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Migration, Identity and Politics: The Case of Bulgaristanlı Turks


Bu tez, Bulgaristan’dan Türkiye’ye göç eden Türk göçmenlerin dernek hayatını incelemektedir. İlk olarak, bu tez Bulgaristan Komünist Partisi’nin uygulamış olduğu asimilasyon politikaları ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin göçmenlere uyguladığı göç ve vatandaşlık politikaları ile şekillenen Bulgaristan Türkü kimliğinin, idealize edilmiş saf Türk olmak ile Bulgaristan ve Türkiye’ye duydukları çifte teritoryal sadakatin yaratmış olduğu gerilimleri dikkate alarak dernek yöneticileri tarafından nasıl yeniden üretildiğini tartışmaktadır. İkinci olarak bu tezin amacı derneklerin kurumsal kimliği altında ait oldukları toplumun elitleri olan dernek yöneticilerinin hem Türkiye’deki hem de Bulgaristan’daki Türklerin etno-kültürel cemaat kimliklerini koruma diskurunu kullanarak siyasi seferberlik faaliyetlerinde bulunduklarına ışık tutmaktır. Tezde kullanılan kaynaklar, dokuz aylık saha çalışması sırasında dernek yöneticileriyle yapılan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmelere ve katılımcı gözlemle ile elde edilen ampirik araştırmalardan, derneklerin basılı ve online yayınlarından, ve TBMM arşivinden oluşmaktadır.
46,532 kelime
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To my family,
who taught me to love my “Bulgaristanlı” origin
without any pride or shame
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Table of Contents
List of Tables xiii
Abbreviations and Acronyms xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. About the Methodology 8
2. “ENDLESS RETURN HOME”: HOW DO “BULGARISTANLI TURKS” SHIFT FROM BEING MUSLIM REFUGEES TO “SOYDAŞ (RACIAL KIN)” OF TURKEY IN THE DIASPORA? 13
2.1. 1877-1923: “Muslim Refugees Flee Persecution” 19
2.2. From the Ottoman Tebaa (Subject) to Minority of Bulgaria 24
2.3. 1923-1944: “Refugee Stream from Bulgaria”: Thousands of Our Irkdaş (racial kin) are Taking Refugee in Our Homeland 25
2.4. 1944-1989: “Our blood is pure Turkish blood”: Naturalization of Ethnic Turks Migrants from Bulgaria in Turkey 31
2.5. From “Escape Soydaş” to Irregular Labor Migrant: The Limits of the “Soydaş” discourse from 1990 to 2020s 39
3. IMMIGRANT ASSOCIATIONS: THE PUBLIC FACE OF THE BULGARISTANLI TURKS’ COMMUNITY 47
3.1. Somewhere Between Civil Society Organization and State Institution 58
3.2. Associations as “Protector of the Soydaş” 62
3.3. Turkey’s Gate to the West: From Soydaş to Most Ancient Agents of Turkish Diaspora 71
4. AS AN IDENTITY PRODUCTION CENTER: “CULTURE AND SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATIONS OF BULGARISTANLI TURKS” 73
4.1. “Lamentation To Lost Imperial Land: Balkans Has Been Still Our Homeland” 79
4.2. “Communist Regime Has Taken a Lot from Us” 87
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4.3. “We are the essential element of the Turkish Republic!” 92
4.4. Fear of Statelessness: “Can We Find Another Place to Call Home?” 96
5. ASSOCIATIONS ARE THE KINDERGARTEN OF POLITICS” 103
5.1. What kind of civil society organizations are “Culture and Solidarity Associations” of Bulgaristanlı Turks? 107
5.2. Association as a Space of “National Litigation” 112
5.3. From Defenders of Community in Bulgaria to Leaders of Associations in Turkey 115
5.4. Politics: Is It Really Out of the Association’s Doors? 124
6. CONCLUSION 129
APPENDICES
A List of Interviewees 133
B The poem “Bulgar Mezalimi İntikam Levhası Kulag ına Ku pe Olsun Unutma” 138
C CCA, 30-1-0-0/ 123-786-8 139
D The Cover of the 1st Issue of “The Turkish Culture in Balkans” (Journal of the Federation of Balkan Turks and Refugees ’
Associations) 140 EE TheThe CoverCover ofof thethe 45th45th IssueIssue ofof ““TheThe TurkishTurkish CultureCulture inin BalkansBalkans”” (Jour(Journalnal ofof thethe FeFederationderation ofof BalkanBalkan TurksTurks andand RefugeesRefugees ’Associations)Associations) 114141 FF 16.04.2007,16.04.2007, MilliyetMilliyet Newspaper,Newspaper, PagePage 2121 114242 GG 20.02.1997,20.02.1997, MilliyetMilliyet Newspaper,Newspaper, PagePage 33 131377 HH TableTable ofof thethe FederationsFederations andand AssociationsAssociations WWhichhich areare MMembersembers ofof thethe ConfederationConfederation 114343 II TheThe ListList ofof AssociationsAssociations andand FederationsFederations whichwhich II metmet thethe chairmenchairmen andand membersmembers inin TurkeyTurkey 114466 JJ ListList ofof AssociationsAssociations IIII 114488
BIBLIOGRAPHY 151
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List of Tables
TableTable 2.12.1 IndicativeIndicative NumberNumber ofof TurkishTurkish andand MuslimMuslim MigrantsMigrants fromfrom BulgariaBulgaria toto TurkeyTurkey 2929
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Bal-Go ç The Culture and Solidarity Associations of Balkan Immigrants
BALKANDER Association of Culture and Solidarity of Thrace, Rumelia and Balkan Turks of Sultangazi
Bal-Tu rk The Culture and Solidarity Associations of Balkan Turks
BCP Bulgarian Communist Part
BULTU RK Association of Culture and Service of Turks from Bulgaria
CBRM The Confederation of Balkan and Rumeli Migrants
DOST Democrats for Responsibility, Solidarity and Tolerance (known as DOST PARTY in Turkey)
HŞHP Liberty and Reputation People’s Party (knowns as HŞHP inin Turkey)Turkey)
MRF Movements of Rights and Freedom
RUBAFED Federation of Rumelia and Balkan Associations
YTB Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (Yurtdışı Tu rkler ve Akraba Toplulukları Başkanlıg ı)
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able to complete this thesis. Firstly, I consider myself more than fortunate to have had as my thesis advisor, Seda Altuğ who has been both my advisor and mentor. My deepest appreciation and thanks belong to her. Thanks to her guidance, friendly attitude, and crucial feedback throughout the process, I can improve my knowledge and have deeper insights on several topics. Her way of thinking also influenced me as a person. I would like to express my gratitude to Aydın Babuna for his valuable guidance on studying associations of Bulgaristanlı Turks during our discussions in our courses and his overall insights in this field gave me this inspiring research topic.I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my committee members Berna Yazıcı Tepeyurt and. Didem Danış Şenyüz accepted being a member of the thesis committee, careful readings, comments and critics to make my study better. Their precious comments prompted me to approach my research objects from different perspectives.
In addition to this, I would like to thank all members of Atatürk Institute notably. Nadir Özbek and Cengiz Kırlı who I have had the chance to attend their valuable classes. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Nurcan Özgür Baklacıoğlu for her insightful comments, suggestions and for faith in my project. My heartfelt thanks go to Tracy M. Lord, with whom I discussed virtually every stage of my thesis and who critically read through an earlier draft of my arguments. I also would like to thank the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for its valuable financial support through TÜBİTAK-BİDEB 2210-a program.
I would like to pay my special regards to my family. My family wholeheartedly supported me in every stage of my thesis, their belief in me and sharing my darkest times as well as the best times was an important factor in the success of this study. I could not have thought of writing this thesis without their memories and experiences about Bulgaria, the Communist regime, and the immigration process which I
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was raised to listen to from my childhood. Moreover, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to executives of several associations in different cities of Turkey who allow me to leach in their emotional memories about their resistance movements in Bulgaria, the immigration process to Turkey, and integration pains to Turkey. Without the eloquence of those who told me their stories, this dissertation would not have been possible.
I want specially to thank my dear friend Tutku Akın for her immeasurable help, understanding, and support. Without the intellectual and emotional support of her, this thesis would not have been possible. I sincerely express my very profound gratitude to her for all her encouragement in every stage of my educational life, and also in my personal life. I wish to extend my special thanks and deepest appreciation to my lovely childhood friend Seren Kovaç. Without her emotional support in every stage of my life, I could not feel self-confident to construct this thesis. I would also like to thank my close friends Deniz Bulut, Suat Dinç, Yağmur Yurtsever, Selen Korkmaz, and Enes Çallı who suffered and feel proud together with me in every stage of my personal life and academic production. I wish to show my appreciation to my psychological counselor Ayşe Gür Turaboğlu for her ongoing help for me. She always calms me down when my stress level is high, encourages me constantly, and listens to all my complaints about my educational life.
NOTE: The in-house editor of the Atatu rk Institute has made detailed recommendations with regard to the format, grammar, spelling, usage, syntax, and style of this thesis.
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Introduction
Whenever the government hurts you, it becomes your identity.
– Milan Kundera
uring the late 19th century, the acceleration of independence movements which eventuated with multitudes of wars and massacres in the Balkan territory of the Ottoman Empire forced many Turkish and Muslim groups to immigrate to Anatolia, remained lands of the empire. Aftermath of the several immigration waves of Turkish and
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Muslim groups from the Balkan peninsula to the current borders of Turkish nation state, led to the creation of the ethno-cultural group called “Balkan and Rumelia Turks.” Several ethno-cultural subgroups were shaped by immigrants’ regions of origin and as such exist under the umbrella term of the inclusive “Balkan and Rumelia Turks”. In addition to this, when the migration history of these groups that were immigrating to Turkey from the Balkans is examined, the Turks of Bulgaria are undoubtedly the demographically strongest group and have the longest immigration history among all the other Balkan and Rumelia Turks.
The immigration history of Turkish and Muslim groups from Bulgaria to Turkey started during Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878. Moreover, after the foundation of Turkish Republic, the said Turkish immigration from Bulgaria to Turkey continued up until 1989, as these included both the migration agreements between Bulgaria and Turkey and the forced migration of the Turkish minorities from Bulgaria to their imagined homeland. Furthermore, when the communist regime collapsed in Bulgaria in 1990, economic problems also triggered the Turkish population to migrate to Turkey until early 2000s. However, the direction of immigrations from Bulgaria to Turkey turned to the Western European countries with the entrance of Bulgaria to the EU in 2007.
Despite the immigration of a massive number of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey, Bulgaria still contains the highest Turkish population among all Balkan countries. With the regulations in the Bulgarian Citizenship Law of 1998, Turks who immigrated to Turkey from Bulgaria have the right to multiple citizenship. Thus, the communication between the Turks who stayed in Bulgaria and those who migrated to Turkey was not interrupted. The identity of “Bulgaristanlı (from Bulgaria) Turks”, which crossed the borders of their respective nation-states, began to be established, shaped, and also reproduced by community members living on both sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish border during those times. Moreover, the changing directions of Turkish immigration from Turkey to Western European countries led dispersal of Bulgaristanlı Turks not only between Turkey and Bulgaria but also the whole of Europe. They
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describe themselves as ethno-cultural and ethno-religious minority in Bulgaria, racial kin immigrants who returned to their homeland, in Turkey, and now labor migrants in Western European countries.
The term “Bulgaristanlı Turks” is chosen to be used in this thesis to refer to this community. In the literature, phrases like Bulgarian Turks or Turks of Bulgaria used to define this group. However, I specifically adapted the term “Bulgaristanlı Turk” because I respect the sensitivities of these people who perceive the term “Bulgarian Turk” as it’s used in Turkey to be an insult to their ethnic Turkish identity and they purposefully declare everywhere that they are not “Bulgarians”, in actuality they only came from Bulgaria (Bulgaristanlı).
There is no doubt that memories about massacres, assimilation and immigration are important in the construction and representation of Bulgaristanlı Turks identity. Memories are crucial factors on an individual, apparent in their communal levels for perceiving and behaving certain phenomena in everyday life. Moreover, remembering practices become a significant tool in constructing and representing individual, local, national, and transnational identities. The role of the citizenship policies and immigration practices of Turkey will be approached for the understanding of the enactment of the collective memory about pure Turkishness and sharing common history that have their origins in Anatolia, in the identity formation of Bulgaristanlı Turks. At this point, associations emerge as interlocutors who pr produce discourse on behalf of Bulgaristanlı Turk immigrants about their communal identities which are shaping by traumas, memories and policies of home and host political power. Associations’ members are organized part of community. Their imagination and representation of communal identity on the behalf of the Bulgaristanlı Turks make invisible all the differences of immigrants who migrated from different parts of Bulgaria at peculiar times. Moreover, these associations that have been established by elite strata of this community became a public face for the community in the representation and (re)production of the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ identity at regional, national, and international level. This situation indicates that the representation of Bulgaristanlı Turks
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identity by associations' executives in the public sphere is normative and incarcerated all the fractions and ambivalences in identities into the daily life practices of immigrants.
The identities of ethno-cultural communities are artificial and constructed by several components. One of the crucial scholars studying conceptualization of ethnicity in the migration literature, Steve Fenton questions what would be the main nucleus which constructed ethnic groups. Moreover, he argues that ethnic groups are not composed of people who "share a culture and have a shared ancestry", however these values trigger and mobilize people to behave with the sense of community instead. Thereby taking his argument further, he asked whether the ethnic groups are socially constructed structures who are just performing it. If there are myths that bond people under the ethnic group, who is the creator of these myths? He argues that real creators of myths which form the identity of a community are “the people themselves who belong to the group.” In addition to that, he emphasized three other perpetrators apart from group participants, in the construction of the ethnic group identity. First, ethnic identity can be built “by others for us, not by us”. In Bulgaristanlı Turk’s case, “others” can be perceived as Bulgarians who are ethnically and religiously different from them in Bulgaria and the local people of Turkey. Second, the social identity of the community can be established as a result of state actions and power in the administrative judgment. Finally, Fenton suggested that the construction of identity is shaped by the work of the elites, the party, or the organizational leaders within the community.1
Therefore, in my case, the second chapter will focus on the migration policies of Turkish governments toward Bulgaristanlı Turks’ migrant groups and how these policies had affected the shaping of their Turkish and Muslim identity of them in Turkey. Turkey’s migration strategies, citizenship policies, resettlement, and deportation practice against Bulgaristanlı Turks, will be examined. The reason for this analysis is to understand how these practices of the Turkish government and their influences shape the belongings of Bulgaristanlı Turks to both
1 Steve Fenton, Ethnicity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2010), 1-7.
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Turkey and Bulgaria and how these policies lead to construct Bulgaristanlı Turks identities for this migrant group.
Classical definitions of civil society organizations are as follows; non-profit, non-state and also voluntary entities formed by people united around the same common purpose. Civil society organizations emerge with various concerns regarding civil rights, gender equality, children, other parity movements, pollution, environmental problems, and so on. Beyond this definition, community-based organizations such as hometown associations, migrant associations and also diaspora associations can also be given as an example of civil society organizations. The civil society organizations of Bulgaristanlı Turks, which will be examined as not only in hometown associations but also in the case of transnational diaspora organizations, began to be established in the crisis moment for this community. Detailed case histories of associations indicate that the tendency to establish associations was more widespread among Bulgaristanlı Turks during 1984-1990 and rose again following the 2007. First of all, these associations became forefront in the Turkish public sphere to advocate the rights of the Turks of Bulgaria who had been exposed to harsh assimilation policies in the communist regime during the 1980s and to announce these assimilation policies to the national and transnational public opinions with the incentive of the Turkish government by the elites of Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey. In the early 2000s, the second inflationary rise in the ratios of Bulgarian Turks’ associations in the Turkish civil society was observed. The reasons behind this increase are undoubtedly Bulgaria’s entrance into the EU and the establishment of new political parties which had a chance to represent the ethnic Turks and Muslim communities in Bulgaria with their new-found rights of a double citizenship for Bulgaristanlı Turks.
Nevertheless, the history of the mobilization of immigrants by establishing civil society organizations dates to the early 1900s. In addition to this, in the third chapter, how the Bulgaristanlı immigrants are mobilized in Turkey as a result of the several immigration waves from Bulgaria to Turkey that lasted for almost 100 years and how their
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civil society organizations turned from associations aiming to engage in philanthropic activities for new-comer immigrants to transnational organizations which aim to become the real representative of Bulgaristanlı Turks community who disperses to not only between Turkey and Bulgaria but also act as an interim towards Western European countries after the acceptance of Bulgaria to the European Union will be covered thoroughly. Therefore, in this chapter, civil society organizations of Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey such as “Culture and Solidarity Associations”, federations and the confederation will be examined in the historical context with the framework of migrants’ network theory.
These institutions, which represent the Bulgaristanlı Turks identity in national and international public spaces, also have the function of being the producers of the group identity which members of associations insist to protect within the image for creation of solidarity among community members. In this point, migrant associations of these groups can be seen as elites’ mobilizations of this community because generally the board of directors of the associations is made up of more educated and wealthy people who stand out in the migrant community. Additionally, the leaders of associations favor close relations with the political elites in Turkey and Bulgaria. Association administrators, who form the organized part of the community, can be seen as the elites of the aforementioned society. In the light of this statement, such immigrant associations that are the representatives of this immigrant group will have a lengthy examination.
Although Bulgaristanlı immigrants are the settled immigrant community with a long migration history in Turkey, they are an organized community that is quite dynamic and reacts quickly. We hear the voice of associations while they are mostly reacting to discriminative discourses about their identities in the public sphere and during the election process in Bulgaria. Moreover, in the fourth chapter, explanations regarding association executives’ role in reproducing the communal identity of this immigrant which was drawn by the above-mentioned elements in the historical process will be detailed. However,
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my aim is to discuss how and in what ways these associations reproduce Bulgaristanlı Turk’s communal identity which has been drawn by both Turkish and Bulgarian governments.
These associations’ executives, many of whom were the leaders of the resistance against the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP)’s assimilation policies in Bulgaria, and the others, who are the former immigrants who came to Turkey before the massive migration wave of 1989, along with the economic elites of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in the regions where they live in Turkey, are politically active. The majority of them would like to get into power or be decision makers in Bulgarian and Turkish governments to protect their ethno-cultural Bulgaristanlı Turks identity in both Turkey and Bulgaria.
Therefore, in the fifth chapter, I will discuss why associations engage in political mobilization activities using identity imaginations, considering the tensions between their idealized pure Turkish identity discourses and double loyalties towards Bulgaria and Turkey under the label of Culture and Solidarity Associations. How their memories about resistance practices in Bulgaria, and marginalization experiences in Turkey as immigrants while they shared the same ethnic and religious origins affected their perception of “civil society organizations” will examine considering their political representation desires in both Turkey and Bulgaria. In this chapter, ethnographic data can shed light on the dynamics of multilayer power relations between associations’ executives and Turkish government regarding foreign policies of Turkey during Turkish minority in Bulgaria. In addition to this, although these associations were established under the name of “Culture and Solidarity” to protect Bulgaristanlı Turks’ collective identity in both Turkey and Bulgaria, the executives and members of every association have personal ambitions, different life perspectives, political desires and economically profit ambitious. Therefore, in this thesis, I try to give agency to these chairmen of associations, instead of incarcerating them in the frame of corporate identities of the mentioned associations. Herewith, in my interviews, I will deduce why these associations’ executives have power struggles with the political parties situated in Bulgaria, as according to
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them, many of which rose up to represent the rights of the Turkish minority on the accomplishments of “real representatives” of Bulgaristanlı Turks.
§ 1.1 About the Methodology
This thesis is written according to findings based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between August 2020 to March 2021 with broad members and president of the Confederation of Balkan and Rumelia Turks (CBRT), presidents of the Federation of the Rumeli and Balkan Associations, the Federation of Muhacir’s Associations of Eskişehir, the Federation of Balkan Turks of Aegean, the Federation of Balkan Turks’ Immigrants and Refugee Associations (Bursa). In addition to this, I attended the meeting of the CBRT in Edirne which granted me a chance to make interview with leaders of associations and federations from İzmir, Eskişehir, Edirne and Adana. Because of the restricted mobilization conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of these interviews were conducted over digital video meetings.
Moreover, I conducted ethnographic research upon the executives of culture and solidarity associations, which are the smallest building blocks of confederations and federations. These associations which are generally established and managed by Bulgaristanlı Turks, are the Bursa and İzmir branches of The Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GÖÇ), The Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Turk Migrants (Kırklareli), The Association of Aids for Migrants (Ankara), The Association of Rumelia Women of Avcılar, The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Ceyhan (Adana), The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Bornova, The Association of Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Eskişehir, The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Bulgarian Migrants of Silivri, The Association of Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Güneşli (İstanbul), The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Thrace, Rumelia and Balkan Turks of Sultangazi (BALKANDER), The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Migrants from Bulgaria(Ankara), The Association of Culture and Service of Turks
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from Bulgaria (BULTÜRK), The Association of Culture and Solidarity of Rumelia Turks (İstanbul), The GÜNEŞ (Sun) Association (Ruse, Bulgaria).
Doing my research, the anthropological methods of participant observation, and semi-structured and open-ended interviews were deployed to twenty-eight participants in face-to-face meetings in above mentioned cities of Turkey or video conferences. First, I want to understand the perceptions of associations’ executives about what kind of group identity they reproduce and prefer to represent in the public sphere and their desire to engage in associational activities on the behalf of Bulgaristanlı Turks. In addition to interviews, this thesis is also written based on publications and bulletins of different associations to deeply analyze what kind of activities associations choose to engage in according to their establishment date, place and relationship with state officials. Moreover, I benefited from official reports of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), and Turkish state archives about associations, immigration and citizenship policies of Turkey to understand the effects of these policies on the imagination of association executives about their communal identity.
My project was purely academic, and I was not personally working with or involved in any of these associations. However, doing my research, I faced some important methodological difficulties. First of all, doing my research, I was exposed to the suspicious looks of every association’s member. They generally questioned why I dig this issue too much and what I want to learn from them. Moreover, they started to talk with me questioning where I am from, what my father's job is, or whether I go to Bulgaria or not. As Steven Sampson argues, some methodological issues emerge doing research with elites who are more powerful than researchers. I have been accused of being a “spy” of other associations to collect secret information about said associations’ inner workings as Sampson supposed.2 In addition to such accusations, I was also warned by some heads of associations that I was being listened to by the
2 Steven Sampson, "Solidarity with the powerful? Fieldwork and Ethnography with Elites," Swedish Anthropology Association (SANT) årsmøte, 17 Apr 2013, Paper, not in proceeding, 2013. 8, 1.
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Bulgarian intelligence and that I should be very careful with what I write in my thesis. My assumption regarding all these suspicions of association chairmen could be derived from their experiences in the resistance process toward the BCP during the 1980s. On the other hand, the fear derived from the strict surveillance of the Bulgarian Communist government toward the Turkish minority still moves as an annoying ghost while communicating with someone who tries to learn their mobilization practices for the protection of their identities. Moreover, they always highlighted the difficulties of being association leaders under surveillance by Bulgarian intelligence even today. In fact, I have a lot of doubts about the authenticity of the intelligence stories they especially told me. For instance, one of the association leaders narrates how his car was caught fire by Bulgarian espionage agents. Then he blamed other associations’ leaders to become agents of the Communist regime and to betray their community members for money.
In my opinion, also two important things leap to the eye in the narration of association leaders besides fear toward Bulgarian state's surveillance. Firstly, power struggles within the organized part of the community are existed not only among the association leaders but also between association leaders and Turkish politicians from Bulgarian political parties. Secondly, they have unconsciously shown their desire to have positions as very important interlocutors in the eyes of the Turkish state in the issue of the Turkish minority of Bulgaria, foreign policy toward Bulgaria, and internal politics of Bulgaria.
Anthropologists are not independent of their subjects, and I experienced the difficulties and also conveniences, generating from sharing Bulgaistanlı origin with my interlocutors during the fieldwork process. I faced some similar fieldwork conditions with Lila Abu-Lughod, who is a writer of the classic book Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society.3 Although my father did not introduce me to these association leaders like Lila Abu-Lughod’s father as a first-generation child of Bulgaristanlı Turk immigrant family, they learned my origin questioning where I am from. In addition to this, when they realized that
3 Lila Abu-Lughod and Ertüzün, Suat, Peçeli Duygular (İstanbul: Epsilon, 2004), 22-28.
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I am a harmless researcher girl who tries to learn their migration history, their memories about their own past, their tone of voice toward me suddenly soften. Most of the time, they started to cry sharing memories of the migration and assimilation process with me. I suppose that it may not be easy to suddenly cry as men over the age of 50 and leading figures in their community when I touch their memories with my questions as a young woman researcher. I realized that they endeavor to get in touch with me because of my Bulgaristanlı origin while talking migration, assimilation and also marginalization experiences. Being a first-generation child of migrant family who live in densely Bulgaristanlı Turks populated district of İstanbul, means to grow up with the vivid memories of collective traumas of community. Before the understand traumas of these experiences, I tried to notice traumas of myself which are transferred by my family and other community members in my psychological analysis sessions. Immigrants are people who cannot mourn their loss and have to postpone mourning in order to survive in even their imagined homeland. Indeed, the postponement of mourning means to hand down the collective traumas to the next generations. I think that this situation created emotional burdens on me an insider from the community although I tried to approach my research object objectively.
In addition to this, because of my dual status as both a fellow citizen (hemşehri) and a researcher, I realized that my position in the eyes of associations’ executives as “our girl” in their constructed solidarity, determines all the restrictions and possibilities to reach their narratives whether aided consciously or unconsciously and sincerely or formally on their terms. The reason behind this implication derived from when they talked with me about their migration, assimilation and marginalization experiences, they shown their sincerely attitudes toward me. However, they always continued to speak with their official associations' discourse on the issue of association life and political mobilization practices under the signboards of associations. When our topic turned from collective traumas to real politics, my insider position in the eyes of association
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leaders suddenly turned to more danger person from any outsider of the community.
Another thing that caught my attention is that association leaders questioned my political position and whether I have political ambitions. I suppose that two reasons behind this question existed. Firstly, they saw me as educated and interested young “Bulgaristanlı” on the issue of Bulgaristanlı Turks. So, some association leaders invited me to participate in their associations, others proposed me to be their candidate in forthcoming Turkish elections from any political parties because of my educated, young, woman and Bulgaristanlı identities. On the other hand, some of the association leaders especially more younger ones, On the other hand, some of the association leaders especially younger and more educated ones, perceived me as a threat to their positions as association leaders although I always highlighted that I only interested organizational movements of Bulgaristanlı Turks at the academic level.
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2 “Endless Return Home”: How do “Bulgaristanlı Turks” shift from being Muslim Refugees to “Soydaş (racial kin)” of Turkey in the diaspora?
The Balkans are one of the most important geographies where the Turks, especially Muslim Turks, have left traces. Furthermore, these traces still exist by the virtue of the Ottoman monuments across the board of the Balkans. It is not possible to erase the Muslim and Turkish identities in the entire Balkan geography.
– Abdullah Eren
bdullah Eren who is the current president of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (Yurtdışı Türkler ve Akraba Toplulukları Başkanlığı -YTB-) under the Republic of Turkey, a part of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, gave a speech at “Commemoration Program for the 30th Anniversary of the Forced Migration of Turks from Bulgaria in 1989” at the University of Kocaeli between the dates 28th and 29th, on September 2019. His speech represented the formal discourse of Turkish state on the subject of the
A
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Balkan Turks with the above-referred words during the mentioned organization, which was created with cooperation between YTB and the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Turks (Bal-Türk) that was established in Kocaeli. This situation represents those memories of the “Bugaristanlı Turks’ return to their homeland” was remembered in between the three important actors of the migration process; YTB as representative of the Turkish state, associations as representing Bulgaristanlı Turks, and immigrants. This rhetoric, which consisted of painful memories from territorial losses and migrations toward the Balkans was constantly reproduced in the Turkish historiography and literature.
Based on the speech of Eren, the shattering impact of losing Balkan territories and wistful imagination over the Balkans were also used as a political discourse by the Turkish state. Additionally, as Boyar commented on “the emotive power of the Balkans, which remains strong in the Turkish psyche” even to this day. Moreover, this trauma about Balkans surfaced itself while Turkish state constituted immigration policies toward the Turkish and Muslim immigrants from Balkans.1 Later in the event, one of the former president of the Bal-Türk and also government official in the Kocaeli municipality, presented the photograph of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Necmettin Erbakan2 and Naim Süleymanoğlu posed side by side, to Abdullah Eren, with the intention of delivering to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of the Turkish Republic. This act’s meaning resided in Naim Süleymanoğlu, who was a Turkish Olympic weightlifter and a prominent hero of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community, as he announced the assimilation of Turks in Bulgaria by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) to the world in America and in the mentioned picture, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and him were smiling to
1 Ebru Boyar, “Ottomans, Turks and the Balkans: Empire Lost, Relations Altered “(London 2007), 140.
2 Necmettin Erbakan was former prime minister of Turkey from 1996 to 1997. He was the founding father of the Political Islam ideology and movements called as “Milli Görüş” and aimed to strengthen Islamic values in Turkish government and public sphere. In addition to this, He was founder and president of the Welfare Party (WP) in which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the mayor of Istanbul municipality.
