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The Turks of Bulgaria: the 5Th Column of Ankara THE TURKS OF BULGARIA: THE 5TH COLUMN OF ANKARA Haykaram Nahapetyan The article is devoted to one of Bulgaria’s national minorities, the Turks. A Euro- pean analytical website characterizes the Turks of Bulgaria as «one of the compara- tively successful minorities of Eastern Europe.» In the Armenian mass media one may come across reports about the activity of the Bulgarian Turks, especially in January-February 2006, when in Sofia the recognition of Armenian Genocide was the subject of Parliamentary discussions, later on put to the vote. The bill was re- jected «thanks to the contribution» made by 34 deputies of Turkish origin. The Vice Speaker of the Parliament, who also leads Bulgaria’s parliamentary delegation in PACE, is also an ethnic Turk by origin. The party established by the Bulgarian Turks has been in the Parliament since 1990 and for 8 years is included in the rul- ing coalition. All these facts are not only noteworthy by themselves, but also are actually based on the standpoint that socially and politically active Diaspora has been traditionally considered to be the «trump card» of the Armenian party in its game against Azerbaijan and Turkey. In Armenia people got used to the «Armenian lobby» which in different countries or international organizations may further our interests, neutralize or to some extent hinder anti-Armenian initiatives. The Armenian lobby is against Azerbai- jani oil or Turkish resources: such an attitude has already taken roots in Arme- nian political and social mentality, and created a sense of security. Bulgaria’s ex- ample, as well as the activization of Turkish communities in other European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) reveals new realities: the ad- vance of Turkish political figures and the making of the Turkish lobby. In Euro- pean countries Azerbaijani communities are also organized at the same time. At the same time in European countries there is a growing internal resistance and a tendency of «countering» the advancement of Turkish politicians; however, these processes are much more passive in Bulgaria. Rapid leap of the Bulgarian Turks from the status of an oppressed minority to a ruling force may be considered to be one of the most successful examples of 33 Haykaram Nahapetyan «21-st CENTURY», № 1, 2007 lobbing in the international political history and we believe the subject of a sepa- rate study. On April 19, 1909 a treaty was signed in Istanbul between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria by which the Ottoman Empire recognized the independence of the Bulgarian kingdom and the latter guarantied the observance of religious and civil rights of the Turks and other Muslims living in Bulgaria. Together with Bulgaria’s independence, the local Turks lost their privileges granted under the Ottoman rule and turned into one of the minorities. The phenomenon that is the subject matter of this research dates back to the 1920s : the relations of the Bul- garian Turks with Turkish authorities, collaboration and propaganda, lobbyist work meeting the interests of Ankara. Already under the rule of Mustafa Kemal, when there was a confrontation between Kemalist and Islamic powers, the Turks of Bulgaria founded the organization «Turan» inspired by the new authorities of Ankara, which, being officially registered as a youth sports and culture union, was engaged in the propaganda of Kemalist ideology. At the same time the struc- ture launched a newspaper of the same name, «Turan». The periodical called «Deliorman» was the conduit of Turkey’s republican government, at the same time the more religious part of the Bulgarian Turks published the «Medeniet», carrying out counterpropaganda against Ataturk [1, p. 4]. At that time there was a widespread opinion in Bulgaria that «the Bulgarian Turks are an instrument in the hands of Ankara’s authorities» [2]. Till 1923, the Bulgarian Turks lived the most liberal epoch and there were about 10 Turkish de- puties in the Parliament, however, after the coup on June 9, 1923 the government of Prime Minister Aleksander Stambulski’s was overthrown and under the new regime the number of Turkish deputies declined from 10 to 5, and later, to 4 [2]. The Soviet system was established in Bulgaria after the entrance of the So- viet army in 1944. The Bulgarian constitution adopted in 1947 stipulated protec- tion of the minorities’ rights. According to the «Dimitrov Constitution», the Turks and other minorities could organize teaching in their native language and develop their national culture [3, p.1]. For a certain period there were a few hundred Turkish schools, several gymnasiums, 3 newspapers, and a magazine; some Bul- garian newspapers had Turkish sections, and radio programs were organized. Consistent work carried out by the socialist regime to raise the population’s liter- acy level resulted in considerable rise of Bulgarian Turks’ educational level