English-speakers and Bulgarian-speakers seem to read the term "minority" differently.¹ While in English it is more a demographic term, meaning part of the population which is numerically smaller and distinctive -from the largest group (the majority of the country), to Bulgarians the term has inalienable political connotations: "minority" is an ethnic or religious group, the rights of which are protected by international agreements and law with far reaching consequences.

    The present political map of the Balkans was formed after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Political borders between newly established Balkan states were not always drawn along historically established ethnic and confessional lines but often according to the interests of those who played the great geo-strategic game. Therefore state boundaries in the Balkans result by and large from the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Treaties of London and Bucharest after the Balkan Wars in 1913, as well as the system of peace treaties devised in Versailles after the First World War. Hence, parts of ethnic and religious entities came to live outside of their sovereign kin-states and became subject to the policies of other states and regional circumstances.

    The modern Bulgarian state, founded in 1878, is no exception to the rule. Large territories, where Bulgarian speaking Christians constituted the majority of the population, were transferred to the sovereignty of neighboring states-Turkey, Greece, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes-there to become external minorities in Bulgarian eyes. Meanwhile, diverse ethnic and religious groups, the lasting legacy of the Ottoman Empire, remained living inside the new Bulgarian nation-state as internal minorities. At different periods of modern Bulgarian history, it was the external minorities which had priority in shaping the foreign policy of the country. The problem of Macedonia, for instance, was of utmost concern until the Second World War. During the last decades of communist rule the issue of the external minorities living in neighboring countries has been totally neglected; only recently is it returning to the agenda of Bulgarian diplomacy. But, it is mostly the Bulgarian Turks which now play an important political role in Bulgaria, most deeply affecting the national sentiments of Bulgarians.
 

Present Minorities in Bulgaria

A nation-wide census carried out on 4 December 1992 estimated the population of Bulgaria at 8,487,317: with 7,271,185 (85.67%) estimated as ethnic Bulgarians, 800,052 (9.43%) as ethnic Turks, and 313,396 (3.69%) as Gypsies. Ethnic diversity is compounded by religious variety. The country's mainstream religious denon-iination is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but there are also small numbers of Catholics and Protestants. Christians altogether number 7,349,544 (86.59%). The estimate for Muslims is 1,110,295 (13.08%), among which there are Suni and Shia Muslims. Identifying themselves with other creeds and denominations are about 18,997 (0.22%).²

    The Bulgarian Turks are by far the most sizable minority. To a larie extent it determines important interstate relations, especially those of Bulgaria with Turkey,³ and is also likely to affect regional security. Most of the Turks in Bulgaria are Muslim by faith.⁴ It is a matter of academic debate whether they are descendants of the Ottoman Turks who colonized the Balkan peninsula or of Slavic forefathers who converted to Islam and adopted the Turkish language as well. Nowadays the majority of this population live in the Razgrad-Shumen area in northeastern Bulgaria (the Dobrudja region) and in the Kirdzhali district in the southern part of the country (the Rhodope mountains). In these two regions, separated by some 200 miles, the ethnic Turks constitute a majority of the population; in many other places they live dispersed among other ethnic groups. The Turkish community has been predominantly rural and traditionally not very highly educated, with only a thin layer of Turkish intelligentsia.

    A significant gap in the official census is the lack of information on a specific Bulgarian minority, the Pomaks. They are of Bulgarian ethnic origin, Bulgarian speaking and Muslim by faith. The Pomaks inhabit the Rhodope Mountains, on the southeast slopes of the Pirin Mountains, as well as the Lovech-Teteven area in central Northern Bulgaria. Their traditional livelihood (tobacco growing, lead and zinc mines, construction works) is seriously affected by the present economic crisis in Bulgaria.

    Gypsies (Roma)⁵ in Bulgaria presumably number more than the official estimates. The results of the last census are highly deflated; in fact, it yields figures only of those who prefer to identify themselves as Gypsies and assert their Roma identityThis implicitly reveals the fact that they are not readily accepted and are not well integrated into mainstream Bulgarian society. To be a Gypsy within the social hierarchy of Bulgaria is to be stigmatized; Gypsies are usually stereotyped as thieves and profiteers.

