Programme Director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies Sofia
Projects
The project focuses on a particular facet of a specific ethnic conflict in Bulgaria. The dimension under scrutiny is the economic incidence of the tensions, while the minority concerned is the Turkish community during the second half of the 1980s.
The Revival process (the euphemism coined by the Bulgarian communist regime to indicate the campaign initiated in 1984 for a mandatory change of the ethnic Turks' Muslim names with Bulgarian ones) that set out in November 1984 and culminated in 1989 is an unparalleled event which occupies a unique place in the ethnic annals. This large-scale operation triggered a massive exodus in the summer of 1989 and exerted a dramatic impact on the Bulgarian society by interfering with the terminal stage of the totalitarian rule. Ultimately, it contributed in a decisive way to the collapse of the communist regime.
The economic aspects of this round of compulsory assimilation are still not thoroughly explored. Thus the basic aim of the project is to inquire into the microeconomics, microstatistics and micronarratives of the events. The research work is expected to gather new evidence and data concerning these features of the Bulgarian government's ethnic policy. The main sources to be exploited are the relevant archival collections. Other potentially insightful sources are the files of human rights activists whose organizations were established during and after the 1989 crisis.
In light of the precedents, it is likely that the story to be told will once again confirm the permeability of the boundary between good and evil and illustrate the frailness of the threshold to intolerance. This is worth to be remembered as the recent past, of the Balkans in particular, testifies that the old demons of the inter-ethnic hostilities are easily aroused from their latent state and under specific circumstances can break out anytime...
The Revival process (the euphemism coined by the Bulgarian communist regime to indicate the campaign initiated in 1984 for a mandatory change of the ethnic Turks' Muslim names with Bulgarian ones) that set out in November 1984 and culminated in 1989 is an unparalleled event which occupies a unique place in the ethnic annals. This large-scale operation triggered a massive exodus in the summer of 1989 and exerted a dramatic impact on the Bulgarian society by interfering with the terminal stage of the totalitarian rule. Ultimately, it contributed in a decisive way to the collapse of the communist regime.
The economic aspects of this round of compulsory assimilation are still not thoroughly explored. Thus the basic aim of the project is to inquire into the microeconomics, microstatistics and micronarratives of the events. The research work is expected to gather new evidence and data concerning these features of the Bulgarian government's ethnic policy. The main sources to be exploited are the relevant archival collections. Other potentially insightful sources are the files of human rights activists whose organizations were established during and after the 1989 crisis.
In light of the precedents, it is likely that the story to be told will once again confirm the permeability of the boundary between good and evil and illustrate the frailness of the threshold to intolerance. This is worth to be remembered as the recent past, of the Balkans in particular, testifies that the old demons of the inter-ethnic hostilities are easily aroused from their latent state and under specific circumstances can break out anytime...