within a short period: if in 1939 only15% of the Bulgarian Turks attended school, then in 1957 it was 97% [4]. It is noteworthy, that in the beginning of the century, in 1905, the level of literacy among the Bulgarian Turks did not exceed 4%. In terms of this indicator they were only ahead of the Gipsies. The most educated commu- 34 «21-st CENTURY», № 1, 2007 Haykaram Nahapetyan nity in Bulgaria, according to Bulgarian and Turkish sources, was the Armenian community, 54.3%. The corresponding indicator for the Jews was 53.6%, for the Greeks, 35.2%, and Bulgarians, 32.3% [5, p. 585]. As a result of land nationalization carried out by the Communist Regime in 1949, thousands of Turkish land owners repatriated to Turkey. At that period the Turks’ emigration was also stimulated by atheism established in Bulgaria together with socialism and the restriction of religious rights of both Christians and Mus- lims [5, p. 3]1. According to some sources, Bulgaria’s Socialistic Regime encour- aged the repatriation of Turks also because the Bulgarian Turks were to some ex- tent carriers of communist ideas and Sofia (or more exactly Moscow) aspired to «export» the ideas of global revolution and socialism to Turkey in such a way. It was also Moscow’s «revenge» for the Ankara-US alliance in the war in Korea [2]. The Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria mainly settled in the coastal re- gions of the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean , in Bursa, Istanbul, Eskisehir, An- kara, Kocaeli and Manisa [6]. At a special session held by the Bulgarian Commu- nist Party it was decided to make the policy with regard to the Turks tougher [6, p.2]. In the 1960s Turkish schools were closed and almost all the Turkish newspa- pers and books were prohibited. The process of «Bulgarization» of the Bulgarian Turks was carried out. The matter is that the Bulgarian government considered them to be Bulgarians, who, once upon a time, were «turned into Turks» and changed their names under the Ottoman rule. It is noteworthy that the repatri- ated Turks from Bulgaria in their native country were called «Bulgarians» or «giaours» [7]. One publication in the «Cumhuriet» raised the issue of the Bulgar- ian Turks’ origin, not excluding the possibility of their Christian origin which caused the protests of the Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria [8, p. 5]. Other Turkish sources also affirm that the considerable part of the Turkish and Muslim population of Bulgaria were converted Christians. «As a result of social move- ments in Anatolia in the 16th century considerable groups of ethnic Turks were firmly established in Bulgaria and the whole Balkan Peninsula. Within the frame- work of the Ottoman state policy, many Anatolians settled Bulgaria,» state Bul- garian and Turkish researchers [2]. «As Bulgaria was the official outpost of the Ottoman Empire’s capitals, first Edirne (Adrianapolis – H.N.) and then, beginning from 1453, Istanbul, much attention was granted to it. Strategic colonization of Central Asia and Anatolia carried out by Turks was accompanied by the islamiza- tion of the local Orthodox population which caused changes of demographic 1 The Bulgarian sociologist Zhelyaskova cited the following data about the emigration of Turks from Bulgaria: in 1878-1912, 350 thousand, in 1913-34, 10-12 thousand, in 1940-1944, 15 thousand, in 1950-51, 154,397 thousand, in 1952-1988, 116,521. 35 Haykaram Nahapetyan «21-st CENTURY», № 1, 2007 structure in favor of Turks and Muslims, especially in cities,» an entry in the 6th volume of the encyclopedia «The Turks» published in Ankara [9, p. 584]. Perhaps this objective observation has an omission: Anatolian Turks are not indigenous population as well, but this is the issue of another discussion. In 1878 the sadrazam of the Ottoman Empire, the grand vizier Midhat Pasha wrote: «One million Muslims live among Bulgarians. …These are the Bulgarians who adopted Islam at the period of conquest and the years to follow. They are the sons of the same country, and belong to the same race and have the same origin» [2]. The constitution adopted by the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party Todor Zhivkov in 1971 was less tolerant to the Turkish minority than the previ- ous one: beginning from 1971 the minorities’ rights were legislatively restricted. Turks also suffered because at the given period Bulgaria was regarded as number three enemy in Turkey: the first two were Greece and the USSR. Turkey’s Prime Minister of that period, Turgun Ozal said: «Ankara can do nothing to protect the Bulgarian Turks until Turkey and Bulgaria belong to hostile blocs» [10, p. 167]. In December 1984 and January 1985 hundreds of thousands of Turks were forced to change their names (following the above considerations, the Bulgarian Turks were considered to be descendants of Islamized Bulgarians.) The birth rate of the Bulgarian Turks horrified the authorities in Sofia.
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