crisis.²⁶⁰ Avramov writes that these events revealed economic costs associated with the Revival Process.²⁶¹

On November 10, 1989, party leaders forced Todor Zhivkov to resign.¹¹⁹²⁶² The new Bulgarian government restored the right of Bulgarian citizens to have Turkish names on December 29 that year.⁶²⁶² The new government condemned the Revival Process as a "deviation from 'Leninist' norms".²⁶³ By 1991, Bulgaria had allowed religious instruction and Turkish-language instruction to resume, and adopted a new national constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion.²⁶⁴²⁶²

Although the legal right to use Turkish names was restored, those affected still faced obstacles when restoring their previous names.²⁶⁵ In March 1990, Bulgaria adopted legislation enabling that restoration, but its early implementation was burdensome, requiring a court procedure and two supporting witnesses.²⁶⁶²⁶⁷ The law required people who restored their names to keep Bulgarian suffixes, such as "-ov" and "-ova".²⁶⁵²⁶⁸ A 1990 Helsinki Watch report said fewer than one-third of Turks had restored their names nationwide.²⁶⁵ For example, academic Yelis Erolova restored her Turkish name only after 1990.²⁶⁹ In some areas, older Bulgarian Turks more commonly restored their names than younger people.²⁷⁰ On November 16, 1990, the government adopted a reform that replaced the court procedure with an administrative process.²⁶⁸²⁷¹

The Revival Process strengthened Turkish self-identification among the targeted minority, with many placing greater emphasis on Turkish identity than on Bulgarian identity.^121272273 This was tied to Islamic religious traditions that marked differences between Turks and ethnic Bulgarians, and was associated with increased contact with people and groups from Muslim-majority countries.²⁷²²⁷⁴ People described themselves as "Turks of Bulgaria" rather than "Bulgarian Turks".²⁷³ Gruev and Kalyonski said these changes also strengthened distinctions between Turkish and Bulgarian identities.²⁷⁵ According to Yelis Erolova, her family made her think of Turkey as her "mother nation".²⁶⁹

Post-communist reforms also produced nationalist opposition, especially over the restoration of Turkish names and the teaching of Turkish in schools.²⁷⁶²⁷⁷ In Razgrad, nationalist protesters proclaimed a "Bulgarian Republic of Razgrad", and it later came to encompass a number of municipalities and became known as the "Association of Free Bulgarian Cities".²⁷⁸ The Razgrad municipal authorities also decided not to teach Turkish in local schools after nationalist pressure.²⁷⁶ On October 25, 1990, the MRF club in Shumen was bombed.²⁷⁶ All of this engendered a response among the Turkish population, including a boycott of schools in southeastern Bulgaria by ethnic-Turks.²⁷⁶

Nationalist protest also accompanied parliamentary debate over the restoration of Turkish names; around 200 people demonstrated outside the National Assembly during discussion of related measures.²⁷⁶ Post-communist prime minister Andrey Lukanov expressed concern that Turkish-language education might be extended "unconstitutionally" to Pomaks.²⁷⁶ His successor, Dimitar Iliev Popov, similarly warned against what he called "Muslim aggression".²⁷⁶

Prior to the start of the Revival Process, relations between the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Turkey were good.⁴⁵²³⁴ Todor Zhivkov had visited Turkey in 1983.²³⁴ Although the Revival Process was addressed in Cold War diplomatic exchanges, bilateral contacts initially continued through diplomatic channels.¹⁵⁹²³⁴ The campaign strained relations and drew condemnation from NATO and other international actors.^233227234 The Turkish ambassador to Bulgaria, Ömer Engin Lütem, described the most difficult phase of relations during this period as a "war of notes".¹⁹ Because relevant Russian and U.S. records remain inaccessible and scholarship is limited, the campaign's late-Cold-War effects remain unclear, but academic Tomasz Kamusuella suggests these facts point to some sort of secret negotiation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact to prevent the justification of war.²⁷⁹