    Traditional minorities, such as Armenians (13,677) and Jews (3,461), are wellintegrated into Bulgarian public life. The country has a few other ethnic and religious communities whose numbers are very small. There are about 4,500 TatarsTatar-speaking Muslims who came as refugees from the expansionist policy of Imperial Russian in the Caucasus and the Black Sea littofal. There are perhaps 2,000 Karakachan, formerly a nomadic Balkan people whose language is similar to Romanian with some Greek elements. Today, some of these high-land sheepbreeders claim to be of Greek descent, which is in confon-nity with the official Greek viewpoint. There are also Gagauz, Turkish speaking people who profess Orthodox Christianity and probably number around 1,500. Recently, some groups of presumably Romanian descent, living in Northern Bulgaria, are asserting their Vlah identity. The Qizilbash⁶ are a specific Muslim sect with syncretic beliefs and esoteric practices who live in secretive communities.
 

Current State of Research on Minorities in Bulgaria

The policy of the communist regime was characterized by denial of the very existence of ethnic and religious minorities, compounded by covert attempts to assimilate them. This created very unfavorable ground for objective scholarly research in this field. The few attempts that have been made during the last years of totalitarian rule were strongly discouraged and openly disapproved. This resulted in a serious lacuna in academic knowledge, which is underscored when contrasted to the number of able and well-equipped Bulgarian scholars who, when motivated, could approach the problem with energy and dedication. In spite of political impediments to the joint efforts by scholars some research was done. A very good illustration of this is the sociological survey during the wave of mass emigration in 1989, organized by a team of the Institute of Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and published one year later.⁷

    During the last couple of years a number of research programs (for the most part funded by western institutions) were launched to fill the gap. They were quite successful in describing the historical, ethnological and sociological problems of minorities in Bulgaria. Also successful was their monitoring of current developments among minoirties. One of the first was the U.S.-sponsored Project on Ethnic Relations, whose preliminary findings were reported at a seminar organized by the RFI/RL Research Institute based in Munich.⁸

    Some of the projects have already resulted in comprehensive volumes of recent research. There are two publications that deserve special attention. The first one, "Aspects of the Ethnocultural Situation in Bulgaria," is a two-volume compendium of proceedings of sen-iinars, co-organized in Sofia by the Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Friedrich Nauman Foundation (8-10 November 1991, 21-23 February 1992). Its contents cover a broad range of issues, such as historical surveys of Muslims in Bulgaria, a sociological study of Bulgarian stereotypes of minorities, studies of Gypsy situations, a report on ethnological research in the Rhodopes, and ethnic relations and economics (Vol. I); studies on minority rights in Bulgaria, the cohabitation of different ethnic and religious communities in the Rhodopes, and research on the Macedonian issue are covered in Vol. II.⁹ The second set of Volumes, "The Ethnic Picture of Bulgaria," contains a 1992 research project conducted by Princeton University on interethnic relations in Bulgaria. Its broad scope of research topics ranges from relations among different Gypsy groups in Bulgaria and traditional power structures within the Pomak communities to mass media interpretation of ethnic conflict.¹⁰

    A special institution, The International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations Foundation, was founded in Sofia in April 1992 with the purpose to promote research and practical activities, as well as to disseminate information in the sphere of inter-cultural and inter-ethnic relations. Its ambitious geographic range of research spans Bulgaria, South-Eastem Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Centre in Sofia is linked through academic partnership with-the Centre for the Study of Islain and Christian-Muslim Relations in Birmingham, U.K., and the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, Warwick, U.K., as well as with the National Foundation for Political Sciences, in Paris, France. The Centre and its projects have received financial support from the Soros Foundation, the German Marshal Fund of the U.S., the Solon Foundation, the PHARE Democracy programme, UNESCO, and others.

    A large-scale research project of the Centre has just been completed with the support of the PHARE program and with co-funding by the Commission of the European communities. The purpose of this project is to explore, with the tools of various sciences, the zones of compatibility and incompatibility between Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria and to propose strategies for expanding the former and contracting the latter. It consists of three main parts:
 

1. The historical part traces the formation of the image of the "other," both internally (the Turk, the Jew, the Gypsy) and externally (the Balkan neighbors), aiming to gain insight into the formation of stereotypes.