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the camera together. My aim is to make the following two inter-related arguments regarding the presentation of this photograph taken years ago to the president of the YTB by the former president of the association. Apparently, he aimed to show the long-standing loyalty of Bulgaristanlı Turks to the current government to reconstruct acceptable citizen positions of the Bulgaristanlı Turks, in the eyes of the Turkish state.
The Muslim and Turkish existence in Bulgaria dated back to fourteenth century as a result of the expansionist strategies of the Ottoman Empire. However, with the autonomy of the Bulgarian principality and then establishment of Bulgarian national state, the Muslim and Turkish population in Bulgaria became a minority. Furthermore, this population decreased ever more so, due to the migrations toward Turkey as a result of the assimilation policies of several Bulgarian governments.
As I will discuss throughout this chapter, how the Turkish and Bulgarian states became important actors in the endless immigration waves of Bulgaristanlı Turks. Both assimilation policies of Bulgarian governments and immigration policies of Turkey which are based on certain favoritism according to political and economic conditions of the period, and citizenship policies of the Turkish Republic are still blood-based which only choose to embrace Turkish origin people, are main important factors in the construction of Bulgaristanlı Turks communal identity. While Bulgarian governments tried to assimilate their Turkish and Muslim identity to create homogenous Bulgarian nation state, they resisted and proceeded to protect their identities, choosing to immigrate to Turkey, the imagined homeland. Moreover, ethno-religious and ethno-cultural identities of Bulgaristanlı Turks made them acceptable citizens in the eyes of several Turkish governments until the mid-1990s.
However, acceptance of Bulgaristanlı Turks to Turkish citizenship has become increasingly difficult due to the fact that the economic burden created by immigration can no longer be sustained by Turkey after the last massive migration wave in 1989. In the following years, Turks gained representation rights in the Bulgarian parliament by the
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Movement of Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which is the political party established by Turkish minority in Bulgaria. How the change of immigration and citizenship policies of Turkey had an impact to shape the communal identity of Bulgaristanlı Turks which have been constructed in Turkey by associations’ executives who are elites of the community will be discussed throughout this chapter. In addition to examining Turkish and Bulgarian states’ roles in the immigration of Bulgaristanlı Turks, how the changing economic, social, and political conditions of Turkey at both global and local levels are determinative in the immigration policies of Turkey toward Bulgaristanlı Turks over time will also be considered.
When people heard the term as “Bulgaristan Türkü” (Turks of Bulgaria) and either “Bulgaristanlı migrants”, there is no doubt that first comes to mind the assimilation policies of the BCP conducted upon the Turkish and Muslim minority and massive migrations of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey in 1989, which was the biggest migration wave of the 20th century after the Second World War. Certainly, the massive expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria in 1989 was not the first migration wave that occurred between Bulgaria and Turkey. For instance, Meral Akşener, the Interior Minister of the 54th government of Turkey, declared that 790,793 Turks and Muslims have migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey between the years 1923 to 1996, in her speech at the Turkish Parliament on the 27th of February 1997.3
Although a lot of migration waves emerged between Bulgaria and Turkey, migration in 1989 had a different place among the above-mentioned migration waves because of traumatic effects of deportation of huge numbers of people in the short term. Before the massive exodus of Turkish minority from Bulgaria in 1989, five substantial migration waves had occurred in different time periods. The first two migration waves happened before the formation of Turkish Republic during Russo-Ottoman War 1877-1878 and Balkan Wars 1912-1913. The other three migration waves took place as a result of the migration agreements
3 The speech of the Interior Minister Meral Akşener. Genel Kurul Tutanağı, 20. Dönem, 2. Yasama Yılı, 60. Birleşim (Ankara, 25 February 1997), pp. 11–12.
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between Bulgaria and Turkey. First of those, in 1925, under the name of “voluntary resettlement”, a lot of immigrants came to Turkey from Bulgaria. Then between the years of 1950 and 1951 a second systematic migration wave to Turkey emerged because of the difficult conditions created by the communist rule. Another migrant treaty signed between these two countries in 1968 for uniting the separated families. Therefore, in between 1968-78 a lot of immigrants crossed the border in different time periods before the massive exodus of Turks in 1989.
So, the assimilation process from 1984 to 1989 in Bulgaria incited associations which were established by immigrants who immigrated to Turkey with earlier immigration waves, to denounce the assimilation of Turks by Bulgarian Communist Party. Therefore, before the migration in 1989, these migrants’ associations tried for the origination of the migration agreement between Bulgaria and Turkey. The Bulgarian government did not accept any possibility of agreement because of not only were allegations of assimilation against the Turks treated as falsehoods, but the government were also even willing to go as far as to deny the existence of Turks in Bulgaria.
As we will see below, memories about migration have a big place in the lives of Bulgaristanlı Turks. Ebru Boyar explained that migration which was chosen to hand down to the next generations is one of the important images in the collective memory of Balkan Turks during not only Ottoman period but also Republican period.4 In my fieldwork, I was realized that the head of an association, who is the fourth generation child of a family who immigrated from Bulgaria, took immigration as a reference while firmly holding on to the Balkan Turk identity like me as a first-generation child of Bulgaristanlı Turks family who migrated to Turkey in 1978. Even though we did not personally experience the migration process, we preferred to describe ourselves as immigrants. Because of that, as Boyar explained, immigration memories are the important element that people chose to convey to their children.
For instance, the term muhajir’s lexical meaning is migrants. However, this Arabic origin word commonly used to describe Turkish
4 Boyar, “Ottomans, Turks and the Balkans: Empire Lost, Relations Altered,” 130.
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citizens who came to Turkey from the Balkans with continuous migration waves.5 Although since the first wave of immigration from Bulgaria to Turkey, nearly one hundred forty years have passed, the immigration process has created a trauma that has much impact on immigrants from their everyday activities to their political preferences. Despite "the immigrant" seems to be the real subject of migration practice, the null subject of migration definitely is states. Therefore, immigrants are simply objects exposed to the difficulties of immigration until striking roots in new homes. Although Bulgaristanlı Turks describe their immigration from Bulgaria to Turkey as “a return to the homeland”, ultimately this “return” rhetoric expectedly could not contain the happiness and peace of coming home for not only Bulgaristanlı Turks but also for their ethnic kin who were expecting to embrace them in Turkey.
In a nutshell, as İçduygu said, transnational migration is a part of politics and policy. He drew attention that transnational migration means that foreigners can exceed the border of the nation-state which is the political geography of any nation. Therefore migration is read as a political event. Therefore, it is possible to talk about the existence of a dynamic political and policy area established between the home-state, migrant-receiving countries, and immigrants, which are the main actors in international migration.6 Although Bulgaristanlı Turks and Turkish state officials describe these migration waves as “return to the homeland (anavatan)”, changing citizenship policies of Turkey, integration problems of immigrants, and marginalization attitudes towards them trigger to consider these migration waves in the transnationalism framework.
The question of how Turkey practices immigration policies to respond to mass migrations is handled by several scholars in the context of the modern nation-state and international relations. I remark the relationship between the practices of migration governance of Turkish
5 Ibid,140.
6 Ahmet İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları, 1923- 2023: Ulus Devlet Oluşumundan Ulus Ötesi Dönüşümlere (Istanbul: MireKoç, 2014), 34.
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state in politics of citizenship toward migrants from lost Ottoman territory and the place of these migrants in the construction of the national identity of Turkey in a wider historical and structural context. From the second part of the Ottoman period until today, Turkish and Muslim immigration had been experienced from various countries in the Balkans; however, the framework of this thesis is limited to migrations of Turks from Bulgaria. Therefore, while describing Ottoman Empire and Turkey’s immigration policies, only focusing on the situation of Turks and Muslims in Bulgaria and the relationship between Turkey and Bulgaria about the Turkish and Muslim minority issue. On the other hand, in this chapter, inter-state relations on the issue of the migration of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and reflections of the Turkish minority phenomenon between Turkey and Bulgaria in the legal and political sphere will be discussed. Generally, the first step taken by scholars is to classify Turkey’s immigration policy in a historical sense.
§ 2.1 1877-1923: “Muslim Refugees Flee Persecution”
All Rumelia are crying!
Every wounded commander cry in blood!
Side by side with pierced bodies!
Their moribund friends are crying!7
Some scholars explained immigration movements as “forced” and “controlled” before the formation of modern nation-states having a sense of citizenship. Tekeli used the term “Balkanization migrations” (Balkanlaşma Go çleri) to conceptualize the dense immigration of the large number of Turkish and Muslim populations lived in Balkans, which branched out of the Ottoman Empire into several nation-states between
7 This section is taken from the epic poem "Bulgar Mezalimi, I ntikam Levhası Kulag ına Ku pe Olsun Unutma!” which was issued by the Rumelia Muhacirin-i Islamiye Association to attract the attention of the public opinion on what happened in Bulgaria. The archival document about this poem is located in the Appendix A.
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1860-1927. Moreover, he emphasized that with these immigrations of Turkish and Muslims groups, the high proportion of the population of the new republic consisted of Balkan immigrants.8
In addition to this, he described this immigration as politically motivated, and stated that these migrations to Anatolia not only determine the ethnic composition of the region but also play an important role in determining the agricultural technologies. Tekeli treats these migrations as external migration because immigrants come from the Balkans, which are no longer within the borders of the state. In addition, he placed these migrations in the category of forced migrations, as the main motivation of migrations is closely related to wars and persecutions of Turks and Muslims.9 Those who were subject of the Ottoman Empire a while ago, had to immigrate to be subject of the devastated empire again. We cannot evaluate the immigration policies of the Ottoman Empire as a series of orders dictated by a despotic sultan. We also consider the political atmosphere and power struggles between political cliques. Therefore, it will be more useful to examine the migration policies of the Ottoman Empire in two stages; from 1860, when the first mass immigration began, to 1908 and after 1908 when the Committee of the Union and Progress (CUP) took power, in order to understand the political ambitions behind these policies.
The first legal regulation on the migration policies in the nineteenth century was the “Muhaceret Nizamnamesi” (Regulations for Migration) issued in 1857.10 In the first stage of the immigration flows, regardless of their religion and ethnicity, those who take an oath of loyalty to the sultan would be allowed to immigrate with an irade (a kind of Ottoman degree) published on 9 March 1857 until 1890. According to this irade, the state promised to give lands to immigrants and if they
8 İlhan Tekeli, “Göç ve Ötesi,” (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları İ̇lhan Tekeli Toplu Eserleri -3, 2008), 25-26.
9 I lhan Tekeli, “Göç ve Ötesi,” (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları İlhan Tekeli Toplu Eserleri -3, 2008), 25-26.
10 Sema Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye: Türkiye’de Değişen İskan Politikaları,”(İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2018), 45.
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settled in Anatolia, they would be exempted from tax for six years. In addition to this, if they settled in Rumelia, they would be exempted from tax for twelve years.11 However, the policies of the empire that embraced everyone would evolve to accept only Muslim immigrants and to send the Christian people to the newly established nation states through various agreements between states.
Boyar expressed that endless immigration waves of Balkan Muslims to Turkey, created perception toward Balkans as the constant source of migrants. Therefore, when people heard the word muhacir (migrant), the first thing came to mind Turkish people who had migrated from Balkan countries. But this popular perception started to change with the migration of Syrians to Turkey in 2011. However, classification of the migrants in the presence of the Turkish society cannot be discussed because of the restricted frame of this thesis. But it will be an important starting point to examine how the Ottoman governors defined immigrants from the Balkans, in order to understand the policies of the empire applied to them. Erdem said that although the word muhacir was commonly used for these immigrants, different names to describe them in the regulations and directives, also existed such as üsera-yı muhacir (captured immigrants), ümera-yı muhacirin (notables of immigrants), kaht-zede (miserable), mülteci (refugee), istilazede (those who were damaged by invitations). He also added that different classifications of immigrants were determined according to reasons for the immigration. When examining the migration policies of the Ottoman state, it should be considered that there is no difference in the classification of immigrants and refugees. These two terms could be used interchangeably.12
In the archival documents of Meclis-i Ayan (Assembly of Notables) and Meclis-i Mebusan (The Chambers of Deputies), the term mülteci (refugee) was used to identify immigrants who were the Ottoman citizens and escaped the battles in Balkan geography during 19th century. Erdem predicted that this identification derived from an
11 Ibid, 27.
12 Ufuk Erdem, “Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Muhacir Komisyonları ve Faaliyetleri (1860-1923),” (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2018), 6.
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instruction of 1916. In the first article of this instruction determined Muslim Ottoman subject who came from war territory during the World War I as mülteci. However, those, regardless of their religion and ethnicity, immigrated during Balkan War were identified as muhacir. In the following years, in his speech, the director of Aşair ve Muhacirin Müdüriyeti-i Umumiyesi (General Directorate of Tribes and Immigrants) Hamdi Bey clarified this issue at the Meclis-i Ayan on 3 January 1918. He defined those who had to leave their lands due to the invasion of enemies as refugees, and those who came from lands abandoned to any state by various agreements as immigrants.13
The Ottoman Empire did not have any migration policy until the mass immigration that took place after the Crimean War. With the unexpected massive, forced migration waves from firstly Crimea, then the Caucasus and the Balkans, the existing rules and institutions in the Ottoman Empire toward immigration governance remained incapable because the Ottoman state was not ready to sustain massive immigration waves. Therefore, the necessity of regulating legislations and also establishment of need-based institutions to manage these immigration flows came to the agenda of the Ottoman government. Moreover, after the early days of the nineteenth century, huge numbers of immigrants came gradually because of the conflicts and violence of the Russian Empire to Circassians. Therefore, on 5 January 1860, first Muhacir Komisyonu (Commissions of the Immigrants) was established after the decision upon the approval of Sultan Abdulmecid to the proposal of Grand Vizier Ali Pasha in Meclis-i Vala (Assembly of Supreme) due to the need for an institution to deal with incoming immigrants from Crimea.14
Muhacir Komisyonu was involved in activities such as the settlement of the migrants properly; providing treatment of sick migrants; ensuring that immigrant children are sent to school; organizing the adoption process of orphans; and also ensuring that orphan immigrant girls get married.15 However, this commission, which was established to suspend
13 Ibid, 7-8.
14 Ibid, 77.
15 Ibid, 99.
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intense Circassian migration, was closed down on 27 November 1865 because of a decrease in the number of migrants and also an economic burden of this commission to the state.16
The duties of the commission were distributed by different ministries but under the name of Muhacir İdaresi (Administration of Refugee) which are smaller than their forerunners, were reestablished when problems related to the resettlement of immigrants started to reoccur. Until 1909, three commissions under different names were established by the government in certain periods and then abolished. First of all, after the abolishment of Muhacir Komisyonu (Refugee Committee), İdare-i Umumiye-i Muhacirin Komisyonu was established to deal with migrant waves after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.17 After this commission was closed in 1893, the successor of it was established under the name of Muhacirin Komisyon-ı Alisi to meet the needs of immigrants from the Balkans after the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897.18During the reign of Abdulhamid II, when the ideology of pan-Islamism prevailed, Muslim immigrants were more acceptable than other migrant communities. Therefore Muhacirin-i İslamiye Komisyonu (Commission of Muslim Immigrants) was founded to meet the needs of the Muslim migrants under the presidency of the sultan himself. After the Balkan Wars in 1914, “Aşair ve Muhacirin Müdüriyet-i Umumiyesi (General Directorate of Tribes and Immigrants)” was founded to specifically fulfill needs of Balkan Muslim immigrants.19 Tekeli interpreted this situation as the institutionalization of migration policies in the Ottoman Empire.20 In addition to this, Karpat emphasized that when the archival documents of the Muhacirin Komisyonları would be examined closely, incentive policies of the Ottoman Empire to immigrants for settling in the arable lands in Anatolia could be seen.21
16 Ibid, 98-99.
17 Ibid, 101.
18 Ibid, 130.
19 Ibid, 138.
20 İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, “Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları,”94.
21 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,” 30.
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§ 2.2 From the Ottoman Tebaa (Subject) to Minority of Bulgaria
The first population movement of Muslims from current Bulgarian territory to the Ottoman Empire started with the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878. With the Berlin Treaty in 1878, de facto independence of the Bulgarian principality was declared on the territory of the Ottoman Empire under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire Turkish and Muslim remainders of the Ottoman Empire continued to live under the administration of the Bulgarian Kingdom after the official independence of Bulgaria in 1908. In 1878, Muslims community constituted 22.5% of the principality’s population.22 These Muslims which consisted of Turks, Pomak, Tatar and Roma were living on this territory, were recognized as a minority in the Constitution of Tarnovo.23
In addition to this, this Muslim community in current Bulgaria were not tied to the Ottoman Empire with the right of citizenship anymore; however, because of their Muslim origin, they were still component of the Muslim umma of the Ottoman sultan who was the caliph of all Muslims over the world. Inter-state treaties between the Bulgarian state and Ottoman Empire ensured that the Ottoman Empire was kin state of this community and had the right to speak on the policies of the Bulgarian state concerning the Muslim and Turkish society.
The second wave of immigration emerged during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. During the war, 200,000 Muslims died and 440,000 migrated to Anatolia until the establishment of the Turkish Republic. For example, the Treaty of Constantinople signed between the CUP government and the Kingdom of Bulgaria in fall of 1913 after the end of the Second Balkan War to facilitate reciprocal optional exchange of populations. In this treaty, an article existed to the optional exchange of population between Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire to decrease
22 Yonca Köksal, “ Transnational networks and kin states: the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, 1878-1940,” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 38:2, (2010) :191, 193.
23 Ibid, 191.
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tension generation from minority issues between the two states.24 At the end of this treaty, nearly 50,000 Bulgarians who lived in Ottoman Thrace went to Bulgaria and approximately 50.000 Turks left their homes in Bulgaria.
§ 2.3 1923-1944: “Refugee Stream from Bulgaria”: Thousands of our Racial Kin are Taking Refugee in “Our Homeland”
The consequences of the transition from empire to nation-state continued to be felt well into the 20th century. Moreover, immigrations from Balkans had special place in the immigration and settlement history of Turkish Republic because Muslim and Turkish immigrants from Balkans were used as essential elements of the Turkish nation state during construction of the Turkish national identity. Erder described Balkan Immigrants as “Friends of the Settlement Laws of Turkey (İskan Kanunu’nun Kadim Dostları)” because they were influential in the redetermination of the Settlement Law, determination of rules about external migrations and construction of the national identity of Turkey until the 1950s. However, immigrants who came after the 1950s, had not such a preferential place in the eyes of Turkey.25
In addition to this, Kemal Kirişçi approached Turkish immigration waves from the Balkans to Turkey as a part of the national-building process in Turkish Republic. He created a connection with the historical background of demographic decrease of Turkish population in Anatolia as a result of wars and new Turkish Republic’s policies towards Muslim and Turkish migrations from former Ottoman territories.26 On the other hand, Tekeli states that these migrations, which were considered as internal migration in the Ottoman period, will be treated as external migration with the declaration of the Turkish Republic. Moreover, these
24 Boyar, “Ottomans, Turks and the Balkans: Empire Lost, Relations Altered,” 13.
25 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,”143-144.
26 Kemal Kirişçi, “Migration and Turkey: the Dynamics of State, Society and Politics,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 177.
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migrations that took place in the nation-building process have been used as a tool of ethnic cleansing in Turkey during the early 20th century.27
While Kirişçi argued the special position of Turkish migrations from Balkans, he especially highlighted that the new elite of the regime who were the determinant actors of the Turkish Republic politics in every area, victims of the forced migrations from the lost Ottoman territories such as Balkan, Crimea and Caucasus. He also underlined the profound attachment of these elites toward their fellow immigrants and to those who remained in lost territories to explain in which concerns decision making strata of Turkish Republic decided the migration governance toward Turkish and Muslim immigrants from successor national states from inside the Ottoman Empire. Erder also supported Kirişçi’s argument about favorable positions of the Balkan immigrants in the hierarchy of Turkish citizens.2829
Krişçi claimed that citizenship and national identity of Turkey have civic meaning regardless of people’s religious or ethnic origins was accepted in the Constitution of 1924 until Kurdish rebellions and Islamic uprising against the secular attitudes of the state. These uprisings, which were seen as a threat to Turkey’s political and territorial unity by ruling elites, lead to change Turkish state’s citizenship definition emphasizing homogeneity and “Turkishnes” during 1920s.30 The components of this “Turkishness" definition, which has led to an almost a hundred -year-old controversy, was identified as people who were Turkish speaking (as mother tongue or willing to speak), Sunni Muslim origin and associated with the former Ottoman administration.
Having seen a little of the process related to the first two “waves” of migration up and into the Republican period, the immigration policies and governance of Turkey which is one of the national states established on the territory of the multi-national and multi-religious Ottoman
27 İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, “Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları,” 140.
28 Kemal Kirişçi, “Migration and Turkey,” 175-177.
29 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,” 144.
30 Kemal Kirişçi, “Migration and Turkey,” 178-180.
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Empire toward Turks of Bulgaria will be approached from a historical perspective. Moreover, the process of nationalization in the Balkans takes place differently in each country so the policies applied by these countries to the Turkish and Muslim minorities also differed.31 As a result of Turkey’s signed agreements with Balkan countries, massive and mandatory or voluntary immigration waves have been observed. Under this subtitle, how Turkey constituted migration policies toward Turkish and Muslim immigrants from Bulgaria will be examined by taking into consideration the relation between Bulgaria and Turkey and Turkey’s ideology of construction national identity.
In 1925, Bulgaria and Turkey signed a friendship treaty. Köksal highlighted that this treaty was the first bilateral agreement to specifically mention Turks separate from the Muslim minority. She also perceived this treaty as confirmation of the Turkish minority on a legal basis. In addition to this, this treaty also legalized the connection between the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and Turkey.32 On 18 October 1925, İkamet Mukavelenamesi (Agreement of Residence) was also signed in addition to the Treaty of Friendship between Turkey and Bulgaria at Ankara. İkamet Mukavelenamesi was a settlement agreement between these two countries that ensured permission to Bulgarian citizens and Turkish citizens to settle reciprocally.33 The second article of the treaty stated that both sides of the agreement allowed the Turks of Bulgaria and Bulgars of Turkey to migrate and settle freely between the Bulgaria-Turkey borders. Within the scope of this agreement, approximately 15-20 thousand Turks migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey in the 1930s. However, after the establishment of the Communist regime in Bulgaria in September 1944, a new government forbade the voluntary immigration of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey.
31 İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları,”141.
32 Yonca Köksal, “ Transnational networks and kin states: the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, 1878–1940,” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 38:2, (2010) : 191,196.
33 Bilal Şimşir, “Bulgaristan Türkleri,” (İstanbul : Bilgi Yayınları, 1986), 377.
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Many scholars approach the encouragement of Turkish immigration from the Balkans by Turkish state and construction a Turkish national identity by demographic engineering, together. Therefore, immigration policy which embraces the especially Muslim Turks from territories under formerly Ottoman rule, was an significant apparatus for constructing a Turkish national identity and the frame of the acceptable citizens in the eyes of the Turkish state. In the article, reconfiguring the Turkish nation in the 1930s, Çağaptay emphasized that between the 1920s and 1930s, Turkey signed agreements with Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania about the migration of Muslim Turks to Turkey. Interesting point is that while these agreements allow the migration of those not ethnically Turks but Muslim origin to Turkey, Christian Turks, and Gagavuz were not allowed to migrate to Turkey. Both Kirişçi and Çağaptay described this situation as while the Kemalist’s definition of nationhood gave priority to ethnicity, they also were aware of the role of religion in the nation-building process in Turkey.34
The first settlement law of the Turkish Republic was in force from 1926 to 1934. The second article of this law described those who don't share the Turkish culture (hars), Gypsies, anarchists, spies, and those expelled from the state could not be immigrants. In other words, until the Settlement Law was enacted in 1934, the priority of Turkish ethnicity for the embracement of immigrants did not exist at the legal ground. On the other hand, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan founded his arguments about the Settlement Law of 1934, beyond the existing literature which approached this law as a legal document of the construction of the national identity of Turkey. He gave places an elaborative archive of Turkish parliament, diplomatic archives of several countries, memories of state officials and also mainstream press archives.35 Some scholars like Kirişçi discuss this law as a political practice toward domestic problems in Turkey. He shared the same views about the using this law to create
34 Soner Çağaptay, “Reconfiguring the Turkish Nation in the 1930s,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 8, no. 2 (2002), 71.
35 Ramazan Hakkı Öztan, “Settlement Law of 1934: Turkish Nationalism in the Age of Revisionism,” Journal of Migration History 6, no. 1 (2020), 83.
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homogeneous Turkish nations via displacement of Kurdish people from Eastern provinces to Western parts of republic and also settlement of Muslim and Turkish immigrants from the Balkans to the East as required of this law. In addition to this, İçduygu and Aksel considered the immigration policy of Turkey to be related to “deep-rooted state policies” that included the nation-building process and national integrity.36
There is no doubt that the Settlement Law of 1934 encouraged and allowed only immigrants who could speak the Turkish language and had an affiliation with Turkishness. The importance of this law in the discussion of the migration and also national identity construction policies of Turkish republic derived from the fact that this law became the legal basis of formation of a homogeneous Turkish national identity. Moreover, while Bosnians, Circassians, Pomaks and Tatars who were not ethnically Turk but were the Muslim origins former Ottoman subjects would be embraced by Turkish state as acceptable citizens; Gagauz Turks who were ethnically Turks but Christian, Alevi Turks who were not belonging to orthodox islam ideology of state and Kurds who lived the borders of the Turkey were not including the limits of the acceptable Turkish citizen definition. Kirişçi insistently emphasized the continuation of correlation between Turkish state’s nation-building project and its policies toward immigrants and asylum seekers.
However, Öztan highlighted the importance to handle this law in a transnational context and spark off the thinking in the framework of rising revisionist conjuncture of the 1930s. His argument is based on meaningful timing of the law. Although discussion about the Settlement Law was the agenda of the Turkish Parliament in 1932, it came into force on 14 June 1934. He described migration of nearly 75,000 Muslims from Bulgaria to Turkey in the years between 1934 and 1939 as an exodus of this minority group because of the strict minority policies of the revisionist Bulgarian state. In addition to this, he remarked that densely populated Muslims from Balkan countries like Bulgaria and Romania
36 Ahmet İçduygu and Damla B. Aksel, “Turkish Migration Policies: A Critical Historical Retrospective,” Perceptions XVIII, no. 3 (2013), 168.
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became an important indicator in the timing of the Settlement Law of 1934 in Turkey.37
In the 1930s, demographic homogenization practices also existed in neighboring countries of Turkey and also Balkans were shaking with irredentist ambitions of revisionist states like Bulgaria. These tendencies led the persecution of Balkan Muslim communities in the Balkans and eventuated migration flows of huge amount of Muslim and Turkish minority from especially Bulgaria to their motherland, Turkey. These immigrants were settled in especially Western Trace, which was a part of the irredentist passion of Bulgaria, instead of densely Kurdish populated Eastern Anatolia.
In the early days of the 1930s, the nation-building projections of new nation-states established on the territory of the old Ottoman Empire were simultaneously constructed. Therefore, unrest toward Balkan Muslims with a minority status introduced with the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, increased day after day. In the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Zveno military organization overthrew the government. With this event known as 19 May coup d'état did not only ban opposition movements, but also abolished all associations and cultural centers of Muslims. Moreover, in the 1930s, Bulgaria positioned itself in the revisionist block instead of the status quo and minorities started to face pressure, and assimilative policies. After the fascist rule in Bulgaria got stronger with the coup, ethnic discrimination of the Bulgarian states toward Turkish and Muslim minorities penetrated economic, social, and political conditions of them. As a consequence of these pressures, a lot of Turks and Muslims immigrated to Turkey between 1934 and 1938.38
37 Öztan, “Settlement Law of 1934: Turkish Nationalism in the Age of Revisionism,” 83.
38 Hikmet Öksüz, “İkili İlişkiler Çerçevesinde Balkan Ülkelerinden Türkiye’ye Göçler ve Göç Sonrası İskanları Meselesi”, Atatürk Journal, Vol.3, N.1, (2000), 180.
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Table 2.1 Indicative Number of Turkish and Muslim Migrants from Bulgaria to Turkey
Years
Immigrant Numbers 1934 8.682
1936
24.968 1939 11.730
1937
13.490 1938 20.542
Total:
79.412
SOURCE O ksu z (2000).
§ 2.4 1944-1989: “Our Blood is Pure Turkish Blood”: Naturalization of Ethnic Turks from Bulgaria in Turkey
While Turkey went to war on the side of the Allied Powers, Bulgaria positioned itself in the Revisionist Axis Block during the Second World War. In addition to this, after the war, Turkey and Bulgaria became members of opposite Blocks. While Bulgaria was the most loyal ally of the USSR, Turkey took part in the Western Block and became a member of NATO as a neighboring country of the Iron Curtain countries. This situation caused the policies carried out by the two countries both in international relations and at the national level to be very different from each other.
