Bulgaristan’ın Azınlık Politikaları Üzerinde Sovyet Komünizminin Etkisi Ve Türk Azınlığı Yansıması(1945-1956),

Abstract

Bulgaria was established as a principality with broad boundaries, separating from the Ottoman Empire as the result of the Treaty of San Stefano, which ended the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878, also known as the War of ‘93 in the history. However, great powers were disturbed by the wide borders of Bulgaria; while the borders were reorganized with the Treaty of Berlin, the Bulgarian Principality was officially established by taking its autonomy from the Ottoman State. The political regime of the country has changed over the years; the kingdom was proclaimed in 1908 and the People’s Republic was established in 1946. While the Turkish population living in Bulgaria constituted the majority of the population as of 1878, it became the minority. Several rights have been granted to Turkish population after the population became minority and despite the fact that these rights were tried to be secured by treaties made throughout the history, the Bulgarian government violated these treaties and interfered with the fundamental rights of the Turkish population. Moreover the population undergone an assimilation and tried to be turned into Bulgarian. As a result, the Turkish were forced to migrate to Turkey’s territory on a regular basis. This thesis aimed to shed light on the reflections of the minority policies on the Turkish applied in the process of establishing Soviet Communism in Bulgaria. In this study, taking the duration between the years of 1945-1956 in the long process as the basis, the migration of Bulgarian Turks to Turkey realized in 1950-1951 was also examined. It was also tried to describe the events shaping the period by including the background of the establishment of Bulgaria, the process of being a minority of Bulgarian Turks, the First World War, the Second World War, the beginning of the Cold War and Turkish Foreign Policy.