Revival Process


The Revival Process was a state campaign of forced assimilation, prominently including forced name-change policies, carried out by the communist Bulgaria against the country’s Muslim communities, with the largest-scale renaming directed at Bulgarian Turks. The most substantial renaming efforts were concentrated in late 1984 and early 1985, but restrictions associated with the Revival Process continued until December 1989. The state officially presented the policy as a restoration of allegedly Bulgarian origins.
The campaign also included banning the public use of the Turkish language and restrictions on religious and cultural practices. Penalties ranged from fines and harassment to detention and internal exile. Resistance took many forms, from everyday noncompliance to organized protest. The state responded with repression, including detention at the Belene labor camp for people arrested for resisting the campaign. Estimates of deaths, injuries, and arrests vary, but human-rights reporting and later scholarship describe violence and coercion.
Internationally, the campaign drew condemnation, particularly from Turkey. In 1989 the state shifted toward the [1989 expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria|forced migration of the Turkish minority], leading to the departure of over 300,000. After Todor Zhivkov was removed from power, the new government restored the right to hold Turkish names and eased religious and cultural restrictions.

Terminology

The Revival Process

The term "Revival Process" is described as a euphemism by scholars. In scholarship, the policy is typically analyzed as forced assimilation. The term was first used at a meeting of the Bulgarian Communist Party's Politburo on January 18, 1985.

Bulgarian Turks

Authorities often treated language use and religious practice as markers of group identity, even though individual affiliation could be ambiguous. Muslim communities lived in overlapping settings, and some Slavophones and Muslim Roma identified as Turks, the latter sometimes to avoid stigma. This blurred the lines the state sought to draw between “Turkish” and other populations. Enforcement relied on contested distinctions and sometimes swept up ambiguous cases.

Forced assimilation

Background

By the time of the Revival Process, communist Bulgaria was party to a number of international organizations and treaties protecting the rights of minority groups, but it did not comply with these obligations in pursuit of assimilation policies.
According to the 1975 census, Turks made up about 8.4% of Bulgaria's population. Muslim communities were concentrated in parts of northeastern and southern Bulgaria, notably Kardzhali Province. The Revival Process was enforced most intensely in these areas.
In spite of the historical consensus that Turks settled in Bulgaria from the 14th century under Ottoman rule, the Bulgarian communist regime claimed that any of the Turkish minority who felt connected with Turkey emigrated to Turkey during the existence of a limited migration treaty between Bulgaria and Turkey in effect from 1969 to 1979. It further claimed that domestic Turks who remained in Bulgaria were descendants of Bulgarians who had been Turkified in language and religion. Changes in the Soviet Union in the 1980s gave the Zhivkov government more room to pursue assimilation policies. According to academic İbrahim Karahasan-Çınar, key theorists of the policy included:
Bulgarian policy towards minorities evolved over the decades of communist rule. A number of assimilation campaigns and expulsions were carried out under the leadership of the Bulgarian Communist Party. From 1950 to 1951 a large number of ethnic Exodus of [Turks from Bulgaria |Turks were expelled from the country]. Subsequently various assimilation campaigns were implemented aimed at non-Turkish Muslim minorities, such as Slavophone Muslims and Muslim Roma, though many of the more numerous Turks were affected as well. For example, from 1962, Slavophone Muslims were banned from attending Turkish-language schools. In 1972, Turkish-language schools were banned altogether. The government further forced many Muslims to change their names. By 1974, 150,000 Slavophone Muslims, sometimes referred to as Pomaks, and 200,000 Turks had been forced to Bulgarianize their names.
In 1971, a new constitution was adopted, providing a foundation for the regime's assimilation policies. This "Zhivkov Constitution" offered much weaker protections to minority groups, though it still guaranteed a number of rights to citizens which were relevant to the Revival Process. Notably, the term "national minorities" was superseded by "citizens of non-Bulgarian origin." In parallel, official discourse increasingly framed minority identity as compatible with eventual assimilation.
In 1978, the regime attempted to phase out traditional and religious holidays and observances in favor of approved socialist ones. Officials were sent to Islamic funerals to ensure that the proper socialist rites were carried out and prayers said in the Bulgarian language.
Shortly before the Revival Process, education policy became more assimilationist, religiously mixed marriages were promoted, and Turkish-minority teachers were made to undergo training in line with state ideology. Around the same time, the regime also initiated a new round of forced name changes. Between 1981 and 1983, around 100,000 people, mainly Muslim Roma, were made to change their names. The measure was extended to a number of Crimean Tatars and Alians, a Shia group, mere months before the Revival Process began in 1984. The regime also resolved to issue around 250,000 identity papers bearing new Bulgarian names to Muslim Roma.

