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Witness History: Bulgaria's "Revival Process"

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Bulgaria's "Revival Process"

24/04/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, Bulgaria's "Revival Process"

Bulgaria's brutal policy of forced assimilation against its Turkish minority in the 1980s

In the 1980s, Bulgaria launched a brutal policy of forced assimilation against the country's Turkish minority  Hundreds of thousands fled the country

In the 1980s, Bulgaria's communist regime launched a brutal policy of forced assimilation against the country's ethnic Turkish minority. People's names were forcibly changed to sound more Slavic, the Turkish  language was banned, cultural and religious practices outlawed. In 1989, Bulgaria's government issued passports to Bulgarian Turks, and hundreds of thousands fled the country to neighbouring Turkey. 
We hear the account of one family caught up in the policy the Bulgarian government called "The Revival Process".
Photo: Bulgarian Turks joining a mass exodus to Turkey in 1989 (BBC)

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