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The Turkish Minority in Contemporary Bulgaria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James W. Warhola  and
Orlina Boteva
James W. Warhola
Affiliation:
University of Maine, U.S.A. [email protected]
Orlina Boteva
Affiliation:
University of Maine, U.S.A. [email protected]
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Extract

Although there is indisputable evidence of hostile perceptions, the gulf between ethnic groups has not yet caused any substantial violence between Turks and Bulgarians. Compared not only with former Yugoslavia but also with Romania, this must be upheld as a genuine success story in the endeavor to cope with ethnic tensions in post-Communist Eastern Europe. (Wolfgang Hoepken)

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2003 , pp. 255 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Hoepken, Wolfgang, “From Religious Identity to Ethnic Mobilisation: The Turks of Bulgaria before, under, and since Communism,” in Poulton, Hugh and Taji-Farouki, Suha, eds, Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (London: C. Hurst, 1997), p. 78.Google Scholar

2. Vassilev, Rossen, “Bulgaria's Ethnic Problems,” East European Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2002, p. 123.Google Scholar

3. Fearon, James D. and Laitin, David D., “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 4, 1996, pp. 715–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 715.Google Scholar

5. Gurr, Robert Tedd, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3, 2000, pp. 52–64. In 1999, there were 23 de-escalating ethnic conflicts, 29 remaining constant, and seven escalating (p. 54).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 55. See also, by the same author, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington: U. S. Institute for Peace, 1993).Google Scholar

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8. See in particular Geertz, Clifford, “The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States,” in Geertz, Clifford, ed., Old Societies and New States (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1963); also by the same author, The Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Ernst Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

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10. The policy of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic would seem to exemplify this type of ethnic-based conflict. For a recent examination of this type of politically opportunistic use of “ethnology”, see Shnirelman, Victor, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1996).Google Scholar

11. According to the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute, the population figures (in thousands) are: 1996: 8, 384; 1997: 8,340; 1998: 9,283.2. Source: http://www.nsi.bg/Stat_e/statistics.htm; the 2003 estimate is from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107365.html.Google Scholar

12. This information was obtained in February 2003 from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107365.html.Google Scholar

13. Pockets of ethnic Turks are to be found throughout the Balkan peninsula, a natural consequence, perhaps, of the centuries-old Ottoman rule over much of this territory. Even as far west as Kosova there exists a Turkish minority that is significant in terms of electoral politics; see Moore, Patrick, “Different Issues, Different Priorities in Balkan Elections,” RFE-RL Report, September 8, 2000. See also Eminov, Ali, “Turks and Tatars in Bulgaria and the Balkans,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2000, p. 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. As Hugh Poulton noted a decade ago, the disparity represented a double concern for Bulgarian authorities, since the minority population was increasing much faster than that of the ethnic Bulgarians, and the southern, agricultural regions of the country were increasingly populated predominantly by various minorities. Awareness of this disparity may have contributed directly to the “Bulgarization” campaign of 1984–1985. The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict (London: Minority Rights, 1991), p. 123.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 105. For a regional and city-by-city breakdown of the proportion of Turks in Bulgaria from 1880 to 1910, see Crampton, R. J., “The Turks in Bulgaria, 1878–1944,” in Karpat, Kemal, ed., The Turks of Bulgaria: The History of Culture, and Political Fate of a Minority (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990), pp. 71–78.Google Scholar

16. A succinct but good overview of Bulgarian history may be found in Derleth, J. William, The Transition in Central and Eastern European Politics (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000), pp. 122–142; a useful timeline of Bulgaria from 1944–1998 is found on pp. 184–187 of that volume.Google Scholar

17. Poulton, Hugh, “Islam, Ethnicity, and State in the Contemporary Balkans,” in Poulton, Hugh and Taji-Farouki, Suha, eds, Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (Washington Square, NY: New York University Press, 1997), pp. 16–17. See also Kucukcan, Talip, “Re-claiming Identity: Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics among Turkish-Muslims in Bulgaria and Greece,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1999, p. 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Ibid., p. 17. However, as pointed out by Fearon, and Laitin, (1996), p. 731, the millet system was not successful everywhere, andGoogle Scholar

over time the millet and kahal systems broke down, with awful consequences for all groups but especially for minorities. It is crucial that both spiral equilibria and in-group policing will tend to reproduce and maintain the sense of ethnic difference through time. In addition, in-group policing may have the added liability that the same in-group institutions that prevent spiraling may be captured by ethnic entrepreneurs with an interest in fomenting ethnic violence and used by them to mobilize ethnic groups for conflict.Google Scholar