Relations deteriorated further in 1989.²³⁴ In August of that year, the United States recalled its ambassador to Bulgaria.²⁵⁵²⁸⁰ The issue was also raised in the United States Congress.²⁵⁵ International actors organized fact-finding activity concerning human rights conditions in Bulgaria.²⁵⁵²⁸¹ The Soviet Union refused to mediate between Bulgaria and Turkey when official tensions grew, although it engaged in shuttle diplomacy through its diplomatic mission in Ankara.²⁸¹²⁸² According to Dimitrov, the failure of these efforts convinced the Soviet leadership that Zhivkov had "outlived his usefulness" and led it to support an anti-Zhivkov faction within the Bulgarian government led by foreign minister Petar Mladenov.²⁸³

In 1990, Bulgaria implemented an amnesty for those convicted of political crimes.²⁸⁴ Authorities released 31 of 81 Turks imprisoned for resistance, but kept 50 convicted under the criminal code in prison.²⁸⁴ Similar legal distinctions between "political" and "criminal" offenses existed in other states where dissidents faced criminal charges.²⁸⁵

On January 18, 1990, authorities issued a warrant for Zhivkov's arrest, and he was held under house arrest.^r286287288 While formally under house arrest, he was reportedly allowed to travel around Bulgaria.²⁸⁹ Prosecutors charged a number of defendants for abuses associated with the Belene camp, and Zhivkov faced additional charges unrelated to the Revival Process.²⁸⁶²⁹⁰ Some perpetrators of the Revival Process were never charged.²⁹⁰ Although legal proceedings began in 1991, they were still ongoing when Zhivkov died in 1998.²⁹¹ In 2022, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges after the final defendant, Georgi Atanasov, died.²⁹² The case was initially terminated after Atanasov's death, but after protests from families of Belene camp victims, the Sofia Court of Appeal ordered the Military Prosecutor's Office to continue the investigation.²⁹²²⁹³ The court ruled that the procedural rights of people affected by the Revival Process were not respected and that the case could not be terminated without a declaration from the Prosecutor's Office as to what crime it alleged that the defendants had committed.²⁹³

Kutlay writes that the reversal of the Revival Process, together with moderation by both the new government and the Bulgarian Turkish community, contributed to Bulgaria's democratic transition.²⁹⁴ Bulgaria's first democratically elected president, Zhelyu Zhelev, treated the Turkish political movement as a political ally and defended the nascent Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) against a legal challenge from nationalists and the post-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party that could have led to its dissolution.²⁹⁴²⁹⁵ According to Kutlay, MRF leader Ahmed Dogan worked to marginalize "ultra-nationalist" elements within the Turkish community and refrained from calling for autonomy or independence.²⁹⁴ The MRF later joined many of early post-communist Bulgaria's governing coalitions, though Korkmaz writes that many of the Turkish minority's problems remained unresolved.²⁹⁶ Kutlay further writes that the prospect of European Union (EU) membership had a moderating influence and contributed to the reintegration of Turks into Bulgarian society.²⁹⁷ In 2000, the EU adopted the Race Equality Directive and later formally requested Bulgaria's compliance with it.²⁹⁸ Similarly, Korkmaz writes that Bulgaria's efforts to join NATO and the EU encouraged rapid reforms aimed at reintegrating Turks and addressing the communist past.²⁹⁶

In November 2002, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church described victims of the Revival Process, including non-Christians, as "martyrs".¹² On January 11, 2012, the Bulgarian National Assembly officially condemned the Revival Process, although according to Tomasz Kamusella, scholars largely ignored the parliamentary recognition.¹⁴²⁷⁹ Kamusella also described continued public commemorations of Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, including statements by national political figures praising him.²⁹⁹ After the National Assembly's declaration, the political party Ataka, described by sources as "far-right", introduced a bill contesting it.^300301302303 According to the bill's authors, the declaration represented a boost for separatists; Kamusella interprets that reference as referring to Bulgarian Turks and Muslims.³⁰³ Ataka's leader, Volen Siderov, said the declaration could expose Bulgaria to substantial compensation claims and raised the possibility that the country would be described as having carried out policies of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing".³⁰⁴ Parliament rejected the bill.³⁰⁴ In a similar vein, Academic Natalya Lunkova notes that an anthology of memoirs by people targeted in the renaming campaign received mixed reactions in Bulgaria.³⁰⁵ Nationalists associated with the party Revival criticized the choice of topic and said attention should instead have been paid to transgressions carried out by Turks during the Ottoman occupation of Bulgaria.³⁰⁵

