Bulgarian Democracy and the Armenian Connection
"The original Bulgars were Turkic tribes running away from the Mongols of Central Asia"
By Ahmet Gursoy, Special to The Turkish Times (Part I of IV) - In the summer of 1986, Bulgaria's hard-line Communist regime forcibly expelled more than three hundred thousand ethnic Turks across the Turkish border, claiming them unfit for their Communist regime. Mostly women, children, and elderly, these Turks had lived in Bulgaria for six centuries. From 1985 to 1989, Communist authorities of Bulgaria forced the Turkish minority, (900,000 people -- 10 percent of the country's population), to change their names to Slavic names. The totalitarian regime was determined to assimilate the Turkish minority by force after six centuries of peaceful co-existence. Turkish villages were ransacked by militiamen: At midnight every household was forced to fill out forms to change the names of every member of the family. Those who refused or hesitated watched the militiamen rape their wives and daughters and execute or exile them. After four years of torture, nearly 350,000 were exiled to Turkey.

From June 14 to June 23, 2002, I visited Bulgaria as a member of the Assembly of the Turkish American Association (ATAA). During this visit, I met a number of political party leaders, members of Parliament and the cabinet, regional governors, mayors, Turkish industrialists, and diplomats, including small tobacco farmers whom I visited in their villages.

With immense pleasure, in ten days I learned a great deal about the imaginative approach taken by the Bulgarian politicians in establishing an ethnically balanced democracy within a very short time -- only 12 years. The timing of this important accomplishment is highly critical and its fast conclusion is intriguingly interesting. It almost suggests that the speedy victory in establishing an ethnically balanced democracy was the pay-off from a national disaster that took place earlier -- the ethnic cleansing of the Turkish minorities in the 1980s.

From the beginning, Bulgaria was (and still is) a nation of immigrants, first with the arrival of the Bulgars in 600 A.D., followed by the Thracians and the Gypsies in 700 A.D., then the Ottoman invasion that took place in late 1300. The original Bulgars were Turkic tribes running away from the Mongols of Central Asia. They settled in the land of the Slavs, what is known today as Bulgaria, and assimilation was easy. Although a minority, Bulgars took the lead in nation building, and 1500 years later they are about to build a sustainable democracy after 1000 years of foreign domination. Bulgarian tenacity can be summed up in five major milestones: First the assimilation of Bulgars and Thracians with the Slavs between the 7th and 8th centuries; followed by the Byzantium reign with the arrival of Christianity in the 8th century; third, the Ottoman takeover from 1396 to 1878; fourth, the age of Bulgarian nationalism from 1878 to 1946, followed by the communist take over from 1946 to 1989; and finally the birth of democracy from 1989 to 2001. As of 2002, Bulgaria is in the process of joining the European Union, which is due to occur in 2007, and NATO, which could happen sooner or later.

An interesting part of the Bulgarian story is the incredible speed in which the constitutional democracy and the Bill of Rights were constituted: It took only twelve years. The price for this quick turnaround, however, was not a small matter: It was the blood and sacrifice of the Turkish minority during the ethnic cleansing, which resulted in the return of 350,000 Turkish Bulgarians to Turkey. Today it appears that the new Bulgarian example of establishing a civil society with ethnic balance of power and a sustainable democracy is more organic in substance in the Balkans than the recent examples in Bosnia and Croatia, provided that the constitutional rights of the minorities are clearly addressed in the Bill of Rights, instead of the promise of a protectional right of the minority parties in Parliament. This point was never made clear during my questioning. Nevertheless the Bulgarian model can be a shining star for the other Macedonians in the Balkans or the Palestinians in the Middle East to follow.

To understand the inner makings of this quick turnover, one has to examine the Bulgarian politics before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Starting with the ethnic cleansing of the 1980s, the so called "Bulgarian Revival" was created by the politburo of the Bulgarian communist party for the following three political reasons: First, "Perestroika" proposed by then Russian leader Gorbachev to bring new life to the ailing socialist system in the Soviet Block was not well received in Bulgaria. Todor Jivkov, the communist leader, had deep-rooted dislike of Gorbachev and his vision and was not in favor of the Perestroika application in Bulgaria. The second reason was Gorbachev's deep desire to remove Jinkov from the Bulgarian politburo that would create turmoil in Bulgarian politics and economy. Third, under these conditions Todor Jivkov was seeking a quick solution to gain solidarity in the country, and ethnic cleansing of the Turkish minority was the answer.

It was not the first time that such actions were undertaken. Nearly 100 years earlier, during the Russo-Turkish war in 1878 that resulted in Bulgarian independence, the Bulgarians of Turkish origin were slaughtered by the nationalist rebels under the banner of Bulgarian Revival. From the Bulgarian Revival to the liberation of other Balkan nations in 1913, about 1.1 million Muslims were slaughtered (Turks, Albanians, and Pomaks). Todor Jinkov, with the help of fellow workers Balev, Stoyanev, Kobadinski, and Lilov, set the objectives of the second Bulgarian Revival: Turkish minorities had to change their names to Slavic; the use of the Turkish language in public places was prohibited and the resettlement of Turkish minorities was initiated; limited freedom for the Muslims to worship in public was allowed; and social pressures on Turkish minorities were organized to sustain a high level of unemployment, forcing them to migrate to Turkey.

In six years these measures altered the life of nearly 1.5 million people, creating intense protests inside and outside Bulgaria resulting in organized efforts to receive help from human rights groups in the European Union, as well as the help of green parties in European nations. It was a national nightmare for the Bulgarians and the Turkish minority. From April to May 1986, nearly 350,000 Turkish Bulgarians left their homes of the last 600 years because they refused to change their names. Since then about 20,000 Bulgarian Turks leave annually to seek a new life in Turkey or in Europe due to the high unemployment.

In 1996 as Simeon II, the old King of Bulgaria, was organizing his new party, the "National Movement of Simeon II" (NMS), the Turkish minority was in the process of establishing the very first minority party in Bulgaria with the help of their leader, Ahmet Dogan. The new party was named the "Movements of Rights and Freedom" (MRF) party, representing the Bulgarians of Turkish origin, dissident Bulgarians, the Pomaks (Bulgarians converted to Muslim), and the Gypsies also called the Romans. The MRF party captured 10 percent of the vote in 2001 and held 21 seats in Parliament.

In 1989, after the visit of Gorbachev, Todor Jivkov was removed and Peter Maladenov was appointed president. In February 1990, Andre Lukanov was appointed the interim prime minister, and in June 1990, the first parliamentary election took place giving the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) the majority in Parliament. The newly established party was nothing more than the old communist party carrying a new title. In December 1990 the new 420 members of Parliament were charged to write a new constitution and Dimirtar Popov was elected as the prime minister.

(To continue in our next issue…)