Fortunately, and likely for a number of reasons, that liability has not materialized in post-communist Bulgaria. The question, explored below, is why.Google Scholar

19. Eminov, , p. 131.Google Scholar

20. For detailed historical accounts of this period, see Crampton, R. J., Bulgaria 1878–1918: A History (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1983), and “The Turks in Bulgaria, 1878–1944,” in Karpat, Kemal H., ed., The Turks of Bulgaria: The History, Culture, and Political Fate of a Minority (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990), pp. 43–78.Google Scholar

21. See, for example, Karpat, Kemal H., “Introduction: Bulgarian Way of Nation Building and the Turkish Minority,” in Karpat, Kemal H., ed., The Turks of Bulgaria: The History, Culture, and Political Fate of a Minority (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990), pp. 1–22.Google Scholar

22. Zhelyazkova, Antonina, “The Social and Cultural Adaptation of the Bulgarian Emigrants in Turkey,” in Zhelyazkova, Antonina, ed., From Adaptation to Nostalgia: The Bulgarian Turks in Turkey (Sofia: International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, 1998), p. 6.Google Scholar

23. See Hoepken, Wolfgang (1997), pp. 60–62.Google Scholar

24. Zhelyazkova, , “Social and Cultural Adaptation of the Bulgarian Emigrants into Turkey,” p. 13.Google Scholar

25. Simsir, Bilal, a “noted Turkish historian,” as referred to by Khan, Mujeeb, “View I” (Review Articles: “From the Balkans,” “Two Books,” “Two Reviews,” and “Different Views”), Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1999, p. 330.Google Scholar

26. See in particular Eminov, , op. cit. Also, Eminov, Ali, Turkish and Other Minorities of Bulgaria (London: Routledge, 1997).Google Scholar

27. This is not to minimize the highly significant role that religion plays in the complex web of society and politics in Bulgaria, as it does elsewhere. Sociological data from the middle of the 1980s indicated that ethnic Turks were considerably more religiously inclined than ethnic Bulgarians; Poulton, , The Balkans, pp. 125–126.Google Scholar

28. In particular, Linz, Juan L. and Stepan, Alfred (Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996]) consider Bulgaria to have been at or near the extreme totalitarian end of the political spectrum as late as 1988 “concerning autonomous groups in society” (p. 294).Google Scholar

29. Oren, Nissan, Bulgarian Communism: The Road to Power 1933–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 259. See also Rothschild, Joseph, The Communist Party of Bulgaria: Origins and Development (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

30. Smith, Graham, “Nationalities Policy from Lenin to Gorbachev,” in Smith, Graham, ed., The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (London: Longman, 1990), pp. 1–20, provides a succinct view of the nationality question; for background on the historical roots and ideology, see the collection of essays in Part 1, “History and Ideology,” of Rachel Denber, ed., The Soviet Nationality Reader (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 11–101.Google Scholar

31. Fedoseev, P. H. et al., Leninizm I Natsional'niyi Vopros V Sovremmenom Uslovyak (Moscow: Politicheskaya Literatura, 1974), Chapter 9.Google Scholar

32. Fotev, Georgi, Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics (Sofia: Marin Drinov and Pensoft, 1999), p. 37. Translation provided by Orlina Boteva.Google Scholar

33. Cited from Poulton, , The Balkans, p. 120.Google Scholar

34. Zhelyazkova, , Chapter 1: “The Fate of the Turks in Bulgaria from 1878 to 1989,” pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

35. Poulton, , The Balkans, pp. 119–120.Google Scholar

36. Ibid. Google Scholar

37. Ibid., pp. 111–115. According to Poulton: more recently, “[h]owever, there appears to be less problems between Pomaks and Bulgarians than the case with Turks and Bulgarians” (p. 115).Google Scholar

38. For an excellent overview of the period from the beginning of the 1984–1985 campaign until the mass exodus of Turks from Bulgaria in 1989, see Poulton, , The Balkans, Chapters 10, “Bulgaria's Ethnic Turks—Forced Assimilation from 1984–1989” (pp. 129–151), and 11, “Bulgaria's Ethnic Turks—Mass Exodus in 1989” (pp. 153–161).Google Scholar

39. Zhelyazkova, , “The Fate of the Turks in Bulgaria from 1878 to 1989,” in Social and Cultural Adaptation of the Bulgarian Emigrants into Turkey, p. 15:Google Scholar