Start of the Revival Process

Academic Dimitrov dates the start of the Revival Process to Gregorian Christmas night. Although the initiative began before the leadership openly debated it, party institutions quickly aligned behind the policy. A Central Committee plenum on February 13–14, 1985 endorsed the campaign after it had already been extended nationwide.

Approved name lists

After disputes over which names should count as Bulgarian, officials compiled a list of about 5,000 approved names, including many linked to the Orthodox Christian calendar. Some modern names without Slavic or Christian association also appeared. While the Classifier of Bulgarian Names was not completed before the start of the Revival Process, officials had access to name indexes. People were required to choose their new names from these indices.
Some foreign names were also accepted if they could be written in Bulgarian. These included names of Turkish, Armenian, and Arabic origin, among others. The same body that developed the basis for the Classifier of Bulgarian Names sought to develop an acceptable foreign name classifier at some future point.

Renaming

Unlike earlier campaigns, the Revival Process was directed primarily against the Turkish community. Many Muslims had already been forced to change their names in earlier campaigns, but in 1984 the government expanded the policy nationwide to ethnic Turks. The form of renaming varied. It sometimes took the form of an administrative procedure conducted through local municipal institutions. Individuals were summoned in their various villages and required to replace their Turkish names with Bulgarian ones chosen from approved lists. In these instances, officials enforced the name changes through intimidation, often bolstered by the presence of security forces and military vehicles. Other times, Turks were renamed by their employers at the behest of officials. The Bulgarian government obligated municipalities to force Turks to use their new names both in public and private life. While the Bulgarian government attempted to frame the changes as voluntary, they were widely understood as coerced.
Initially, only Turks living in or originating from the Rhodopes region in the country's south were required to change their names. The requirement was ordered expanded to "all districts where there is such population" in December 1984. The order was carried out in January 1985. In March 1985, the Bulgarian government declared the process completed and issued new identification documents to those affected. It further intended to conduct a census in 1985 using these new identity cards, though no census was conducted in that year.
The following table summarizes various estimates of the number renamed during the Revival Process.
Number RenamedTime frame / scopeNotes
800,000Christmas 1984–February 1985
822,588Revival Process up to May 1989
850,000Revival Process
Nearly 1 millionDecember 1984–January 1985
1,306,000UncertainThis estimate might combine totals from the Revival Process with some from prior to the campaign.

Other policies

Speaking Turkish in public was banned, despite the inability of up to 70% of Bulgarian Turks to speak Bulgarian. Those who spoke Turkish in public were fined 5 leva or more,, and sometimes they were even imprisoned or faced exile. For example, one Turk was imprisoned for five years for persistent use of Turkish while another was exiled from the country for two years.
Some distinctive markers of Muslim identity, such as religious clothing, had already been banned by the regime to some degree for decades and replacements for these articles were in widespread use. For example, dark raincoats became ersatz veils. Officials went further during the Revival Process, however. Muslims were prevented from burying their dead in Islamic cemeteries and were pressured to deface Islamic symbols and Arabic inscriptions on graves. Similarly, crescents that adorned minarets were removed because the symbol was also associated with the Turkish nation. Store and restaurant owners were also prohibited from serving women in traditional Islamic dress. In some areas, the wearing of the Fez was banned, and in others the wearing of traditional Turkish pants, şalvari, were banned.
The ban on circumcision was strictly enforced, and Muslim parents were required to sign documents promising not to circumcise their child. Officials inspected Muslim boys to ensure they remained uncircumcised. If a couple were found to have violated the ban, both the parents and the individual who had performed the circumcision faced punishment. For example, Amnesty International reported in 1987 that four women were sentenced to between 6 and 8 months imprisonment because they circumcised their sons or grandsons. Despite this, however, circumcision continued to be practiced.
Affirmative policies were implemented as well. For example, authorities attempted to promote traditional Slavic gatherings of young people among the targets of the policy.
Officials inspected the mail of most domestic Turks and sometimes demanded that mail written in Turkish be translated for inspection.

