Islam in Post-communist Bulgaria
Résumé
During the first years of the Bulgarian transition to democracy, all indicators seemed
to point towards an impending explosion of interethnic hatred. Located at the crossroads
of Islam and Christianity, this predominantly Orthodox country harbors a
13.1% strong Muslim minority, which was subjected to forcible assimilation under
communist rule.1 The assimilation policy reached a climax in 1984–1985, when
around 800,000 Bulgarian Turks were forced to renounce their Turkish-Arabic
names in favor of Slavic patronyms within the framework of the so-called “Revival
Process,” a campaign that aimed at precipitating the unification of the Bulgarian
nation (...).