Since the fall of Ottoman Empire and the creation of new nation states, the Balkans have experienced many conflicts and border issues. The early years of the nineteenth century witnessed massive wars and adjustment of the borders in line with the demands of the new nation states. Bulgaria emerged in late nineteenth century as a newly independent nation with a large Turkish minority. Treaties signed with Turkey and the Ottoman Empire aimed to protect of the rights of the Turkish minority going forward. Nevertheless, in the second half of the twentieth century, the communists took power, and decided to follow a different path. Ignoring Bulgaria’s commitments in international treaties and other bilateral documents, they decided to embark on an assimilation policy supported by partial migration that would keep the numbers of Turks in Bulgaria low, in order to balance the unwanted population growth. This article discusses the inconsistency of Bulgarian policies towards the Turks, who are Bulgaria’s largest minority group. Documents from the Bulgarian state archives are used in order to depict the environment in which the so-called assimilationist policies were adopted.

1. Paisii Hilendarski, Istoria Slavianobalgarska [A Slavo-Bulgarian History] (Sofia: Balgarski Pisatel, 1972), 40–44.
2. Ibid.
3. Central State Archive of Bulgaria (hereafter cited as CSAB), fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 34, fol., 6–8.
4. Jennifer Jackson Preece, “Ethnic Cleansing as an Instrument of Nation-State Creation: Changing State Practices and Evolving Legal Norms,” HRQ 20, no. 4 (1998): 820.
5. Ibrahim Yalimov, Istoria and Turskata Obshtnost v Balgaria [The History of Turkish Community in Bulgaria] (Sofia: Ilinda – Evtimov EOOD, 2002), 282–284.
6. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 32, fol. 5.
7. “Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria,” accessed 20 January 2019, http://www.parliament.bg/bg/18 (available only in Bulgarian).
8. Huey Louis Kostanick, “Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950–1953,” MEJ 9, no. 1 (Winter, 1955): 43.
9. Yalimov, Istoria, 295.
10. CSAB, fund 136, inv. 3, vol. 145, fol. 14.
11. Bilal N. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria (1878–1985) (London: K. Rustem & Brother, 1988), 82.
12. Antonina Zhelyazkova, “Bulgaria in Transition: The Muslim Minorities,” ICMR 12, no. 3 (2001): 288.
13. Ulrich Büchsenschütz, Maltsinstvenata politika v Balgaria: Politikata na BKP kam evrei, romi, pomatsi i turtsi 1944–1989 [The Minority Politics in Bulagaria: The BCP Politics towards Jews, Roma, Pomaks and Turks] (Sofia: IMIR, 2000), 73.
14. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 1942, fol. 204–214.
15. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 1942, fol. 204–214.
16. Büchsenschütz, Maltsinstvenata politika, 73.
17. Lilia Petkova, “The Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria: Social Integration and Impact on Bulgarian-Turkish Relations, 1947–2000,” GRE 1, no. 4 (Jun., 2002): 44–46.
18. CSAB, fund 1B, o. 91, vol. 1230, fol. 2–6, 7–9.
19. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria, 198.
20. Yalimov, Istoria, 325.
21. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 91, vol. 1359, fol. 1–5.
22. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 34, vol. 89, fol. 83.
23. Mary Neuburger, The Orient within Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 74.
24. CSAB, fund 1B. inv. 34, vol. 89, fol. 83, 86–90.
25. Thomas F. Michel, “The Turkish Minority in Bulgaria,” ICMR 1, no. 2 (Dec., 1990): 270.
26. CSAB, fund 176K, inv. 7, vol. 1137, fol. 55–57.
27. Ibid., fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 653, fol. 4–5.
28. Victor D. Bojkov, “Bulgaria’s Turks in the 1980s: A Minority Endangered,” JGR 6, no. 3 (Sept., 2004): 352–353.
29. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 6, vol. 653, fol. 4–5.
30. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria, 9.
31. Interview conducted on 25 July 2010, with a 72 year-old man from the village Topolitsa, whose members were mainly composed of Turks from the Kardzhali region and were relocated by the Bulgarian Government in 1950s.
32. Rezultati ot Prebroiavaneto na Naselenieto [Census Results], t. 1 (Sofia: National Statistical Institute, 1994), 106.
33. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria, 167.
34. Ibid., 178.
35. 1956 Population Census, Bulgaria. Total population 7,613,709 and population of the Turkish minority 656,025. Some critics claimed that actual numbers of Turks in Bulgaria were much higher, but Bulgarian authorities registered some of the Turks as Gypsies or Bulgarians. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria, 207.
36. Annex no. 1, CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 55, vol. 1316, fol. 2–34.
37. Șimșir, The Turks of Bulgaria, 211.
38. Ibid., 252.
39. CSAB, fund 378B, inv. 1, vol. 1156, fol. 1–34.
40. Ibid., fund 1B, inv. 63, vol. 71, l. 1–39.
41. Archives of the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs (hereafter cited as ABMIA), fund 22, inv. 1, vol. 171, fol. 46–59, 1982.
42. Boris Deribeev, Ahrida: Nepoznata Zemia (Sofia: Otechestven Front, 1982), 235–237.
43. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 67, vol. 3090, fol. 58–139.
44. Muzaffer Kutlay, “The Turks of Bulgaria: An Outlier Case of Forced Migration and Voluntary Return,” IM 55, no. 5 (Oct., 2017): 166–167.
45. Orlin Zagorov, Vazroditelniyat Protses: Teza i Antiteza, Otritsanie na Otritsanieto [Revival Process: Thesis and Anti-Thesis, Negation of the Negation] (Sofia: Pandora Ltd., 1993), 25.
46. ABMIA, fund 22, inv. 1, vol. 257, fol. 1–8.
47. Mila Mileva Maeva, Balgarskite Turtsi: Preselnitsi v Republika Turtsia, Kultura i Identichnost [The Turks of Bulgaria: Migrants in Republic of Turkey, Culture and Identity] (Sofia: IMIR, 2006), 30–31.
48. Interview conducted on 20 July 2010, with a group of people from Benkovski, village in the Kardzhali district, near the Greek border.
49. Milena Mahon, “The Turkish Minority under Communist Bulgaria – Politics of Ethnicity and Power,” JSEB 1, no. 2 (1999): 157.
50. Ibid.
51. CSAB, fund 1B, inv. 99, vol. 2, fol. 1–82.
52. Yalimov, Istoria, 473.
53. Jackson Preece, “Ethnic Cleansing,” 822.