Domestic press response

The Bulgarian media environment was highly centralized during the Revival Process. Most legal media outlets were arms of the state, and most who worked within the domestic media were from politically acceptable backgrounds or were themselves members of the ruling party. During the renaming itself, the state press was largely silent. In subsequent years, media echoed official narratives of the essential Bulgarian origin of the Turkish minority. The press published the involuntary declarations of thousands of Turks affirming a Bulgarian identity, and it insisted that Bulgarian Turks, referred to as "New Bulgarians," approved of the renaming.

Reaction and resistance

Communist Bulgaria tightly regulated the practice of Islam, and it appointed a chief mufti and regional muftis. These officials were selected on the basis of loyalty to the regime rather than religious training. The state-appointed chief mufti publicly supported the campaign, claiming that Muslims were not prevented from performing religious rites and services.
Despite the campaign, many continued to practice their faith privately and speak Turkish at home. Over time, resistance became more visible, including organized opposition and public protests. Many tried to avoid the renaming campaign by hiding in remote areas or moving to larger cities, where implementation could be slower, but most such attempts failed.

Armed resistance

Scholars generally find no evidence of organized armed resistance to the Revival Process. Rumen Avramov, who was an economic advisor to Bulgaria's first non-communist president, Zhelyu Zhelev, claims that the extreme level of repression carried out by the People's Republic of Bulgaria prevented the development of armed opposition. In support of this repression, Bulgaria has undertaken a number of reforms aimed at the modernization of its internal security forces, including rearmament.
Unorganized armed resistance did occur, particularly in 1986. Authorities reported more than 600 incidents they described as "terrorism" and blamed Turks and opposition groups, though the attribution and details of many cases are disputed. For example, seven people were killed in Bunovo, and those responsible were sentenced to death. This accorded with the security framing the regime used to justify measures.
Some incidents that the authorities attributed to Turkish opposition groups have been alleged, based on post-1989 archival disclosures, to have involved manipulation by state security services. It is claimed on the basis of these disclosures that two high-profile attacks previously blamed on Turks—one at Varna Airport and another at Plovdiv Central railway station—were linked to secret police agents. Complicating this dynamic further, however, some Turks were in the employ of state security services, willingly or not, including prominent opposition figures such as Ahmed Dogan.

Belene labor camp

During the Revival Process, the Bulgarian authorities reactivated the Belene labor camp, situated on an island in the Danube River, to use as a detention location for people arrested for resisting the forced name-change campaign. Belene was a labor camp previously used by the communist party until 1959. Typically, Turks who resisted the Revival Process were held in Belene for 2–3 months, though some were held for much longer. In 1985, more than 500 Bulgarian Turks were incarcerated there for resistance to the renaming measures. Detainees were often held without judicial sentences at Belene. In April 1986, prisoners in Belene began a hunger strike that lasted around 30 days. In May 1986, most inmates were released and then exiled to various regions of the country, though other detainees remained in Belene and were only conditionally released in spring 1987, before being internally displaced to districts populated by ethnic Bulgarians.

Killing of Türkan Feyzullah

In Mogilyane, security forces opened fire on demonstrators on December 26, 1984 during protests against the forced replacement of Turkish names with Bulgarian ones, killing three people, including the young child Türkan Feyzullah. Sources describe Türkan as having been shot while carried on her mother's back. A monument was erected in her memory in Mogilyane.

