Bulgarisation

Bulgarisation (or Bulgarization, Bulgarianisation or Bulgarianization; _bg. побългаряване or българизация) is a term used to describe a cultural change in which something culturally non-Bulgarian is made to become Bulgarian.

The modern use is in connection with the attempt of the former communist regime in 1980s to achieve ethnically pure state by assimilation of the Turkish minority. In the Republic of Macedonia it is used regarding the bulgarisation of the Slavic speaking people inhabiting the region of Macedonia.Fact|date=June 2008

Romanians and Aromanians

Official census results [Gheorghe Zbuchea, Cezar Dobre, "Românii timoceni", Bucharest, 2005 ISBN 973-86782-2-6]

According to the 1926 census, there were 79,728 Balkan Romance speakers in Bulgaria. Most of them lived in the northеrn part , with some Aromanians in the southern part. They were divided into:

* 69,080 Romanians
* 5,324 Aromanians
* 3,777 Kutsovlachs (the same as Aromanians)
* 1,551 Tsintsars (the same as Aromanians)

It should be noted that, across northern Bulgaria, many Roma of the Boyash subgroup (better known as "Vlach Gypsies") traditionally identify themselves as Romanians or Vlachs.

According to the 1965 census, there were 6,000 Romanians. This result can be explained in the context of the population exchanges that took place in 1940. See Treaty of Craiova.

Turks

During the Communist period of Bulgarian history, the Turkish minority in the south-east of the country was forced to change their names from Turkish to Bulgarian in 1984-1985, during the Todor Zhivkov regime. The argument was that the Turkish population of Bulgaria were allegedly Bulgarians forced to convert to Islam during the Ottoman rule. [http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=684 Briefing: Bulgaria’s Muslims: From Communist assimilation to tentative recognition] , "Islamic Human Rights Commission"]

This violation of human rights met forceful resistance from large-scale protests, international pressure and cases of terrorism. After the collapse of the Zhivkov regime, people were free to revert back to previous names or adopt new Islamic/Turkish names.

In 2003 the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed that religious discrimination remained a major problem, but this has not been noted by other human rights organizations.

Greeks

During the Second World War, the pro-German government of Bulgaria, allied with Nazi Germany, occupied east Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. According to the Greek writer Yiannis D. Stefanidis, the local Greek population was persecuted. [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/downloads/library/Stefan01.pdf] . According to the Bulgarian historian Dimitar Yonchev, the annexation of part of Aegean Thrace and Macedonia to Bulgaria contributed significantly to the economic development of this region as a part of Bulgaria. [Dimitar Yonchev. Bulgaria and the Aegean (October 1940 - 9 September 1944): Military and Political Aspects, Sofia, 1993, 198 p. [In Bulgarian] (The author holds a Ph.D. in History with decades in studying Bulgarian-Greek relations. The monograph is written on the basis of an ample collection of primary sources)]

Gagauz

According to Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, people from the Gagauz ethnic group remaining in Bulgaria were noted to have been Bulgarianised at the end of the 19th Century. [http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2028273]

Notes