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The Turks of Bulgaria: The Struggle for National-Religious Survival of a Muslim Minority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Kemal H. Karpat
Kemal H. Karpat*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin (Madison)
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Extract

In May 1989, two series of demonstrations in Turkish villages of northeast Bulgaria was followed by a massive gathering of more than 50,000 Muslim Turks in the town of Shumnu in the same area. The Turks had converged to Shumnu from the surrounding villages and smaller towns in order to protest the forced changes of names and the bulgarization imposed by the government of Todor Zhivkov, then undisputed ruler of Bulgaria. The demonstration was put down in the usual brutal Bulgarian way; some twenty to thirty-five demonstrators were killed and hundreds were injured. However, the Turks had made their point; they were not going to give up, however fierce the official terror, their Islamic identity and culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 23 , Issue 4: Twentieth Anniversary Issue , December 1995 , pp. 725 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, Inc 

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References

Notes

1. See Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 99th Congress, Washington, DC, 25 June 1985, pp. 182–183; Amnesty International, Bulgaria: Imprisonment of Ethnic Turks (London, 1986) (also the larger updated version, 1987); and Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1986. Reports appearing in the West European press have been gathered in several volumes by the Turkish General Directorate of Information: see Basin Yayin ve Enformasyon, Genel Mudurlugu, Turkish Minority in Bulgaria, 6 vols. (Ankara, 1985–1987).Google Scholar

2. There are a number of good scholarly works on the history of Bulgaria. The best, despite pro-Bulgarian bias, are by Konstantion Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren (Prague, 1876) and Das Fürstenthum Bulgarien (Vienna, 1891). See also Nikolai Botev Staneff, Geschichte der Bulgaren (Leipzig, 1918); and Nikolai Botev Staneff, Geschichte der Bulgaren (Leipzig, 1918). For a recent work, see Richard J. Crampton, Bulgaria, 1878–1918: A History (New York 1983). One may form an opinion about the quality and spirit of the contemporary Bulgarian writers merely by reading Bistra Cvetkova, The Heroical Resistance of the Bulgarians against the Turkish Invasion (Sofia, 1960); D. Kossev and H. Hristrov, Bulgaria, 1300 Years (Sofia, 1980). The Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria have established several associations and published periodicals and books containing excellent firsthand information on the situation of their kin left in Bulgaria; see the views of one of the leaders, himself a recent refugee from Bulgaria, Mehmet Cavus, Bulgaristanda Soykirimi (“Genocide in Bulgaria”) (Istanbul, 1984).Google Scholar

3. group, This, consisting of some 20,000 people, still speaks its own Turkish language, even though its intellectuals have been among the vanguard in the Bulgarization campaign. (Dr Emil Boyeff, a teacher of Turkish at Sofia University, is one of the most outstanding examples of the Bulgarized Gagauz.) The contemporary existence of the Gagauz has been fully ascertained by some Bulgarian authors; one of the best known is A. I. Manov, an army officer who collected his material while serving in the Gagauz districts. See Potekloto na Gagauzitei tehnite obicai i nravi v dve casti (Varna, 1938). (A Turkish translation, Gagauzlar, was published by Varlik Publishing House, Istanbul, 1940.)Google Scholar

4. One of the best-documented works on the Turkish monuments is Machiel Kiel, Art and Society of Bulgaria in the Turkish Period (Asen/Maastricht, 1985). For a more complete bibliography, see Turkish Historical Society, The Turkish Presence in Bulgaria (Ankara, 1986).Google Scholar

5. On the destruction of the Turkish monuments, see Bernard Lory, Le Sort de L'Heritage Ottoman en Bulgarie, L'Example des Villes Bulgares, 1878–1900 (Istanbul, 1985). There are also Bulgarian works which justify this destruction as the liquidation of feudalism and capitalism; see Georgi Georgiev, The Liberation and the Ethnocultural Development of the Bulgarian People, 1878–1900 (Sofia, 1979), in Bulgarian.Google Scholar

6. See H. L. Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950–1953 (Berkeley, 1957).Google Scholar

7. See numbers 3 and 5 for bibliography.Google Scholar

8. See P. Petrov, ed., The Assimilatory Policy of the Turkish Conquerors. Collection of Documents with Regard to Islam and Conversion to Islam. 15th—19th Centuries, (in Bulgarian) (Sofia, 1962). Petrov has several other works of the same genre, none supported by any basic source, including K. Jirecek's classical works.Google Scholar

9. See the “Documents” section of the International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 4/2, (1988) for a series of misinterpreted Ottoman sources.Google Scholar

10. original, The, in Bulgarian, was published in the Geographical-Historical Statistical Description of the Tatar Bazarcik (Vienna, 1870). The original document disappeared immediately after publication and has never been seen. The language used in the document differs substantially from the language spoken in seventeenth-century Bulgaria.Google Scholar