In Bulgaria, the Communist regime was established in 1944 under the name of “Fatherland Front” and the minority policy of Bulgarian government was altered. Köksal explains in her article that although Muslim minority was included as part of the Bulgarian citizen definition, they were excluded from the notion of the Bulgarian nation because until the BCP captured the power and established the communist regime, Muslims’ administration was autonomous and their religious leaders represented and conducted the community in a practice of the millet
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system.39 However, while the Treaty of Berlin recognized Muslim community as a minority group of Bulgaria, under the Communist regime, Turkish and Muslim minorities were seen as a part of Bulgarian nation and the BCP government enhanced the conditions of Turkish population with the aim of creating a “socialist Turkish minority”. For example, educational and cultural conditions of Turks were improved.40On the other hand, Bulgarian communism aimed to envision citizenship on the ideology of ethno-national unity based on proletariat brotherhood. Höpken describes this situation as the Bulgarian Communist government respected the ethnic identities and rights of minorities in the framework of Stalinist pattern of Soviet modeled ethnic politics. However, after the 1950s, tolerated policies of the BCP started to be reduced and then forcefully tried to integrate them via assimilation policies and also ethnic cleansing.41Therefore, regulations on settlement laws were not on the agenda of the Turkish state. Ahmet İçduygu and Deniz Sert explained that Turkey’s migration policy turned to discourage immigrants to migrate Turkey between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War.42 Reasons behind this tendency would be related to sufficient growth of Turkey’s population and also a lack of enough lands to accommodate immigrants and an adequate budget to manage migration flows. However, intensive Turkish and Muslim migration flows from especially the Eastern Block were emerged. During the Cold War, Turkey was embedded in the Western Bloc, so Turkey’s migration and asylum policies were shaped according to her political position in the international arena.
39 Yonca Köksal, “Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 6, no. 4 (2006), 501-505.
40 Ayşe Parla, “Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey,” (Stanford: California, 2019), 45.
41 Hugh Poulton, Suha Taji-Farouki, and Wolfgang Höpken, “From Religious Identity to Ethnic Mobilization: The Turks of Bulgaria before, under and since Communism,” in Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (London: Hurst & Company, 1997), 64.
42 Ahmet İçduygu and Deniz Sert, “The Changing Waves of Migration from the Balkans to Turkey: A Historical Account,” IMISCOE Research Series, 2015, 95-96.
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Especially in the 1950s and onward, a huge amount of the immigrants came from the Soviet Bloc. In addition to this, Turkish state also used anti-communist discourse to procure acceptance of the migrants from communist countries in Europe like Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and even countries of the Soviet Union, to public opinion in Turkey.43 Erder explained that with the migration that took place in Turkey from Bulgaria in 1951, anti-communist discourse increased in Turkey and nationalist discourse used as propaganda tools both in Turkish internal policy and also international arena. In addition to this, Turkish nationalist speech which bonds these immigrants with Turkey on the ethnic origin, and anticommunism which persecuted “ethnic brothers”, became official discourse of the Turkish state. Moreover, even though immigrants from the Balkans since the 1950s were defined as soydaş (racial kin) and ırkdaş (racial kin), they were not regarded as the founding elements of the Turkish Republic anymore. Moreover they were perceived as “foreign Turks” who faced persecution by communists instead of Christians or as “refugees-immigrants.”44
Nationalist Turkish historiography describes the migration of Turks from Bulgaria in 1950-1951 as deportation because they expressed that a massive amount of Turkish immigrants were expelled to Turkey at short notice.45 Bulgarian government sent a diplomatic note to Turkey about migration of approximately 250.000 Turks to Turkey within the next three months.46 The reasons behind this sudden directive of the Bulgarian governments were alleged as the close relations between the Democrat Party (DP) government and the USA, and the sending Turkish troops to Korea War by the DP government. In addition to this, the BCP government started to nationalize Turkish minorities’ schools in 1946, and confiscate farmer-lands to find farmers’ cooperatives
43 Kirişci, “Migration and Turkey,” 175-198.
44 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,”168-169.
45 Kamil İbrahim, “Bulgaristan’daki Türklerin Hakları: İkili ve Çok Taraflı Siyasi Antlaşmalar, İnsan Haklarına İlişkin Belgeler ve Bulgar Anayasanına Göre” (Ankara, 1989), 29.
46 Bilal Şimşir, “The Turks of Bulgaria, 1878-1985” (London: K. Rüstem & Brother, 1988), 167.
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(TKZS).47These attempts by the government created unrest in especially Turkish people who generally earned their livelihood by agriculture.48 Within the two months, 150,000-155,000 Turks migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey.49 Then, Bulgarian government closed the border and stopped the immigration, even though Turkish government declared it ready to embrace all soydaş from Bulgaria. Then, Bulgarian government closed the border and stopped the immigration, even though Turkish government declared it ready to embrace all soydaş from Bulgaria.
These waves of migrating Turks from Bulgaria between 1968 and 1978 could be classified as “Close Relatives Migration” (Yakın Akraba Göçü). This characterization of 1968-1978 migration waves like that derived from the treaty between Turkey and Bulgaria signed in 1968 to enable migration of Turks whose relatives came to Turkey during 1951-1952 and before. The aim of the agreement is unification of divided families which made kinship the main basis of the migration’s condition. In the law draft of the Turkish parliament dated 25 May 1968 related to immigration of Turks from Bulgaria, explained the reason for this immigration: “During 1950-1951, Turks of Bulgaria migrated to the fatherland exponentially without any migration agreement between Bulgaria and Turkey. Our country was not ready to overcome this massive, unplanned migration because of economic reasons and also security problems. Therefore, our borders were closed, and a lot of families had to separate from each other.”50
47 Ibid, 168.
48 Hüseyin Avni Bıçaklı, "Türkiye Bulgaristan İlişkileri 1878-2008,” (İmge Kitabevi Yayınları, 2015), 20.
49 Birgül Demirtaş Coşkun, “Turkish-Bulgarian Relations In The Post-Cold War Era; The Exemplary Relationship In The Balkans,” The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, no. 32 (n.d.),.26.
50 Başbakanlık, "Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyeti arasında yakın akrabaları 1952 yılına kadar Türkiye'ye göç etmiş olan Türk asıllı Bulgar vatandaşlarının Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyetin’den Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne göç etmeleri hakkında Anlaşmanın onaylanma sının uygun bulunduğuna dair kanun tasarısı ve Dışişleri ve Plan komisyonları raporları” (1/522, D:2, T:4, No: 822, Sayı, 71 - 731/374, Tarih 25 Mayıs1968), 1.
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In addition to this, this law draft indicated that a lot of Bulgaristanlı Turks who became citizens of Turkey, applied to the ministry of the Foreign Affairs of Turkey to migrate their relatives who remained in Bulgaria, to Turkey. Moreover approximately 300.000 soydaş Turks in Bulgaria also wrote petitions to Turkish Embassy in Bulgaria and Turkish consulates in Bulgaria to get immigration passports for Turkey. Migration of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey have been negatively affecting the relationship between the two countries. Therefore, on 22 May 1968, Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister, Sabri Çağlayangil and his Bulgaria counterpart, Ivan Hristov Bashev signed a migration agreement to solve migration problems of Turkish minority of Bulgaria.51
These immigrants who migrated to Turkey within the migration agreement between Turkey and Bulgaria during 1968-1978 were not iskanlı immigrants. There is a striking point in Süleyman Demirel’s response to Edirne deputy, Türkan Seçkin’s parliamentary question regarding the immigrants coming from Bulgaria. Süleyman Demirel indicated that Turkey only allowed immigrants who guarantee for their livelihood as part of settlement laws numbered 2510 in his speech dated on 3 March 1968.52 In other words, they were seen as free immigrants and Turkish government was not responsible for sustaining the needs of immigrants for the first time juridically. In addition to this, in the migration agreement of 1968, Bulgaria also has to ensure economic support to Turkish government to overcome the economic burden of immigrants.53
51 Başbakanlık, "Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyeti arasında yakın akrabaları 1952 yılına kadar Türkiye'ye göç etmiş olan Türk asıllı Bulgar vatandaşlarının Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyetin’den Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne göç etmeleri hakkında Anlaşmanın onaylanma sının uygun bulunduğuna dair kanun tasarısı ve Dışişleri ve Plan komisyonları raporları” (1/522, D:2, T:4, No: 822, Sayı, 71 - 731/374, Tarih 25 Mayıs1968), 2.
52 TBMMTD, Vol. 28, 74. Birleşim, 10 June 1968, 62.
53 Başbakanlık, "Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyeti arasında yakın akrabaları 1952 yılına kadar Türkiye’ye göç etmiş olan Türk asıllı Bulgar vatandaşlarının Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyetinden Türkiye Cumhuriyetine göç etmeleri hakkında Anlaşmanın onaylanma sının uygun bulunduğuna dair kanun tasarısı
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Erder explained that these immigrants could not receive support from Turkish government like former immigrants. Therefore, relatives of immigrants, and also hemşehri (townsman) solidarity associations engaged in philanthropic activities for the immigrants such as donating money for poor migrants or finding homes and jobs for newcomers.54 Briefly, immigration governance has started to move from the monopoly of the state to the sphere of civil society.
Nurcan Özgür indicated that despite all migrations being seen as taking place like settled migrations, ethnic migrations, or exchanges under the bilateral treaties, in many cases migration was not the personal choice of immigrants and they were forced to migrate in practice.55In the light of this speech, Turkish migration from Bulgaria to Turkey in 1989, exactly fits this definition. Moreover, this is the last wave of immigration that Turkish state embraced Turks from Bulgaria because of sharing common ethnic origin. Therefore, I will begin to analyze immigration policy of Turkish state toward these immigrants in the process of migration in 1989, by examining the conjuncture preparing the second enormous mass migration after the Second World War.
On 12 September 1980, Turkish democratic life was interrupted with the coup d'état. In this atmosphere, the voice of anti-communist discourse was amplified. On the other hand, Didem Danış and Ayşe Parla said that until the end of the 1980s, the Turkish foreign policy avoided making irredentist claims about the Turks, who remained outside the borders of current Turkey. However, the “Turks abroad” matter had been a useful tool for Turkish foreign policy toward Balkan countries during the Cold War because of Turkey’s place in the Western Bloc. Therefore, the Turkish government and immigrant associations had approached the
ve Dışişleri ve Plan komisyonları raporları” (1/522, D:2, T:4, No: 822, Sayı, 71 - 731/374, Tarih 25 Mayıs1968), 2.
54 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,”175.
55 Ihlamur-Öner S. Gülfer, Şirin Öner N Aslı, and Nurcan Özgür, “Modern Türkiye'nin Zorunlu Göçmenleri: Muhacirler, İskanlılar, Mübadiller, İslamlar, Soydaşlar, ‘G’ Grubu, Mülteciler, ‘Tekne Mültecileri,’” in Küreselleşme Çağında Göç: Kavramlar, Tartışmalar (İstanbul: İletişim, 2012), 201-202.
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issue of Turkish and Muslim communities living in communist ruled countries as “our enslaved kins under the communist regime.56
On the other hand, Todor Zhivkov, the president of the BCP government until 1989, had planned to turn Bulgaria into a more modern, industrialized, and ethnically homogeneous socialist state by cleansing it from the traditional multi-ethnic agricultural society, and had initiated an intensive assimilation program which was known as Revival Process (in Bulgarian, Vǎzroditelen Protses) on the minorities in the country. The Turks who amount to the 8.8% of the total population (588,318) of Bulgaria which made them the largest subgroup, were exposed to intensive persecution of the Bulgarian government especially from 1984 to 1989 because of their ethnic and religious identities.57 In particular between 1984 and 1985, restrictions on the expression of the cultural and religious identities of the Turks of Bulgaria reached a high point. The Bulgarian government's notorious assimilation program forced the Turkish minority to change their Turkish names with Bulgarian ones during December 1984 and January 1985.58 Ayşe Parla added that after changing names of Turks with Bulgarian ones, Turkish speaking in the public sphere and cultural practices like circumcision, traditional Islamic dress codes were also banned.59 In addition to this, thousands of people who resisted against the communist regime’s assimilation policies were thrown into prisons like Belene concentration camp on the eponymous island in the Danube, humiliated or executed.60The name-changing campaign which started in December 1984 and proceeded until March 1985, was an important turning point and Bulgarian government responses regarding the reason of this campaign were apparent in their motivation which proclaimed that the
56 Ayşe Parla and Didem Danış, “Nafile Soydaşlık: Irak ve Bulgaristan Türkleri Örneğinde Göçmen, Dernek ve Devlet,” Toplum ve Bilim, no. 114 (2009),136-137.
57 Evgenia Ivanova, “Islam, State and Society in Bulgaria: New Freedoms, Old Attitudes,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies,19:1, (2017), 37.
58 Lilia Petkova, “The Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria: Social Integration and Impact on Bulgarian - Turkish Relations, 1947– 2000,” Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1, no. 4 (2002), 42.
59 Parla, “Precarious Hope,” 47.
60 Ibid.
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Turks in Bulgaria indeed, have been Slav-Bulgarians who have to embrace Islam during the Ottoman rule.61
This assimilation policies of Bulgarian government resulted in compulsory migration of ethnic Turks to Turkey in 1989. Since 1923, between Turkey and Bulgaria, a lot of migration agreements have been signed for the immigration of Turks from Bulgaria. In his speech addressed to the Turkish minority dated on 2 June 1989, party leader and head of state Todor Zhivkov addressed the population, declaring that those willing to leave the country with these words “We will give you your passport, If Turkey will open the borders, whoever does not want to stay can leave suddenly.”62 Turkey’s Prime Minister Turgut Özal said that Turkey’s border will open to everyone as a response to Zhivkov’s speech. Following shortly, Özal’s government opened borders between 2 June 1989 and 22 August 1989 for Bulgaristanlı Turks and permitted them to enter Turkey without immigration visa. After the August 1989, Bulgaristanlı Turks had to receive immigration visa to come Turkey and as for the reason behind this attempt was identified by Ercüment Konukman, one of the state ministers of the time, who declared to secure the property and social rights of Bulgaristanlı immigrants by forcing Bulgaria to sign a comprehensive immigration treaty between two states.63
Turgut Özal, president of the 46th government of Turkey, declared that Turkey brought flexibility to immigration legislation for Bulgaristanlı immigrants, nearly 40.000 plus soydaş were employed, gave rent allowance, and started to construct immigrant houses in several cities of Turkey. When viewed from the immigrants’ front, although the assertion of Özal was debatable, the remarkable thing here comes from the official discourse of Turkish government about immigration that took place in 1989.64 During the continuous
61 Petkova, “The Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria,” 51.
62 Şimşir, “Bulgaristan Türkleri,” 439.
63 Konukman Ercüment and Doğan Kutlay, “Tarihi Belgeler Işığında Büyük Göç ve Anavatan: (Nedenleri, Boyutları, Sonuçları) (Ankara, 1990), 62.
64 Ibid, 68-69.
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Bulgaristanlı Turks’ migrations to Turkey, the Turkish government had trouble resettling incoming immigrants. Therefore, Turkey desired an agreement that would regulate their numbers. Furthermore, 133.272 immigrants chose to return to Bulgaria in the early days of 1990 because they could not accommodate the economic and political conditions of Turkey.65
§ 2.5 From Escape “Soydaş” to Irregular Labor Migrant: The Limits of the Soydaş Discourse from 1990
In the 1990s, Bulgaristanlı Turks lost their privileged position in the immigration discourse of the Turkish state, and they were treated as refugees who were not “belonging to Turkish culture.”66 Similarly, the type and pattern of migration of Bulgaristanlı Turks changed from escape from the communist persecution to seek for a relatively prosperous life. Politically motivated immigration of Bulgaristanlı Turks turned into irregular labor migration. Within this direction, Turkish state’s responses toward their “ethnic kin” varied year by year, because of either economic condition of Turkey or political equilibrium between not only bilateral relations between Turkey and Bulgaria but also Turkey and the European Union (EU).
Immigrants were not easily accepted to Turkish citizenship as before after the 1990s due to the economic crisis in Bulgaria with the collapse of the communist regime Generally, after the 1990s, Turks of Bulgaria came to Turkey with tourist visas and then they started to illegally live, settle and also work. To tackle illegal Bulgaristanlı migrants, Turkey applied very complicated and variable visa policies to them until the change in migration direction of Bulgaristanlı Turks to Western Europe after the acceptance of Bulgaria's full membership to the EU.
65 Şimşir, “Bulgaristan Türkleri,” 447.
66 Erder, “Zorla Yerleştirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,” 185.
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The ethnographic study of Ayşe Parla and Zeynep Kaşlı represented that while any official rule did not exist on limitations of visa permissions, only those whose family members residing in Turkey, could get visas to come to Turkey. Political equilibrium in Bulgaria changed and Turks gained a representation right in the Bulgarian parliament. Therefore, Turkish state’s political strategy toward Turks in Bulgaria was to cease migration waves to Turkey and maintain Turkish presence in Bulgaria. This political shift reflected to immigration policies toward Bulgaristanlı Turks. In addition to this, the settlement of Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey is restricted and also instrumentalized by Turkish state. Parla and Kaşlı, in their own words, described the position of immigrants from Bulgaria during the 1990s like that "Turkish state instrumentalized immigrant illegality for transnational political practices such as getting the immigrants to vote in the Bulgarian national elections in return for granting temporary residence permits.”67
In the historical context, on 10 March 1993, a visa treaty was signed between the Bulgarian and Turkish government to facilitate travels simplifying visa issuance procedures theoretically. However, the main reason behind this attempt to impose restrictions on illegal immigrants who came to Turkey with tourist visas and settled. However, this treaty could not be successful to cease irregular labor migration from Bulgaria.68 In addition to this, immigration policies that were the basis of the Settlement Law of 1934 and the Geneva Convention of 1951 were still implemented to those who came to Turkey with tourist visas and became illegal immigrants during the early 1990s. Due to this deficiency in domestic law, in 1994, regulations on asylum was brought into force as titled “Türkiye'ye İltica Eden veya Başka Bir Ülkeye İltica Etmek Üzere Türkiye'den İkamet İzni Talep Eden Münferit Yabancılar ile Topluca Sığınma Amacıyla Sınırlarımıza Gelen Yabancılara ve Olabilecek Nüfus Hareketlerine Uygulanacak Usul ve Esaslar Hakkında Yönetmelik" in the
67 Zeynep Kaşlı and Ayşe Parla, “Broken Lines of Il/Legality and the Reproduction of State Sovereignty: The Impact of Visa Policies on Immigrants to Turkey from Bulgaria,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 34, no. 2 (2009), 207.
68 Official Newspaper, 29 April 1993, p2.
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official newspaper of Turkey. Despite all the arrangements, migration from Bulgaria to Turkey could not be brought under control. Therefore, Turkish government’s inclusive formal discourse toward their ethnic kins’ migrations as “returning home” was shaping up to be protecting them in their “Ancestral land”, Bulgaria. Hence, this Turkish group, which was given the mission of Turkifying the Balkans during the early days of the Ottoman Empire, transformed into being responsible with maintaining Turkish presence as representatives at democratized Bulgarian parliament.
On 25 February 1997, Feridun Pehlivan, deputy of Motherland Party in Bursa, and Hakan Tartan, deputy of Democratic Left Party in İzmir made off-the-agenda speeches at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) about the problems of Bulgaristanlı immigrants in Turkey. In these speeches, they emphasized the circular dated on 20 January, issued about the return of 400 thousand Bulgaristanlı Turks to Bulgaria. In addition to this, deputies criticized why Turkish state suddenly forced immigrants to return to Bulgaria, whereas until 1995 Turkish state embraced these immigrants. In response of Meral Akşener, minister for internal affairs of period, Turkish state’s response toward illegal immigration of Bulgaristanlı Turks since 1990 were explained in historical context.69
First restrictions and precautions undertaken in a circular issued by the Prime Ministry in 1992. Then, only immigrants who had immigration visas before 1 January 1993, had permission to stay in Turkey for one year until 1994. In this manner, new regulations to prevent illegal entrance of “soydaş” to Turkey were circularized to institutions by order of the prime ministry on 26 December 1996. However, deportation of Bulgaristanlı Turks was prevented by the pressure of Bulgaristanlı Turks associations in Turkey.
During the 2000s, Bulgaristanlı Turks could come to Turkey as free migrants because migration began to be perceived as a social burden, national security, and public order problems in the Turkish government. All costs of these migrations were embarked upon immigrants
69 TBMMTD, Vol. 21, 60. Birleşim, 25 February 1997, 62, 139-143.
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themselves and their relatives. The Turkish state discourse on migration also fragmented from the 1990s to 2007. First visa policy of Turkey entitled Turks of Bulgaria to come to Turkey with tourist visas, which legally enabled them to stay for three months. This visa policy of Turkey emerged during 1990s, when the Bulgaria was included in Schengen negative list like Turkey from 1995 to 2001 because of potential illegal immigration risks from Bulgaria to Europe. In addition to this, Parla and Kaşlı gave place to arguments of Joanna Apap on removal of visa restriction of Turkey toward Bulgaristanlı Turks.She said that when Bulgaria was abolished from the negative list of Schengen and Turkey was not; Turkey removed visa restriction correspondingly with the EU to Bulgarian nationals. Furthermore, Turkey abolished the visa requirement for those subjects of Bulgaria in 2001.70
İçduygu and Sert revealed that according to the examination of the Bureau for Foreigners, Borders, and Asylum of the Directorate of General Security of the Ministry of Interior in 2006, the largest proportion of immigrants who requested a residence permit from Turkey consisted of Bulgarian citizens. However, the accession of Bulgaria to the EU in 2007 changed the direction of migration for Bulgaristanlı Turks from Turkey to Western Europe, that said change was clearly associated with obtaining the right to move freely within European countries. The authors also asserted that migration from Bulgaria and the other Balkan countries declined according to data provided by the Ministry of Interior from this date onward.71 According to the law created after the visa treaty signed in Sofia between the Bulgarian and Turkish governments on 23 March 2007, Bulgaristanlı Turks can stay freely for six-month residence in Turkey. Turkish government granted an amnesty, in 2001, to Bulgaristanlı Turks who stayed in Turkey after their visas expired, in return for voting in Bulgarian election. Turkey continued to use this strategy in 2005 and 2007 elections.72
70 Kaşlı and Ayşe Parla, “Broken Lines of Il/Legality,” 207
71 İçduygu and Deniz Sert, “The Changing Waves of Migration,” 100.
72 Kaşlı and Ayşe Parla, “Broken Lines of Il/Legality,” 211.
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In Meral Akşener’s response to a written question of Ercan Karakaş, deputy of RPP in Istanbul, about the double citizenship legislation of Turkey, we see that Turkish state does not prevent the right of the double citizenship for Turkish citizens according to Turkish Citizenship Law No. 403.73 Furthermore, the Bulgaristanlı immigrants who came to Turkey in 1989 and onward, have the right to acquire even Bulgarian citizenship. In addition to this, they will also be European Union citizens apart from Turkish and Bulgarian citizens. This international regulation for the citizenship position of Bulgaristanlı Turks transformed their place in the eyes of Turkish government once more. Especially after Bulgaria entered the EU, Bulgaristanlı Turks became Turkey’s gateway to Europe. Therefore, Bulgaristanlı Turks, some of them immigrated to Turkey and others continued to live in Bulgaria, started to disperse to other countries of Europe thanks to their EU citizenship. In turn, the concept of “Bulgaristanlı Turks' diaspora” emerged. Moreover, Turkish state started to see Turks and Muslims in Balkans as her diaspora and began to develop diaspora diplomacy toward Balkan Turks generally and specifically to Bulgaristanlı Turks under the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB). YTB was officially established in 2010 according to the law numbered 5978 published in the Official Gazette and called the Law About Organization and Duties of The Presidency For Turks Abroad and Related Communities.74 Turkey’s diaspora diplomacy is an extensive area and due to the limits of the literature addressed by this thesis, detailed information on this subject will be given in the further research.
In this chapter, I try to shed light on the assimilation policies of several Bulgarian governments and changing immigration and citizenship policies of Turkish governments in historical context. The reasonings behind that mentioned Bulgarian governments’ dismissive attitudes toward Bulgaristanlı Turks because of their Turkish and Muslim identities and also Turkish governments’ conditional embracements of them as their kin state have been important factors in
73 Millet Meclisi Tutanak Dergisi, Dönem: 20, C. 21, Yasama Yılı: 1, Birleşim: 61, 302-303.
74 Official Newspaper, 24 March 2010.
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shaping Bulgaristanlı Turks’ identity. Immigrants generally said that while they are marginalized in Bulgaria because of their Turkish and Muslim origins, they are also marginalized in Turkey because of their apparently doubtful Turkishness and Muslim origins. On the other hand, other actors who claim to represent and protect Bulgaristanlı Turks identity in public space are associations of this migrant group in Turkey. While doing so, they also created the monolithic, pure Turkish and Sunni Muslim Bulgaristanlı Turks identity in accordance with the space of Turkish governments. In order to understand these associations as identity production centers, I will explain how these organizations started to establish themselves in Turkish civil society in Chapter 3.
45

47
3 Immigrants Associations: The Public Face of the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ Community
he Association of Culture and Solidarity of Thrace, Rumelia, and Balkan Migrants (BALKANDER) was founded at Sultangazi which is one of the districts that have possessed a high amount of the Turkish migrants from Bulgaria in Istanbul, in 2011. This association was established after so many years in this district where Turks of Bulgaria started to settle by virtue of a migration agreement signed on 22 March 1968 in Ankara between Bulgaria and Turkey to permit migration of Bulgarian citizens with Turkish origins, whose close relatives migrated to Turkey from Bulgaria until 1952.1 As is seen, the 2010s were a period when the migration movements to Turkey stopped and the direction of Bulgaristanlı Turks’ migration turned to European countries from Turkey. Alongside these newfound rights, there does not seem to be any critical situation for migrants to move with solidarity during the 2010s.
1 The law which permitted to migration of Turks whose relatives migrated to Turkey from Bulgaria during 1950-1951 migration wave : “Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyeti arasında yakın akrabaları 1952 yılma kadar Türkiye’ye göç etmiş olan Türk asıllı Bulgar vatandaşlarının Bulgaristan Halk Cumhuriyetinden Türkiye Cumhuriyetine göç etmeleri hakkında Anlaşmanın onaylanmasının uygun bulunduğuna dair Kanun”, 552.
T
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However, in 2009 when Sultangazi became a municipality in 2009 by the “New Local Government Law” and the first mayor of district would be determined according to the group that is demographically superior or the group with stronger community ties, the importance of associations in the public sphere increased considerably. The current president of the BALKANDER explained the relatively late foundation of the association in relation with the Turkish local elections of 2009. During the electoral process for the mayor of Sultangazi, deputies of several political parties and also ministers visited migrant associations in the district. Migrant groups, who had cultural and social problems of articulation with the city, kept their connections with the cultures of countryside stronger and established associations aiming to strengthen and protect their community ties in the several neighborhoods in cities as a result of internal migration waves from villages to cities since the 1950s.2 On the other hand, these associations act as “political actors" which influence the political processes to establish relations with politics, especially during the process of local or general parliamentary elections, in order to achieve their communal interests.3 Therefore, it is a common practice to visit associations by political parties during elections to pull votes of people. Ministers and deputies asked H.G, who was a candidate for the nomination of the municipal councilor at that time from the JDP, whether there was an association representing the Bulgaristanlı migrants like himself living in the region to visit them. He stated that this situation triggered them to establish an association, and they started the foundation process in 2009 and it was officially established in 2011.4
2 Erkan Aktaş, Asiye Aka and Murat Cem Demir "Türkiye’de Hemşehri Dernekleri ve Kırsal Dönüşüm [Kinship (Hemşehri) Associations and Rural Transformation in Turkey]," MPRA Paper 8646, University Library of Munich, Germany, 2006), 53.
3 Gürbüz Özdemir, “Tampon Mekanizmadan Siyasal Aktörlüğe Hemşehri Dernekleri,” Journal of Turkish Studies 8, no. Volume 8 Issue 5 (2013), 577.
4 According to an interview with him at the association's office, he indicated that he was not the first president of the association. He only triggered immigrants to establish associations and help them during the formation of the assimilation. However, F. R who is one of the association's management board members stated that the association
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As we have seen in chapter one, as a result of the expansionist strategies of the Ottoman Empire, different Turkish clans were sent from Anatolia into the Balkans in several waves starting in the fourteenth century and started to decrease with the remigration of descendants of these Turkish clans into the borders of the current Turkish Republic from Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The reasons as to why were various under the several migration attacks of this Turkish groups in Balkans to Turkey, including persecution toward Turkish and Muslim minorities during the construction of the nation-states in the Balkans from the end of the 19th century to early 20th century, assimilation policies that communist regimes implemented to ethnic and religious minorities under their rule after the 1944 to 1989, and finally economic difficulties that people suffered from after the collapse of communism. Briefly, there were several migration waves of what the Turks of Bulgaria considered “repatriation” back into Turkey.
