Bulgarisation (Bulgarian:българизация), also known asBulgarianisation (Bulgarian:побългаряване) is the spread ofBulgarian culture beyond theBulgarian ethnic space carried out through educational and ecclesial campaigns, and, at times, policies of forced assimilation and emigration. Within the borders of modern-day Bulgaria, historic Bulgarianisation efforts were primarily, but not exclusively, directed at Muslims. There were also Bulgarianisation campaigns in present-dayGreece,Kosovo,North Macedonia, andSerbia, particularly during theFirst andSecond World Wars.
UnderOttoman rule, much of the expansion of theBulgarian ethnic group was reversed. While theOttoman Empire provided for some cultural and religious autonomy under the"Millet System", and Bulgarians were briefly granted their ownBulgarian Millet, Bulgarians were no longer politically dominant in their own lands. While the Ottomans did not generally requireBulgarians toconvert to Islam,[1] the empire did enforce theJizya tax and other forms of discrimination and practices on non-Muslims (such as theDevshirme). Those Bulgarians who converted to Islam but retained their Slavic language and customs became known asPomaks.[2] A sub-set of these converts to Islam also assimilated into theTurkish ethnic group.[2] Between that assimilation and the settlement of manyTurkish people in Bulgaria, much of modern-day Bulgaria had an ethnic Turkish Muslim majority prior toBulgarian independence.
In 1870,Sultan Abdulaziz granted the right for establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate. The Bulgarian Exarchate exercised authority over northern Bulgaria, most of Thrace, and most ofMacedonia.[3] The establishment of the Exarchate, meant official recognition of a separateBulgarian millet,[4][5] and in this case the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance.[6] Shortly after its establishment, the Exarchate launched educational campaigns which managed to implant Bulgarian national ideology in the Macedonian Slavs.[7]
Following the decisive defeat of the Ottoman Empire in theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878), Bulgaria at last regained independence, though initially it remained under limited Ottoman suzerainty.[1] Following the Ottoman defeat, bothRussian occupation authorities during and immediately after the war as well as Bulgarian administrators, attempted to remove traces of Ottoman rule from the area where possible.[8] The Bulgarian nation was ideally to consist of SlavicOrthodox Christians.[8] In spite of treaty obligations requiring Bulgaria to protect its Muslim subjects, Islamic buildings of many kinds were destroyed (includingmosques,schools, and homes).[9]
Assimilation efforts continued thereafter, and many Muslimsleft Bulgaria in response. In the first post-independence census conducted by thePrincipality of Bulgaria 26.3% of respondents declared theirmother tongue to beTurkish/Gagauz,[10] but by 1934 (the final census conducted by theTsardom of Bulgaria) only 9.7% of respondents declared themselves to be ethnically Turkish and information on the Turkic Gagauz population was not collected.[11] This precipitous drop in the Turkish population of Bulgaria meant that by the time of thePeople's Republic of Bulgaria, many formerly Turkish-majority areas had become majority ethnically Bulgarian.
Assimilation efforts in the Tsardom of Bulgaria increased in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The "Homeland" or "Rodina" (Bulgarian:Родина), originally founded in-part by ethnic-Bulgarian Muslims,[12] of that time was associated with particularly acute assimilation efforts in the Tsardom. The movement focused on Bulgarianising "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" people in the country.[12]
While the origins of the Rodina movement were popular, the Tsardom eventually provided financial support for the movement.[12] TheBulgarian language was introduced into Muslim worship,[13] and the wearing of traditional clothing among "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" people was curtailed.[13][14] Eventually, the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to appoint "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" Muftis.[15]
Most notable, however, was thename-changing drive, which was mandated by the Tsardom from 1942. Those identified as ethnic-Bulgarian Muslims were made to change their names,[13] though prior to 1942 name-changes were officially voluntary.[15] Following the passage of the "Bulgarianization of the Mohammedan Names of Bulgaro-Mohammedans" law, 60,000 were made to change their names,[15] though many were able to revert to their non-Bulgarian names following the fall of the regime.[16]
The region of present-dayNorth Macedonia until 1912 was part of the Ottoman Empire. At that time, most independent European observers viewed theSlavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians or as Macedonian Slavs, while their association with the Bulgarian cause was almost universally accepted by Western scholars.[17] However, the majority of the peasants did not have a clear sense of national identity,[18] while Bulgarian identity was espoused by most of the local intelligentsia.[19][20] Immediately afterannexation ofVardar Macedonia to theKingdom of Serbia, during theBalkan wars (1912-1913), the Macedonian Slavs were faced with the policy of forced Serbianisation.[21][22] An anti-Bulgarian campaign was carried out in the areas under Serbian control where Bulgarian schools and churches were closed, while the clergy and the teachers were expelled.[23]
During both the First and Second World War, Bulgaria administeredoccupation zones in the modern-day state ofNorth Macedonia as well as parts ofKosovo andSerbia. During both occupations, Bulgarian authorities implemented policies aimed at the Bulgarianisation of the local population.