11. Dennis R. Hupohic “Seventeenth-Century Bulgarian Pomaks: Forced or Voluntary Converts to Islam,” in Society in Change: Studies in Honor of Bela K. Kiraly, ed. Steven Bela Vardy (Boulder, CO, 1983), p. 311.Google Scholar

12. , Kiel, op.cit., p. 5.Google Scholar

13. The Bulgarian edition appeared in 1964; the English version, translated by Marguerite Alexieva, was published in Great Britain in 1967, and in the USA by William Morrow and Company, New York, 1968.Google Scholar

14. , See, for instance, Rodop-Bulgaristan Türkler i TarShten Siliniyor mu? (“Are the Rodop Turks of Bulgaria Eliminated from History?”) published by the Association for Culture and Solidarity of the Rhodope-Danube Turks (Istanbul, 1976).Google Scholar

15. According to available information, the Turkish authors published in 1960–1968 a total of 34 novels, 36 collections of short stories and 17 volumes of poems; see Bilal N. Simsir, Bulgaristan Turkleri (Istanbul, 1986), pp. 303–306. A comprehensive bibliography on the study of Turkish spoken in Bulgaria was compiled by a member of the Turkish Institute of Bibliography—see Turker Acaroglu, “Rumeli Turk Agizlari Uzerine Turkce ve Yabanci Dillerdeki Baslica Arastirmalarin Aciklamali Kaynakcasi 1904–1981” (the annotated sources of the main researchers in Turkish and foreign languages on the Turkish dialects of Rumelia 1904–1981 [Balkans]), Halk Kulturu 4, 1984, pp. 13–40. One should mention also the linguistic studies undertaken by two well-trained linguists, Riza and Mefkure Molla (Mollow); see e.g., “Traits de fusion dans le dialect truc du Rhodope de l'Est,” Balkanski Ezikoznanie 14, 1970, pp. 57–81 (in his Turkish name.) Scholars of Bulgarian origin, such as Peter Miyatev and Stefan Mladenov, have also produced works on the Turkish language of Bulgaria.Google Scholar

16. example, For, one writer of Muslim origin, Mustafa Muslimoglu, in 1967 described the Turks as the largest minority in Bulgaria. In a recent rewriting of the same work he declared that there are no Turks in Bulgaria (meanwhile, his name became Peter Letrov). In the meantime, another Bulgarized Turkish intellectual paraded by the Bulgarian government in the West wrote a pamphlet upholding the government's views. See Olin Zagarof, The Truth. Only the Truth (Sofia 1985). The original Turkish name of Zagarof is Mehmet Tahiroglu. In a private conversation with this writer in Pec (Hungary) in 1986, Tahiroglu claimed that he was Turkish. While in public, when Bulgarians were present, he claimed that he became voluntarily Bulgarian.Google Scholar

17. Yet the atheist government of Bulgaria did not hesitate to exploit for propaganda purposes the church whose values it has undermined; see the brochure, Religious Denominations in Bulgaria, issued by the Press Agency (Sofia, 1987). In the demonstrations which took place in Sofia on 8 December 1989, the demonstrators asked that the religious holidays be restored. It seems that, finally, the ethnic Bulgarians decided to follow the Turks in asking for their religious freedoms.Google Scholar

18. The New York Times Magazine, 8 December 1985, p. 156.Google Scholar

19. Zhivkova died of a mysterious illness in 1981. The former top-ranking Soviet aide at the United Nations, Shevchenko claimed in his memoirs that a KGB general expressed utter dissatisfaction with Liudmila's Bulgarian nationalism and vowed to liquidate her.Google Scholar

20. Zhivkova, Liudmila, “Unity Between Past, Present, and Future,” Palaeo Bulgarica, III, 1979, p. 3. The extensive festivals in 1981 celebrated the establishment of the First Bulgarian State. There is little organic connection between the first, second, and finally the third (est. 1878) Bulgarian states except the name. It is interesting to note that the so-called “1300 years of existence” of the Bulgarian state consisted merely of four centuries of independence which was actually an independence that amounted to a continuous struggle for survival due to Bulgaria's inability to get along with its neighbors.Google Scholar

21. Markov, Georgi, The Truth That Killed (London, 1983); entitled “Nationalist Serenade for Vulko Cherenkov,” pp. 99, 107. (Markov was stabbed in London with an umbrella which contained poisoned pellets and died four days later at the age of 49.) Vulko Cherenkov was educated in the USSR and took the place of Fimitrov, the veteran Bulgarian communist leader, after the latter died in 1949. Cherenkov was replaced by Zhivkov (b. 1911) who was Prime Minister in 1962–1971, then Chairman of the State Council, and de facto dictator of Bulgaria until November 1989.Google Scholar

22. The late Alexander Bennigsen expressed this view several times to this writer in many personal talks in France and the United States in 1985–1988.Google Scholar