Official data of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Interior Directorate General of Migration Management shows that as a result of the Turkish-Bulgarian residence contract signed in 1925, 218 998 Turkish origin Bulgarian citizens have migrated to Turkey until 1949 from 1925; 156,063 Turks migrated to Turkey between 1949 and 1951 after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria in 1946. In addition to this, within the framework of the “Turkey-Bulgaria Close Relatives Migration Agreement”, 116 521 people have migrated to Turkey between the years 1968 -1979.5 Finally, the latest official migration movements of Turkish and Muslim origin citizens of Bulgaria started with the forceful actions of the Bulgarian government in 1989 and continued until Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007.
As a result of endless waves of Turkish migrants from Bulgaria to Turkey, many non-governmental organizations representing
could not be successful until H.G’s presidency in association because the first association president did not have a strong position in the society as H.G.
5 To see how the migrations of Bulgaristanlı Turks are explained in the official website of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Interior, Directorate General of Migration Management: https://www.goc.gov.tr/goc-tarihi
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Bulgaristanlı migrants have been active in Turkish civil society with their own different ambitions. Data from ethnographic fieldwork conducted on executives of several Bulgaristanlı migrants’ associations indicates that these associations come to the forefront under the three subtitles in terms of establishing goals and the activities they carry out. Bulgaristanlı Turk’ associations emerged from Turkish civil society in the last days of nineteenth century to engage in philanthropic activities for the migrants such as donating money for poor migrants, finding homes and jobs for newcomers and then evolved into representing the rights of the Bulgaristanlı Turks who had been exposed to assimilation policies in the Bulgarian Communist regime. However, as of the mid the 1990s to 2007, associations acted as brokerages operations between immigrants and Turkish state to obtain Turkish citizenship of immigrants. Moreover, from 2007, the importance of obtaining Bulgarian citizenship became more important because of advantages of EU citizens such as the right to free movement within European Union countries. So, associations became new interlocutors between Bulgaristanlı Turks and the Bulgarian state on the issue of “citizenship.” In the fieldwork process, I realized that while association leaders did not tell the real story to me about how association members gain profit from “marketing Bulgarian citizenship” to Bulgaristanlı migrants who were encouraged to obtain Bulgarian citizenship. In addition to this, these association executives try to mobilize large political networks in search for members through their relations with government officials and representatives of political parties in both Turkey and Bulgaria.
This chapter is made up of three main sections as “Somewhere Between Civil Society Organization and State Institution”, “Associations as “Protector of the Soydaş” and “Turkey’s Gate to the West: From Soydaş to Most Ancient Agents of Turkish Diaspora” to explain how Bulgaristanlı migrants’ associations, which have an active role in Turkish civil society, to this day, were established in the historical process, and to provide an overview of the existing associations for cultural and solidarity of the Bulgaristanlı migrants established and maintained by the prominent leaders of community in several cities of Turkey. Moreover, background
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information about what are the problems of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community in both Turkey and Bulgaria that trigger them to act collectively under the umbrella of the associations are also analyzed. Having examined a few of the major problems of this group, we will turn to how the associations sought to respond to these problems. The issues that associations aim to provide solutions and strategies to create solidarity among migrants and preserve their ethno-cultural identities through shaping associational activity and mobilization of migrants, will be examined.
Here I will look at some of the principal associations, paying particular attention to the purposes for which they were created. I will trace their histories, organizational purposes and missions, and forms of participation. Theoretical frameworks of this chapter circle around the migrants’ network theories to highlight why and how migrants need to act collectively under the labels like associations, waqfs or other non-profit institutions. In addition to this, literatures on civil society phenomenon in Turkey and relationships between civil society organizations and state may contribute to this chapter for better understanding of the position of these associations in the Turkish civil society as not only hometown associations of migrants which aimed to mobilize their townsmen with a solidarity but also as an immigrant transnational organization which attempted to establish a trans-local links for the benefit of the remaining people in the origin country via their cultural, economic and educational activities. In addition to this, associations endeavor to be active in the domestic and foreign policies of Turkey to significantly represent, protect and affect respective communities in both Turkey and Bulgaria. However, before handling the above-mentioned discussion, it is also important to briefly highlight what is the meaning of the civil society organization and answer what kind of the civil society organizations exist.
Several civil society organizations which are non-profit, non-state and also voluntary entities formed by people united around the same common purpose, are established in Turkey. Civil society organizations emerge with various concerns such as civil rights, gender equality,
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children, other parity movements, pollution, environmental problems, and so on. Besides this definition, “city- or region-of-origin based associations” such as hometown associations, migrant associations and also diaspora associations can also be given as an example of civil society organizations.
The roots of Bulgaristanlı migrants’ associations in Turkey were quite old and commenced with the period of Turkish and Muslims’ migration that began with the loss of the Ottoman Empire’s Balkan lands. As I illustrated in chapter two, during the ongoing nation-building process in the Balkan peninsula from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of WWII, masses of Turkish and Muslim origin people were exiled or migrated from Bulgaria to current Turkish border at the end of several migration agreements between Turkey and Bulgaria. Also, as it was mentioned in the introduction section, as a result of the migration of Turks from the Balkans, the “Balkan Turks” diaspora has emerged within the boundaries of the Turkish Republic. In addition to this, a lot of associations in many cities of Turkey have been founding under different names drives from Balkan Turks, Rumelia Turks, Balkan migrants, Rumelia migrants, or were divided into local names of Balkan countries such as specifically focusing of Turkish and Muslim migrants from Bulgaria.
Associations of this community who were the former citizens of the Ottoman Empire living in the Balkan Peninsula were founded with philanthropic purposes to sustain the needs of newcomer migrants. However, in those days, the reasons behind the tendency which the Turkish migrants from Bulgaria have established considering the high number of associations and engaged in various associational activities from organizing solidarity meetings to encouraging migrants to vote in Bulgarian legislature elections under the name of culture and solidarity association are a complicated issue. The position of these associations accused by their members for corruption or deviating from the national cause, under the civil society of Turkey is not clear because they were established with the purpose of defending the human rights of Turks in
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Bulgaria and move as hometown associations or transnational immigrant associations.
There is a clear fact that these associations were established to inform the public about the Communist regime’s attempts at forced assimilation of Turks in Bulgaria during the 1980s to the Turkish and world public opinion during early days of 1980s. However, since that time, the roles and functions of the associations have changed dramatically. While, in the end of the Ottoman Empire and early days of the Turkish Republic, the Bulgaristanlı Turks associations were engaged in philanthropic activities, after the 1984 onward, associations started to focus on informing the world about Bulgarian Communist government’s efforts at assimilation of its Turkish and Muslim minority. However, by the mid-1990s when Bulgaristanlı Turks started to receive the right of citizenship of both Turkey and Bulgaria, the focus had switched to more social, cultural and domestic political goals both in Turkey and Bulgaria. Today the Bulgaristanlı Turks migrants formed associations ranging from small culture and solidarity associations in several cities of Turkey, to comprehensive institutions such as several federations and also the confederation under the umbrella of Balkan and Rumelia Turks’ supra identity. In addition to this, they also established several educational and trade associations which act as a bridge between Turkey and Bulgaria. However, the scope of this thesis will only concentrate on the culture and solidarity associations established in the neighborhoods where migrants live densely.
Furthermore, what distinguishes these associations from other civil society organizations and places them in a special position for me is that besides engaging in cultural and solidarity activities, these associations were founded within the struggle to protect and mold ethnic and cultural identities of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in both Turkey and Bulgaria. On the other hand, collective actions among individuals who share the same geographic origin, ethnic and religious identities have been contributed by that self-organizing nature to constitute voluntary and nonprofit agencies to maintain ethnic and religious identity in Bulgaria as a minority, and to provide solidarity among communities in
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Turkey as a migrant. Although some of these organizations date back to the first decades of the twentieth century, the majority of them were established and started to engage in associational activities from the early days of 1980s’ and onwards. Historically, from the first time they appeared in the Turkish civil society, these associations generally formed with the purpose of creating the reactional civil initiative in Turkish public sphere on Bulgarians’ persecutions and assimilations toward Turks in Bulgaria.
Nonetheless, the end of the Cold War in 1989, the collapse of Communist regimes, and Bulgaria’s entrance to NATO and the EU in the early 2000s, caused a transformation in the field of activities and practices of the Bulgaristanlı Turks associations in Turkey. In addition to this, reasons behind this tendency should be derived from that associations became the instrument of Turkish governments to practice Turkey’s foreign policy towards Bulgaria, or on the purpose of members to gain individual profit in political, economic, and cultural scales. As a result of these developments, these associations engage with activities in extraterritorial social spaces and will be perceived as transnational immigrant organizations which pursue philanthropic, cultural, and also lobbying projects for the development of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in Bulgaria and to protect the Turkish and Muslim identity of their community of origin. More specifically, I will interrogate how the location and practices of these associations under the umbrella of Turkish civil society are positioned. Although some of these organizations date back to the first decades of the twentieth century, the majority of them were established and started to engage in associational activities from the early 1980s’ and onwards.
Before the handling these associations in historical context, I will briefly mention key characteristics of the associations with some helpful insights from work on migrant network theory to explain the emergence of these diaspora ethno-cultural and political associations in Turkish civil society through precious contributions of Içduygu, Erder, and Gençkaya. Other theoretical contributions that I will be also drawing on in this chapter consist of comprehensive ethnographic and quantitative
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research about the role of the encounters and associations in irregular migrants’ right advocacy on the juridical ground between the Bulgaristanlı migrants and Turkish state. While especially, Zeynep Kaşlı, Ayşe Parla, and Didem Danış made ethnographic research about the agency of the associations perceived as the defender of the legal rights of irregular migrants from Bulgaria to Turkey, Nurcan O zgu r and Alexander Toumarkine gave more of a generally a quantitative and qualitative overview about the associations established by immigrants from the Balkans and the Caucasus in historical context.
I will also benefit from the literature on transnational migrant associations in a broader context to give insight into the political processes underlying associational politics of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey and the features of their organizational field that configure their activities. First of all, as I çduygu, Erder, and Gençkaya pointed out in their studies, we can use migrant networks theory to explain the direction of international migrations and why more migrants choose to come to specific countries. In addition to this, the concept of migration networks theory tries to explain the ties that unite those who move, those who have moved before, and those who did not move in the countries that give and receive migration.
According to this migrant networks theory, which is examined under two headings, formally and informally, the ties between immigrants are an important element in the settling process of migrants and community formation in the migration area. While İçduygu, Erder, and Gençkaya stated that institutions operating at a formal level (such as employment agencies, travel agencies or subcontractors) mediate migrants’ relations with the government; they also position informal networks in social life. Informal networks include the complex relationships with immigrants and their families, friends, and fellow countrymen. Moreover, through informal networks, constructed community ties enable solidarity activities among migrants. In the concept of international migration, migrant networks are more prominent than domestic migration because immigrants suffer more from economic, social, and also psychological problems in international migration. Therefore, there is a greater need
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for these networks that link both immigrants and non-immigrants to a complex network of social roles and communal relationships.
Current studies on migrant networks tend to focus on construction of transnational spaces and identities of migrants. In this manner, migrants did not break their connections with their home country thanks to the transportation and communication technologies offered by the globalizing world; frequent commuting between the country of origin and destination country led to the formation of a transnational migrant concept or a transnational community. Migrants construct a close-knit social network between the countries from which they left and settled, linking the communities, institutions, and structures in these countries. Based upon this assertion, Bulgaristanlı Turk’s associations are approached as institutions that frame continuous and multidimensional connections among immigrants and reproduce migrants’ public identity which is determined in the process of their relations with more than one nation-state.
Also, Bash argued with the transnational migrant phenomenon that the dynamics of migration are not defined within the borders of the host country. Therefore, he furthers his argument that migrants create social networks that combine different geographical, cultural, and political nucleuses. The theory of migrant networks, which allows us to approach the phenomenon of migration from an anthropological perspective, also helps us to understand how immigrants construct and represent their simultaneous living in multiple countries.6 Although not as effective as the role of the nation-states that receive and send immigration, another factor of immigration is the non-governmental organizations that immigrants have established that enable them to stand out in this field of international politics and policy.7
6 Ahmet İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, “Türkiye'nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları, 1923-2023: Ulus-Devlet Oluşumundan Ulus-Ötesi Dönüşümlere,” (Migration Research Center at Koç University, 2014), 42-46.
7 İçduygu, Sema Erder, and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, “Türkiye'nin Uluslararası Göç Politikaları,”65-68.
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Kaşlı studied whether or not two prominent associations of the Bulgaristanlı migrants established in the mid-1980s by former migrants from Bulgaria, Balkan Turks Solidarity and Culture Association in Istanbul and Balkan Migrants Culture and Solidarity Association in Izmir, could represent newcomer “irregular migrants” who did not come to Turkey with the result of a migration agreement with Bulgaria but came illegally because of economic reasons in Bulgaria after 1990s. Kaşlı comes to the conclusion that while, notwithstanding associations care about legal and social problems of economic migrants, the main effort is to stay in the soydaş (same ethnic group) frame to which they owe their presence and to protect their fragile relationship with the Turkish state. In this way, she illustrated that the unequal positions of migrants deriving from their migration reasons such as fleeing from persecution or economic reasons, impact their representation at the associational level in the eyes of associations.
One of the main arguments of the Parla about the public discourse of the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations is that these associations legitimize their legal and political actions on behalf of their community members, referring to their lost Balkan lands, their pure Turkishness, and their loyalty toward their ancestral homeland, Turkey.8 While Kaşlı is drawing on Parla’s analysis of soydaş discourse of associations which constitute their agency in the framework of the “ethnic deservingness” in Turkey, she also contributes to the underemphasized attention of associations toward irregular migrant’ problems with her invaluable ethnographic research within the two famous associations of this community.9
8 Ayşe Parla, “Labor Migration, Ethnic Kinship, and the Conundrum of Citizenship in Turkey,” Citizenship Studies 15 (3–4) 2011: 458.
9 Zeynep Kaşlı, “Who Do Migrant Associations Represent? The Role of ‘Ethnic Deservingness’ and Legal Capital in Migrants’ Rights Claims in Turkey,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42, no. 12 (July 2016), 1999-2000.
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§ 3.1 Somewhere Between Civil Society Organization and State Institution
During my preliminary fieldwork, when I made archival research on associations, I found a poem titled "Bulgar Mezalimi İntikam Levhası Kulağına Küpe Olsun Unutma" written by Tahirü'l Mevlevi who was a Sufi origin writer and poet living during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and sold for a small amount in order to raise aid to the immigrants by Rumeli Muhacirin-i İslamiye Cemiyeti (Community of Muslim Refugees) which was the oldest association representing the first group of Balkan migrants known in history. This association was established to deal with the problems of Balkan migrants during the last decades of the 19th century. Ağanoğlu could detect the evidence of the existence of the association from the holiday telegram sent to the Sultan by the association executives and the petitions they sent to the Ministry of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire, in his painstaking studies in the Ottoman archive. The most striking point about this association is its partaking for responsibility in propagandistic activities like present associations which I am working on. For instance, the association published articles10and representative pictures describing the massacres and atrocities toward Muslims and Turks during and after the Balkan War were for the purpose of informing the public. The main theme of these publications is to explain how people were persecuted in the Balkan lands due to their Turkish and Muslim identity. It is important to highlight with this example that the starting point of the associations established by this migrant group has always been the struggle for their identity.
10 Association publications that Ağanoğlu could access in the archive: Alam-ı İslam, Bulgar Vahşetleri, İslamiyetin Enzar-ı Basiretine ve İnsaniyet ve Medeniyetin Nazar-ı Dikkatine, İstanbul 1328(1912-13), Alam-ı İslam, Rumeli Mezalimi ve Bulgar Vahşetleri İslamın Enzar-ı Basiretine ve İnsaniyet ve Medeniyetin Nazar-ı Dikkatine, İstanbul 1329 (1913-4), Türk Katilleri ve Yunanlılar 1332 (1916-17).
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With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the associations have been placed under the state-mandated status until 1940. In 1925, with the enactment of Takrir-i Sükun Law, associations that opposed the government were automatically dissolved until the removal of the articles that put restrictions on associations in the second article of the Turkish Constitution of 1924 in 1946.11 During the 1950s, huge numbers of Muslims and Turks who have lived under the Communist regimes have migrated to Turkey because of the discriminatory policies of Eastern Bloc countries. Under the economic, social, and political tensions because of the burden of the migration waves, former migrants started organizing with a nationalist consciousness to sustain humanitarian help and constitute a collaborative environment for newcomers. Alexander Toumarkine emphasized that seven different Balkan and Circassian migrant associations gathered under the same roof of the Türk Göçmen ve Mülteci Dernekleri Federasyonu (Federation of Turkish Immigrant and Refugee Associations) in 1954.12 Within this federation, Batı Trakya Göçmenleri Derneği (Western Thrace Immigrants Association) comprising of Turks migrants from Bulgaria; and Vardarlılar Association which was established by migrants of Yugoslavia, turned to Rumeli Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği (The Culture and Solidarity Association of Rumeli Turks) which was united with three different Balkan migrants associations, were early examples of Balkan region-of-origin associations.
With the entrance of Turkey to NATO in 1952, her position in the Cold War was precisely located in the Western Block. Anti-Communism and Pan-Turkism were the main dynamics of the Turkish government’s foreign policy attitudes toward the Eastern Bloc countries. Therefore, the federation acted in line with the ideologies of Pan-Turkism which aimed cultural and political unification of Turkish people all over the world and
11 Hasan Buran, “Baskı Grupları, Türkiye’de Dernekleşme ve Balkan Göçmen Mülteci Dernekleri Örneği,” (PhD diss., Istanbul University, 1993), 126-29.
12 Alexander Toumarkine, “Kafkas Ve Balkan Göçmen Dernekleri : Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik,” in Türkiye'de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2002), 426.
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anti-Communism that the Turkish government adopted as a result of the dynamics of foreign policy against Greece and Eastern Bloc countries where Turks and other Muslims lived as minorities.13 So, when the activities of the said association are examined, it is seen that the needs of the migrants that they claim to be represented by them are not received. In addition to that, the election of the Adnan Menderes who was the prime minister of the time in Turkey, as the honorary president of the federation14indicates that the federation is a political instrument that maintains the cold war diplomacy of the Turkish government of the time rather than a non-governmental organization working for the benefit of migrants.15 I especially highlight the relationship between the Turkish state and the Bulgaristanlı migrants’ associations in a historical context. The aim of this attempt is to question to what extent these associations can be approached as non-governmental organizations.
Apparently, these associations have pro-Turkish state positions in the Turkish civil society and act in union with the Turkish state policies in the issue of Turkish and Muslim minorities in the Balkans.16 Much of the current literature on this issue neglects to explain the relations of these associations with Turkish state. Moreover, few studies have focused on missions and structures of associations but only in a general sense. For example, one of the Balkan migrants’ associations of the federation was Vandarlılar Beneficiary Association which is also known as Rumeli Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği (Rumelian Turks Culture and Solidarity Association). This association was founded in the 1950s and aimed to deal with the problems of the massive migrant population from Yugoslavia in the 1950s. The association aimed to settle migrants and provide food; guide newcomers; to rent cars to avoid exorbitant fees to provide for those who do not have money. In addition to this, in February 1962, the association started to publish a bulletin
13 Toumarkine, “Kafkas ve Balkan Göçmen Dernekleri,” 426.
14 CCA,30-1-0-0/ 123-786-8
15 Mehmet Pınar, “1950-1951 Bulgaristan’dan Türkiye’ye Göçler ve Demokrat Parti’nin Göçmen Politikası,” Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi 30 (2014), 86.
16 Toumarkine, “Kafkas ve Balkan Göçmen Dernekleri,”426.
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about many different subjects under the name of Vardarlı Bulletin. For example, while the first issue targeted to encourage their fellow countryman (hemşeri) for collecting aid to newcomer migrants, the Turkish state’s decisions regarding the settlement of new migrants were harshly criticized in the issue of March 1962. Additionally, another activity of the association other than publishing periodicals was to organize conferences for members in the center of the association. Several other activities in the bulletin of the association consisted of distribution of food generally in Ramadan; providing poor migrants health services; giving a scholarship to students; opening several courses not only about the education of different languages but also about music and folk dancing. The increasing number of migrants towards the end of the 1960s led to the change in the working system of the association and it became inclusive not only for migrants from Vardar where is the one of the regions of North Macedonia but for all Balkan migrants, so a new regulation was prepared and the name of the association was turned to Rumelian Turks Culture and Solidarity Association. With the 1980 coup d’etat, activities of nearly all civil society organizations were banned on the grounds that they served for different political purposes which damaged the integrity of the Turkish state, while associations established by Balkan migrants, such as the Vardarlılar Solidarity Association, were not closed and continued their activities with the support of the government. Privileged positions of these associations during even the 1980 coup d’etat strengthened my argument about highlighting the pro-Turkish state position of these associations instead of approaching them as nongovernmental organizations.
In substance, the first generation of the migrants themselves established associations to create solidarity among newcomers and former migrants. Moreover, these associations in Turkey extend to the early decades of the 20th century and they have conducted some philanthropic activities for the migrants such as donating money for poor migrants, finding homes and jobs for newcomers; and playing an active role between migrants and the state to enable migrants to obtain permanent legal status as Turkish citizens. From the early days of WWII,
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associations’ main aim to advocate of human rights and refugee rights in a general sense. In addition to this they were established to announce the assimilation of the Turks in Bulgaria by the Communist government in the between 1970s-1980s to the Turkish and world public opinion during early days of 1980s by the support of Turkish governments; and evolved to advocate that Turks and Muslims should freely represent their ethnic and religious identity, which is a human right, in Bulgaria. Finally, in this thesis, I shed light on the political mobilization ambition of associations to trigger participation of the community members in the politics of Turkey, and Bulgaria by using representative anxiety and identity protection discourse without considering all fractions in Bulgaristanlı Turks’ communal identity.
§ 3.2 Associations as “Protector of the Soydaş”
Kurtog lu explains the positions of associations in Turkish civil society with the social movements’ theory of Charles Tilly. It will be very useful to clarify the autonomous status of the associations which were established in the eyes of the Balkan immigrants and, in the context of Turkish government’s attitudes toward association movements in Turkey during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Tilly stated that the state selectively suppresses social movements or facilitates and hinder their developments’ in compliance with the interests of the elite.17 In Turkey’s civil society, only specific organizations that are defending certain ideas and have requirements not contradicting the interests of the state have legitimacy in the eyes of the state. Therefore, the associations mentioned above were the most acceptable until the mid-‘90s. It is obvious that Balkan migrant associations’ activities focused on declaring problems of Turkish minorities in the Balkan countries during this period. BCP’s assimilation policies were gradually implemented toward different
17 Ayça Kurtoğlu, “Mekansal Bir Olgu Olarak Hemşehrilik ve Bir Hemşehrilik Mekanı Olarak Dernekler,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, no. 2 (2005), 15.
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minority groups of Bulgaria. During the 1970s, the Pomaks was the first group exposed to harsh assimilation policies of BCP and the Bulgaristanlı migrants living in Turkey operated under the umbrella of the association to announce to the public what their soydaş living in Bulgaria were subjected to by BCP.
Therefore, in 1976 the Association of the Culture and Solidarity of the Rodop-Tuna Turks published the pamphlet titled “the inner face of the disaster of the Rhodope-Bulgarian Turkishness”. The aim of this brochure was to fulfill the gap in Turkish public opinion about “the Muslim Turkish groups, which are the autochthonous element in their residential district under the rule of the communist and Zionist Bulgarian state.” Virtually like all of the associations proclaimed in this pamphlet, the Pomaks, who are described as Turkish tribe who settled in the Bulgarian geography during nearly 10-11th century, have been explained in the historical process. Proclamations about the Turks living in Bulgaria meeting on common ground with the Turkish Republic under the umbrella of Turkishness was used to prepare the psychological ground in the Turkish public opinion for a possible Turkish minority migration from Bulgaria to Turkey.18
Especially the accentual loyalty of future migrants toward “state phenomenon” was announced as follows: “The Rhodope Turks gladly made all kinds of material and moral sacrifices to the Turkish state individually and collectively for centuries as required. History confirms, in all its expressiveness, that this is the case, without any objection. Therefore, we should react to the inhuman behavior of BCP executives toward Rhodophe Turks. Sharing all suffering, and troubles of these people is the most sublime duty which historical and national missions have entrusted to us.1920
18 Rodop Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği, “Rodop-Bulgaristan Türklüğü Faciasının İç Yüzü,” Rodop-Bulgaristan Türklüğü Faciasının İç Yüzü (İstanbul, 1972), 27-29.
19 Rodop Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanışma derneği, “Rodop-Bulgaristan Türklüğü,” 29.
20 Comprehensive fieldwork research was conducted by Suavi Aydın to understand how migrant originated citizens of Turkey put state important position in their minds with the fear of being stateless. Too see, Suavi Aydın, Amacımız Devletin Bekası: Demokratikleşme Sürecinde Devlet ve Yurttaşlar (Tesev Yayınları, 2009).
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On the other hand, Ayşe Parla says that until the end of the 1980s, the Turkish foreign policy avoided making irredentist claims about the Turks, who remained outside the borders of current Turkey. However, the “Turks abroad” matter has been a useful tool for Turkish foreign policy toward Balkan countries during the Cold War because of the place of Turkey in the Western Bloc. Therefore, the Turkish government and immigrant associations have approached the issue of Turkish and Muslim communities living in Soviet countries as our “enslaved kins under the communist regime.” This change in Turkish foreign policy also affected the relations between the state and associations so Turkish and anti-Communist elements came to the fore in the association activities of Balkan and Caucasian immigrants.21
Briefly it is obvious that in the 1950s and 60s, Balkan migrant associations’ main goal was to lend a hand to those who have escaped from Balkan countries, which are part of the Eastern bloc; to defend the rights of relatives who remained to live under the Communist Balkan countries. However, as Baklacıoğlu asserts that these associations are not only an organization tool voicing the problems of migrants even today, but also the spokesman of the Turks and Muslim minorities in different Balkan countries to acquire a specific location in Turkey’s foreign policy issue.22 Until the 1990s, these associations had uniter structure and represented the whole Balkan migrants in two different groups which while Rumelia migrant associations belonged to migrants of Yugoslavia, Balkan migrant associations pertained to Turk and Muslim migrants from Bulgaria and Romania. Balkan immigrants’ associations, like all associations influenced by the culturalist atmosphere of the Özal era, started to establish under different names which categorized their ethnic, geographic, and religious identities.
There is no doubt that the missions and functions of associations are shaped around newly established targets according to the conjuncture of
21 Ayşe Parla, “Precarious Hope,” 13.
22 Nurcan Özgür Baklacıoğlu, “Türkiye’nin Balkan Politikasında Rumeli ve Balkan Göçmen Dernekleri”, in Sivil Toplum ve Dış Politika: Yeni Sorunlar, Yeni Aktörler. (edited by) S.C. Mazlum ve E. Doğan,( İstanbul: Bağlam, 2006), 78.
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the period. Before the mid-1980s, the news arrived from Bulgaria revealed that Turks were subjected to genocide caused indignation especially within the former the Bulgariatanlı Turks and the Balkan Turks in general sense. Therefore, since the second half of the 1980s, the Bulgaristanlı Turks began to stand out due to their high population and being subjected to a traumatic assimilation process among the whole Turks who migrated from Balkan Peninsula and mobilized in the associations under the name of Balkan and Rumelia Turks.
In the study of Ayşe Parla and Didem Danış, they suggest that before the end of the Cold War with the collapse of Communism, associations engaged interbedded political activities with Turkish state, therefore, their main mission has been shaped according to national interests of the Turkish government upon the Balkan countries and Turkic republics which were under the administrative tutelage of the USSR and other satellite states of USSR.23
In a nutshell, associations acted as a diasporic political organization working to express the pressure that their fellow countrymen who remained in the old territories of the Ottoman Empire, were exposed by the communist governments. Associations have conducted activities under the umbrella of Turkism instead of fighting the problems of Balkan immigrant communities in Turkey because of that, this situation also led to the separation of the management group of the associations with their fellow citizens, who did not approve that associations immensely focused on national interest.
The academic literature on the Balkan migrant associations has revealed that associations were established under three missions like national litigation advocacy, protection of cultural identities, and solidarity. In the context of this analysis, the assimilation policies of the BCP to the Turks in her country have been on the agenda of former migrants from Bulgaria and other Balkan countries. Therefore, the associations representing the Bulgaristanlı Turks migrants started to act with the purpose of national litigation advocacy especially between 1984
23 Ayşe Parla and Didem Danış, “Nafile Soydaşlık: Irak Ve Bulgaristan Türkleri Örneğinde Göçmen, Dernek ve Devlet,” TOPLUM ve BİLİM , no. 114 (2009), 136.
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and 1989. Moreover, associations have conducted activities, in particular, streamlining the legal status of new immigrants in Turkey. Balkan Turks Solidarity and Culture Association in Istanbul and The Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (Bal-Göç) in Bursa were formed by former migrants from Bulgaria in Turkey and became leading figures to have shown immediate reaction to BCP’s forced assimilation campaign toward the Turkish minority in Bulgaria between 1984 and 1989.