Minority Rights

The campaign of forced assimilation launched by the Zhivkov regime against the Muslims of Bulgaria and the abuse of civil rights in Bulgaria¹² became a strong driving force which accelerated the political change of 1989. As a result, the protection of minority rights stood high on the political agenda following the collapse of communism. The first legislative steps were connected with the reinforcement of the rights of ethnic Turks and other Muslims. A law on the restoration of Turkish names was adopted in March 1990; subsequently it was amended to allow Muslims further freedoms in the choice of their names. By March 1991, 600,000 Bulgarian Turks, Pomaks, Gypsies and Tatars had restored their previous names. Another bill (June 1991) amnestied all persons condemned in connection with the assimilation campaign of 1984-1989. Two decrees approved by the Council of Ministers (no. 29, 1990; no. 170, 1991) and the so-called Dogan Act (1992) furnished an indemnity package dealing with housing, property, and employment of Bulgarian citizens who emigrated to Turkey in 1989 and later returned. In conformity with these acts, about 3,000 houses were returned to their previous owners, requiring enormous efforts to resolve this explosive issue. 13 This policy did not always enjoy public support on the part of the Bulgarian majority; it was often met with reluctance or even resistance." However, it bore ainple fruit on the international arena: the Council of Europe offered full membership to Bulgaria in May 1992, recognizing its new approach to solving minority problems.

    A very strong factor promoting minority rights is a political party called Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The MRF is a secular organization which rejects fundamentalist ideas and demands for minorities: legal protection in conformity with international law, political rights, and, of minorities, an active participation at all levels of local and government structures while guaranteeing for their cultural and linguistic identity. According to its ideology, the rights of the different ethnic groups will be better guaranteed if they acquire official status as minorities and have their collective rights recognized. While insisting on collective rights for minorities and fighting for cultural autonomy, the MRF has declared itself against political autonomy, considering it harmful for the integration and sovereignty of the Bulgarian nation. Its activities so far have been based on demonstrated loyalty to Bulgarian sovereignty. Its stated task is to defend human rights in general; yet the MRF remains an overwhelmingly Turkish political organization; the endeavors to expand its membership and electorate beyond the Turkish community have led to very little success so far.

    The MRF's legitimacy and participation in Bulgarian political life were a very dramatic issue on the country's road to pluralism and democracy. The political party was officially registered on 4 January 1990, although according to its leaders their underground organization has been functioning since 1985. In the June 1990 elections the MRF won 23 of the 400 seats in the Bulgarian Parliament, thus becoming the third largest political force in a country strongly polarized between the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Union of the Democratic Forces. However, on the eve of the following national elections its very existence was seriously questioned. According to the new constitution and the election law no political parties could be formed along ethnic and religious lines; as a result the MRF lost its grounds for legal recognition. Despite this fact, the Central Electoral Commission and the Bulgarian Supreme Court sanctioned the participation of the MRF in the elections of October 1991. This obvious contradiction between the provisions of the constitution and political practice could be explained by different motives. First and foremost, the Supreme Court acted in compliance with the expectations of international institutions aiming to improve the image of the country. But, on the other hand, it was becoming clear even to nationalists in Bulgaria that prohibiting a party with well-established grassroots connections among the Muslims in the country would trigger ethnic tensions anew.¹⁵

    Because of the strong polarization of Bulgarian society, (the BSP versus the UDF) for a couple of years the Movement for Rights and Freedoms acquired a key position of holding the balance of power in Bulgarian politics. It shared responsibility for decision making on the national level. In 1992, when the MRF withdrew its support, the government had to resign. The next government, that of Prof Lyuben Berov, was formed with the mandate of the MRF. The participation of this political organization in Bulgarian politics and government has expanded its own focus beyond the original ethnic and other minority rights issues.¹⁶

    However, the results from the last parliamentary elections in December 1994 displayed the decreasing popularity of the MRF and its internal crisis. This time it won only 6.85% of the votes (281,000) and 15 seats in Parliament¹⁷ (in comparison to 24 seats out of 240 after the October 1991 elections). Thus, it became only one of the five parties and coalitions represented in Parliament. The reasons for the loss of its key position are complex. Central among them is the fact that it neglected the immediate economic interests of its electorate, living in economically depressed regions. Furthermore, it did not receive the expected 300,000 votes from Bulgarian Turks who emigrated to Turkey during the last couple of years and who still hold double citizenship. Interpersonal conflicts within the leadership of the party, which have become frequent, also weaken the confidence of ordinary members and followers.

    The new Bulgarian constitution of 1991 does not recognize collective rights for minorities; human rights are guaranteed as rights of individuals. Among other human rights, Turkish language instruction and practicing Islam play a central role in the life of Turks and Muslims, so that ethnic tensions considerably decreased since their practice was guaranteed. As further assurance the office of the President has appointed a special team who monitor the situation of non-Bulgarian ethnic communities and promote their rights.

