Talk:Bulgarisation

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[edit] Article written by Romanian

This article is obviously written by a Romanian with erratic knowledge of Bulgarian history and geography. 74.66.234.61 (talk) 04:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

number of Vlachs and Romanians declined due to mutual population exchanges in 1940

AFAIK, the population exchange was only within Dobruja. In 1926, Bulgaria did not included that region. bogdan 13:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

However, this decline in numbers is to a great extent the result of the mutual population exchange in Dobruja carried out in the 1940s as per the pre-WWII Treaty of Craiova, and only a small part of it is a consequence of the Bulgarisation of the Romanian population.

Removed, because here we're not discussion on the Dobruja issue. bogdan 15:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

BTW, here's a link: http://www.omda.bg/BULG/NAROD/vlasi_arumani.html bogdan 13:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

So the article says "Most of them lived in the north-eastern part (Dobruja)", but Dobruja wasn't Bulgarian between 1913 and 1940, did I get that right? The link says that according to the 1926 census, the speakers of Balkan Romance were 83,746, not 79,728. Anyway, where did 80,000 Balkan Romance speakers live in Bulgaria not counting Dobruja? Regard it as pure curiosity, if you want. Also, the 1940 population exchange certainly played a role of great importance for this decline in numbers, and this can't be denied, I believe. I know what we are not discussing, but not mentioning this may confuse the reader as to what are the actual reasons for the decline.
And let's not forget "Balkan Romance speakers" also refers to the Vlach-speaking Roma population, not only to the Aromanian settlers, the Romanians in Dobruja and the Vlachs of northwestern Bulgaria. Actually, many people in the deep northwest are bilingual in Vlach and Bulgarian today, disregarded of their ethnicity (whether Bulgarians, Vlachs or Roma). Todor→Bozhinov 15:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
In the population exchanges 80000 Romanians left. Of course that explans the drop in their population in Bulgaria.   /FunkyFly.talk_  20:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Those 80000 Romanians left from Southern Dobruja only, not from the rest of Bulgaria. The Treaty of Craiova had not affected the rest. Look at the number of Romanians of Southern Dobruja from the 1936 Romanian census, Dobruja#Southern_Dobruja: 77,726. Those were the people who left. I put some other Bulgarian census results here: Romanians in Bulgaria. bogdan 12:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Guess what, most of the Romnians were in sourthern dobrudga to begin with.   /FunkyFly.talk_  15:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Dobruja was not in Bulgaria in 1926. Anyway, if you don't trust my figures, then go look for the results of the Bulgarian census in some Bulgarian sources. :-) bogdan 16:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I highly doubt youll be able to source any "Bulgariazation", so read Wikipedia:OR. About the Southern Dobrudga comment, yes it was in Romania which received it for compensation for not participating in the Balkan wars, and also used the chance to settle several dozens of thousand of colonists, which were expelled in 1940. Native Bulgarians in Northern Dobrudga were in turn expelled south.   /FunkyFly.talk_  16:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of POV sections

There is absolutely no international consensus on a definition of Bulgarisation, as evidenced by the sources given here. They are all Romanian, Turkish, Greek that push nationalistic views of the respective countries all of whom have territorial claims on Bulgaria which are partial and competing. Thus, the article is clearly being used to promote various POVs and provide justification for nationalistic claims. Lantonov 14:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so. A search for bulgarization/bulgarisation yields many hits in Google Books [1] including, interestingly, references to attempts by the Bulgarians to "bulgarize" Macedonia (because ethnic Macedonians didn't exist then, I assume it's referring to Serbs and the so-called "Garkomani"). I wonder if anything can be found about the Massacres of Doxato.--NetProfit 17:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe it. Look at the nationality of the sites. About half of them are Macedonian or Serb sites full of nationalistic propaganda. A large percentage of those sites refer to this Wikipedia article. I have no doubt that makers and contributors to this article are very keen to maintain also those nationalistic sites. The other half are about changing the names of Turks (which is indeed Bulgarisation) or Bulgarization in another meaning (like Bulgarization of the Linux console or a Bulgarization of a typing technique). For Bulgarization of Macedonians, I agree, it sounds like Hellenization of Greeks. Lantonov 05:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Lantonov, I don't understand why you're so sceptical. A régime that collaborated with Nazi Germany is hardly likely to have done anything less. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 12:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Every Balkan nation has tried to assimilate all or part of its neighbours, whether it collaborated with Nazi Germany or not.--NetProfit 12:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why any attempt to present wartime Fascist Bulgaria as an innocent bystander is ridiculous. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 13:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Political and ideological warfare, and ethnical warfare are two different things. By mixing them, you are making the same mistake as the Macedonists from FYROM. Lantonov 16:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The atrocities committed against the population throughout German-, Italian- and Bulgarian-occupied Greece during World War II are well-documented and have nothing to do with ethnic warfare. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 16:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let us see those documents, and then talk. Because I have seen also documents for Greek atrocities against Bulgarians, like killing and forced deportation of Bulgarian population in Greek Macedonia to remote islands during WWII. And also the police in the occupied territories was exclusively Greek. There are documented police raids, arrests, and tortures of Bulgarians by Greek policemen during WWII too. Also killing of Bulgarian civilians by Greek communist partisans. Facts against facts for both sides. Sweeping generalizations here are POV for either side. I agree that there have been atrocities by the Bulgarian side too, but as you say, if they have nothing to do with ethnicity, then we can hardly talk about 'Bulgarization' which is all about ethnicity. User:Lantonov|Lantonov]] 16:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Is that what they teach you? That the Bulgarians were the victims in the areas that they occupied? How bloody pathetic. I suppose the Germans and Italians were victims of the Greek resistance as well. Bulgarisation here refers to the Bulgarian policy of preparing eastern Macedonia and Thrace for annexation, by terrorising the local Greek population into extinction or submission. It doesn't have to mean that they tried to turn Greeks into Bulgarians; the term can equally apply to the occupied territories and the attempt to Bulgarise them. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 16:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