1984 was a turning point for the Bulgaristanlı Turks community in both Turkey and Bulgaria. While Bulgaria was one of the countries of the Iron Curtain, Turkey was positioned in the Western Bloc during the Cold War years. Therefore, communication, journeys, and trade between the two countries were restricted because of the political conjuncture of the period. Restrictions on the expression of the cultural and religious identities of the Bulgarian Turks reached a high point in between 1984-1989. The Bulgarian government’s notorious assimilation program forced the Turkish minority to change their Turkish names to Bulgarian ones and banned public use of Turkish language, and harshly constructed several religious and cultural obstacles which started to promulgate during the 1960s.24
Before the migration in 1989, Balkan migrants’ associations tried for the origination of the migration agreement between Bulgaria and Turkey because the Bulgarian government rejected not only all allegations of assimilations against the Turks but also denied the existence of Turks in Bulgaria. The Turks who migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey before, undertook associational activities in many cities of Turkey to announce the assimilation of their kins in Bulgaria. Specifically, one of the most active and wide-major associations which mainly represents the Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey is the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Immigrants (Bal-Göç).
Moreover, Mümin Gençoğlu who was the prominent president for the Bal-Göç and also Federation of the Immigrant and Refugee Associations
24 Lilia Petkova, “The Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria: Social Integration and Impact on Bulgarian - Turkish Relations, 1947– 2000,” Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1, no. 4 (2002), 42.
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of the Balkan Turks explained that the Bal-Göç was established with the suggestion of Mesut Yılmaz, the foreign minister of the period, to defend rights of the Turks in Bulgaria.25 Furthermore, it can be argued that among the all Balkan migrant associations, Bal-Göç is a leading figure because of the successful initiatives with the Turkish government and also international agencies in the context of the defense of the rights of Turks in Bulgaria.26 To clarify this claim, the activities of this association will be examined in the historical context. For instance, while Y.Ö. who was the chairman of the Bal-Göç in Bursa from 2014 to 2018, while explaining the establishment purpose of the association, he underlined that the main aim of the association was to announce the Bulgarian persecution to Turks.27
For example, several migrant associations organized demonstrations which were called Telin Mitingi (Cursing demonstration) to declare the violence of the Bulgarian Communist government to Turks in the country in during 1985. As regards the news of Cumhuriyet newspaper dated March 22, 1985, Mehmet Çavuş, who was the president of the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Balkan Turks which was established in Istanbul in 1980s and reached 24 branches until the early 2000s, but later closed due to conflicts of interest within the associations’ members, highlighted that 2 million 164 thousand Turks who have been in the territory of Bulgaria since the early Ottoman conquest in these territory have persecuted by the Bulgarian government, in his speech at a rally in Istanbul. Then, he emphasized the Turkishness of the Turks in Bulgaria; also gave reference to the tolerant administration of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans; and he finished his speech with these words “descendants of Mehmed the Conqueror cannot be a Bulgarian.” In this point, I want to draw attention to the references of the associations' leading figures to
25 Balkanlarda Türk Kültürü Dergisi, “Neden Balkanlarda Türk Kültürü ? Neden Çıkarıyoruz ?,” Balkanlar'da Türk Kültürü 1 (November 1991), 4.
26 Bal-Göç News Bulletin, no 1, 1987, 1.
27 Berrak Çeçen, “Bulgaristan’dan Türkiye’ye Gelen Düzensiz Göçmenlerin Yasallaşma Süreçlerinde Göçmen Derneklerinin Rolü,” (Master Thesis, Istanbul Commerce University, 2016), 65.
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definitions embedded in nationalist discourse while reacting to the assimilation of the Turks in Bulgaria. After the president Çavuş’s speech, slogans were shouted such as the famous that “The Grey Wolves are alive.”28 Shouting these slogans represented that mobilization of Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations on the issue of “protect enslaved kins’ identity” was supported by Nationalists (ülkücüler) and nationalist right-wing parties in Turkey. Over time, hiding all the fractions of Bulgaristanlı Turks’ identity in the cultural sphere of community and representing the Bulgaristanlı Turks community as consisting of pure Turkish and Sunni Muslim identities can be interpreted as a desire not to lose this support.
After the diplomatic tension between Bulgaria and Turkey, the Bulgarian government deported Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey in June 1989. Additionally, the Bal-Göç association published a bulletin like a lot of the similar migrant associations to inform their members about their activities with the name of Bal-Göç Bulletin. In the first issue of the Bal-Göç Bulletin, which is the publication organ of the Bal-Göç association, Sefer Cihan, the journalist, explained the struggle of Mümin Gençoğlu, the president of the association and deputy of the Motherland Party in Bursa, for the rights of Turks who were oppressed by the Bulgarian government, at the conference of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Bern, 20 April 1986. In addition to this, in the same bulletin, Cihan also mentioned the tension between Gençoğlu and Ivan Nagey who was the deputy foreign minister of Bulgaria. While Nagey rejected the presence of the assimilation policies of the Bulgarian government, Gençoğlu asserted that he could certify it with the documents, in front of the international arena. Furthermore, the Bal-Göç association whose mission was to oppose the assimilation of the Turks in Bulgaria could also be considered as one of the agents of the Turkish state, where many international organizations and foreign ministers of many countries communicated.29 On the other hand, not only migrants who found asylum in Turkey until 1989 but also other immigrants who
28 Cumhuriyet Newspaper, 22 March 1985, 6.
29 Bal-Göç News Bulletin no 1, 1987, 2-4.
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were deported by the Bulgarian government in 1989 were under the auspices of the Bal-Göç association.
In 1987, five Balkan Turks’ migrant associations were united under the name of the Federation of Balkan Turks Migration and Refugee Associations under the presidency of Bal-Göç. Since 1 November 1991, this federation started to publish periodically their media organ by the name of Turkish Culture in the Balkans. In every issue of the journal, associations’ social and cultural activities for their members, immigrants, and refugees, for both internal and external public opinion are described. Moreover, the writers of the journal also share information about how associations organize entertainments to increase solidarity among immigrants, generate income, and gain new members. Associations take ensuring immigrants’ awareness between each other in their new homeland as a mission. The magazine includes not only memories of the Turks exposed to the assimilation policies implemented by the Bulgarian government but also comprises a lot of ethnographic research about the culture and tradition of Turkish minorities living in Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Romania.
In addition to this, the federation aspires to protect the specific culture of the Balkan Turks diaspora in Turkey with these publications; also has adopted the principle of ensuring that Turks who continue to live in the Balkans maintain the awareness of Turkishness. Especially, during the early days of the 1990s, letters that were sent by Turks in Bulgaria to their relatives in Turkey before the migration occurred in 1989 are included in every issue of the magazine to illustrate the genocide that the Bulgarian government applied to the Turks in its country. In addition, the management of the federation has been declared it as a national duty for Balkan migrants to purchase this magazine, which is published quarterly.30
When the media organ of the association which is called Turkish Culture in the Balkans is examined, it is obvious that the association becomes one of the advocators of Turkish nationalism, especially during
30 Balkanlarda Türk Kültürü, “Okurlarımıza Duyuru,” Balkanlar’da Türk Kültürü 3 (August 1992), 51.
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the 1990s. In addition to that, the federation has always contacted Turkish and Bulgarian officials. For example, in the 49th issue of the journal, an interview was made with Branimir Mladenov, Bulgaria’s ambassador to Istanbul, indicating that the federation had an important position in Turkish-Bulgarian foreign relations. In addition, the federation and also other associations which represent Bulgarian Turks started to get involved in Bulgaria’s domestic politics in the 1990s.31 In this point, with the collapse of the communist regime in Bulgaria, the bilateral relations between Turkey and Bulgaria started to get better, and the Bulgarian state, which was cursed by the associations during the communist period, began to be embraced as a second homeland again. Associations’ leaders declared to have the mission of the founder of the “friendship bridge” between Turkey and Bulgaria to be their duty since the 1990s. In other words, these attitudes of associations also shed light on their pro-Turkish state structures.
The federation also aimed to inform immigrants in Turkey about the municipal elections held in Bulgaria through the journal, and a detailed list of winning Turkish mayors who are candidates for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in the provinces and towns were also described in the 49th issue of the journal.32 On the other hand, these associations interfered in the electoral processes of Bulgaria with their propagandist activities and also encouraged Turks who are dual citizens in Bulgaria and Turkey for voting to the Movements for Rights and Freedoms, which is a centrist party representing the interests of Muslims in Bulgaria such as Turks, Pomaks, and Romas. Associations aimed to inspire voters with their publications and also TV programs, as well as providing free transportation from Turkey to Bulgaria alongside setting up ballot boxes in Turkey for voters who cannot go to Bulgaria, to increase participation in elections. The common discourse of the executives of the association is that those who establish warm relations between countries are
31 Hülya Saatçi, “Türkiye-Bulgaristan İlişkileri Dostluklar Sağlam Temellerle,” Balkanlar'da Türk Kültürü 49 (October, November, December, 2003), 41-43.
32 Balkanlarda Türk Kültürü, “Bulgaristanda Belediye Seçimleri,” Balkanlarda Türk Kültürü 49 (October, November, December, 2003), 45-46.
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ordinary people, and any government or political party cannot break this.
Since the 1990s’, Ayşe Parla and Didem Danış have addressed the activities of migrant associations in their anthropological studies, especially concerning Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria and Iraq. According to Parla’s interviews with the members of the associations, some of the associations criticize the existing government because of the lack of state support for immigrants who immigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey from 1989 to onward; unsatisfied promises such as migrant houses for them, and the absence of any planning for these immigrants’ adaptation. During the 1990s, association executives started to criticize government policies about citizenship procedures of labor migrants.33
§ 3.3 Associations as “Protector of the Soydaş” Turkey’s Gate to the West: From Soydaş to Most Ancient Agents of Turkish Diaspora
When the communist regimes were collapsed in 1990 in Bulgaria, migrations from Bulgaria to Turkey were no longer caused by the problems created by ethnic and religious conflicts, but rather by the economic problems that occurred in the process of the collapse of the communist regime in Bulgaria and the establishment of a “democratic” government based on the liberal economy. The economic burden of migration from Bulgaria to Turkey after 1993 led to the reevaluation of the soydaş discourse against Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria. Turkey was no longer a home ready to embrace the Turks of Bulgaria who saw Turkey as their imagined homeland. Moreover, the assumption that there was no threat to the Turks in Bulgaria, where the communist administration has left its place to the so-called democratic administrations, would not require the associations of these immigrants to act with the discourse of “national cause”. During the 1990s, the
33 Ayşe Parla and Didem Danış, “Nafile Soydaşlık: Irak ve Bulgaristan Türkleri Örneğinde Göçmen, Dernek ve Devlet,” Toplum Ve Bilim 114 (2009), 149.
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discourse of “national cause”, instrumentalized by associations, began to lose its effect and associations began acting as intermediary associations with Bulgaristanlı Turks and the Turkish government on the issue of the citizenship process of those who came with the tourist visas and associations tried to solve the social, economic and legal problems of immigrants.34
Moreover, in 2007, Bulgaria became a member of the European Union, Bulgaristanlı Turks began to be seen as a Turkish diaspora in the ancestral lost lands of Turks in the JDP government. This situation accelerated the reconstruction of the hegemonic position of the “national cause” discourse used by the associations’ executives in the Turkish public sphere. However, Turks of Bulgaria as a transnational society, some of whom still live in Bulgaria and some who migrated to Turkey with several immigration waves until Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007, have now begun to disperse to Western European countries. After 2010, Turks living in the Balkans started to be seen as “diaspora” of Turkey, Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations started to engage in many cultural activities in order to keep the Turkish and Muslim identities alive in the Balkans, and to ensure the spread of Turkish language education to Balkan Turks. Thus, associations are focusing on developmental projects jointly Turkish state to protect the Turkish presence in the Balkans by preventing Turkish and Muslim migration from Balkan countries to Western European countries. They promote Turkish enterprisers to provide employments in Balkan countries for their Turkish and Muslim townsmen. On the other hand, associations also have a discourse to encourage Bulgaristanlı Turks living in Turkey to obtain Bulgarian citizenship, highlighting the advantages of Bulgarian citizenship as European Union citizens and also the importance of demographically powerful Turkish presence in Bulgaria.
34 Parla and Didem Danış, “Nafile Soydaşlık,”149.
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4 As an Identity Production Center: “Culture and Solidarity Associations of Bulgaristanlı Turk”
rof.
rof. Dr.Dr. AhmetAhmet UysalUysal11 whowho isis thethe headhead ofof thethe CenterCenter forfor MiddleMiddle EasternEastern StudiesStudies (ORSAM)(ORSAM)22 whichwhich isis aa thinkthink--tanktank organizationorganization knownknown asas itsits closenesscloseness toto thethe JDPJDP governmentgovernment andand isis toto makemake assessmentsassessments aboutabout thethe MiddleMiddle EastEast andand TurkeyTurkey inin nationalnational andand internationalinternational mediamedia organizationsorganizations likelike thethe BBC,BBC, AlAl--Jazeera,Jazeera, AlAl--Arabiya,Arabiya, committedcommitted aa blunderblunder aboutabout BalkanBalkan immigrantsimmigrants inin TurkeyTurkey inin aa televisiontelevision programprogram calledcalled "Teke"Teke Tek"Tek" dateddated 16th16th September,September, prespresentedented byby FatihFatih AltaylıAltaylı,, inin HabertHaberturk.rk. HeHe saidsaid thatthat “Balkan“Balkan immigrantsimmigrants areare notnot Turks,Turks, theythey havehave beenbeen Turkicized”Turkicized” andand subsequently,subsequently, prominentprominent namesnames ofof thethe BalkanBalkan TurksTurks migrantmigrant communitycommunity startedstarted toto makemake ferventfervent statementsstatements inin severalseveral socialsocial mediamedia accounts,accounts, nenewspapers,wspapers, andand TVTV programsprograms onon thethe Uysal’sUysal’s orationoration aboutabout BalkanBalkan TurksTurks whichwhich clearlyclearly touchedtouched thethe sensitivitiessensitivities ofof thisthis community.community. Besides,Besides, manymany associations,associations, federations,federations, andand eveneven confederationconfederation issuedissued severalseveral presspress releasesreleases condemningcondemning UysalUysal inin
1 Prof. Dr. Ahmet Uysal is political sociologist and focusing on the Arab world and the region and also the relations with Turkey.
2 ORSAM is an impartial and non-profit think tank institution which formed by people who interested in foreign policy and cultural studies on Middle East in 2009, Ankara.You can visit the website for detailed research: https://www.orsam.org.tr/tr/orsam/hakkimizda/
P
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associations’
associations’ oofficialfficial websiteswebsites andand socialsocial mediamedia accounts;accounts; leadersleaders ofof thethe associationsassociations launchedlaunched forthforth onon expressingexpressing theirtheir responseresponse towardtoward Uysal’sUysal’s assertionassertion onon BalkanBalkan Turks’Turks’ originorigin inin manymany newspapers.newspapers.
Undoubtedly, the most influential reaction came from associations’ executives. Uysal’s expression caused an outrage also among the executives of the association who were agents of my fieldwork. Even, as a result of the “Ahmet Uysal crisis” in the Bulgaristanlı Turks community, a lot of association presidents accepted my interview request for my ethnographic research to voice their discomfort with the marginalized attitudes of the Turkish public toward them and also for re-expressing themselves to the people of Turkey as they came from same descendants.
Notwithstanding they claim that they remained in Balkans as an integral community, passing down the ethnic identity till today, living through several generations outside of the political borders of the current Turkish Republic until their migration to Turkey brought them to the marginalized.33 The essence of their main concerns is hidden in the discourse of one of the association’s presidents precisely. Chairman of Bal-Go ç replied to Uysal’s claims and said, “They told us to go to the Balkans and we went as Turkish; then they told us to return, we still came as Turkish.”, according to So zcu , a Turkish daily newspaper.44 The Bulgaristanlı Turk migrants explain their migration stories as “return to their ethnic homeland”55 like all Balkan Turks migrants. Therefore, they do not understand why the local people of Turkey interrogate their Turkishness and still marginalize them while they were sent to Bulgaria from Anatolia as a result of the Ottoman settlement policy; they are Turks
3 The marginalization of the Bulgaristanlı Turks migrants in Turkey by the local population in Turkey is a very important issue that should be examined separately. Because of the limited frame of my research, this topic could not be examined very deeply.
4 Halil Ataş, “Balkan go çmenleri ‘Tu rk deg ildir’ demişti, tepki gecikmedi: Tarih o g renin, haddinizi bilin!,” So zcu , 18 September 2020, Date of Access: 25 March 2021.
5 The data from my prearranged interviews with associations ’executives showed that Bulgaristanlı Turk migrants used the word anavatan while describing Turkey as their ethnic motherland. On the other hand, they choose to refer to Bulgaria as vatan, in other words the lands of their ancestors.
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and Sunni Muslims; they continued to live under the lost territory of the Ottoman Empire and were excluded from the boundaries of current Turkish Republic until finally they had to leave their birth land because of different reasons such as ethno-political persecutions, discriminations, and economic problems, or in some cases direct exiles. In a nutshell, in the first days of September 2020, when I began conducting my ethnographic research on the Bulgaristanlı Turks’
migrants’ associations in Turkey, suddenly, the visibility of these associations was raised in Turkish public space.
Executives of the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations in Turkey used the formal institutional discourse and leaders of associations claimed that they speak “on behalf of” and “in the interests of” the Bulgaristanlı Turks immigrant groups. These associations’ leaders mobilize around maintaining the Bulgaristanlı Turk identity in both Turkey and Bulgaria so endeavor to be active on domestic issues of Bulgaria and foreign policy of Turkey toward Bulgaria because the leaders of associations have close relations with the political elites both in Turkey and Bulgaria. Therefore, this chapter explores the construction and representation of the communal identity of the Bulgaristanlı Turk migrants in Turkey by associations’ executives who are the elite strata of community through age and memory and traumas that they experienced during the pre-migration stage and after. As a result of my interviews, I have examined the constituents of the communal identity that coheres up these immigrants together and mobilizes them under the umbrella of associations around the Bulgaristanlı Turks identity under four subtitles as “Lamentation To Lost imperial Land: Balkans Has Been Still Our Homeland”, “Communist Regime Has Taken A Lot From Us”, “We are the essential element of Turkish Republic!,” and Fear of Statelessness: “Can We Find Another Place to Call Home?”
As circumstantiated in the former chapters, migration flows from the Balkans are not a new phenomenon on the agenda of Turkey because since the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877, a significant number of Turkish and Muslim immigrants from the Balkans were settled in Anatolia. With the resettlement practices, these migrants constituted close-knit village
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communities that enabled the preservation of their ethno-cultural identities in Turkey as immigrants came to Turkey at different immigration waves. While some of them immigrated as iskanlı (settled) immigrants, others came to Turkey without being subject to resettlement law and settled near to their immigrant relatives or countrymen as free migrants. Apparently, in addition to resettlement policies, migrant networks have also come to the fore in the settlement of newcomer immigrants. As Sema Erder emphasized, this situation shows that immigrants have their own relationship network and settled in Turkey benefit from this solidarity network as well as government support.66 Anthony Smith in his book, Myths and Memories of the Nations, where he offers an alternative to the debates about the origin of nationalism, asserted “The Ethno-Symbolic Alternative” as a theoretical critique of modernist approaches. Smith claimed that the power of nationalism under "myths, memories, traditions, and the symbols of ethnic heritages and the way in which a popular living past has been, and can be, rediscovered and reinterpreted by modern nationalist intelligentsias.” He scrutinizes main futures of this approach under divided eight subfields as “La Longu Durée”; “National past, present and future”; “The ethnic basis of nations”; “The cultural components of ethnics”; “Ethnic myths and symbols; Ethno-history”; “Routes to Nationhood”; and “The longevity of nationalism”. According to Smith, under the eight features of ethno-symbolist approach, ethnics are cultural unity which constituted as a named population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories, and one or more common elements of culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree of solidarity, at least among the elites.77 Therefore, in this chapter I shed light on the uniform and reductive imagination of communal identity by association executives who are the elites of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community in both Turkey and Bulgaria.
6 Erder, “Zorla Yerlestirmeden Yerinden Etmeye,” 160.
7 Anthony D. Smith, “Myths and Memories of the Nation” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 14.
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Moreover, Bulgaristanlı Turks are one of the ethno-cultural groups in Turkey and so understanding their elites ’imagination of communal identity, Steve Fenton’s theory on what is the main nucleus which constructed ethnic groups, will also be a useful theory. He argues that ethnic groups are not composed of people who “share a culture and have a shared ancestry”, however instead these values trigger and mobilize people to behave with the sense of community. Thereby taking his argument further, he asked if ethnic groups are a socially constructed structure, who is performing it. If there are myths that bond people under the ethnic group, who is the creator of these myths? He answers his question like that “the people themselves who belong to the group.” In addition to that, he emphasized three other perpetrators apart from group participants, in the construction of the ethnic group identity. First, ethnic identity can be built “by others for us”, not “us”. In Bulgaristanlı Turk’s case, “others” can be handled as Bulgarians in Bulgaria and local people of Turkey. Second, the social identity of the community can be established as a result of state actions, power, and administrative judgment. Therefore, in my case, I investigate how Bulgarian state’s attitude towards its minority Turkish group has shaped their Turkish and Muslim identity. In addition to this, I also mention what are the migration policies of Turkish governments toward this migrant groups and how these policies had affected in the shaping of their Turkish and Muslim identity. Finally, Fenton suggested that the construction of identity is shaped by the work of the elites, the party, or the organizational leaders within the community. In this point, migrant associations of these groups can be seen as elites of this community because generally the board of directors of the associations is made up of highly educated and wealthy people who stand out in the migrant community. Moreover, some of the leaders of associations are the former leading figures in resistance movements of Turks toward BCP’s assimilation policies and have close relations with the political elites both in Turkey and Bulgaria so the association administrators, who form the organized part of the community, can be seen as the elites of this society.
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The other significant theoretical framework of this chapter benefits from memory literature to analysis to understand how association executives invite the memory while they molded the communal identity of their ethno-cultural group in Turkey. Firstly, Birol Caymaz and Duygu Canakçı stated in their work, memory does not mean the re-enactment of events that occurred in the past. Moreover, memory with a changing structure is shaped according to the dynamics of the present rather than the past. On the other hand, while Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka assume that the construction of cultural memory is based on these three dimensions: memory, culture, and group, they also claim that the ghost of the collective experiences could potentially resurface from several millennia ago when the sensitivity towards these experiences trigger during cultural formation. They also explain that any memory can fail in preserving the past comprehensively and the only thing left from the past is “which society in each era can reconstruct within its contemporary frame of reference.” Therefore, cultural memory is resistant to change within the passing of time.88
Preserving their course of memory, they remark in their study that groups derived their bases and their consciousness of unity from the power of memory. Furthermore, they assert that memories’ formative and normative impulses trigger them to reproduce their group identity. In addition to this, Halbswachs remarks that memory is socially oriented and related with a group and emerged via communication with others who have shared a common image of their past.99 Nation involves many differing groups such as family, neighborhood, political parties, and associations. Moreover, every person is a part of various groups and through these belongings, they have numerous collective images and memories.
8 Jan Assmann, and John Czaplicka. “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique, no. 65 (1995), 130.
9 Assmann (1995 as cited in Halbswachs, 1982, p 261)
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§ 4.1 Lamentation to Lost Imperial Lands: Balkans Has Always Been and Still Our Homeland”
When I asked the chairman of the Silivri Culture and Solidarity Association of Turkish Migrants from Bulgaria where your homeland is, he asked me why Namık Kemal called his theater as Homeland or Silistra (a town in Northeastern Bulgaria). While this theater that is about a love story during the Siege of Silistra was initially staged with the name of homeland, later on it was staged with the name of Silistra because of censorship and prohibitions of Ottoman government. The striking point is that my interlocutor who was supposed to be exiled from his country of birth, Bulgaria, contemplate the name of this theater as Silistra1010, which is a part of Bulgaria, and means homeland. What is more, this reflexive attitude of him for trying to prove that Bulgaria was an inseparable part of the homeland imagination of him because it was also a part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. To be more precise, when I impelled the same question to the president of the BALKANDER, Culture and Solidarity Association of Thrace, Rumelia, and Balkan Turks, he answered that while Bulgaria is a country of birth (vatan), Turkey is a homeland (anavatan). Additionally, he continues his speech as such:
“Generally, people think that your homeland is the place where you were born. However, our homeland is always Turkey for us because we were growing up with the dreams about Turkey.”
These two association leaders have migrated from the same region of Bulgaria in 1978 to different districts of I stanbul. The first interlocutor is living in a distal and small district of I stanbul with immigrants who came to Turkey in 1989. However, the second interviewer lives in an ethnoculturally diverse populated district of I stanbul since the 2000s. Their belongings toward Bulgaria are different from each other.
10 The Siege of Silistra was a battle between Russian forces and Ottoman forces during the Crimean War, from 11 May to 23 June 1854, in the fortress of present-day Bulgaria territory Silistra. It resulted in the retreat of the Russian Army.
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However, they claim to speak on the behalf of same “Bulgaristanlı Turks” community.
There is no doubt the close relationship among migration and identity construction existed side by side. Besides scholars discuss the concept of identity that branches out into numerous notions such as personal, social, political, national, ethnic and sexual, Madan Sarup accentuated how migrants who have crossed the border, have developed displaced, fluid and hybrid identities between two borders. He concentrated on the importance of the places in the construction of migrant identity. Strikingly, Sarup interrogated the meaning of the image of home for a person in their identity representations. In addition to this, he especially focused on the concept of homecoming which he defined as it is not the usual, everyday return, it is an arrival that is significant because it is after a long absence, or an arduous or heroic journey.1111 While, H.G explains that identity of his community is formed within a context where the group is in a minority position in Bulgaria with the desire to return to Turkey (anavatan), Bulgaria also have important places in his identity representation alongside their tragic endless homecoming. As I declared before, despite them perceiving Turkey as their ancestral homeland, they also refer to the Bulgarian geography in representing their identity. As such, the current president of the Federation of Balkan Turks from Mediterranean explains the reason why he defined himself as someone who came from the Balkans although his family migrated to Anatolian lands almost a century ago as follows:
“I am a member of the fourth generation of a Balkan migrant family. My mother and father have never seen the Balkans, his parents had immigrated, and they did not go back and ever saw them. Only I have seen those lands from my generation. Although it has been so long since migration, we define ourselves as Balkan immigrants. I think that if you see the Balkans for once, you will regret why you did not come and see earlier. When the people
11 Madan Sarup, “Home and Identity,” in Traveller’s Tales Narratives of Home and Displacement, ed. George Robertson et al. (Routledge, 1994), 89-90.
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who call themselves as Balkan Turks go to the Balkans and see the land they abandoned. The love of Balkan will burn their heart.” (M. D. Adana, 59, state official)
In the comparison of speeches of my interlocutors, the remarkable inference is that while H.G who was born and grown in Bulgaria glorified to reach his anavatan (motherland) as Turkey, M.D whose family has migrated to the current borders of Turkey a hundred years ago, pines for Balkan territories. Undoubtedly the main reasons behind H.G.’s aspirations toward Turkey are living as a minority in Bulgaria and BCP’s assimilation policies applied to Muslims and Turks in Bulgaria. M.D is living in the Eastern parts of Turkey. Describing himself as Balkan Turk means highlighting his European origins. Moreover, I interpreted M. D’s desire to represent himself as Balkan Turk as related to the modernization ideology of the Turkish state which favors West and Western values. Despite these differences, both H.G and M.D claim to be mobilized for the same Bulgaristanlı Turks community.
On the other hand, even if it seems surprising, the separation from Balkan territory almost a century ago also can have a huge impact on the identity construction of the fourth-generation child of a migrant family. In relation to this case, Sarup claimed that people have roots in a particular territory and defined attachments towards these lands for migrants in the framework of “resacralization of place”.1212 It is also important to highlight the changeable nature of the place in historical and economic context to understand migrants ’attachment to several territories in the construction of their identities. More importantly, Sarup gave importance to the places that are socially constructed and taking his discussion forward, I can say that power, trauma and political conjuncture have also had important roles in the attachment of migrants to places.
In addition to this, their endless loyalty and longing bifurcated between current Bulgaria where it could be seen as the lost part of their homeland seized by Bulgarians during the last decades of the nineteenth century,
12 Sarup, “Home and Identity,” 92.
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and also current borders of Turkey. These double territorial attachments of my interviewees who return to their ethnic homeland from ancestral and natal homeland is one of the crucial reference points to understand why associations undertake activities in both Turkey and Bulgaria as they claimed that they are engaged in association activities to protect their identity.
With respect to this assumption, one of the driving forces behind the associational activities of the Bulgaristanlı migrants under the names of Balkan migrants, Bulgaristanlı migrants, Rumelia Turks or Rumelia migrants is nostalgic loyalty of this group toward these old imperial lands. Another point to consider is that while the first-generation migrants who exiled from Bulgaria as a result of the Balkan Wars had the ambition for revenge on Bulgarians and desires to take their homeland back, current associations don’t have the same goals. Instead, there is the only aim is to preserve Turkish and Muslim identity in Bulgaria.Scholars argued that traumas have a very important place in the collective memory of the communities as collective memory shaped communal identity. In this example, the formation of community identities by the association via collective memory existed in the early days of the emergence of the Bulgaristanlı Turks society within the borders of present-day Turkey.