Casualties

Estimates on the number of people killed, injured, and arrested during the Revival Process vary. The following table contains various estimates.
Number KilledNumber InjuredNumber ArrestedTime frame / scopeNotes
800–2,500November 1984–February 1985
1,000+November 1984–February 1985The source notes that the 1,000+ estimate may be higher if deaths from neglect or suicide in Belene are included.
300–1,500Several thousandSeveral thousandLate 1984–early 1985
300–1,000Several thousandSeveral thousandRevival Process
Estimates varyRevival Process

International reaction

The President of Turkey, Kenan Evren, first protested the Revival Process in January 1985. In Turkey and the West, media described the Revival Process as "genocide" and a "state crime." In Turkey in particular, a number of victims of the Revival Process who had left the country formed migrants' associations and raised awareness about the ongoing assimilation campaign. Bulgaria responded to these denunciations with comparisons to the Kurdish issue in that country, but in accordance with some obligations under the Helsinki Accords, the regime reduced efforts to obstruct the reception of critical Western and Turkish broadcasts to Bulgaria.
In 1987, a delegation was sent to Bulgaria by the Islamic Conference, a predecessor to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. On the basis of this visit, the organization published a report critical of Bulgaria. The same body later adopted a resolution expressing misgivings with the Revival Process and reminding the People's Republic of Bulgaria of its obligations towards minorities. This condemnation was echoed by a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, whose Human Rights Committee labelled Bulgaria as one of seven countries preventing the peaceful practice of religion.

1989 forced migration

The government concluded that part of the Muslim population could not be assimilated and shifted toward promoting emigration. In May 1989, after prominent dissidents were removed, authorities enabled mass departures by loosening travel restrictions, intimidating individuals, and later opening the border with Turkey. The departures were framed as temporary “tourist” travel, and state propaganda referred to the episode as the "Big Excursion."
From May until August 1989, over 300,000 Muslims were displaced to Turkey. In August 1989 Turkey temporarily closed the border with Bulgaria, which ended the forced migration.

Aftermath

On November 10, 1989, Todor Zhivkov was forced to resign, and the new Bulgarian government restored the right of Bulgarian citizens to have Turkish names a little over a month later. In less than two years after the fall of Zhivkov, religious and Turkish-language schools were reopened across Bulgaria, and a new national constitution was adopted guaranteeing freedom of religion.

Restoration of original names

In spite of the restoration of the legal right to hold Turkish names, there remained obstacles to victims of the Revival Process restoring their previous names. In March 1990, Bulgaria adopted legislation enabling that restoration, though early implementation could still be burdensome, requiring a court procedure and two supporting witnesses. Under this law, those wishing to restore their previous names were required to keep Bulgarian suffixes, such as "-ov" and "-ova." A reform adopted on November 16, 1990 shifted name restoration toward a "less cumbersome administrative procedure." By late May 1990, Bulgarian officials indicated that only about one fifth of eligible people had applied to restore their names, though the number of name restorations continued to grow subsequently. For example, academic Yelis Erolova describes restoring her Turkish name only after 1990. In some areas, older victims more commonly restored their names than younger ones.

Strengthening of Turkish identity

The Revival Process strengthened Turkish self-identification among the targeted minority. Bulgarian Turkish academic Yelis Erolova recalls how she was made to think of Turkey as her "mother nation" by her family.

Impact on the Cold War

No armed conflict between countries broke out over the Revival Process. As Bulgaria was a member of the Warsaw Pact and Turkey was a member of NATO, such conflict had the potential to draw in the United States and Soviet Union, the two principal nuclear-armed superpowers of the era. However, because records in both Russia and the United States remain sealed and the topic has received little scholarly attention, the precise role of the events in the Cold War remains unclear.
The United States recalled its ambassador to communist Bulgaria in August 1989. Additionally, the United States Senate officially condemned the Bulgarian events of that year and an international fact-finding mission was organized, albeit without participation from any Soviet Bloc nation.
The Soviet Union refused to officially mediate between Bulgaria and Turkey when tensions grew, but it did engage in a sort of shuttle diplomacy via its diplomatic mission in Ankara. The failure of these efforts convinced Soviet leadership that Zhivkov had outlived his usefulness and led them to support an anti-Zhivkov faction within the Bulgarian government led by foreign minister Petar Mladenov.

Amnesty

In 1990, Bulgaria implemented amnesty for those convicted of political crimes. 31 of 81 Turks imprisoned for resistance to the assimilation campaign were released, but the other 50 remained imprisoned because they were convicted under the criminal code. A similar distinction between "political" and "criminal" offenses has led to condemnation in instances beyond Bulgaria.