No one but reading authentic documents taught me this. Instead of quoting what you read in Greek history schoolbooks, read primary documents of what actually happened and then we can discuss this. For a beginning, an easy question for you: Do you know how many people in Greece during WWII were imprisoned for reading Bulgarian newspapers or having Bulgarian literature in their home? If you still try to force the term Bulgarization, it must be changed to re-Bulgarization following the genocidal de-Bulgarization committed by Greeks during the Balkan and WWI and the period following those wars in the same regions. Lantonov 05:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

No one is denying what Greece did (denial is a Turkish tactic). Moreover, what you are describing isn't "re-bulgarization", but "bulgarization of unwilling people by force", plain and simple. A person is what he says he is (whether it's Greek or Bulgarian), it's incredibly arrogant to sit in judgment on how someone defines himself (you often see this done by FYROM nationalists, they say things like 'people X are not Greeks but "Macedonians who believe they are Greek"').--NetProfit 08:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not describing anything. I just do not approve the attempt of the authors of this article to describe political and ideological warfare (in this case fascist-communist battles) as ethnic cleansing. This is a FYROMian patent. If this was so, there would not be a civil war in Greece after withdrawal of all occupying powers. Lantonov 09:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The WWII government of Bulgaria was not fascist as it was not ruled by a single fascist party. Bulgaria was a constitutional parliamentary monarchy (Tarnovo constitution). The government was ruled by a coalition of parties with different ideologies. The only parties that were banned were the extreme left Bulgarian Communist Party which was under direct orders from the Soviet Union, and the Anarchist Party that helped the Communist in committing acts of terrorism. Lantonov 07:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This Article Needs to be Rewritten or Deleted

This article is biased and should either be deleted or rewritten to meet NPOV. It is written and being watched by biased nationalists whose interest lies in painting a rosy picture of Bulgarisation. It lacks verifiable resources.

  • What are the sources that associate Bulgarisation with "harmonization"? Were there any ethnic or sectarian tensions that prompted Bulgarian government to seek "harmony"?
  • Is it true that only the communist Bulgarian governments committed "harmonization"? What about prior and successive governments?
  • The article deliberately avoids key words such as ethnic cleansing, assimilation or Bulgarian nationalism.
  • There is a table of statistics on Bulgaria's Roma population but the country's largest minority of 900,000 people -several times the size of Roma- is omitted.
  • The word "terror" is mentioned in the paragraph for the Turks. Was it the government of Bulgaria that committed this alleged act?
  • There is no mention of the rapes and the killings of thousands of people during the 1984-85 Bulgarisation attempt of country's 10% minority population.
  • The Pomaks –a minority far greater in numbers than Roma or Rumanians- and their Bulgarisation are not mentioned at all.
  • The reasons for Bulgarisation is missing?
  • Which Bulgarisation attempts succeeded and which ones have failed?