By some way of compensation for the eliminated religions and related everyday life traditions and rituals, the government followed the ideological cliches of “internationalism” and granted greater freedom of expression to the various ethnic groups with their respective cultures. These astonishing acts of tolerance, particularly toward the Turkish ethnic identity, were linked with the absurd idea of “exporting the revolution” on a worldwide scale. In this particular case the Bulgarian authorities, pressured by the Soviet secret services, took up the task of winning the confidence of the Turkish population and training the specialists required for exporting the communist ideology to Turkey. The very way of transferring the revolutionary cadres into Turkish territory was considered extremely simple to achieve—through conducting periodic emigration campaigns among the Bulgarian Turks.Google Scholar

40. Cited in “Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Expulsion of the Bulgarian Turks,” Helsinki Watch, October 1989, p. 1.Google Scholar

41. The Nazi concept and practice of Gleichschaltung, or coordination (“bringing into line”), was central to the totalitarian project of social and cultural reconstruction, which in turn was central to the entire Nazi political vision.Google Scholar

42. Eminov, Ali, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 91–99.Google Scholar

43. Cited in Linz, and Stepan, , p. 336.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 335.Google Scholar

45. Zhelyazkova, , “The Turks in the Transitional Period from 1990–1997,” in Between Adaptation and Nostalgia, p. 23.Google Scholar

46. Ibid. Google Scholar

47. “Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Expulsion of the Bulgarian Turks,” Helsinki Watch. The report views the anti-Turk campaign of May 1989 as a particularly intense continuation of the regime's general orientation toward the Turkish minority at least since the 1984–1985 assimilation campaign, and in some respects emblematic of the overall experience of the Turkish minority. The report notes curtly that “Bulgaria has a long established policy of attempting to destroy the identity of the Turks.”Google Scholar

48. Zhelyazkova, Antonina, “The Fate of the Turks in Bulgaria from 1878 to 1989,” in Zhelyazkova, Antonina, ed., Between Adaptation and Nostalgia: The Bulgarian Turks in Turkey (Sofia: International Center for Problems of Minorities and Cultural Interaction).Google Scholar

49. Eminov, , Turkish and Other Minorities of Bulgaria, pp. 164–165. See also his “Epilogue,” same volume, pp. 176–178.Google Scholar

50. Cited in Eminov, , “Turks and Tatars in Bulgaria and the Balkans,” p. 142.Google Scholar

51. This information was derived from http://www.agora.stm.it/elections/bulgaria.htm.Google Scholar

52. Assenova, Margarita, “Bulgaria: The Rush to Build Coalitions,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 6 February 2001.Google Scholar

53. Eminov, , Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria, pp. 172–173.Google Scholar

54. Hoepken, , pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

55. Figures from the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute reflect these realities, and may be found at http://www.nsi.bg/Stat_e/statistics.htm.Google Scholar

56. The interview was conducted and translated by Boteva, Orlina.Google Scholar

57. Ibid. Google Scholar

58. The U. S. Department of State's Human Rights Report for 1999: Bulgaria (Washington: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2000), for example, notes “high levels of discrimination” against the Roma but not against the Turkish minority. It does note, however, that “[t]here are no restrictions on speaking Turkish in public or the use of non-Slavic names” (p. 20); that government-funded, voluntary Turkish-language classes are offered in public schools (p. 20); and that although the government is attempting to correct the previously rampant discrimination in the military (pp. 21–22), “there are only a few ethnic Turkish, Pomak, and Romani officers in the military, and an insignificant number of high-ranking officers of the Muslim faith” (pp. 21–22).Google Scholar

59. Gurr, Ted Robert, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington: U. S. Institute for Peace, 1993), pp. 46–47. See also Horowitz, Donald, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).Google Scholar

60. U. S. Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999: Bulgaria, p. 22.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., pp. 204–205.Google Scholar

62. The more or less persisting opportunity to emigrate may account, at least in part, for the apparent absence of a push for an autonomous regime for the Turks in Bulgaria. Also, the relatively small population of Turks in Bulgaria would make secession an unlikely scenario, especially given the presence of Turkey neighboring so closely, and given the relatively open borders for emigration that have existed since Bulgaria's independence was won in 1878. Such autonomy arrangements are difficult to make work in practice, and particularly under circumstances of serious discrepancy among ethnic groups. Lapidoth, Ruth, Autonomy: Flexible Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts (Washington: U. S. Institute for Peace, 1996), pp. 200–201. See also Gottlieb, Gidon, Nation against State: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts and the Decline of Sovereignty (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993). See also Ivanka Nedeva Atanassova, “The Impact of Ethnic Issues on the Security of South Eastern Europe,” Report Commissioned by the NATO Office of Information and Press (June 1999), especially Section 5.1, “The Question of Status.”Google Scholar