There is a fact that collective memory is quite a powerful component in the construction and representation of identity. Although a person did not experience a phenomenon like migration, memories of their parents penetrate their imagined identity. Therefore, in the words of this interlocutor, migration memoir his grandparents became one of the most important motives for him to engage in associational activities to protect the Bulgaristanlı Turks identity. The former president of the Bal-Go ç and Federation of Balkan Turks Immigrant and Refugee Associations, who was not personally migrated from Bulgaria but also grew up only by listening to his family’s migration story, became sensitive to problems of the Balkans and Balkan Turks. His shared memories with newcomers the Bulgaristanlı Turks migrants triggered him to engage in associational activities. He describes this situation as follows:
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“While my family migrated from Bulgaria in 1951 and I was born in Bursa, I grew up with the vivid memory of migration. When immigration from Bulgaria to Turkey occurred in 1989, I was a senior research assistant at the department of emergency medicine faculty at that time. Therefore, I have treated a lot of migrant patients every day and I closely witnessed the difficulties of being immigrants. Even before I was a member of the association, I was like doctor of Bal-Go ç in the eyes of immigrants. Then I participated in Bal-Go ç and became its president during these 10 years.” (E. B., Bursa, Prof. Doctor, 60)
While answering a different question I asked in another part of our interlocution, he underlined that his commitment to the Balkans was related to the trauma of migration, again with these words:
“I am the son of a Bulgaristanlı migrant family. We are Anatolian Turkmen who were settled in Bulgaria. I am not speaking as a regionalist. We don’t do that. It is a feature of us as Balkan migrants. However, I know I belong to my country or culture. When I was a child, I was exposed to all the suffering of every migration wave. During the 1960s and 1970s, my relatives migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey. My family used every means available to help them. My grandparents migrated during the 1950s and I was growing up with them and tearful memories of them. I had not seen the places where they migrated, but I grew up with recollection about these lands.” (E. B., Bursa, Prof. Doctor, 60)
Apart from the longing for the missing homeland, migration traumas are so important for the directors of the association to initiate the activities of the association which stand for the identity struggle of this immigrant group. Even, I. T. who does not share any territorial attachment with these migrants but thinks himself connected to those immigrants through a racial bond despite all the cultural differences, was triggered to participate in the activities of the association because of the sensitivity
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towards immigrant difficulties. On the other hand, H.K, who is the president of the Aegean Balkan Turks Federation, explained the main reason why the federation he presided aims for protecting the presence of Turkish and Muslim identity in Bulgaria as follows:
“In the 1500’s, nearly 1 million 850 thousands Turks lived in Bulgaria and there were only about 1.5 million Bulgarians. Moreover, Ottoman Empire forgot to deal with Bulgaria while trying to consolidate its power in Bosnia and Montenegro. Although only 1.5 million Bulgarians lived in the current Bulgarian territory, a Bulgarian nation-state was still established in this land.” (H.K. I zmir, 71, retired engineer)
According to him, because of the mismanagement of the Ottoman Empire, Bulgarians were able to establish a nation-state in the Bulgarian lands whereas the number of Turkish populations was much higher than Bulgarians in terms of demographic sense. In addition to this, another former chairman of the Bal-Go ç and federation expressed the importance of the Bulgaria for them like that:
“Our aim is not related to an idea of racism we have historical ties with Bulgaria and try to protect these ties. I have always emphasized the significance of this while I spoke to the relevant institutions as a president of Bal-Go ç. Ankara should be made more aware of the importance of this and more active especially for the restoration and preservation of Ottoman artifacts in Bulgaria. Restoration of the Tombul Mosque which is the largest mosque in the Balkan Peninsula and located in Shumen, has been proceeding over the years by Bulgarian state. For example, The Iron Church was restored for $18 million by Turkey. I am not saying why Turkey restored the Bulgarian church. It is a great thing to do. I am asking why Bulgarian government does not display the same sensitivity to mosques in Bulgaria. Muslims’ foundation properties which were taken during the communist
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period, are still not given back by Bulgarian governments. We are constantly saying this. Association did inventory work for this issue, and we informed the relevant institutions in Turkey. But unfortunately, Turkish foreign policy toward the Balkans tend to be populist. We do not want that. Our aim is to take care of our people who live in those lands.” (Y.O ., Bursa, 61, Doctor and Deputy of RPP)
Claiming that it is a duty of loyalty to work under the umbrella of the association to protect the Turkish presence in the Balkans, B.Ç who was the president of the Bal-Tu rk association in Kocaeli, addressed the other federation and association executives as follows:
“I sacrificed both my academic career and my bureaucratic identity for my cause. I owe a duty of loyalty to Murat Hu davendigar who was the third sultan of the Ottoman Empire for conquering Edirne and expanding the borders of the Ottoman Empire toward the Balkans. He will ask me someday in the future. What did you do for my grandchildren who remains in the Balkans?” (B.Ç. Kocaeli, 52, academician, state official)
He underlined his self scarifies for protecting Turkish and Muslim identities in Bulgaria. He was migrated from Bulgaria to Turkey in his childhood period during the 1970s. In a word, he cannot remember his personal experience on assimilation, but he used the common discourse about the assimilation traumas of Bulgaristanlı Turks. On the other hand, in relation with B.Ç.’s historical engagements with these lands, retired colonel S.Ç. defined his ambitious about getting into act in associations with these words:
“Among the reasons that motivate me to engage in associational activities is my reaction to the destruction of Balkan Turks from their 500-year-old homeland through exile, genocide, and the seizure of their lands. I'm not saying let’s go and get the lands
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back. Solely, let’s get into the act for the people who stay there to freely maintain their identity and personality. I have no irredentist claims.” (S.Ç. Istanbul, 68, retired colonel)
As a consequence, K.A, who is the chairman of the Federation of the Rumelia and the Balkan Associations in Istanbul, embodied all the matters discussed above with the following words:
“I think that escaping from duty under the roof of the association, especially migrant associations of Rumelia, is a betrayal towards persons’ own roots.” (K. A. Istanbul, 63, businessman)
To summarize, even though it has been a century, the loss of lands within the current Bulgarian borders was still perceived as a lost part of the homeland, and it is still a powerful reference point in the discourse of the association managers to legitimize their activities. In addition to this, while former Ottoman territories were divided into several states which take legitimacy from ethnic and national identities, Bulgaristanlı Turks attribute Ottoman heritage as a core element while envisioning their cultural identity.
Disengagement of the Ottoman Empire in Balkan lands and the foundation of various nation-states above this territory are still seen as traumas for the Muslim Turks who had adopted the Balkan lands as their homeland for many years. On the other hand, using this rhetoric is functional in the public sphere of Turkish state. Reflections of longing toward a lost homeland and the desire for maintaining the Turkish presence in Bulgaria and all other Balkan countries manifest themselves in discourses of the associations’ executives and the activities of the associations like in Turkish governments’ foreign policies toward Balkan territory.
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§ 4.2. “Communist Regime Has Taken a Lot from Us”
Jan Spurk defines cultural communities with a reference to Sartre's words like that: The community is a social form built among people ''us" who share the same values defending against other people "others'' who do not have the same cultural background. Furthermore, he argued in his article, imaginations toward self, us and others have a central role in the construction of cultural identities. Linguistic, religious, ethical, and ethnic similarities in worldviews of the persons who constructed the community are considered as the basis of shared culture.1313 On the other hand, Hakan Yu cel approached identity as flexible, changeable, and a relational concept that defines itself through dialectical relationships with the other. Identity, which is affected by personal and collective traumas is always reconstructed and maintained with resistance and repetition. Identity also exists by adapting the culture of which identity is the bearer to the new time and place or by resisting against these time and space.1414 In addition to that one of the important elements in the construction of cultural identity is undoubtedly collective memory and constituted in relational with others.1515
Collective memory is undoubtedly an integral part of the construction of identity and has an important impact on experiencing of the present. While Connerton emphasized “the difficulty of extracting our past from our present”, he also added that the envisioning of the past in social memory is a tool of legitimation of present-day social order of any community.1616 Undoubtedly, there is more than one “other” that constitutes the communal identity of the Bulgaristanlı Turk migrants. However, in this section, how the implemented policies of the BCP on the Turkish population influenced their engagement in association activities
13 Jan Spurk, “Go çmenlerin Karşısında: O nyargıların Gu cu ve Muhtemel Gelecekler,” in Aidiyet, Go çmen Ve Toplumsal Çeşitlilik , ed. Mustafa Poyraz (Ankara: Utopia Press, 2020), 26-27.
14 Hakan Yu cel, “Rum Olmak, Rum Kalmak,” in Rum Olmak Rum Kalmak (I stanbul: Istos, 2016), 7.
15 Jan Assmann, and John Czaplicka. "Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” 127.
16 Paul Connerton, “How Societies Remember,”(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007), 3.
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to protect their Turkish and Muslim identity is discussed in the light of above-mentioned theoretical frameworks.
Before I started my ethnographic research, I used to think that the “others" of this immigrant group were “Bulgarians”. Reason behind my prediction is that they are always uncomfortable when people called them “Bulgarian Turks” and generally associations’ spokesmen make press releases to correct this misuse. The observation I obtained from my interviews showed that these people do not have any hostility towards the Bulgarians anymore or the Bulgarian culture itself; most of them don’t have not any hesitation to speak Bulgarian and they even declare that especially the association executives have to speak the Bulgarian language since they operate in both countries. Although racial hate and revenge speech against Bulgarians were dominant in publications of the association in the atmosphere of the Balkan Wars, current association executives’ aggression is not directed against the Bulgarians. Their unrelieved anger is against the communist regime itself in the discourses of the association administrators I interviewed. For instance, the directors of associations put Bulgaria in their homeland imaginations, and they do not want to Bulgaria take back with irredentist ideas. Instead, even if they have minority status, they see Bulgaria as another country in which they become citizens.
The communist regime pledged to ensure the Turkish population would constitutes their Turkish national identity by educational and cultural conditions under the umbrella of a united socialist nation. However, the harsh campaign of the BCP to erase Turks ’ethnic and cultural identities between 1984 and 1989 disappointed and the hope of Turks to live as equal citizens with Bulgarians. Therefore, the Revival Process which was undertaken by the BCP to erase Turkish and Muslim identity of Turkish population in Bulgaria created opposite effects on the identity of Turkish and Muslim population. The experience of suppression of their identity stimulated the nerve endings of this group to strengthen their hostility toward the communist regime. Therefore, their group solidarity and tendency to protect their ethnic identities were constructed as insurgent attitudes toward state violence of the Bulgarian communist regime. For
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instance, when I asked one of the executives of associations how the process of becoming a member of association took place, he began to narrate with this memory:
“In the late 1960s, on the first day of high school, my teacher asked me what my name is. Then I said my Turkish name. Suddenly, he responded furiously and said that there is no such name in Bulgaria. I repeated my Turkish name again. He said that българия няма турци ви ести Български мохамедани (There are not any Turks in Bulgaria, you are Bulgarian Muslims) No, I am Turk, I said. My struggle to protect my identity started in this class. The whole class looked at me at that moment, I can never forget this memory. Later when I became the president of the association, I went to Bulgaria and found them all and gathered them together.” (Y.Ö., Bursa, 60, doctor and deputy of the RPP)
It is obvious that the practices of the communist regime in their memories prompted them to underline their Turkish identity, but Bulgarians are not the “other” of their imagined Turkish identity. Then he continues his words as follows:
“Communism hurt not only Turks but also Bulgarians themselves. For example, my Bulgarian friends said that you are so lucky because you have Turkey, which is the country to migrate. We have not had a country to flee from.” (Y.O ., Bursa, 61, Doctor and Deputy of the RPP)
Admittedly, the assimilation policy launched from 1984 to 1989 and the exodus of Turks to Turkey was also a major crisis for the earlier immigrants settled in Turkey from Bulgaria. Although they have transformed their field of activity with the effect of the changing conjuncture in both Turkey and Bulgaria, they continue to shout their Turkish identity defensively. Since the 1990s, the number of solidarity associations established by the Bulgaristanlı Turks in the cities, districts, and even neighborhoods where they settled, is quite a high amount
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compared to the associations established by other Turkish and Muslim immigrants from the Balkans. For example, in the interview with the founding president of the Gu neşli Balkan Turks Culture and Solidarity Association, he referred to the memories of the communist past while explaining the driving force behind these migrants partake in associational activities. He said that:
“The Bulgaristanlı Turks came from the country where the communist regime suppressed people the most. When you enter a community, you can realize that the most silent and shyest one is the Bulgaristanlı Turks. We could not realize that the communist regime took a lot of things from us. Communism allowed us to live only in villages. We could not buy any property in cities because the communist government did not allow us to buy a house in the city without living there for 20-25 years and because of Turkish origin, living in a city was just a dream. The system there said to the Turks, “you will live only in the village, you will not be a ruler, you will only be ruled” (O .S. Istanbul, 54, businessman).
Traumas of communism are quite vivid in the identity formation of association leaders instead of common immigrants. Turks of Bulgaria migrated to Turkey in different time period so their experiences with the Communism are not similar to each other. On the other hand, indeed, they felt the suppression of the communist regime in different senses. For instance, the violence of the communist regime was more obvious in Kardzhali instead of in northeastern parts of Bulgaria. In addition to this, educated people faced more vigorous practices of assimilation instead of farmers. Their experiences are different from each other’s, but the Bulgaristanlı Turk identity represented in the public sphere intensely contains the traumas of the communist regime. Therefore even, one of my interviewees stated that the touching memories of communism were effective in his engaging in associational activities and also in shaping his personal political tendency as follows:
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“When people ask me why you became an idealist (u lku cu ), I always give the same answer: For example, my friend Tug rul had a reason to be an idealist because his father is Alparslan Tu rkeş, however, there is no such cause for me to be an idealist. The reason behind this might be connected with my upbringing: hearing what the communist regime was doing to these people, and it contributed to my anti-communist worldview. Frankly, my political view has been formed as a result of these sensitivities since my university years. I wish it did not. (L.T., Istanbul, 62, businessman, and deputy of the Good Party)
While communism traumas were united immigrants under the common identity imagination, sometimes communism was seen as the main guilty behind the lack of solidarity among this group. For example, the president of the Izmir Bal-Go ç Association complained about the disunity of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community with referring to the impacts of the Communist regime on the people as follows:
“I said to O mer Kılıç who was one of the leading figures of the Turkish resistance in Bulgaria during the assimilation process, that you sacrificed yourself for the Bulgaristanlı Turks, but did not receive any recompense for yours works. He said that Zhivkov has injected something into your genes that made you jealous so you could not be united as a community.” (A.N., I zmir, 45, state officer)
The communist regime’s implications and also its descendants are seen as the devil who caused all suffering in the Bulgaristanlı Turks community. For example, when the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which represented Turks in Bulgaria, supported the joint candidate with the Communist party in the Bulgarian presidential elections during the mid-2010s, the head of the BULTÜRK association expressed their discomfort as follows:
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“Other associations still support the Bulgarian candidate of the Communist Party in the election. Bekir Bozdag , the minister of Foreign Turks Department at the time, told me that “my president, I understand what you said, the Bulgarians killed us, tried to assimilate us but 90 percent of the associations still support the Communist Bulgarian candidate in the elections”. Look, if the candidate was a democrat, it would be fine again, but we worked for a communist candidate. Can you understand what that means?” (R.U., Istanbul, writer, 55)
Overall, The BCP’s assimilation policies against Turkish minority in Bulgaria caused some reflexive attitudes from associations’ executives to ward communist regime and everything about communist ideology. Resentment toward Communism as a regime or ideology became a leading phenomenon in especially associations’ leaders’ collective identity shaping process. Moreover, the communist regime, which can be considered as the “others of the Bulgaristanlı Turks” element in this group’s imagination of identity, sometimes was seen as the reason behind disintegration of the group solidarity, sometimes the core reason behind the backwardness of the Bulgaristanlı Turks. In fact, the trauma of communism is still in the mind of these migrants, which even has such a great influence in the political choices of individuals, and undoubtedly has an important place in the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ identity represented by the associations that are the public face of this group.
§ 4.3 “We are the essential element of the Turkish Republic!”
In the last days of the December 2020, the Federation of Balkan Turks Migration and Refugee Associations which is constructed by unification of five associations under the presidency of Bal-Go ç, gave a long and reflective statement against the report of the Metropoll Strategic and
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Social Studies Center (MSSSC)1717 titled as “Pulse of Turkey- November 2020”.1818 The problem behind this press statement is that this institution has included a separate category as “Balkan Immigrant” in the classification of “Distribution According to Ethnic Origins” in this report. With this statement, the federation aimed to remind the Turkish public that; “being a migrant does not mean belonging to another ethnic identity. Even, as it can be seen in the example of forced migration, sometimes ethnic identity is the reason for migration.” Then this verdict highlights that “the group referred as a Balkan immigrant or muhajir is Yo ru k (nomad) Turks who were settled in Rumelia from Anatolia within the scope of the settlement policy to Turkify and Islamize the conquered lands, after the Ottoman conquest in the Balkans during the 14th and 15th century.”
The Federation also stated that the Rumelia or Balkan lands are still an integral part of their homeland imagination even though various nation states were established on these remnants of the Ottoman Empire on which with following words: “When our homeland in Rumelia was lost with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we had to migrate to Anatolia due to the atrocities they suffered since the process of construction of nation-states in the Balkans during the late 19th century and onward.” Another point in their statement is that, the members of the federation insisted that their Turkishness is not assimilated by Bulgarian culture in any way and they also emphasized that their ethnic race, religion and mother tongue have been preserved. “Therefore, Turks migrated from the Balkans at the end of the 19th century and especially in the 20th century”.
As seen above, press statement highlighted to be pure Turkish original, to have strong symbolic tie with Turkey, which is considered as the
17 Metropoll Research Center is a dynamic and innovative organization which conducts strategic public opinion surveys prepared by its experts in line with the fields and information priorities determined by its customers.
18 The Pulse of Turkey is a strategic and social analysis report prepared every month according to important developments on the agenda by MSSSC. Reports concern the political and economic situation of Turkey, current issues in Turkey's agenda, Economy-Consumer Confidence Index and the course of Turkey.
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homeland. The situation of dispersing and living in Balkan was explained as the settlement policy of the Ottoman Empire as a result of the conquest of the region at the end of the 14th century and onward. Moreover, the statement continued with expression of their sadness and frustration. Because despite these immigrants considering themselves as suitable to idealized citizenship definition in Turkey, as they share common ethnic and religious identities, they believe they are still marginalized. Therefore, they tended to take their Turkishness legacy from historical vantage points in the following claims: “All these statements and classifications are disrespectful to the Balkan Turks, who held the Balkans as their homeland to become the cornerstones of the Turkish Empire in the region for more than 500 years. They also founded the first Turkish Republic in 1913 and advocator of Islam and Turkishness.
In addition to that, as Jan Spurk argued the common collective memory of any cultural group contains mythical and highly emotional common blood images and myths about the common past, Bulgaristanlı Turks similarly have also referred to historical myths to represent their collective identity.1919 The statement continued with these words: “There are these Turks such as Şuayip Aziz2020 who founded the Yu cel Organization in Yugoslavia, baby Turkan2121 who fell a martyr when she was 20 months old, Osman Kılıç2222 who is a leading figure of the protection
19 Spurk, “Go çmenlerin Karşısında,” 27.
20 Şuayip Azis who was the founder leader of the Yu cel organization which was emerged in socialist Yugoslavia to protect Turkish and Muslim identity of Turkish minority. He was executed by socialist Yugoslavia court without elaborative judgment. Therefore, he is quite important hero for the Balkan Turks because of his resistance to protect his communities Turkish and Muslim identity in Yugoslavia.
21 Tu rkan Feyzullah was an 18-month-old baby who was killed in her mother's arms during the assimilation attempt in 1984 and she became a symbol of Bulgaristanlı Turks' resistance in Bulgaria toward the Communist regime's harsh forceful assimilation policies toward their ethnic and religious identity of Turkish minority.
22 Osman Kılıç, a writer and diplomat, was one of the leading figures of Bulgaristanlı Turks to resist Bulgarian government for protection of his Turkish and Muslim identity. Kılıç born in 1920, became a prominent opinion leader of Turkish minority in Bulgaria during 1940s and he was accused as espionage and got the death penalty in 1948. Then after almost four years, his death penalty was turned life imprisonment as a result of
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of Turkish identity in Bulgaria and Sadık Ahmet2323 who called out his Turkishness toward Greek suppressors. We are curiously questioning how this approach categorizes our Great Leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal ATATU RK, our former President Celal Bayar, and our Poet of Turkish National Anthem, Mehmet Akif Ersoy ?2424 2525
A lot of Balkan immigrants ’associations, specific to representing the Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey, often have to make such public statements because of the discriminatory attitudes and discourses of "local people” in Turkey. In addition to this, the most striking point is that they persistently underline that they are originally Turkish and try to prove it by making references to shared past in press releases. For instance, a third-generation child of the former migrants explains his tendency with these words:
“Identity politics should not be done in Turkey. This would be a betrayal to Turkey because Turkey was established above the Ottoman heritage which embraces different ethnicities, religions, and sects. If you focus on the identity differences, you will move as a separatist. You will say that by claiming Rumelianism, you would represent a separatist attitude, too. No, while we have a Rumelian claim, we always highlight that we are the cement of the Turkish Republic.” (S.Ç. Istanbul, 68, retired colonel)
Turkey's initiatives. In 1963, he came to Turkey as a result of an agreement between Turkey and Bulgaria. He died on 17 June 2021 in Bursa.
23 Sadık Ahmet was a Turkish origin politician and founder of the Party of Friendship, Equality and Peace, in Greece. He became the national hero of the Turks of Western Trace. He was the defender of the Turkish minority in Greece and because of his defense, he was exiled.
24 The reason for these references is that Mustafa Kemal, Celal Bayar and Mehmet Akif Ersoy who are the important national heroes for Turkey, originated from Balkan lands. Association executives referred to these national heroes to legalize their Turkishness while they came from aside from current borders of Turkey.
25 To see press release in the website of the federation: http://www.bgf.org.tr/2020/22122020/haber.html
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In addition to this, referring to the origins of the founders of Turkish Republic like Atatu rk is a crucial and common tendency of association leaders to represent their belonging to Turkey as essential elements of Turkey. For instance, one of the association leaders used these words to express their discomfort toward exclusionary attitudes they are subjected to in Turkey as such:
“There are a lot of people who want to see us as foreign in the Turkish republic. Look, I especially said that "people who want.” These people are malicious and they do it deliberately. First of all, we are not a foreign element of this society. We are the main elements of the Turkish Republic. Ataturk said something like this: I am very lucky because I am a Turkmen person who lived in Rumelia.” (E. B., Bursa, Prof. Doctor, 60)
§ 4.4 Fear of Statelessness: “Can We Find Another Place to Call Home?”
“We did not accept the replacement of our Turkish names with Bulgarian ones. Naim Su leymanog lu also refused to be called as Naum Shalamanov. Please remember these and do not call us “Bulgarians”. Yeah, it might sound strange to you, however, it is much more important for us to be a “Turk” with the innermost patriotism.”2626
When I began to read these words of the Bulgaristanlı migrant woman who is an academician at Bog aziçi University, in a memoir written by one of the most important association executives in Edirne, while collecting people’s reminiscence during the revival process in Bulgaria, the first
26 Nesrin O zo ren, “Naim Su leymanog lu, Naum Shalamanov Olmayı Kabul Etmedi,” in Zulmu Yaşayanlar Anlatıyor, ed. Zu lkef Yeşilbahçe (Denizli: Boy Press, 2020), 57.
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thing that came to my mind is to question which country her patriotism was against. Whether to her symbolic homeland, Turkey, where she returns from the historical diaspora, or to her ancestral land, Bulgaria, where she struggled to exist as a Turkish minority. This confusion prompts me to ask my interviewees where their homeland is while doing my ethnographic research. Behind this question, I realized that all of the interviewers fear losing their last country where they are not seen as ethnic minority.
For instance, in the last days of August 2020, The BULTU RK (Turks of Bulgaria) Association has made a consultation meeting to decide the political party which they will vote for as an association in the parliamentary elections that will take place in April 2021 in Bulgaria. While one of the association board members expressed her opinion and choice with her reasons, she suddenly said that:
"I am an academic and in every presentation I attend, I express the following: If we again try to immigrate again one day, which country will embrace us?”(N.H. academics, Istanbul, in her early 60s)
Furthermore, her speech sounds familiar with the public declarations of association executives. Therefore, I had to question whether my existence as a participant-observer in that meeting room has pushed the association managers to speak in a more formal discourse. I also scrutinize whether they tried to show their loyalty toward Turkish state to me. While I still think my argument is somewhat true, I realized that they really fear being completely homeless in their imagined homeland. In addition to this, in September 2020, I met with the former president of the Gu neşli Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks at the local of association. While we were drinking our traditional Bulgarian coffee, he felt the need to represent their loyalty toward Turkish state to me. He explained as follows:
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“We know very well what it means to be stateless and lacking the flag which living under it. Turkey has always embraced Bulgaristanlı Turks immigrants as her own child. In addition, Turkey always saw people (Turks) in Bulgaria as her own people. It always has been because the state policy of Turkish Republic toward Bulgaria and that does not change.” (O .S, I stanbul, 54, businessman).
Longing in the imagined homeland triggered them to emphasize their loyalty to Turkey while they spoke about their memories of Bulgaria. In addition to this, whenever I direct a question about what kind of activities associations aim to engage in Bulgaria for their townsmen, association leaders answer my question in a similar manner with S.Ç, who is one of the important leaders of the RUBAFED (Federation of Rumelia and Balkan Associations). In our three hours meeting, he continuously expressed these words:
“ In the Balkan peninsula, we were pushed, became second-class citizens, and forced to immigrate because of our ethnic and religious identities. We are people who know what losing a homeland means. We know very well what motherland and Turkish are. Our pain is still fresh.” (S.Ç. I stanbul, 61, retired colonel and journalist)
I argue that these people saw Turkey and Turkish governments as their savior so especially association leaders use this rhetoric as representing the public face of their community to Turkish state and Turkish public opinion. Moreover, fear of statelessness is interlocked with desire to be seen as real elements of Turkey as they declared many times. I suppose that the words of the president of the federation located in Bursa shed light on my argument in the following:
“Ultimately, I cannot hide myself personally either. I am a Turkish nationalist. My nationalist thoughts rose on the principle of
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patriotism and are based on the best at doing its job. While I was in Bulgaria, I was a soydaş (racial kind) for Turkish population. However, when I came to Turkey, suddenly I became a migrant. It is very natural that a minority living abroad who finally returns to their homeland becomes a Turkish nationalist after exposure severe assimilation policies. This is related to patriotism. There is no doubt that Turkey has opened its doors to us as a homeland. For God’s Sake! We reunited with our motherland, Turkey, with the feeling of longing. We would be the first group to hold the enemies’ wrists if someone tries to raise their hands to Turkey. We lost a homeland; we know very well what losing a homeland means. It’s normal that we behave reflexively on the subject of Turkey. We have nowhere to go, this is our last resort. The relationship between Turkey and the Balkans are as follows: Balkans get sick if Turkey sneezes.” (K.O , Bursa, 35, academic)
Their patriotism and readiness to sacrifice themselves as continuation of Turkish state in discourses of the association executives represent their desire to belong to Turkey and serve as justification of their political mobilization in Turkey and Bulgaria. In the second consultation meeting on Bulgarian elections in April 2021, which I was invited to as part of participant observers, one of the high positioned broad members of the association made a correlation between voting in elections and defense of the motherland. Then he finished his words to represent his loyalty to Turkey, explaining his anecdote with his assistant like that:
“I am a doctor, and a Bulgaristanlı girl is working with me at the hospital as my assistant. She said to me that professor, if Turkey goes to war in Syria, I will flee to Europe because I have dual citizenship. Then I told her that if I were the state officials, I would get back all the positions and scholarships I gave you because you are a traitor. Why did we come from Bulgaria to Turkey? Because Turkey is our homeland. Is there any other homeland from
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Turkey for us? After a while, she realized that I was right and regretted her words.” (N.B.. I stanbul. 50 years old and a doctor)
Apparently, the executives of the associations produce monolithic pure Turkish identity on the behalf of Bulgaristanlı Turks. Association leaders who undertake the task of representing and protecting this communal identity have been produced in the space of the Turkish state, not in the space of immigrant social life. Therefore, association leaders do not want to reflect frictions and ambivalent features in their communal identities. In the Turkish public space, it is not important from where in Bulgaria they migrated to Turkey as in their cultural lives. In the last instance, they are just people from Bulgaria in the eyes of Turkish state and Turkish public opinion. However, they they contain all the regional differences within them.