23. The figures used as the basis of this calculation are in Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison, Wisconsin, 1985). The Salname of 1874, which was based on the census of 1866 conducted by Mithat Pasha (and was used extensively by Nicolai Todorov in his book on the Balkan town) gives the male population of the Tuna Province (including Dobruca, but omitting the area south of the Balkans) as 504,297 Muslims and 491,742 non-Muslims. The Muslims were concentrated in the east, around Ruschuk, Varna, Pazarcik, Shumlu, Razgrad, Silistre, and Hexergrad, and in the southwest in Kustendil, Orhaniye, etc. The census of 1877, which did not classify the population into religious groups, gave the male population of Bulgaria north of the Balkan range (including the districts of Nis) as 1,247,000. Calculated proportionately, the Muslims numbered about 680,000.Google Scholar

24. Ubicini, A., “La Principaute de Bulgarie,” Revue de Geographic July-December 1879, pp. 81–100.Google Scholar

25. See Public Record Office, Foreign Office 78, Vol. 4032, O'Connor to Salisbury, 13 September 1887; also ibid., Vol. 4230, “Memorandum on the Population of Bulgaria,” p. 120ff.Google Scholar

26. Copy of Maritza of 27 July 1880, reproduced in the Great Britain House of Commons, Accounts and Papers, Vol. 82, 1880, pp. 109–110.Google Scholar

27. A variety of sources placed the population of Muslims in Bulgaria at 652,000. At the end of the nineteenth century they had 1,293 schools and 64,422 students; see Alexandre Popovic, L'Islam Balkanique (Berlin, 1986), p. 74.Google Scholar

28. See Statisticheski godishnik na NR Bulgaria, 1982 (Sofia, 1983), p. 29.Google Scholar

29. Background information on Bulgaria's economy are in John R. Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986) and John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jakson, Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1982). A more recent figure indicates that Bulgaria's economic growth was as follows: 2.8% in 1971–1980, and only 0.8 in 1981–1985. The New York Times (Business Section), 11 November 1989.Google Scholar

30. See B. Kayser, La Population et l'économie de la Republique Populaire Bulgare (Paris, 1961).Google Scholar

31. I have collected this information during my frequent trips through Bulgaria in the 1960s and 1970s. I have also interviewed hundreds of Turks from Bulgaria who emigrated to Turkey.Google Scholar

32. Ibis, Halil, a former Turkish member of the Bulgarian legislature, took refuge in Turkey and eventually testified before congressional committees in the USA.Google Scholar

33. I was told in 1978–1979, by several people intimately familiar with the life of the Turkish villages in the Deliorman (Silistre-Tutrakan) area, that young Muslim activities formed teams among themselves and went from one village to the next urging Turkish families to marry off their sons and daughters early and to have as many children as possible. This occurred after the Bulgarian government intensified its pressure and attempted to prevent the Turks from having many children by cutting down the child allowances.Google Scholar

34. See Halit Molla Huseyin, “Muslims in Bulgaria: A Status Report,” Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, 5, January 1984, pp. 136–144. For a comprehensive study of immigration from Bulgaria, see Cevat Geray, Turkiyeden ve Turkiye's Gocler ve Gocmenlerin Iskani (“Turkish Emigration and Immigration and Settlement”) (Ankara, 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. There is abundant literature on the birth rates among the Soviet Muslims; see, in particular, the work of Murray Feshbach, “The Soviet Union: Population Trends and Dilemmas,” Population Bulletin 37, No. 3 (1982), pp. 1–45.Google Scholar

36. The best source on the history of the Turks in Bulgaria is by Bilal Simsir, Bulgaristan Turkleri, (“The Turks of Bulgaria”) (Istanbul, 1986). Simsir attended elementary and high school in Bulgaria before emigrating to Turkey. He has an intimate knowledge of the Bulgarian government's policies as well as of the language and customs of the country.Google Scholar

37. The actions of the Bulgarian government has caused consternation among some, but not all, Bulgaristans abroad. Some scholars of Bulgarian affairs in the USA have, in the presence of this writer, expressed their satisfaction with the policy, stating, “if the Bulgarian government can get away with the baptism of the Turks, then it will be thanked by the next generations.” The Bulgaristan Studies Association in the USA has remained entirely silent on this issue. For a bold Bulgarian criticism on the treatment of the Turks, see S. T. Raikin, “Problems of Communism in Bulgaria. Liquidation of the Turkish Minority in Bulgaria,” Free Agrarian Banner, No. 45/46 (1985), p. 113.Google Scholar

38. New York Times Magazine, 8 December 1985, p. 162.Google Scholar

39. Report of the Contact Group of the O.I.C. on its visit to Turkey from 10 to 13 August 1989, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

40. Congressional Record, Vol. 135, No. 80, June 15, 1989.Google Scholar