Trial

Following the fall of communism, criminal proceedings were undertaken against some of the high-level officials who had overseen the Revival Process, including both Zhivkov and Mladenov. Zhivkov was ultimately arrested on January 29, 1990. The defendants ultimately faced charges stemming from abuses associated with the Belene camp, while some of the perpetrators of the Revival Process were never charged at all. Eventually the charges against Mladenov and other prominent government officials associated with the Revival Process were dropped. Further, while the proceedings began in 1991, they were not concluded by the time Zhivkov died in 1998. In 2022, the only remaining charges were dropped after the final defendant, Georgi Atanasov died, but the Supreme Administrative Court ordered the prosecutor's office to continue the investigation following the protests of families of victims of the Belene camp.

Legacy

Domestic

Democratic Transition

The reversal of the Revival Process and moderation by both the new government and the Bulgarian Turkish community itself contributed to Bulgaria's transition to democracy. For example, Bulgaria's first democratically-elected president, Zhelyu Zhelev, treated the Turkish political movement as political allies. Zhelev even worked to defend the then-nascent Movement for Rights and Freedoms against a legal challenge from nationalists and the post-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party which could have led to the MRF's dissolution. Similarly, MRF leader Ahmed Dogan worked to marginalize ultra-nationalist elements within the Turkish community and refrained from calling for autonomy or independence.
The allure and moderating influence of potential European Union membership contributed to the subsequent re-integration of Turks into Bulgarian society. For instance, in 2000 the EU promulgated the "Race Equality Directive" and later formally requested Bulgaria's compliance with the directive. Bulgaria ultimately did so and acceded to the European Union in 2007.

Condemnation

In November 2002, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church declared all victims, including non-Christian victims, of the Bulgarian communist regime to be martyrs. Additionally, on January 11, 2012, the Bulgarian Parliament officially condemned the Revival Process. However, academic Thomas Kamusella writes that the parliamentary recognition was largely ignored by scholars. Kamusella describes continued public commemorations of Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, including statements by national political figures praising him.
Less than a week after the recognition of the event by the Bulgarian Parliament, the far-right ultranationalist political party, Ataka, introduced a new bill officially contesting the declaration. According to the bill's authors, the declaration represented a "boost" for "'separatists'", presumably in reference to the nation's Turks and Muslims. This reasoning is in line with that of Bulgarian nationalists more generally, who often cast the Turkish and Muslim minority in the "role of perennial anti-Bulgarian separatists." Ataka leader Volen Siderov argued that not only did the 2012 declaration allegedly violate the constitution of Bulgaria, but he also argued that it could open Bulgaria up to various legal claims and raised the possibility Bulgaria would be labelled as a country that conducted policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing. However, this bill was rejected by the parliament.

Cultural

Today, many Bulgarians of Muslim origin born during or after the Revival Process still bear Bulgarian names. As part of the collective trauma from the event, some are left to wonder what their name would have otherwise been. This theme appears in scholarship, where the renaming campaign is discussed through the intergenerational transmission of family trauma and burdens carried in intimate everyday life rather than only as a closed historical episode.

International

Turkey

In Turkey, public memory of the Revival Process and recorded testimony by victims are limited. What books have been produced primarily regard the individual accounts, which have typically been printed in limited runs and focus on the events of 1989. However, the 2012 parliamentary declaration condemning the events by the Bulgarian parliament was widely praised in Turkish media.

Elsewhere

In a 2000 speech at Duquesne University, American National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, who had been stationed in Sofia during the campaign, referred to it only generally, later explaining that his audience lacked the background to follow a fuller account.
Throughout the Revival Process, many sought refuge abroad in countries other than Turkey, especially in Austria, Germany, and Sweden. Many also found refuge in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States.

Responsibility

The 2012 parliamentary declaration frames the Revival Process as an abuse by the totalitarian communist regime, and the popular perception is similar. For example, one 2012 study found that Bulgarians generally blame the politicians of the time for the Revival Process. When asked who bore the blame, respondents blamed the Bulgarian Communist Party, Todor Zhivkov, and the secret police. Some even blamed the Soviet Union and Leonid Brezhnev. The same study also found that victims do not generally blame ethnic Bulgarians and are inclined to forgive them, with much blame instead heaped on fellow-Muslims who collaborated with the regime.

In popular culture