Minorities
in Bulgaria
Ethnic groups in Bulgaria today are
linguistically, culturally, and emotionally linked to other countries, as well
as to communities
Ethnic Bulgarians, on their part, have their
own minorities outside the Bulgarian state - in the Ukraine, Moldova,
Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Albania, Turkey, etc. Some of these ethnic
Bulgarian minority groups are successors of Bulgarian emigrants, who had left
the country, for political or economic reasons, in the time of the Ottoman rule
(in the modern terminology, the predecessors of these ethnic Bulgarians would
have been called refugees), for example, the Bulgarian Catholics in Romanian
and Serbian Banat, the Bulgarians in Bessarabia (Moldova and the Ukraine),
Tavria (the Ukraine), etc
We should mention here that some
non-Bulgarian ethnic communities living in other states are connected with the
Bulgarian cultural tradition and way of life - these are ethnic Turks from
Bulgaria, now living in Turkey, or
Bulgaria's Jews, now living in Israel.
On the whole, it could be asserted that the
Bulgarian people is more or less tolerant to its minorities. More than once
have large groups of people, driven out of other countries, been given
asylum in Bulgaria - such were the Sefarade Jews in the 15th century, the Russian Kazaks of the Old Rite in the
17th century, and later the Armenians fleeing from the outrages in
Turkey, the White Guards fleeing from Russia, etc.
During World War II, when the Jews were being
killed in the Holocaust everywhere in Europe, the fourty-eight thousand Jews living
in Bulgaria's pre-war territories, were not sent to the death camps, in spite
of the anti-Jewish legislation effective in the country. Bulgaria refused to
deport its citizens.
Some minorities suffered heavy economic blows
in the context of the policy of eliminating private ownership followed by the
authorities
Some of the minority groups had their
organizations and periodicals, but the latter were not expected to promote the
preservation of minority languages and cultures, but rather to work for their
"internationalization", that is assimilation.
The period of the so-called
"revival process" (with two peaks - in 1972-1974, and 1984-1985), the
forcible renaming of the Muslim population (Turks, Bulgarians, Tartars, Roma),
was accompanied by acts of repression, some were killed or sentenced. In the
long run, however, the process led in 1989 to a wave of refugees unseen in the
Balkans since World War II and cynically termed "the big trip"
because of the tourist passports issued to the ethnic Turks at that time. The
ethnic Turks left Bulgaria in huge numbers.
At the same time, following W.W. II until as late as
the political changes in 1989-1990 the carelessness of the Bulgarian state with
respect to the ethnic Bulgarian population in other countries was next to
total. Subsequent to the political transformations, the government turned their
attention to the minority issue and undertook a number of steps, though not
very systematic and consistent. Under pressure by the Muslims, a regulatory
base and an administrative mechanism were established for the restoration
of their names.
Since the Bulgarian authorities make
no obstructions any more, some of the Turkish emigrants have returned, but
others have emigrated.
The Constitution, passed by the Grand National
Assembly in 1991, says that no political parties based on ethnicity and
religion shall be formed. Since no personal identification documents contain
references to nationality, the only application of this article is that parties
are not allowed to write down in their documents that they are ethnicity-based,
they could not deny either admittance to a Bulgarian citizen on account of
his/her ethnic or religious background.
http://www.mlsp.government.bg/bg/docs/demography/Dem.%20Strategy_ENG.pdf
http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Census.htm
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