THE BULGARIAN TURKISH NAMES CONFLICT AND DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION

Abstract

It has become a truism that transformations in countries of the former Soviet block were accompanied by space and borders along national lines’ in a variety of appearances and forms. The notion of transition nationalism has become closely associated with violence and ethnic conflict. This contribution discusses a case in which ethno-nationalist violence could have erupted but did not, or rather a case in which ethno-nationalist violence was prevented. It is the case of the conflict over the names of Bulgarian Turks. In the mid-1980s, the Bulgarian communist regime set out to enforce a name-changing policy, targeting especially Bulgarian Muslims with Turkish- or Arab-sounding names. This policy culminated in the mass exodus of Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in the summer of 1989. This coincided with the onset of the transition process in Bulgaria. In an attempt to avoid the pitfalls of retrospective determinism, this article argues that the preclusion of violence was neither guaranteed nor the sole option during the initial transition period. Indeed, the onset of Bulgaria's transition saw a situation of rapidly escalating ethnic tensions: the issue of the ethnic Turks was high on the transition agenda, and outbursts of ethnic violence loomed. This article seeks to answer the question why nationalist and ethnic violence did not break out and how confrontational nationalism was prevented from gaining the upper hand in Bulgaria during and after the initial transition phase. More generally, it is argued that despite a heavy historical legacy and pre-determined circumstances, outbursts of confrontational nationalism and ensuing ethno-national violence are neither unavoidable nor bound always to happen. While political transitions are most vulnerable to outbreaks of violence, voluntaristic and contingent factors play a significant role in the outcome of nationalism- or ethnicity-related situations, especially in situations of profound and rapid socio-political transformation. The ‘initial transition phase’ covers the period from mid-1989 to the end of 1992. The issues under consideration were studied on the basis of detailed process-tracing and an analysis of the dynamics of political and inter-group interactions, paying special attention to time sequences and critical junctures. Accounting for the uncertainty and contingency in the process of political space reconfiguration during the initial transition period, the analysis focuses on the positions of key political actors and on how and why their positions changed, i.e. whether this was the result of a cause–effect scheme or whether it was contingent. The aim is to reveal how intentions, apprehensions, interpretations and mutual inducement among transition actors produced sequences of events and decisions that shaped the ‘Turkish issue’ and resulted in non-violence.