    The issue of language instruction generated great political controversy, allowing for the comproniize, in November 1991, that the Turkish language may be taught in municipal schools on an extracurricular basis. The MRF, for its part, insists that Turkish should be introduced as part of the regular curriculum in all Bulgarian schools. However, a recent parliamentary debate over the issue of introducing Turkish as a second language in the Bulgarian army reached no compron-tize; public opinion perceived it as contrary to Bulgarian national interests.

    In Bulgaria, Islam is regarded as a Turkish faith and is totally disconnected from its classical Arabic background.¹⁸ Bulgarian is officially pronounced to be the language of worship, but this norm is generally disregarded as represented in the wide use of Turkish in Muslim practices. At present, increased Islamic influence and the re-assertion of Islan-dc self-consciousness are widely felt in the country. Recent sociological surveys indicate that while the level of religiosity is generally increasing (a common phenomenon in all postconununist societies), this tendency is much more pronounced among the Muslim minorities than among ethnic Bulgarians.¹⁹ In general, however, observance prevails over piety.

    Nowadays the official representative body of the Muslim faith - is split, and there exist two Superior Spiritual Councils and two Grand Muftis who cannot reach reconciliation. Local ecclesiastical structures include six regional Muffis and their respective offices in Razgrad, Shumen, Russe, Plovdiv, Smolyan and Kirdzhali. There are currently 996 places of Islamic worship. Normally, imams in Bulgaria are graduates of the Islamic institute in Sofia or one of the three Muslim high schools in Razgrad, Rousse and Kirdjali. At present students are enrolled in Muslim high schools abroad.

    There are two Muslim political parties in the country: the Democratic Party of Justice led by former Grand Mufti Nedim Gendjhev and the Party of Democratic Change led by Mehmed Hodiha. Both of them attracted an insignificant number of votes during the last elections (0.46% and 0.27% respectively).²⁰ Nevertheless, it is becoming a widespread public concern that Bulgarian Muslims might become receptive to the impact of Islamic resurgence abroad. Several Islamic foundations are increasingly active among them: "Islamic Relief, " "Al-Waqf al-Islami" and "Menar.²¹ They finance construction of new mosques and publication of Muslim literature. In view of the rise of Muslim fundamentalism all over the Mediterranean, the Islamic resurgence in Turkey and the role of Islam in the crises of former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia), Islam in Bulgaria is not to be underestimated as a potential factor with security implications.

    Migration and travel across the border between Bulgaria and Turkey have been of utmost concern in bilateral relations ever since the establishment of the modem Bulgarian state. Currently, the depressed economy of the regions with mixed population causes increased economic emigration from Bulgaria to Turkey. This creates additional problems for both countries: in southern Bulgaria whole areas are in danger of depopulation, while Turkey has difficulties in accommodating new immigrants. There exist economic proposals, still in the stage of ideas, for Turkish investment in these regions, designed to revitalize the economy and halt out-migration.
 

National Sentiments and Security Concerns

Since minorities have often played a crucial role in deten-nining the course of Balkan politics, the questions of war and peace, and the drawing of borders, Bulgarian public opinion is extremely sensitive to the usage of the term. There exists a wide-spread apprehension that the recognition of the term would create grounds for claims that go beyond the sphere of human rights and touch the political aspects of interstate relations. Furthermore, a significant number of Bulgarian political activists still put the accent on the fact that the term national minority does not exist in bilateral and multilateral treaties which Bulgaria has signed with other countries. For some, the idea that the affiliation of a person with a given minority being a matter of individual choice is unacceptable in Bulgarian circumstances because that woulcr encourage Roma, Pomaks, and Tatars to identify themselves as Turks, lured by a perceived higher social status. Rather, it should be objective historical circumstances and not the self-consciousness of individuals which outline minority groups. Bulgarian legislature in the field of human rights is strongly influenced by this rationale. In the new Bulgarian constitution of 1991 the term "minority" has been studiously omitted.

    Bulgarian society has not been able to integrate, fully into its own fabric, the Turks, in particular, and the Muslims in general. The reason for this is connected to a large extent with Bulgarian nationalism. It became an articulate driving force in the nineteenth century during the course of the Bulgarian liberation movement against Ottoman domination (1396-1878). Bulgarian nationalism shared many of the common characteristics of Eastern European nationalisms: they appeared much later in history than nationalisms in the West and looked up to them as a model to emulate; eastern nationalisms were of a more cultural than political nature, oriented towards a past glory rather than the future; and their chief proponents were "myth-making" intellectuals and not politicians and legislators.²² The most distinctive characteristic of Eastern European nationalisms, however, appears to stem from the sequence in which the nation-state evolved: it followed the pattern "nation first, state second," whereas nation-states in Western Europe evolved in the reverse order. Most of the modem Eastern European nations existed in a state of "proto-nations" under the sovereignty of a great multi-national empire: the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian or the Prussian. The "nation first, state second" path enhanced ethnic basis for defining the nation, not civic criteria. This led to exclusivism based on ethnicity and to belated incidents of "jacobin style" nation building up until the late twentieth century. Ethnic homogeneity is still regarded as the norm, and ethnic diversity as deviation from the norm.²³