For instance, even scholars as Jeanne Hersant and Alexandre Toumarkine made mistaken interpretations because they handled Bulgaristanlı Turks like people who came from the same village. However, my insider position within the community during my research helped me not to make the same mistake with them during the analysis of Bal-Go ç presidents’ speech in a meeting of association. They emphasized that the Bal-Go ç’s president at the time declared that Bal-Go ç has a position against regionalism and hemşehrilik which are types of nationalism after the several days of the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdog an’s speech about regionalism in Balıkesir on 28th June 2003.2727 They found a correlation in the discourses of association leader and the prime minister Erdog an. However, Bal-Go ç’s chairman criticized the establishment of new associations in which migrants were divided according to their villages. According to him, representing regional differences within the Bulgaristanlı Turks community in the Turkish public sphere will damage their demographically strong position in the eyes of the Turkish state and Turkish public opinion.
27 Jeanne Hersant and Alexandre Toumarkine, “Hometown Organisations in Turkey: An Overview,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, no. 2 (2005), 10.
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On the other hand, the discourse of the association executives on the communal identity of Bulgaristanlı Turks and the official discourse of Turkish authorities on the acceptable Turkish citizens resemble each other. Producing an identity that conforms to the definition of an acceptable citizen drawn by citizenship and immigration policies of the Turkish state is not a conscious tendency of association executives. There is no doubt that they share with me what they believe sincerely. However, Turks generally have lived in two regions as Northeastern Bulgaria (Razgrad, Shumen, Varna, Silistra) and Southeastern Bulgaria (Kardzhali, Burgas) and after the immigration, they were settled in different cities of Turkey.2828 Therefore, the existence of the monolithic “Bulgaristanlı Turks” identity is an illusion and shaped with political ideologies. The ambivalence between the self-identification of the Bulgaristanlı Turks and association executives who speak behalf of the community in public sphere ushered me to analyze why association executives need to reproduce communal identity and where they use this identity discourse. In the following chapter, I will try to shed light on the activities of the associations using the communal identity of Bulgaristanlı Turks which they reproduced and represented in national and international public opinion.
28 Raymond Detrez, Pieter Plas, and Magdalena Elchinova, “Alien by Default: The Identity of the Turks of Bulgaria at Home and in Immigration,” in Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence vs. Divergence (Bruxelles: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006), 90.

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5 “Associations Are the Kindergarten of Politics”1
espite
espite thethe restrictedrestricted mobilizatiomobilizationn inin thethe CovidCovid--1919 pandemic,pandemic, thesethese associations’associations’ executivesexecutives fromfrom severalseveral citiescities ofof TurkeyTurkey camecame togethertogether atat thethe consultationconsultation meetingmeeting organizedorganized byby thethe ConfederationConfederation ofof BalkanBalkan andand RumeliRumeli MigrantsMigrants (CBRM)(CBRM) onon 1010 SeptemberSeptember 2020,2020, Edirne.Edirne.22 TheThe mainmain themetheme ofof thisthis ururgentgent meetingmeeting isis thethe forthcomingforthcoming generalgeneral electionselections inin Bulgaria,Bulgaria, AprilApril 2021.2021. FirstFirst ofof all,all, thethe confederation’sconfederation’s presidentpresident explainedexplained howhow BulgaristanlıBulgaristanlı TurksTurks whowho havehave bothboth BulgarianBulgarian andand TurkishTurkish citizenshipcitizenship andand havehave thethe rightright toto votevote inin BulgarianBulgarian elections,elections, woulwouldd votevote inin TurkeyTurkey inin thethe restrictedrestricted conditionsconditions ofof thethe CovidCovid--1919 epidemic.epidemic. However,However, apartapart fromfrom discussionsdiscussions aboutabout howhow toto managemanage thethe electionelection processprocess underunder extraordinaryextraordinary conditionsconditions emergedemerged byby thethe pandemic,pandemic, thethe realreal importantimportant
1 This quote is from the speech of the chairman in 2003 during the opening statement of the BULTURK association. To read whole text of speech: https://www.turansam.org/makale.php?id=2982
2 The Confederation called the all associations and federations of Balkan and Rumelia Turks instead of specifically invited the associations and federations of Bulgaristanlı Turks. However, some of them who are immigrants from other Balkan countries, stated that they preferred not to attend the meeting held by the CBRM in Edirne because the general theme of the meeting was not related to them. Moreover, they complained that the confederation intensively focused on the Bulgarian elections and political participation of Turks and Muslims in Bulgaria.
D
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subject
subject holdhold inin thisthis closedclosed sessionsession meetingmeeting waswas thethe decrementaldecremental ofof thethe TurkishTurkish populationpopulation inin BulgariaBulgaria asas aa resultresult ofof thethe intenseintense migrationmigration ofof TurksTurks toto WesternWestern EuropeanEuropean countriescountries afterafter thethe membershipmembership ofof BulgariaBulgaria inin thethe EU.EU. AssociationsAssociations andand federations’federations’ presidentspresidents areare concernedconcerned thatthat TurkishTurkish anandd MuslimMuslim minorities’minorities’ stakeholder’stakeholder’ positionspositions inin BulgarianBulgarian politicspolitics asas consequencesconsequences ofof thethe populationpopulation decreasedecrease inin thethe future.future. PPresidentsresidents ofof variousvarious federationsfederations andand associationsassociations attendingattending thethe meetingmeeting respectivelyrespectively tooktook thethe floorfloor andand eacheach ofof themthem invitedinvited othersothers toto actact shouldershoulder toto shouldershoulder toto protectprotect theirtheir ethnoethno--culturalcultural identitiesidentities inin bothboth TurkeyTurkey andand Bulgaria.Bulgaria. TheirTheir invitationinvitation toto actact inin solidaritysolidarity withwith eacheach otherother meansmeans undoubtedlyundoubtedly toto triggertrigger theirtheir communitycommunity toto votevote thethe samesame politicalpolitical partyparty inin thethe BulgarianBulgarian electielections.ons.
In this invitation, they preferred to speak the behalf of a single pure Turkish and Sunni Muslim Bulgaristanlı Turks in this meeting as every space of Turkey’s public sphere. Association executives are eager to highlight ethnocultural and historical ties with the Turkish Republic as the heir of the Ottoman Empire, claiming to share the same ethnic and religious roots with the majority of Turkey. In doing so, they generally speak on the behalf of monolithic Bulgaristanlı Turks, overlooking immigrants’ birth of origins, their migration dates, their sects, and whether they migrated from the villages or the cities of Bulgaria.
Indeed, striking point is that it is so important from which part of Bulgaria they migrated to Turkey while establishing relationships in daily life. The tension between immigrants from Eastern parts of Bulgaria and Western parts of Bulgaria penetrates daily jargons of immigrants. For instance, Turkish migrants from Shumen, the northeast of Bulgaria, take an aversion from Turkish immigrants from Kardzhali, the southeast of Bulgaria. They represent their discomfort with such proverbs like that “Don't take even a puppy from Kardzhali” or they describe them as “mountaineer”.33 However, in the discursive levels of associations’
3 The reason behind this definition is that Kardzhali is a city established in the mountainous region of Bulgaria. Moreover, “Kırcalı” means people from Kardzhali and in the Ottoman archival documents shown that Kırcalı meant that banditry or mountaineer. For more
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executives, not only their ambivalent identities which contain values particular to both Turkey and Bulgaria but also the above-mentioned differences within the immigrants are disappeared. After several months of fieldwork, I interpret this tendency of association leaders as their desire to show “acting in solidarity as Bulgaristanlı migrants”, "being demographically strongest group in Turkey”, "their acceptable situation according to the citizenship policies of Turkish state" in the public sphere when they encounter the face of the state. In addition to this, fear of statelessness caused by systemic waves of immigration that took place approximately ten years apart and traumas originated from surveillance of communist regime are vivid while mobilizing under the Culture and Solidarity associations’ labels in Turkish civil society.
In this meeting that I could attend as a participant-observer after several supplies to association executives and also confederation president himself, I had the chance to interview with several federation presidents and association executives who came from various cities of Turkey to attend this meeting. In their speeches and also in our semi-structured interviews, these leaders highlighted importance of mobilization and serving the ethno-cultural identities of Balkan Turks. Moreover, the importance of promoting participation of immigrants in both Turkish and Bulgarian political arenas are emphasized to preserve their cultural identity and survive as a community in both Bulgaria and Turkey.
Associations’ executives’ desire being an agency in Bulgarian politics under the discourse of identity protection stimulate me to question their non-governmental organization positions in the framework of transnational politics. These associations as civil society organizations have had significant influences on international and national politics, and in the local lives of immigrants. The establishment purposes of these associations in the historical context which is discussed in the third chapter of thesis, and Turkish governments’ supports towards these associations as interlocutors for the issue of
information, Tolga U. Esmer, Economies of Violence, Banditry and Governance in the Ottoman Empire Around 1800, Past & Present, Volume 224, Issue 1, August 2014, 163–199.
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Turkish minority in Bulgaria naturally push them to form their organization in pro-Turkish state structure.
Fisher explained that several fields of social sciences approach civil society organizations with different perspectives.44 For instance, while political sciences investigate these organizations in terms of the relationship between state and society, international relations focus on the transnational characteristic of civil society organizations in terms of globalization, transnationalism, transnational politics, and regional development. Besides, some scholars also discuss the role of these organizations on social movements such as forming public opinion about specific topics and becoming advocates of some groups. He contributed anthropological perspectives on the complicated structure of civil society organizations and related formal and informal networks of organizations’ members with the government agencies, transnational agencies, and members of other organizations. In addition to this, civil society organizations can be considered a dynamic and relational platform where all kinds of power struggles come into being.
Fisher also said that the issue of civil society organizations has political implications and scholars should investigate the political stance of these organizations which is generally obscured in literature. He offered to investigate that the effects of what kind of discourse these organizations use producing knowledge and how they define their members’ behavior patterns under the corporate identity. In addition to this, he gave importance to comprehend how these organizations’ members establish complex relationships with different kinds of institutions, state agencies, individuals, or communities. Finally, he highlighted that these organizations are not fixed, monolithic, generalized entities and suggested scholars to think of them in the relational and dynamic contexts.55
4 William F. Fisher, “DOING GOOD? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices,” Annual Review of Anthropology 26, no. 1 (1997), 441.
5 Fisher, “DOING GOOD?,” 442-443.
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During the meeting, several questions considering Fisher's above-mentioned approach about the nature of these civil society organizations came to my mind. Some of these questions are: What kind of civil society organizations are these associations described as by their leaders? Are these associations considered as hometown associations or diaspora organizations? Hometown associations aim to supply integration of immigrants to host country and protect and maintain ethno-cultural identity of immigrant with ensuring solidarity in host country. However, diaspora organizations are intermediary institutions between immigrants, home and host states and have an important impact on shaping and maintaining the identity and belonging as experienced among individuals. On the other hand, should they be approached as a transnational diaspora organization because of their interference in Bulgarian politics with the aim of protecting ethno-cultural identities of their community? Finally, I question why association leaders are eager to be a part of the administration even after experiencing such representation concerns both in Bulgarian politics and in Turkey? What lies behind the intense representation anxiety of these presidents and their desire to lead their community towards taking part in both Bulgarian and Turkish politics?
In this chapter, I seek to answers of these questions considering the political implications of associations’ activities in the context of the complex micro politics of these associations. Moreover, I further my discussion within their executives’ competing and overlapping practices and discourses in the historical context of the post-1990 politic mobilization of the ethnic Turkish and Muslim minority in Bulgaria.
§ 5.1 “What kind of civil society organizations are “Culture and Solidarity Associations” of Bulgaristanlı Turks?
The anthropological inquiry of the civil society organizations led to the accumulation of the entire corpus. Moreover, the concept of civil society is easily confused with the term of the NGOs. Generally, NGOs used as proxies for civil society. However, while civil society is a broad concept
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which includes several organizations with different established purposes and targets, NGOs constitute only any branch of them. The studies on civil society and NGOs took part in literature with the entrance of the United Nations system in world politics' order during the 1940s but it did not draw the attention of academics until the 1980s. When the neoliberal ideology which is a hegemonic world order related to terms such as market-oriented economies, free trade, privatization, and also democratic societies since the 1980s, throw up the abbreviation NGOs with numerous branches.66 The definition of NGOs is a confusing term and varies from culture to culture, from geography to geography in a historical context. Within this conceptual complication, finding a proper place for Bulgaristanlı Turk’s associations under the umbrella of civil society organizations is the starting point to understand particularly unique characteristics of them in Turkey. There is no doubt that these associations that are established with the power of existing ties between migrants from a single community or region provide spaces for immigrants to maintain and renew connections on economic and also political scales.77 David Lewis encourages the researchers to question primarily what NGOs do rather than what NGOs are or what NGOs mean.88 Therefore, in this chapter I try to shed light on what association means for these association executives. Then, I argue the cultural, social, and psychological processes behind the desires of associations’ executives for political mobilization with the discourse of protecting the communal
6 Amanda Lashaw et al., “Anthropologists’ Encounters with NGOs Critique, Collaboration, and Conflict,” in Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2017), 26-27.
7 Valentina Mazzucato and Mirjam Kabki, “Small Is Beautiful: the Micro-Politics of Transnational Relationships between Ghanaian Hometown Associations and Communities Back Home,” Global Networks 9, no. 2 (2009), 228
8 Amanda Lashaw et al., “Anthropologists ’Encounters with NGOs: Critique, Collaboration, and Conflict,” in Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2017), 26-27.
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identity of Bulgarian Turks and representation anxiety under the labels of “Culture and Solidarity Associations”. These organizations have been described as embedded in the theory of elite formation because the prominent executives of associations have powerful relations with both migrants and remnants in their homeland. Moreover, these associations might be approached as center of identity reproduction for Bulgaristanlı Turks in the public sphere because leaders of associations especially highlighted their pure Turkishness at discursive level to might better link with Turkish state to make the state more responsive to the needs of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in both Turkey and Bulgaria. In addition to this, these associations’
executives are particularly political elites of community with nationalist sensibility because they were the prominent insurgents in Bulgaria to resist assimilation policies toward their identities during Revival Process, which is the official name of the BCP’s assimilation policies toward ethnic Turks in Bulgaria during between 1984 and 1989. There is no doubt that meaning of civil society organizations for association executives of this community is not embedded into their official discourses. However, if mobilization under the label of associations are the way of being an agency in the politics that they feel obliged to be a part of politics in order to protect their identity, it is also useful to consider their official discourses. In the 58th issue of the Turkish Culture in Balkans (Balkanlarda Tu rk Ku ltu ru ), the publication of the Federation of the Balkan Turks’
Immigrants and Refugees’ Associations, announced the establishment of the CBRM, the confederation, consisted from the combination of 9 federations and 143 associations, dispersing in 36 provinces of Turkey, was formed in 2005 under the leadership of Turan Gençog lu who is one of the leading names of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community like his father Mu min Gençog lu with these words: “Balkan and Rumelia associations and their federations united under the confederation are preparing to take an active role in world politics.” Speaking at the first ordinary general assembly of the confederation, Gençog lu, referred to the correlation between the establishments of the confederation with civil
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society organizations’ more powerful position in world politics because of a more integrated, globalized world order.99 Moreover, Mustafa Du ndar, former president of the Bursa branch of the Solidarity Association of Turks of Western Thrace, and now Bursa Osmangazi Mayor, was among the participants, when he was the Bursa deputy from the JDP. He concluded his speech referring to the topic of “Armenian Genocide” discussion which Turkey tried to overcome in international arena, and declared that the “Armenian issue” was brought to the agenda of the world public opinion by a small well-organized minority group. He also said, “If we announced the “Armenian Issue” to our public opinion and also shared our opinion with our civil society organizations and explained ourselves, we would not confront this issue in the international arena anymore.” Another important participant of this assembly is Ahmet Hu seyin who was the deputy of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), a political party that generally supported minorities in Bulgaria.1010 This news on the Turkish Culture in Balkans about the announcement of the confederation tells us a lot of important background information about the mentality of the founders and gives an insight for the question about what kind of civil society perception Bulgaristanlı Turks associations’ leaders have. First of all, they see these organizations as an institution established in the space of the Turkish state and act in the interests of the Turkey in the international arena. While doing that, these organizations also engage in political activities to protect Bulgaristanlı Turks identity. However, comprehensively anthropologically informed analysis of association executives’
discourses is necessary to go deeper into the understanding of their tendency to political engagement in both Turkey and Bulgaria. Preliminary research on the internet about Bulgaristanlı Turks’ civil society organizations indicated that founders of associations generally did not choose to establish association under the name of
9 Balkanlarda Tu rk Ku ltu ru , “Bir Derneg in Konfederasyon Yolculug u” Balkanlar'da Tu rk Ku ltu ru 58 ( January, February, March 2006), 5-6.
10 Balkanlarda Tu rk Ku ltu ru , “Bir Derneg in Konfederasyon Yolculug u,”6.
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specifically referring to “Turks of Bulgaria” on their signboards. In addition to this, generally, associations, federations, and confederation itself formed with names of Balkan Turks, Balkan Immigrants, Rumelia Turks or Rumelia Immigrants. Mobilization under the comprehensive identity is based on prohibition of establishing associations with names representing a certain regional ethnic identity in the Republic of Turkey and forced these immigrants to form associations under the inclusive term such as Balkans or Rumelia. On the other hand, in order to receive the status of “Association Working for the Public Good (Kamu Yararına Çalışan Dernek)”, they should act with an inclusive motto that appeals not only to Turks in certain geography but also to all Turks Abroad (Yurtdışı Tu rkler). As far as is known, one of the associations with this status among the associations established by the Turks of Bulgaria in Turkey is the Bal-Go ç, and in the interviews I have made, the officials of several branches of the Bal-Go ç have highlighted this status at every stage of our interviews. Why is getting the status of "Association Working for the Public Good'' important for these association executives who all desire to represent and protect their ethno-cultural Bulgaristanlı Turks identity in both Turkey, Bulgaria, and all Europe after the turning migration direction from Turkey to the European Union countries? In addition to the economic benefits provided by this status, it also serves for strengthening the representation of associations in the national and international arena. The former president of the federation and the Bal-Go ç, Y.O . emphasized that the Bal-Go ç had the status of an “Association Working for the Public Good” granted by the government, in service in 1987. He also added that the Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria takes Bal-Go ç and this federation into consideration by virtue of this status. He furthered his speech with these words:
“We are an active association and a federation that is decisive in the political elections in Bulgaria and also partly determines the policies of Bulgaria. Moreover, I am not saying this to
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underestimate anyone, but having the status of “Association Working for the Public Good” requires a different responsibility. Your actions can affect the relations between the two countries.” Definitely, discourse is an area implicated in all kinds of power struggles. The struggle for powers between the associations representing the Turks of Bulgaria is understood from his emphasis that the Bal-Go ç has a much more important position in Turkish and Bulgarian politics in the seek of their community interests unlike many other associations. In addition to this, I offer to evaluate Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations in the concept of diaspora organizations although immigrants generally explained their immigration as returning to their homeland. The notion of diaspora is a useful and versatile tool for analyzing associations’ activities because journals, periodicals, and all cultural products of associations aim to reclaim memories of immigrants about shared experiences so they can feel like members of the same community. Moreover, association executives use their cultural identity as the reference point for communication with state agencies and political party members in both Turkey and Bulgaria. Therefore, these associations’ managers use identity politics in Turkey as a tool of getting profit for both their community and also themselves while they highlight that they are essential parts of Turkey because of their ethnic Turkish origins. Through using identity politics, Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations’ executives referred to their collective traumas and shared cultural history for the empowerment of their community within Turkey and Bulgaria.
§ 5.2 Association as a Space of “National Litigation” A corollary of my fieldwork is the numerous associations that represent Balkan Turks that exist in Turkey and other Balkan countries under the guidance of the confederation and also autonomous federations in Turkey. There are more than one hundred fifty associations and nine federations within the Confederation of Balkan and Rumelia Turks. In
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addition to this, hundreds of associations not belonging to any federation or confederation engage in cultural, philanthropic, economic, and also lobbying activities within the framework of “national litigation” within the borders of Turkey and other Balkan countries. The proportion of the associations which specifically comprised the Bulgaristanlı Turks is the highest one among all associations in Turkey. The fields of activities of these associations whose members consist majorly of the Bulgaristanlı Turks or established specifically to represent them occurred not only in Turkey but also in Bulgaria. There is no doubt that the Bulgaristanlı Turks community is a cross-border society that has different lives on both sides of the Turkish-Bulgarian border and has a double loyalty, rights, and obligations toward both Turkey and Bulgaria. The number of associations that specifically represented Bulgaristanlı Turks as a part of confederation is higher than any other similar migrants’ associations. Certainly, it is not a coincidence that the Bulgaristanlı Turks are predominant in the confederation established on the axis of the Balkan Turks as supra-identity and the issues concerning the Bulgaristanlı Turks are more prominent. There have been plenty of references to the Ottoman history, from which the Turks took legitimacy for their existence and survival in the Balkan lands. People from these associations want to be politically active and the majority of participants would like to get into power or be decision makers in political parties or government. The strongest reference points behind these demands are their demographic power in Turkey because of the several migration waves from the Balkans since the first day the Republic of Turkey was founded. They see themselves as makers of the Turkish Republic, referring to their demographic power in Turkey. Also, they proudly stated how they brought out the leader of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatu rk who was born in Thessaloniki, a Balkan town, within their Balkan Turk community. However, they also highlighted that they faced a lot of discrimination and marginalization from Turkish society. Moreover, their expectations in association membership are also an opportunity to develop a social network which consists of other associations’ members, politicians and businessmen to
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get into economic partnership. Of course, the economic or political profit expectation of members in many non-governmental organizations is not unique for Bulgaristanlı Turks. National litigation of Bulgaristanlı Turks started to continue in Bulgaria with the establishment of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) which is one of the political parties that was established after the collapse of the communist regime in Bulgaria. In general perception, the MRF is known as the ethnic party of the Turkish and Muslim minority in Bulgaria. The reason behind this sensation derived from the formation dynamics of the MRF. Even, former president of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Rumelia Turks explained participation of Turkish minority in Bulgarian politics with the establishment of MRF as a success of associations at the Conference on the Culture and Identity in the Balkans at Bog aziçi University that : “… Today, Turks can be represented in the Bulgarian parliament with the MRF and also became a coalition partner. Associations provided that the Turks could be represented in Bulgaria with more members of parliament. Undoubtedly, this example is one of the greatest services of associations to Turkish identity in Bulgaria. The Turkish element can now express their identity more easily in a democratic environment.”1111 He underlined that associations contribute to preserving Turkish identity in Bulgaria by encouraging the political participation of Turks. The activities of these associations are to lead the Turks in the Balkans to keep their history, customs, and traditions alive. Apparently, the “national litigation” of the Bulgaristanlı Turks is carried out by double centers both by the associations in Turkey and the MRF in Bulgaria after its establishment. This situation led to power struggles about being the true representatives of the Turks of Bulgaria between the politicians of
11 Lu tfu Tu rkkan, “Tu rkiye'deki Sivil Toplum Kuruluşlarının Balkanlardaki Tu rk Kimlig ine Etkileri,” in Conference on Culture and Identity in the Balkans (Istanbul, Turkey: Beykent University Press, 2002), 120.
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the MRF and the associations’ managers who immigrated to Turkey in 1989 and have founded associations in Turkey to continue their “national litigation” in Turkey.
§ 5.3 From Defenders of Community in Bulgaria to Leaders of Associations in Turkey
Recent studies on migrant organizations perceive these institutions as grassroots organizations. Therefore, unlike the general assumption toward these associations as depoliticized institutions that represent their home communities in the framework of liberal civil society definition, they are relatively less democratic civil society organizations. The conceptualization of these associations as democratic organizations which act upon the interests of their community is the reductionist interpretation for these institutions that includes highly dynamic relations between members and different actors with the economic, personal or political interest. When the activities of the associations during the elections were examined, it was observed that any political party or politicians were chosen by the administrators of the associations to be supported in elections in the name of the community, referring to act in solidarity. In this point, real question is what the understanding of association leaders from culture and solidarity was and what were the factors that prompted them to act in solidarity according to their own understanding. In the preface of the 66th issue of Turkish Culture in the Balkans Journal, the federation’s chairman explained that the majority of Turks voted for the MRF in the Bulgarian parliament elections as "acting with solidarity” like that: "Since the Berlin Treaty signed in 1881, the Turkish minority of Bulgaria, whose existence has been confirmed in various bilateral and international treaties, has started to take active roles in the Bulgarian administrations by protecting their own identity with the example of solidarity they have shown in recent years.”1212
12 Balkanlarda Tu rk Ku ltu ru , “Genel Başkan'dan,” Balkanlar'da Tu rk Ku ltu ru 66(November, December, 2007): pp. 1-52, 2.
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In the general perception of associations’ executives, discrimination towards them in both Turkey and Bulgaria triggered them to stakeholders in the political arena with collective mobilization in the Bulgarian elections which were called as solidarity by elites of Bulgarian Turks who generally engaged in associational activities. In other words, voting for any political party which is chosen by associational leaders in the political conjuncture of period means to act in solidarity. Moreover, they impute themselves as an agency that is capable of transforming the state and their community. Therefore, the majority of associations are focused on dealing with the past to ensure to mobilize Bulgaristanlı Turks and keep their community coherent. With this discourse, they aim to increase the political participation of immigrants especially in Bulgarian elections. When we examine the print media of several associations representing the Bulgarian Turks with almost 40 years of history, there are no differences in their problems, and solution offers at the discursive level. During the 1990s, several associations were established by political leaders in the resistance movement of Turkish minority in Bulgaria during 1984-1989 against assimilation policies of the BCP. They continued their resistance under the roof of ethnically based community organizations by establishing culture and solidarity associations thanks to their position as the opinion leader of their community in many Bulgarian villages or towns where they migrated with their homeowners. For example, the speech of the mayor of Dzhebel where a town in southern Bulgaria with densely Turkish origin people is, Bahri O mer represented that association executives and Turkish and Muslim origin politicians in Bulgaria were the political leaders of the society who resisted together against the assimilation policies implemented by the Bulgarian Communist Party. He addressed remarks to members of Balkan Turks’ Solidarity Association in Kırklareli like that: "We went to school together with some of us, and also we fought together. Now, we are still fighting together…Bulgarian government oppressed us during elections. However, we gained
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five municipalities in Kardzhali Province. Now, we want to win all seven municipalities of Kardzhali. Therefore, we need your help in local elections.1313 On the other hand, other executives are the economic elites of the society who were previously immigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey and formed associations to announce assimilation of Turks in Bulgaria or they are second or third generation children of immigrants who had a certain economic and social power in their region. Micro-politics of relationships between the Bulgaristanlı Turks’ association leaders and their collaborators in resistance who are politicians in Bulgaria now, become apparent in the issue of representation of the Bulgaristanlı Turks. These associations monopolize the social capital of their community and the participatory development of their members. Therefore, they are in a struggle with politicians who declare themselves as advocators of the Bulgaristanlı Turks at the parliamentary level. Ultimately, associations’ leaders and politicians desire to be supported by their community members. Also, these leaders self-proclaimed their associations as institutions capable of responding to the “grassroots” needs of Bulgaristanlı Turks with the authority to inform public enterprises on the issue of policy debates related to their community. Association leaders as the leading figures of the community seek the political representation of their community using the corporate identities of their associations. In this manner, associations’ executives assume the role of the real agent of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in both Turkey and Bulgaria instead of any political parties, especially the MRF. Those migrants, living in Turkey since 1989, had the rights of double citizenship in 1995 to keep their social and political connections with Bulgaria. Therefore, election campaigns of the MRF were conducted not only in Bulgaria but also in Turkey. Nearly 45 associations and other non-profit organizations of the Balkan immigrants just in Istanbul were active to inform migrants and lead them to vote the MRF via their
13 O nadım Newspaper, 27 January 2003, 7.
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meetings, and publishing. Turan said that associations published several pamphlets and brochures to illuminate immigrants why they should vote for MRF and what social and economic advances MRF will provide to them. He also emphasized that associations sent approximately 17.000 immigrants without valid Bulgarian passports to Bulgaria to vote for the MRF by several buses during the June 2001 election.1414 Nurcan O zgu r has emphasized the situation of the possessing extraterritorial practice of voting rights in the case of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community in Turkey. Extraterritorial practices of political rights of the Bulgaristanlı Turks community have important effects on the cross-border activities of the associations of this migrant group. The Bulgaristanlı Turks community as a cross-border community, develop and share a double option of loyalty, rights, and obligations for Turkey and Bulgaria. Especially Bulgarian election processes become much more important events for the associations after the Bulgaristanlı Turks gained the right to dual citizenship after the mid-1990s.1515 The ethnographic evidence which I collected during my fieldwork shed light on the legal and political relationship between the leaders of these associations and Turkish government authorities. The relations between state officials or politicians and associations executives who are also elite of the community are obvious in publications and social media accounts of associations. Whether you look at the publications of prominent associations in the early 1990s, or the official Facebook pages of these associations in 2021, photos of proudly smiling faces of associations committees have taken with several politicians and high-level government officials in Turkey stand out. We cannot come across the same pride on the face of them when they met with deputies or municipality presidents of the MRF.
14 Fikret Turan, “The 1989 Bulgarian Immigrants in Istanbul and Their Support for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) in Bulgaria,” CORE, (January 1, 1970), 115.
15 Osamu Ieda and Nurcan O zgu r Baklacıog lu, “Dual Citizenship, Extraterritorial Elections and National Policies: Turkish Dual Citizens in the Bulgarian Political Sphere,” in Beyond Sovereignty: From Status Law to Transnational Citizenship? (Sapporo: Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University, 2006), 319.