User:Nostradamus1 21:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I replaced "harmonisation" with "assimilation" because the term is often used with negative connotation to mean assimilation. However, reliable and verifiable sources are completely missing. The table is outdated and irrelevant, and sourced data about the largest majority - the Turks, is missing. The term terror is mentioned in connection with a terrorist act committed by desperate Turks in reaction to the mass terror, committed by the Bulgarian communist regime against the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the 1980s. In the article about Pomaks, it is shown convincingly that Pomaks are Bulgarian muslims, so I do not know how one can Bulgarize a Bulgarian. I agree to a deletion of this article. It is sadly missing reliable information, and is used mainly for POV pushing. Lantonov (talk) 06:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Forcing a person to adopt a Bulgarian name is Bulgarisation, isn't it? This is what happened to Pomaks. User:Nostradamus1 20:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You are clearly not acquainted with Bulgaria. Pomaks are Bulgarian muslims, speaking Bulgarian language, and having Bulgarian names by birth. By far the largest part of the muslims in Bulgaria are of Turkish nationality, speak Turkish language, and bear Turkish names. They are not Pomaks but Turks (ethnic Turks, citizens of Bulgaria with Turkish nationality). Those are the people whose names the communist regime tried to change to Bulgarian names in 1980s. As for the present situation, Turks literally rule Bulgaria for 17 years since 1990, because such people from the Turkish party (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), as Ahmed Dogan, Unal Lutfi, Emel Etem, Mehmed Dikme, Kemal Eup (all of them Turks, with Turkish names, speaking in Turkish to their Turkish electorate in the election campaigns), are either prime ministers, ministers, or deputy ministers in all governments since 1990. Almost half of their votes come from the so called "election tourists", people with double Turkish-Bulgarian citizenship, who come by buses from Turkey in the election day to vote, organised by the MRF. This is very well known fact, not denied even by the MRF leaders. Therefore, now it is more relevant to speak about Turkisation of Bulgaria rather than Bulgarisation of Turks. Read more literature about this, if you like to contribute positively to present day political issues in Bulgaria. Lantonov (talk) 06:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I am quite acquainted with Bulgaria. Perhaps, you should dig a little deeper if you care for the truth. I know the difference between a Pomak and a Turk. (I also know that there was never, and probably never be, a Bulgarian Prime Minister of Turkish ethnicity.) I quote from R.J. Crampton who has a number of books on Bulgaria who can be considered a Bulgarophile:

'In the early 1970s pomaks who had become Turkified were required to adopt Slav names, and those who did not were punished; in 1974 500 of the 1,300 inmates of the notorious Belene labour camp were Pomaks who had resisted pressure to change their names.'[1]