    The concept of the modem Bulgarian nation which crystallized in the nineteenth century was defined along linguistic as well as religious lines. According to it, to be Bulgarian is to speak Bulgarian and to belong in faith to the Bulgarian Orthodox church. This concept implicitly estranged the Muslims as alien in the first place as well as other religious communities (Catholic, Greek Orthodox). The image of the "other" still has very strong religious connotations, which appears to be a repercussion of "millet" reasoning and mentality, still strong in the Balkans.²⁴

    As elsewhere in the Balkans, "Islam" was equated with "Turk," therefore antiMuslim stereotypes by and large overlap with anti-Turkish ones. Anti-Islamic sensitivities are a significant component of Bulgarian nationalism which grows from the hindsight that the Ottoman conquest greatly impeded Bulgaria's political, economic, and cultural development and separated it from the mainstream of European progress by introducing an alien, Asiatic faith and culture into the Balkan peninsula. The distorted image of Turkey is compounded by a customary Bulgarian perception that Bulgaria is more civilized and European than Turkey, and that Turkey will not be able to reach western standards in democracy, civic culture and marketeconomy because in its very essence it is a somewhat backward country.

    This "classical" background of Bulgarian nationalism is compounded by current characteristics. A major feature of contemporary Bulgarian nationalism is that it is "introvert," i.e., public attention has been engaged mostly with the problem of the Turkish and other Muslim minorities in the country and not with the extemal minorities. Bulgarian concerns connected with internal minorities have demographic and political dimensions. The Muslim populations in Bulgaria-Turks, Gypsies and Pomaks-have much higher birth and fertility rates, while ethnic Bulgarians are in fact decreasing in absolute numbers. This gives rise to fears that Bulgarians in the regions with mixed population, such as Northeastern and Southeastern Bulgaria, will be outnumbered and economically disadvantaged, eventually being driven to leave their homes and property.

    Even stronger are the political concerns connected with the role which Turkey could play in interethnic relations in Bulgaria. Analytical frameworks, for exan-dning the potential of minority situations to produce conflict, highlight the paramount importance of an ethnic kin-state which exists in geographic proximity of minority concentrations.²⁵ One of the largest concentrations of Turkish population in Southern Bulgaria is adjacent to the border with Turkey. Bulgaria's ethnic Turks constitute simultaneously the largest non-Bulgarian ethnic n-tinority in Bulgaria and the most populous Turkish minority inherited from the Ottoman Empire living outside Turkey. The five centuries of Ottoman domination have left their indelible mark on the Bulgarian national psyche. The symbolism of the "yoke"²⁶ is still very much alive, and Turkey is regarded as the "traditional enemy." Past victinihood plays a significant role in shaping contemporary Bulgarian self-image and images of others. There are Bulgarians who suspect that Turkey harbors territorial designs on Bulgaria and that the Turkish minority is its "fifth column."

    Bulgaria's Turkish minority has indeed been part of historical pan-Turkic ambitions. They still have some repercussions today, ranging from the "neo-Ottoman plan" of former president Turgut Ozal to moderate formulations of the national interests of Turkey which envisage in the long term the construction around it "a belt of peace and stability founded upon solidarity and cooperation." A central element of this strategy is the existence of the so-called "external Turks," who as a rule are less developed and to whom Turkey could have a powerful appeal. This is very much in conformity with the new role of regional power which Turkey acquired within a short period of time after the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. Functionally connected with this policy is the idea of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation which may enable Turkey to become a privileged senior partner to the new democracies in the Balkans and to the newly formed Central Asian Republics.²⁷ Of course, all these potential designs may or may not be realized. Nevertheless, they sway Bulgarian public opinion by generating apprehensions and fears.

    In general, however, post-communist Bulgarian nationalism is as yet a somewhat elusive political force; it is not as intense as it is in other neighboring countries. In bilateral relations much effort has been made to surmount the negative influences of extreme nationalism coming from both sides.
 