In 1915, Bulgaria came to occupy half of theKingdom of Serbia. The goal of the Bulgarian government was to create pure Bulgarian territories by denationalising the other Slavs.[24] The Bulgarian language was introduced and theSerbian Cyrillic alphabet was prohibited in schools. Serbian historian Milan Ristović writes: "Clerks, teachers and priests were brought to Macedonia from Bulgaria. They organized propaganda, opened Bulgarian schools, held public lectures, expanded the number of different Bulgarian associations, and printed publications – all in tandem with the use of coercive measures. These policies were also used on Albanians and Turks in Kosovo and Macedonia."[25] Individuals who refused to comply with the authorities and become Bulgarian faced severe repression, including torture, internment, and gruesome killings.[24]
Resistance to the occupation and Bulgarianisation led to theToplica Uprising of 1917 in Southern Serbia.
During theSecond World War, Bulgaria occupied most ofVardar Macedonia, then officially calledVardar Banovina. Until then, theSerbian authorities had carried out a state-policy ofSerbianisation[21][26] and de-Bulgarisation occurred.[27][28] The Bulgarian authorities considered the Macedonian Slavs as no more than unruly Bulgarians.[29] Soon after the occupation, the authorities realized that only part of the Slavic Macedonians felt Bulgarian or were pro-Bulgarian. Because of that, the they initiated a program of intense Bulgarisation inall occupied areas.[30] Some researchers describe this process as "re-Bulgarisation" and "de-Serbianisation".[31] Schools at all levels were reorganized, and large numbers of teachers were imported from Bulgaria while the Macedonian teachers who were suitable were sent to Bulgaria for study and indoctrination, and those who were not suitable were transferred to administrative jobs outside of school system or dismissed.[32] Harsh treatment by occupying Bulgarian troops reduced the pro-Bulgarian orientation of the Macedonian Slavs even more.[33] The intensive Bulgarisation policies generated significant discontent in Macedonia, leading even anti‑Yugoslav Macedonians who returned from exile to seek allies among the communists.[34] As a matter of fact all of the previous confirmed to the Macedonians that the Bulgarian regime behaved the same as the oppressive Yugoslav (Serbian) before, and the Bulgarisation campaign ultimately failed.[32][29]
At the beginning of the 20th century,Eastern Macedonia and WesternThrace were ethnically diverse. Greeks, Slavs, Turks, and others could be found throughout the region. The Tsardom of Bulgaria gained most of what is now the Greek administrative region ofEastern Macedonia and Thrace in theBalkan wars. It further occupied some of the Greek-assigned portion of Eastern Macedonia around the cities of Drama andKavala for half of the First War.
As a result of its defeat in the war, Bulgaria was made tocede the region to Greece and also enter into a population exchange with Athens that affected the expulsion of many Bulgarians from the region.[35] Augmented by an influx of Greek refugees from the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere in the Balkans, the Greek government carried out additional expulsions and settled Greeks in the region. For example, in 1923 the Governor General of Salonica advocted for the settlement of hundreds of thousands of "'New Greeks'" in the newly-conquered areas.[36] By 1929, theLeague of Nations estimated that 92,000 Slavs had left the area for Bulgaria and 46,000 Greek speakers had been settled in their stead.[37] Less formally, the Greek government expelled 5,000 alleged subversives and their family members to Bulgaria.[38]
Greece also implemented a number of policies aimed at the assimilation of remaining non-Greeks. For example, it closed down all "Exarchist" schools in areas under its control,[39] most of which were Bulgarian-medium institutions, owing to their historic association with theBulgarian Exarchate.