Therefore the Pomaks were subjected to Bulgarization by means of forced name changes in the early 1970s. I realize this was done during communist times but can Pomaks give their children Muslim names in post communist Bulgaria?Nostradamus1 00:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, they can. There is no restiction in choosing names in any Bulgarian law or bylaw. Some Roma choose to have Turkish names, too. Also, almost all Turks who had their names changed to Bulgarian by the communists returned their names in the exact Turkish variant (without the Slavic -ov at the end, which they were required to have after 1945). Crampton obviously mixes Pomaks with Turks ("that has been Turkified" - when? what have they been before Tukification?). Pomaks are different from Turks exactly because of their language and nationality. Their language is of the Southern Bulgarian dialects, incorporating many Greek words, which enables the Greeks to claim that Pomaks are Greeks that have been Bulgarianized. There was never a Bulgarian prime minister of Turkish nationality but it is quite possible in the near future to have such, and his name is Ahmed Dogan. In the moment he is the "grey cardinal" of Bulgarian politics, ruling Bulgaria behind the scenes. Lantonov 08:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
You're right that Crampton is mistaken by the claiming that Pomaks were Turkified. He is clear in his books that Pomaks are Bulgarian Muslims, though. He means Pomaks adopting Muslim/Turkish names because of their religious conversion. In any case I still believe what was done to them in the early 70s was Bulgarization under the definition. In this case its religious rather than ethnic. Regarding Ahmet Dogan, normally I find it hard to accept a political party along ethnic lines. However if you look at the experience of the Turks in Bulgaria since Bulgaria was established it has been a continuous downward slope. If you were Turk you would be a laborer and would dig and build roads during your military service. Higher education -especially during Zhivkov's era- was very unlikely. There were no generals of Turkish descent in the military. There were no polutburo members, high rankig government officials, or ministers of Turkish descent. The system simply did not allow the formation of any intellegensia among Turks. Perhaps, that is one reason that movement succeeded. However another reason that this may be sticking to the eyes of Bulgarians so much is perhaps because they were not used to see Turks at that level for generations. Now because EU membership requirements allowed this the general public is still adjusting to this new aspect of life in Bulgaria. It's called democracy and in Democracies sometimes disagreements among bigger parties allow smaller parties to play bigger roles than their share of the vote.Nostradamus1 03:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you say. Changing names is Bulgarisation, almost by definition. Multi-party state is a democracy. The former injustices done to Turks are due entirely to government policy, and they were unpopular for the Bulgarian society at large, which was kept in the dark during the harshest terror in the 1980s. Bulgarians are traditionally very tollerant to foreign ethnicities in Bulgaria, unlike Greeks and Serbs. For many years, people in the mixed Bulgarian-Turkish villages live like good neighbors, build together mosques and churches, celebrate together Easter and Ramazan and so on. It is when this tolerance is used against the national interests when the situation becomes bad. MRF as a whole is a party that contributed very much to the ethnic peace in Bulgaria during the transition period. It helped curbing the radical Turkish nationalist parties who wanted secession of Turkish regions and cleansing them of Bulgarians. However, this comes at a price. MRF became the prime force in Bulgarian politics and many of the decisions taken go in the interests of Turkey, not to the interests of Bulgaria.
One example: the Armenian genocide. Bulgarians traditionally sympathize to Armenians, and accepted them in Bulgaria in large numbers in the early 1920s. The Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov wrote the classic poem "Armenians" which expresses the heart-felt sorrow for Armenian suffering. This feeling is shared by the bulk of Bulgarians. What happens, however. Most countries recognized the genocide, even the United States Congress voted an official recognition. The recognition in Bulgaria, however, did not pass, because most parties were afraid of the reaction of the MRF. So now Bulgaria does not recognize the genocide, although the majority of the population thinks otherwise. Now whose policy is this: Bulgarian or Turkish? Lantonov 07:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The Armenian Genocide issue is mostly a political one and driven by the Armenian diaspora around the world. They have powerful lobbies in France, US, and probably in Bulgaria too. The US did not recognize any Armenian Genocide because it simply could not afford it yet. I guess Nancy Pelosi told her Armenian constituency in California to wait a little bit longer. I was not aware that this issue came to the Bulgarian parliament too. But I am not surprised to hear that most Bulgarians sympathize with the Armenian cause. It is also natural that the Turkish minority is against this and it turns out they had a greater leverage than the Armenians. Bulgaria has a large Turkish minority and it is true that Turks and Bulgarians lived in same villages without sectarian violence. However, if I can quote from Crampton :"There is still a tendency amongst many Bulgarians, particularly when an outsider points out a shortcoming, to relapse into a regressive fatalism, a fatalism expressed most often in phrases such as 'Five hundred years of Ottoman rule...' . This is an unhelpful attitude. It is using the past to escape from the present and more so from the future." I see parallels with the Armenians. It seems to me by keeping the genocide issue Armenians feel they are taking revenge for the past. For many Turks the problem with the genocide claims is they feel the Armenians want the world to recognize this at same level as what Nazis did to the Jews. This they can't accept. Without pretext during the WWII the US placed its Japanese citizens into internment camps fearing they would aid the enemy Japan. In the case of the collapsing Ottomans, if I can draw other parallels between Bulgarian and Armenian cases, the empire was at war with Serbs in 1876 when the April uprising was staged. During the WWI the Ottoman Empire was at war with the Russian empire when the Armenians took up arms against the empire from within the empire. We have the often mentioned Batak incident in the case of Bulgaria and the so called genocide in the case of Armenians. The bashibozouks -Pomak irregulars- were the main forces committing the massacres to suppress the uprising since the army was preocuppied in Serbia. Kurdish irregulars were mostly involved in the case with the Armenians. Both bashibozouks and the Kurdish irregulars were ordered by the Ottomans to suppress the disturbances. In both case the Ottoman Empire was reacting rather than acting in an unprovoked manner. This is not to rationalize and minimize the massacres and sufferings but this is the progression of events. States are like organisms programmed to protect themselves at any cost. It is quite different than the experience of the Jews under Germans.
Every nation has done things that they can't be proud of. They also have suffered in similar ways too. Living in the past as Cramton suggests is not helpful and does not make happy people. I do sense this negativism in the Balkans. The Serbs celebrating the Battle of Kosovo they lost in 1389 is something hard to understand for the outside world. Bulgarians overwhelmingly supporting the new theory of an economic historian that the Bulgars (proto-Bulgarians) were not a Turkic people but were of Pamirian origin is another example. No serious scientist supports it. Every single book that I read says "Bulgars were a Turkic people." This tells me Bulgarians do not want the Bulgars -and thereby part of their ancestry- be Turkic. Pamirian theory comes to the rescue. Turks and Bulgarians have things in common and they are not always negative.Nostradamus1 (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
How about the Janissaries? What have they taught you about the way this vital part of the Ottoman army was formed? I agree that it can't be compared to the Holocaust because this Ottoman policy was much more cruel and long-lasting. Five century of ethnic and religios genocide are not that easily forgotten. They can be forgiven (forgiveness is a Christian virtue) but not forgotten. Lantonov (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naim Suleimanoglu

This Turkish athlete is a good example of forced Bulgarisation. Unfortunately, someone keeps deleting my contribution about him. I don't understan why. 66.65.129.159 (talk) 06:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Information about living persons should be heavily sourced, otherwise it should be removed. --Laveol T 17:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)