 

1. Ivan Ilchev and Duncan M. Perry, "Bulgarian Ethnic Groups: Politics and Perceptions," RFEIRL Research Report, No. 12, 19 March 1993, p. 35.
2. Republika Bulgaria. Statisticheski godishnik (1993), Ri^6@Y, ii. 53. Republic of Bulgaria. Statistical Yearbook (Sofia, 1993), p. 53.
3. R. J. Crampton, "The Turks in Bulgaria 1878-1944," International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1989, pp. 27-43.
4. Alexandre Popovic, L'Islam balkanique: Les musulmans du sud-est europeen dans la periode post-ottomane (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1986), pp. 66-106.
5. E. Maruschiakova. V. Popov. Tziganite v Bulgaria, &16@y (1993).
6. Frederick De Jong, "Notes on Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods in Northeastern Bulgaria," Der Islam: Zeitschrift fur Deschichte und Kultur der islamichen Orients,
    Bd. 63, H. 2, pp. 303-8; Petya Nitzova. "Qizilbash," in I. Harris, S. Mews, P. Morris and J. Shepherd, eds, Contemporary Religions: A World Guide (London:
    Longman Current Affairs, 1992), p. 284.
7. Etnicheskiyat konflikt v Bulgaria 1989 (Sofia: Sotziologicheski archiv, 1989).
8. Ivan Ilchev and Duncan M. Perry, "Bulgarian Ethnic Groups," pp. 35-41.
9. Aspekti na etnokultumata situatziya v Bulgaria i na Balkanite, Tzentar za izsledvane na demokratziyata i fondatziya Fridrih Nauman (Sofia: 1992), v 2 t.
10. Etnicheskata kartina v Bulgaria (Sofia: lzdatelstvo Klub 90, 1993).
11. Vrazki na savmestimost i nesavmestimost mezdu hristiyani i myusyulmani v Bulgaria (Sofia: Fondatziya [Mezdunaroden tzentar po problemite na maltzinstvata i kulturnite vzaimodeistviya], 1994).
12. see: Thomas F. Michel, "The Turkish Minority in Bulgaria," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1990, pp. 269-279; Ivan Dobrev, "The  Turkish Minority in Bulgaria: A Clarification," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, the same issue, pp. 280-285. The most thorough and detailed account of  these events is found in, Hugh Poulton, Minorities and States in Conflict (London: Minority Rights Group, 1993), pp.129-163.
13. Ivanka Nedeva, "Democracy Building in Ethnically Diverse Societies: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania," in Ian M. Cuthbertson and Jane Leibowitz, eds,
      Minorities: The New Europe's Old Issue (New York: Institute for EastWest Studies, 1994), pp. 134-135.
14. Stephen Ashley, "Ethnic Unrest During January," RFEIRL Report on Eastern Europe, No. 6, 9 February 1990, pp. 4-1 1; Duncan M. Perry, "Ethnic Turks Face Bulgarian Nationalism," ibid., No. II, 15 March 199 1, pp. 5-7.
15. Ivanka Nedeva, "Democracy Building," pp. 137-138.
16. William H. Taft, "In Bulgaria, Democracy Eases Ethnic Tensions," The Wall Street Journal, 19 March 1993.
17. 24 chasa, 28 December 1994.
18. Petya Nitzova, "Islam in Bulgaria: A Historical Reappraisal," Religion, State and Society, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1994, pp. 97-102.
19. 35.5% of the whole population have declared themselves pious, of whom Bu]Zarians are 33%, 67% are Turks and 45% are Roma. See, Vrazki na savmestimost i  nesavmestimost. pp.198-203.
20. Kontinent, No. 301, 30 December 1994.
21. Ibid., No. 20, 24 January 1995.
22. John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, eds, Nationalism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 122-124, 162-164.
23. Thomas S. Szayna, Ethnic Confict in Central Europe and the Balkans. A Framework and US Policy Options (Stanford: RAND, 1994), pp. 10-12.
24. Dennis P. Hupchick, Culture and History in Eastern Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp.146-155.
25. Thomas S. Szayna, Ethnic Conflict, p. 30.
26. The greatest Bulgarian national author of all times Ivan Vazov created a novel entitled Under the Yoke, which has been for almost a century part and parcel of the Bulgarian national narrative and an extended metaphor of Bulgarian susceptabilities vis-A-vis the Turks.
27. Ivanka Nedeva, Bulgaria's Relations with Greece and Turkey and the Idea of Trilateral Cooperation (Sofia: Free Initiative Foundation, 1993), pp. 12-17.