During World War II, Bulgaria gained control over most of the lands it had ceded to Greece as well as some lands which had been assigned to Greece following theSecond Balkan War. In these areas, Bulgaria implemented a number of assimilationist policies. In education, Bulgarian authorities attempted to replace theGreek language with Bulgarian as a medium of education.[40] From May 1941, Bulgaria incorporated the newly-conquered areas into the national education system.[40]
From the very beginning of the occupation, Bulgarian officials also condoned and encouraged the emigration of Greeks from the occupied areas.[41] They also carried out targeted expulsion. By August of 1941, nearly all Greek scientists, in particular, had been expelled from the region.[42] By June 1943, 110,000 had left the region occupied by Bulgaria.[43] In their place, around 100,000 Bulgarian colonists were settled.[44]
Opposition to initial occupation and assimilation policies led to theDrama Uprising of 1941.
TheSoviet Union initially forced Bulgaria to recognize many minority ethnic groups in the country and change its practices towards its Muslim minority.[15][45] TheBulgarian Communist Party was made to bring Bulgarian Muslims into the party, promote the development of the nation's Turkish minority, and attempt to "incite" that minority to bring the Socialist revolution to Turkey.[15] The communist regime in Sofia, however, continued to carry out some Bulgarianisation policies directed at Bulgarian Muslims and Turks, including bringing Muslim elites into the fold of the state.[15] Most notably, around 160,000 were even made toleave Bulgaria between 1950 and 1951.
Following the death ofStalin,Todor Zhivkov rose to leadership of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the country by extension. Under Zhivkov, the conception of the Bulgarian nation was further developed and "Bulgarianisation" campaigns were carried out vigorously. By the 1960s, new versions of the Bulgarianisation campaigns of thepre-communist era were implemented.[16]
Notably, the idea that Bulgarian Muslims shared a Slavic and Christian origin with theBulgarians originated in the 1960s during Zhivkov's rule,[46] though claims that "Bulgaro-Mohammedans" were essentially Bulgarian originated earlier.[47] The regime in Sofia often fell back on claims that the Ottoman Empire had planned and executed the "Islamization" and "Turkification" of Bulgaria.[46] In 1985, a senior Bulgarian Communist Party official proclaimed that “The Bulgarian nation has no parts of other peoples and nations”.[48]
Notable among the Bulgarianisation campaigns of the Zhivkov era was the "Revival Process", a 1980s attempt toassimilate theMuslim population of Bulgaria. During the "Revival Process" assimilation efforts increased and those Muslims who had not already been made to adopt new sufficiently Bulgarian names in place of their original Turkish or Islamic names were made to do so. The "Revival Process" was followed by the "Big Excursion" which saw the expulsion of over 300,000 Bulgarian Turks from the country (and subsequent return of some of the victims). Following the fall ofTodor Zhivkov, the "Revival Process" was reversed and people were free to revert to previous names or adopt the names they wished.[49] Regardless, some of those who had been made to adopt a "Bulgarian" name continued using both it and their restored name.[50]
TheRepublic of Bulgaria is a member of theCouncil of Europe,European Union, andEuropean Court of Human Rights. It is additionally party to a number of international treaties aimed at the protection of national minorities andhuman rights, such as theFramework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
Fully commensurate with these policies and treaties and despite historic tensions with its Muslim minority, Bulgaria's current constitution provides forfreedom of religion, though it does recognize theBulgarian Orthodox Church as the "traditional religion" of Bulgaria.[48] Bulgaria has further reformed funding schemes for religious groups to the benefit of itsMuslim community.[51][52] In summary, as the Council of Europe wrote in 2020, "authorities are making efforts to promote inter-ethnic and interreligious tolerance but these are regularly undermined by xenophobic, anti-Romani, Islamophobic and antisemitic statements by high-level politicians and media reporting of a similar nature..."[51]
Bulgaria has employed policies ofpassportization and cultural diplomacy aimed to attract and Bulgarise members of theMacedonian community.[53] In 2018 Bulgaria faced a scandal over alleged sale of citizenship documents. Former Citizenship Council director Katya Mateva exposed a scheme in which the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad issued thousands of falsified certificates of Bulgarian origin to Macedonians and Albanians in exchange forbribes.[54]
Bulgarisation has also affected theRomanians in Bulgaria, who were largelyassimilated.[55]