ABSTRACT

In 1989 the communist regimes were collapsing across the Soviet bloc. The dizzy feeling of elation spread: democracy and ‘normal’ (that is, capitalist) economy were within reach. The West was busy negotiating the new situation with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, the hardline regime with General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) Todor Zhivkov (1911–1998) at its helm, in an attempt to bolster its rapidly waning legitimacy, staked their hopes on Bulgarian nationalism. From 30 May to 22 August 1989, 310,000 to 322,000 Turks and Muslims deemed as ‘un-Bulgarianize-able’ were expelled from Bulgaria to Turkey. With some earlier expellees and members of expelled families joining them after the collapse of the regime on 10 November 1989, the tally added up to about 360,000 expellees, though some push this estimate as high as 400,000 (Angelov 2011a: Vol. 1, 35; Bulgarian MPs Officially 2012; Eminov 1997: 137– 138; Ersoy-Hacısalihoğlu and Hacısalihoğlu 2012: 638; Neuberger 2004: 82; Pond 2006: 41–42). Thus, almost half of Bulgaria’s 0.9 to 1 million Turks and Muslims were forced to leave the country for Turkey (Neuberger 2004: 82, 194). (Ethnic Turks constituted about 90 percent of the expellees, while Muslim Slavophones [Pomaks], 1 Roma and Tatars accounted for the remaining 10 percent [cf. Eminov 1997: 174].) After wrapping up the expulsion in late August 1989, many of their family members were abroad, mainly in Turkey, while those remaining in Bulgaria faced xenophobia and continued discrimination. As a result, more Turks and Muslims continued leaving Bulgaria for Turkey out of their own volition. Between early 1989 and late 1990, 466,000 people were expelled or migrated to Turkey. Because the state statistics from the period are sketchy for some months, Bulgarian researchers nowadays agree that in reality the total number of expellees and emigrants was about half a million. This estimate corresponds well to the 0.52 million passports that the zhivkovite regime pressed into the hands of Bulgaria’s Turks and Muslims by late August 1989 (Avramov 2016: 263–265).