63. Perhaps in this case the distinctively different cultural-religious roots of each group may have been deliberately tolerated, perhaps even valued, by the other as a means of overcoming the larger threat to their common civilization. This is consistent with the findings of Jonathan Fox that the “clash of civilizations” thesis of Huntington, Samuel (Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 22–29, and The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996]) that “civilizational conflicts constitute a minority of ethnic conflicts” and that “there is no evidence that the intensity of civilizational conflicts have risen relative to other types of ethnic conflicts since the end of the Cold War.” Jonathan Fox, “Ethnic Minorities and the Clash of Civilizations: A Quantitative Analysis of Huntington's Thesis,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2002, p. 415.Google Scholar

64. Victor Levine's imagery of the three stages of worst-case-scenario ethnic conflict conceives of such conflict as having gone from an “incipient phase” to an “open phase” of overt conflict, and then, if not corrected or harnessed somehow, to an “out of control” phase characterized by widespread and self-perpetuating violence; Levine, , pp. 45–75.Google Scholar

65. Bulgaria's post-communist political psychology may bear certain comparisons to Canada's non-violent, step-by-step approach to a political resolution of the status of Quebec. To be sure, the substantive issues are markedly different, but the underlying political psychology appears similar enough to warrant further in-depth comparative studies.Google Scholar

66. Fearon, and Laitin, , p. 715.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., p. 729.Google Scholar

68. Naegele, Jolyon, “Turkey: Foreign Relations Good with Two of Eight Neighbors,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 18 August 2000; located at www.rferl.org/nca/features/1998/08/F. RU.980813130211.html.Google Scholar

69. Kramer, Heinz, A Changing Turkey: The Challenge to Europe and the United States (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), pp. 146–162.Google Scholar

70. Annual Report on the State of the National Security of the Republic of Bulgaria in 1999 (Sofia, 1999), particularly Section 3, “Degree of Protection of the National Interests;” this document is available at www.government.bg/eng/oficial_docs/reports/National_Sec_Report.htm.Google Scholar

71. Derleth, (2000) however, asserts that “Five hundred years of foreign domination have made Bulgarians politically apathetic. They view politics as something distant, outside their control. As a result, in contrast to Hungarians and Poles they tend to be much more politically lethargic.” His conclusion is that “the result is a somewhat intolerant political culture, a severely divided and polarized society, a conservative populace, and the lack of an agreed-upon foundation on which to construct the polity. Thus, the political culture presents numerous obstacles to change in the contemporary period” (pp. 145–146).Google Scholar

72. Ibid., p. 715.Google Scholar

73. For a cogent overview of major works dealing with these themes, see Petro, Nicolai, “Creating Social Capital in Russia: The Novgorod Model,” World Development, Vol. 29, Spring 2001, pp. 229–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74. “Bulgarian State to Air News in Turkish,” AP Worldstream (COMTEX), 1 October 2000.Google Scholar

75. U. S. Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999: Bulgaria, p. 20. On 3 November 2000, a conference of Bulgarian Muslims was held in Sofia to deal, among other things, with issues of relations among various groups in Bulgarian society. ‘Bulgaristan Müslümanlari Ulusal Konferansi Sofya'da yapildi’, Zaman, 3 November 2000, p. 1.Google Scholar

76. “The World Bank Supports the Integration of Ethnic Minorities,” World Bank, Press Office, 22 June 2000. Document located at www.worldbank.bg/press/2000-12-eccbg.phtml.Google Scholar

77. Ibid. As further evidence that the national government is genuinely interested in improving the material living conditions of minorities, the Minister of Health is reported to have “asked the [World] Bank team managing the Health Sector Restructuring Project to modify the primary health care component of this project to direct the intervention more toward the rural and remote areas of the country, thereby targeting the project more to the poor” (www.worldbank.org/infoshop, Report PID8734). Given the demographic realities of contemporary Bulgaria, there is little question that the Turks and other minorities would be the beneficiaries of this intervention.Google Scholar

78. Eminov, Ali, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria.Google Scholar

79. Nelson, Linda, reviewing Eminov, Ali, Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria (New York: Routledge, 1997), in the Bulgarian Studies Association Newsletter, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2000, p. 7.Google Scholar