The Revival Process also had lasting social and cultural effects. It affected Turkish language use in Bulgaria, and Bulgarian Turkish communities exhibit a large degree of codeswitching.³⁰⁶ During the Revival Process, knowledge of Bulgarian among younger generations became nearly universal.⁴⁶ Academic Trupia writes that, as part of the collective trauma of the Revival Process, some Bulgarians of Muslim origin were left to wonder what their names would have been but for it.³⁰⁷ Trupia treats the renaming campaign not as a closed historical episode, but as a trauma whose effects have been passed down within families and carried into everyday life.³⁰⁸ Every year, Bulgarian Turkish groups commemorate the official end of the Revival Process – December 29 – as "Liberation Day" (Turkish: Kurtuluş Bayramı).³⁰⁹ In 2013, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms called for information about the Revival Process to be included in schoolbooks.³¹⁰

In Turkey, a number of dissident and migrant organizations were formed by people targeted by the Revival Process and the 1989 migration.³¹¹ Book-length works published in Turkey have often focused on individual accounts of the 1989 events and have usually appeared in limited numbers.³¹² Turkish media praised the 2012 Bulgarian National Assembly's parliamentary declaration condemning the events.³¹³

Throughout the Revival Process, many targeted people sought refuge in countries other than Turkey, especially Austria, Germany, and Sweden.³¹⁴ Many found refuge in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.³¹⁴³¹⁵

The ruling communist party later placed personal blame on Todor Zhivkov.³¹⁷ The 2012 parliamentary declaration attributed the Revival Process to the "totalitarian" communist government as a whole.¹⁴ A 1994 study found that 29 percent of ethnic Bulgarians described the Revival Process as not criminal.³¹⁸ The same study found that Bulgarian Turks generally blamed Todor Zhivkov and his "circle", while only 2 percent blamed ethnic Bulgarians generally.³¹⁸

On August 26, 1990, a fire broke out at the Party House in central Sofia, then the headquarters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), successor to the BCP.^316319320 Different sources estimated the fire burned for between four-and-seven hours, destroying forty rooms and several documents.³¹⁹³²⁰ Academic Kamusella wrote that records related to the Revival Process may have been destroyed in the fire, though the extent of any such loss was unclear.³¹⁹³²⁰ Accounts of responsibility for the fire varied.³²⁰ Former National Assembly member and Sofia municipal councillor Vili Lilkov later stated in the first months after 1989, DS officers had been tasked with destroying or appropriating archives, and that many Ministry of Internal Affairs records had been stored in the Party House.³¹⁶

Naim Süleymanoğlu (Bulgarian: Наим Сюлейманоглу) was an ethnically Turkish Olympic weightlifter born in Bulgaria in 1967 as Naim Suleimanov (Bulgarian: Наим Сюлейманов).³²¹ During the Revival Process, authorities forced Süleymanoğlu to change his name to Naum Shalamanov (Bulgarian: Наум Шаламанов), under which he first became a world champion representing Bulgaria.³²²³²³ He later defected to Turkey and gave speeches about the Revival Process, bringing attention to the campaign.³²³ Bulgaria asserted that "Turkish secret services" had kidnapped Süleymanoğlu.³²⁴ Laber notes that he subsequently lived freely in Turkey.³²⁴ Süleymanoğlu competed for Turkey in international weightlifting competitions thereafter.³²²³²³ Following his defection, Süleymanoğlu won the gold medal in his weight class at the Summer Olympic Games in 1988, 1992, and 1996, representing Turkey.³²⁵ The story of Naim's life up to his defection and subsequent 1988 Olympic performance is depicted in the film Pocket Hercules: Naim Suleymanoglu.³²⁶

The Turkish television presenter Gülhan Şen (Bulgarian: Гюлхан Шен), who was born in Bulgaria in 1978, was also affected by the policy.³²⁷ In 1985, authorities forced her to change her name to Galina Hristova Mihailova (Bulgarian: Галина Христова Михайлова), and in 1989 she moved to Turkey.³²⁷ The 2005 film Stolen Eyes depicts a romance between a Bulgarian Turkish woman and a non-Muslim man during the Revival Process.³²⁸ In 2004, author Hristo Kyuchukov published the children's book My Name Was Hussein in the United States, covering the events of the Revival Process from the point of view of a young Muslim Roma boy who is forcibly renamed.³²⁹