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Moreover, unlike the supportive position of association executives toward Turkish state in every period, they highly criticize Bulgarian governments, Bulgarian political parties, and especially the MRF and Ahmet Dog an who is a founder leader of the MRF, himself on the issue of the situation of Turkish and Muslim minorities in Bulgari. Ahmet Dog an was blamed to be a Russian agent because of his explanation about Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane in 2015. The main reason behind these discords is a desire to protect their privileged positions as a real representative of Turks of Bulgaria in both Turkey and Bulgaria. These chairmen represent themselves as the protector and representative of the Bulgaristanlı Turks under the corporate identity of associations. The struggle between associations and the MRF in the issue of a real representative of Turks in Bulgaria is one demonstration of political lobbying activities of these associations. Fisher emphasized on ethnographic inquiries about civil society organizations because he declared that the literature of social sciences put these organizations in the universalizing models and discourses. He also remarked that the space of these organizations is “an arena within which battles from society at large are internalized.”1616 Therefore, current executives of these associations continue their national litigation discourse which started in Bulgaria to resist communist Bulgarian government to protect their ethno-religious and ethno-cultural identities. Therefore, the area of associations in Turkey is not meant as a locational scape of their ethno-cultural and ethno-religious identities in Turkish civil society. On contrast, associations established a place for their claiming rights in Bulgaria as the minority and Turkey as equal citizenship without any discrimination and marginalization. These associations were established in the space of Turkish government to reach communities to their political interests such as representation in Bulgarian and Turkish parliaments. Therefore, the ethno-cultural identity of the Bulgaristanlı Turks reproduced and represented by associations, did not properly correspond to the ordinary immigrants of this community in Turkey. Moreover, this dichotomy
16 William F. Fisher, “DOING GOOD?,” 449.
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between the ethno-cultural collective identity represented by the members of the community and the associations shows once again the importance of considering the individuality of the associations’ managers who emphasize their all efforts for the political representation of their communities. Hereby, evaluation of these organizations as a monolithic structure restrained to analysis upon dynamic relational unique forms of these associations. The other specific dynamic of these associations is that leaders of these associations who also see themselves as opinion leaders of the community are on a collision course with not only other associations executives but also members inside their associations. While explaining Y O .’s own presidential experience in the Bal-Go ç and federation, we can understand the deficiency of evaluating associations as an abstract and monolithic structure far from any kind of power relations, by looking at his reference to his success and the solid relations he established. For example, he said that: “70% of the 140 ballot boxes opened for the Bulgarian elections in Turkey are organized by the associations under the roof of our federation. We are interlocutors for the Turkish and Bulgarian officials during the Bulgarian elections process. Moreover, Bulgarian officials contacted me during my presidency in the federation. In addition to this, our relationship with the Bulgarian Ambassador of Turkey is highly good. I protect my ability to speak the Bulgarian language like my native language and I can speak without the help of translators. It is important in this issue.” (Y.O ., Bursa, 61, doctor and deputy of RPP) On the other hand, association executives narrate that their interference of Bulgarian politics is promoted by Turkish government. One of the association executives of the Bal-Go ç explained Turkish governments’
initiatives in the shaping political activities of Turkish minority of Bulgaria, complaining about the high ratio of political parties which represent Turks and Muslims in the Balkans as a consequence of
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problematic interference of Turkish political power, serving since 2002. It is noteworthy how Y.O . put associations in a special position in Bulgarian politics while describing the process of the division of the MRF in the early 2010s when he was the president of the federation in Bursa. “In Bulgaria, establishing an ethnic or religious-based party is forbidden by the regulations so the MRF is a national party that embraces Turks, Gypsies, and Bulgarians. Also, the ratio of the Turkish population is already low in Bulgaria like all other Balkan countries. Why do they divide into several parties? Ankara made several mistakes in the issue of the division of Turks into different parties in all Balkan countries. In December 2011, I went to Sofia to meet with Ahmet Dog an after the commemoration anniversary which is organized for remembering Turkish martyrs who died in resistance against BCP assimilation in Kırcaali every December. Ahmet Dog an told me about Turkey’s interfering policies toward the MRF like that: My president, is Turkey an elder brother of ours? Okay, we accepted. Are we little brothers of Turkey? Okay, we accepted. When you sit around a table, your brother has a say, but your other brother doesn't have right to speak? Briefly, policies made and imposed by Ankara for Turkish politicians in Bulgaria damaged the relations between the Turkish administration and the MRF members. Lu tfi Mestan was expelled from the party after the power struggles within the MRF. Then I suddenly went to Bulgaria and negotiated with Mustafa Karadayı who is the current president of the MRF to solve problems within the party. Bal-Go ç, as a civil society organization, has provided all kinds of logistical support to the MRF, without any expectation. Our all efforts and struggles are to democratize Bulgaria. After these conflicts within the MRF, new parties as Democrats for Responsibility, Solidarity and Tolerance (known as DOST in Turkey) that was established by Lu tfi Mestan and Liberty and Reputation People’s Party (knowns as Hu rriyet ve Şeref Halk Partisi (HŞHP) in Turkey) that was formed by the leadership of
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Kasım Dal. We are friends in the national litigation of Turks of Bulgaria and every kind of logistic support was supplied to politicians of the MRF by the BAL-GO Ç for the representation of Turks in the Bulgarian parliament. However, they never informed us of these conflicts. Consequently, we have a mass of voters and they come and ask us about which party they should choose to vote in elections and which party the association would support in the elections.” (Y.O , Bursa, 61, doctor and deputy of RPP) On the other hand, establishment of new political parties which were declared to be representative of Turkish minority in Bulgaria created an alternative for associations with the only purpose of supporting and shaping the MRF and lobbying for consolidations of immigrants’ votes to the MRF. Therefore, an agency of associations in Bulgarian politics increased, and the associations divided into two political cliques, some of which continued to support the MRF while others prop up newly established political parties in the mid*2000s. One of the executives of the Federations of Mediterranean Balkan Turks ’Associations and also confederation and the third-generation child of Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria explained how the emergence of these new political parties in Bulgaria affected associations like that: “Due to the increase in the number of political parties that claim to represent the Turks in Bulgaria, power conflicts within the association accelerated. There are currently disagreements in Turkey’s authorities and wing leaders of the community (camia) regarding the Balkans, especially in terms of the direction of the politics in Bulgaria. People fight with each other about which political party will be supported in Bulgarian elections. In associations, federation, and also confederation, people are divided into two different cliques after the 2010s. While some of them continue to support MRF, more conservative and Turkish nationalist ones turned to prop up the DOST party.” (M.D. Adana, 59, state official)
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While the associations were fighting to support two different political parties which are the MRF and DOST founded in Bulgaria, an association known as BULTURK supporting the Bulgarian ruling party the GERB was in the early days of 2010s. In addition to this, executives of BULTURK also claimed to be real representatives of Turks in Bulgaria and desired to strengthen the position of Turkish government in Bulgarian politics. One of the executives of this association explained this situation like that: “I was a part of the Movements of Rights and Freedom since the first day of the national cause, not through being active in politics, but with financial support. I stand always by Ahmet Dog an. Now, I support the national cause of the Turks of Bulgaria as “dernekçi" (people who engage in associational activities). For the first time in Turkey, an association is invited to the Bulgarian parliament. In addition to this, for the first time, a Turk became a presidential candidate in Bulgaria with our initiatives. This is a first in history. Our candidate, Sali Şaban, from National Unity Party, was the 9th of the 21 candidates in 2011. This is a success of our association, BULTURK. During the electoral process, all associations and even the Turkish Republic opposed us. According to them, Ankara knows everything about Turks in Bulgaria, there could be no such thing. Ankara cannot know better than us. Now, Bulgarian parliamentary elections will be in 2021 so we prepared our reports and sent them to Ankara. I can say that we ultimately changed the Turkish government policies toward Bulgaria. Before us, Ankara supported the MRF in the Bulgarian elections but now everything has changed.” (R.U. Istanbul, 65 years old, writer and a state officer) The above-mentioned quotes of one of the associations’ executives put a lot of different important perspectives of them into the politics, representation of immigrants, and also the position of associations in the political mobilization of Turks in Bulgaria. What is important here is not
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whether the words of the director of the association reflect the truth, but the value he attributes to the associations for the Bulgaristanlı Turks community as a real savior of the community.
§ 5.4 Politics: Is It Really Out of the Association’s Doors? One of the significant names of the Federations of Associations of Rumelia and Balkan, expressed his displeasure about entrance of politics into the doors of associations as follows: “They came and made propaganda in associations to get the votes of the Turkish origin Bulgarian immigrants. They offered the members of the association to be candidates in elections or certain positions within the party. As a result, associations became involved in politics.” (S.Ç, Istanbul, 68, retired colonel) However, after five minutes he started to talk about the association's three-day workshop in Bolu, 2006 to designate the federation’s agenda to intervene in the politics of Turkey. Then he shared with me memories about three different dinner organizations at a very luxurious hotel in Ankara to introduce themselves to the political parties’ members and the state bureaucracy. On the other hand, former executives of Gu neşli Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks explained the discussions about political engagements of association within the boards of directors. He highlighted controversial debates within the association generally escalate in election times. Some members of the association wanted to stay away from politics, others are disposed to engage in politics. The former president finished the discussion like that “associations should be part of politics for the benefit of their community, not personal profits.” Associations’ executives as "real defenders" of the community aim to focus on lobbying activities for the political representation of Bulgaristanlı Turks in order to protect their identities. On the other hand, all associations' chairmen mentioned their displeasure about the
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intensive engagements of other associations in politics. They recriminated each other to “doing politics in the associations”. They handled political participation as the compulsory way to preserve their ethno-cultural identity for the sake of associations. In contrast to this situation, every association chairman was proud of the association he was president of because they did not allow political discussions into associations. In order to understand this ambivalence in the discourse of associations’ managers, it is important to analyze what they understand from politics. One of my interlocutors who is the manager of the Izmir Bal-Go ç, former deputy mayor, and also a candidate for the nomination of any municipality presidency explained his perspective about boundaries between civil society and politics with these words: “Our Balkan camia (community) is engaged in politics. The only aim of association executives is to hold any position in one corner of the municipalities. How can we see these associations as civil society organizations? From the moment I became the president of the Izmir Bal-Go ç Association, I left my political identity outside the doors of Bal-Go ç. There are many associations under the control of political parties. Some people use the corporate identity of the associations for their own political and economic interests. When these people cannot rise to any position in an institutionalized association like Bal-Go ç, they establish their own association and become the president. Then they use their title of president of the association to reach their political or financial profits. When you have a title as chairman of the association, you can reach higher authorities more quickly.” (A.N. I zmir, 40 years old and a former state official) Apparently, chairman of I zmir Bal-Go ç does not approve the close relations between political parties of Turkey and associations because he thinks that political parties try to benefit from demographic powers of Bulgaristanlı Turks in Turkey without fulfilling promises which they
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gave to associations’ leaders on behalf of Bulgaristanlı Turks. Moreover, he furthered our conversation with these words: “Political parties in Turkey are using associations to gather votes. There are so many associations with different names, we as a Balkan community cannot be united under one roof. As someone who has been in politics for ten years, I can say that political parties do not take into consideration any community that is not in unity. Even Macedonians alone have 37 associations in Izmir. Which one should the political parties talk to during elections?” (A.N. I zmir, 40 years old and a former state official) It appears that acting within solidarity is an important issue for the association managers. I supposed that these associations’ chairmen are trying to explain that if everyone acts according to their personal political views within the borders of associations, the solidarity among the community will be broken. In addition to this, one of the executives of the Federation of the Aegean Balkan Turks’ Associations, considered this situation as the following: “We brought out a leader like Atatu rk within Balkan Turks community so let’s not deal with bickering among ourselves. We are divided into several parties therefore we do not have sufficient power as stakeholders in Turkish politics. In addition to this, choosing political party which we participated in and represented our community is not an important issue. The essential point is our solidarity. If we want to be powerful in Turkish politics, we have to establish our own political party with the title of the Balkan Party.” (H.K. I zmir, 71, retired engineer) They highlighted the importance of mobilizing around a common political stance as Bulgaristanlı Turks’ associations although members of associations’ personal political views are different from each other. On the other hand, the motives behind the practices of individuals to engage
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in associational activities are multiple. The purpose of one of the founders of the Association of Rumelia Women in Avcılar, who is a member of the municipal council from the CHP in Avcılar, is to represent the demographic power of Bulgaristanlı Turks to Turkish public opinion. G.Y. explained that when she became a member of the municipal council, she faced discrimination because of her Bulgaristanlı Turk ’immigrant identity. In addition to this, while this association founded under the name of “Rumelia Women”, generally Bulgaristanlı women participated in this associations because of the demographic component of the Avcılar where a dense Bulgaristanlı immigrant district is, like those like Kurtko y in Istanbul, Go ru kle in Bursa or Pursaklar in Ankara.
As a result, the concern with the issue of visibility in the public sphere and political participation of Bulgaristanlı Turks, which association executives see as a part of the struggle to be visible and exist, will continue to constitute the main agenda of the associations. Elections will be renewed in Bulgaria on 11 July 2021. Until July, association managers will decide any political party that will work to its best, and they will hang posters of these political parties on the streets where immigrants are densely populated. Associations ’meeting rooms will be filled with politicians from Bulgaria and then Bulgarristanlı Turks ’associations’ leaders and politicians who came from Bulgaria will make official visits to several Turkish political parties and state officials of Turkey to receive the support for increasing the voting ratio of Bulgaristanlı Turks in Bulgarian elections. Then, they will continue to leave brochures of political parties in Balkan coffeehouse where immigrants generally chose to meet their friends, to mobilize their society, and keep them coherent in the political sphere. Moreover, association executives started to send messages to social media accounts of Bulgaristanlı Turks like me to invite them to go to polls in ballot boxes which are installed with the initiatives of association chairmen in cities and districts of Turkey, to protect Turkish and Muslim identity in Bulgaria.

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6 Conclusion
n
n thethe lastlast daysdays ofof writingwriting mymy thesis,thesis, “Balkan“Balkan Turks”Turks” camiacamia (community)(community) waswas shakingshaking withwith thethe speechspeech ofof thethe Akçakoca’sAkçakoca’s mufti;mufti; inin whichwhich hehe targetedtargeted Atatürk,Atatürk, andand TurkishTurkish immigrantsimmigrants fromfrom Thessaloniki.Thessaloniki. HeHe saidsaid thatthat immigrantsimmigrants fromfrom ThessalonikiThessaloniki areare notnot MuslimsMuslims andand thenthen claimed,claimed, nearlynearly 90%90% ofof themthem werewere followersfollowers ofof SabbatSabbataiai ZeviZevi whowho thethe JewishJewish rabbirabbi inin ThessalonikiThessaloniki waswas andand thenthen convertedconverted toto IslamIslam inin thethe 17th17th century.century. UponUpon thesethese wordswords ofof thethe mufti,mufti, thethe confederationconfederation executivesexecutives filedfiled aa criminalcriminal complaintcomplaint againstagainst thethe muftimufti toto thethe prosecutorprosecutor’ss officeoffice onon thethe chargecharge ofof “incitinginciting thethe peoplepeople toto hatredhatred andand enmityenmity andand humiliation.”humiliation.”11 ThisThis reactionreaction ofof thethe executivesexecutives ofof thethe ConfederationConfederation ofof BalkanBalkan andand RumeliaRumelia TurksTurks towardtoward muftimufti isis oneone ofof thethe examplesexamples ofof theirtheir reactionsreactions towardstowards discriminativediscriminative speechesspeeches ofof peoplepeople whowho talktalk inin aa mannermanner toto implyimply thatthat BalkanBalkan andand RumeliaRumelia TurksTurks areare inin fact,fact, notnot originaloriginal TurksTurks andand Muslims,Muslims, isis personallypersonally perceivedperceived duringduring mymy oneone--yearyear ofof fieldwork.fieldwork. First of all, “being Turkish and Muslims”, which are the sensitive points in their collective identities that are consistently highlighted by
1 Haberiniz.com.tr A.Y, "Balkan Rumeli Tu rkleri Konfederasyonu, Akçakoca Mu ftu su Hakkında Suç Duyurusunda Bulundu", 23 May 2021, https://haberiniz.com.tr/gundem/balkan-rumeli-turkleri-konfederasyonu-akcakoca-muftusu-hakkinda-suc-duyurusunda-bulundu-23052021
I
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the associations’ executives, are built as a result of important events in 1the communal memory of them. There is no doubt that memory, which forms the cornerstone of their communal identity, is not an individual process that is shaping in the head of the individuals who constitute the community. Recalling certain aspects of the past in creating a collective identity is a relational process with different dimensions of dynamics within the community and several agents such as governments. In this thesis, I tried to shed light on how the Culture and Solidarity Associations of Bulgaristanlı Turks that were established by the elites of community in various cities and districts of Turkey in different time periods since the first massive immigration movements of Turkish and Muslim groups from Bulgaria to Anatolia during the Russo-Ottoman War in 1877-1878, constructed and represented the communal identity of Bulgaristanlı Turks. These civil society organizations, which were established to advocate for the rights of Turks who fell into the minority status as a result of the withdrawal of the Ottoman administration from the region of Bulgaria, and to solve the economic, legal, and integration problems of immigrants who came to Turkey at different times, went beyond the initial aim of protecting the ethno-cultural identity of the Bulgaristanlı Turks in both Turkey and Bulgaria over the time. However, besides protecting the culture of the community and enhancing solidarity within community members, these associations leaders reproduced monolithic “Bulgaristanlı Turk identity” in national and international public opinion without considering all cultural differences within the community members. The Culture and Solidarity Associations of Bulgaristanlı Turks reproduce the communal ethno-cultural identity they represent in the public sphere through the individuals behind their corporate identities of associations. In their ancestral lands, the massacres and the assimilation processes in Bulgaria and conditional acceptance and marginalization practices in their imagined homeland, Turkey, had an important impact on the collective identity of the “Bulgaristanlı Turks”, who have a history over more than a century of migrations to Turkey from Bulgaria. In this thesis, I argue that Bulgaristanlı Turks identity
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reproduced by associations was shaped according to not only due to the communism traumas, which Bulgarian Communist Party’s assimilation policies still usher the Turkish communities to protect their ethno-religious and ethno-cultural identities, but also citizenship and immigration practices of the Turkish state which embrace only the Turkish origin people who want to immigrate to Turkey from European countries. Therefore, I also assert that this pure Turkish and Muslim identity, drawn by the influence of certain events recalled from the collective memory by the associations, also has a function within the borders of Turkey. To elaborate on my arguments, I gave a voice to the associations’
executives and various board members of federations and confederation. Moreover, I also claim that these associations’ leaders make demands from the Bulgarian state in the name of their community with the desire to get involved in the political decision-making process in parliament by using the discourse of “protecting their ethno-cultural and ethno-religious identities of Turkish minority” in Bulgaria. The claims of association leaders as the real defenders and representatives of the Bulgaristanlı Turks led to power struggles between politicians of several political parties which declare to represent the Turkish minority in Bulgarian parliaments and association executives who are some of the former political leaders in Bulgaria. Alongside, resistance movements against the BCP and others came to the forefront in Turkey to announce assimilation policies of the BCP to national and international public opinion. The main aim of this thesis contributes to the literature by analyzing associations of Bulgaristanlı Turks from an anthropological perspective while also approaching these associations in foreign policy literature which saw them as a soft power of Turkey towards the Turkish minority in Bulgaria with continuous activities of the said associations. Moreover, I also contribute to literature to handle these associations apart from their corporate identities with the ethnography of association leaders and board members’ discourses and practices. All association’s executives engage in associational activities with different agendas
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which can determine agendas for their community members. While following that intent, I tried to show that these associations established the space of the Turkish state not in the space of immigrants’ daily life excluding their culture and solidarity claims written on the signboards of the associations while highlighting the duality in their discourses and practices.
Entrance to the world of association leaders during my fieldwork gave rise to new questions in my mind. The communal identity of the Bulgaristanlı Turks, which circulate within the borders of Turkey and Bulgaria, started to shape in new forms across the national borders from Western European countries to the USA after Bulgaristanlı Turks obtained European citizens’ passports which enabled them to live and work in the EU countries. Some interesting research questions emerged in this fieldwork, such as how Bulgaristanlı Turks who migrated from their ancestral homeland of Bulgaria to European countries instead of their imagined homeland Turkey, mobilized and established associations in their new home and what kind of identity do they imagine and represent. In future projects, I will try to approach the above-mentioned questions resulting from my project work.
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Appendix A List of Interviewees
1. L.T. He is 62 years old businessman and politician and a former president of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Rumelia Turks. He was born in Turkey as a first generation of Macedonian Turkish immigrant family who came to Turkey in 1950. Interview by author at coffee Bebek, I stanbul. 03 August 2020. 2. K.A. He is a 67-year-old businessman. He was born in North Macedonia and immigrated to Turkey as a two-month baby. He is former president of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Rumeli Turks and executive of the Federation of Associations of Rumeli and Balkan. Interview by author at his office, Bayrampaşa, I stanbul. 25 September 2020. 3. H.A. He is 53 years old historian and first-generation child of an immigrant family who came from Sandz ak to Turkey in 1950. He was a member of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Rumeli Turks during the early days of 2000s. Interview by author at video call. 30 January 2021. 4. R.U. He is 65 years old, writer and a state officer. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1996. He is a former member of Movements of Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and founding president of the Association of Culture and Service of Turks from Bulgaria (BULTU RK). Interviewed by the author at the meeting room of the association, Bayrampaşa, I stanbul. 15 August 2020. 5. H.Y. He is 65 years old and an engineer. He is a first-generation child of Turkish immigrant family from Bulgaria. He is a board member of the Association of Culture and Service of Turks from Bulgaria (BULTU RK). Interviewed by the author at the meeting room of the association, Bayrampaşa, I stanbul. 15 August 2020. 6. N.B. He is 50 years old and a doctor. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey after 1989. He is a member of the Association
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of Culture and Service of Turks from Bulgaria (BULTU RK). Interviewed by the author at the meeting room of the association, Bayrampaşa, I stanbul. 27 September 2020. 7. I .V. He is 40 years old and a first-generation child of Turkish immigrant family from Bulgaria. He is a commercial and a member of the district organization of a political party in Turkey. Interviewed by the author at the meeting room of the association, Bayrampaşa, I stanbul. 27 September 2020. 8. E.B. He is 71 years old and a doctor. He is a first-generation child of Turkish immigrant family from Bulgaria to Bursa. He is a former president of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) and the Federation of the Associations of Balkan Turks Immigrants ’and Refugees. Interviewed by the author at the doctor’s office at hospital, Nilu fer, Bursa. 20 August 2020. 9. K.O . He is 35 years old and academic. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1989. He was a broad member of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) and president of the Federation of the Associations of Balkan Turks Immigrants ’and Refugees. Interviewed by the author at the university campus, Nilu fer, Bursa. 21 August 2020. 10.Y.O . He is 61 years old doctor and politician. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Bursa in 1978. He was a former president of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) and the Federation of the Associations of Balkan Turks Immigrants ’and Refugees. Interviewed by the author at a restaurant, Çankaya, Ankara. 14 October 2020. 11. A.N. He is nearly 40 years old and a former state official. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1989. He is a broad member of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) in I zmir. Interview by author at video call. 12 October 2020. 12. G.B. She is nearly 40 years old and a teacher at primary school. She was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1989.She is an important executive of the Culture and Solidarity Association of
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Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) in I zmir. Interview by author at video call.18 February 2021. 13.O .Ş. He is 37 years old and academic. He was born in Razgrad, Bulgaria and migrated to Turkey in 1989. He is a former president of the Association of Aids for Migrants in Ankara (closed because of the power struggle of the executives of the I stanbul branch). Interview by author at video call. 17 February 2021. 14. B.A. He is 63 years old and a sculptor. He was born in Varna, Bulgaria. He is one of the founding leaders of MRF in Bulgaria. After 1989, he immigrated to Kırklareli and established the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Balkan Turks in Kırklareli. He was a deputy candidate in Bulgaria and Turkey. Interview by author at his cafe in Kırklareli. 24 February 2021. 15. F.E. She is 60 years old and a teacher in primary school. She was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1989. She was a former president of the Culture and Solidarity Association of Balkan Migrants (BAL-GO Ç) in I zmir. Interview by author at video call. 21 February 2021. 16.S.Ç. He is 68 years old. He is a retired colonel and journalist in Rumeli TV. He is a first-generation child of Turkish immigrant family from different cities of the Balkans. He is an executive of the Federation of Associations of Rumelia and Balkan. He also established four associations which represented Balkan Turks in I stanbul. Interviewed by author at patisserie Kadıko y, I stanbul. 02 October 2020. 17. G.Y. She is 66 years old. She was born in Targovishte, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1973. She is financial adviser and also alderman in the municipality. She established the Association of Rumeli Women of Avcılar. Interviewed by author at the meeting of the Confederation of the Balkan and Rumelia Turks, Edirne. 10 October 2020. 18. M.D. He is 59 years old, a state official. He was born in Ceyhan, Adana as a fourth-generation child of Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria. He is a former president of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Ceyhan. He is also a leading figure in the confederation.
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Interviewed by author at the meeting of the Confederation of the Balkan and Rumelia Turks, Edirne. 10 October 2020. 19. H.K. He is 70 years old. He is a retired engineer. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and migrated to Turkey in 1971. He founded the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Bornova. He is also president of the Federation of Ege Balkan Turks. Interviewed by author at the meeting of the Confederation of the Balkan and Rumelia Turks, Edirne. 10 October 2020. 20.S.Ç. He is 61 years old, businessman. He was born in Razgrad, Bulgaria and immigrated to Eskişehir in 1878. He is a president of the Association of Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Eskişehir. Interviewed by author at the meeting of the Confederation of the Balkan and Rumeli Turks, Edirne. 10 October 2020. 21. R.D. He is 70 years old, retired teacher. He was born in Eskişehir as a third-generation child of Turkish immigrant family from the Balkans. He is a president of the Federation of Muhacir’s Associations of Eskişehir. Interviewed by author at the meeting of the Confederation of the Balkan and Rumelia Turks, Edirne. 10 October 2020. 22. B.B. He is 48 years old, and a state official in I stanbul municipality. He was born in Slistre, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1878. He is a founder and current president of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Bulgarian Migrants of Silivri. Interviewed by author at restaurant Taksim, I stanbul. 18 September 2020. 23. O .S. He is 54 years old and a businessman. He was born in Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1978. He is one of the founding figures of the Association of Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Gu neşli. Interviewed by author at the cafe of the association in Gu neşli, I stanbul. 22 September 2020. 24. I .Ç. He is 50 years old. He was born in Shumen, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1978. Association of Solidarity of Balkan Turks of Gu neşli. Interviewed by author at the cafe of the association in Gu neşli, I stanbul. 22 September 2020. 25. H.G. he is 60 years old and architecture. He was born in Shumen, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1978. He is an alderman in the
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municipality. He is president of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Thrace, Rumelia and Balkan Turks of Sultangazi. Interviewed by author at the association, Sultangazi, I stanbul. 24 September 2020. 26. F.R. He is 55 years old and a singer. He was born in Shumen, Bulgaria and immigrated to Turkey in 1989. He is a broad member of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Thrace, Rumelia and Balkan Turks of Sultangazi. Interviewed by author at the association, Sultangazi, I stanbul. 24 September 2020. 27. S.A. He is 50 years old and a state official. He was born in Kardzhali, Bulgaria and migrated to Turkey in 1989. He is one of the founders of the Association of Culture and Solidarity of Bulgarian Migrants in Ankara. 28. M.H.E. She is 58 years old and Turkish teacher in Bulgaria. She was born in Ruse; Bulgaria and she came to Turkey in 1998 to receive education. Now, she has lived in Greece since 2018. She established the "GU NEŞ" Association for the cultural relations of Turkish minority in Bulgaria with Turkey. She became the president of the associations until 2013. She was also neighborhood representative in Bulgaria and provincial chairman of the MRF in Bulgaria.
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Appendix B The poem “Bulgar Mezalimi I ntikam Levhası Kulag ına Ku pe Olsun Unutma”
139
Appendix C CCA, 30-1-0-0/ 123-786-8
140
Appendix D The Cover of the 1st Issue of “The Turkish Culture in Balkans” (Journal of the Federation of Balkan Turks and Refugees’ Associations)
The president of the federation Mu min Gençog lu (become deputy of Bursa from the Motherland Party) and Turgut O zal who was the president of the period.
141
Appendix E The Cover of the 45th Issue of “The Turkish Culture in Balkans” (Journal of the Federation of Balkan Turks and Refugees’ Associations)
The committee of federation held official talk with Simeon Sakskoburgotski, the president of the Bulgaria at the time on the issue of double citizenship rights of “Bulgaristanlı” immigrants.
142
Appendix F 16.04.2007, Milliyet Newspaper, Page 21
143
Appendix G 20.02.1997, Milliyet Newspaper, Page 3.
144
Appendix H Table of the Federations and Associations which are members of the Confederation
145
146
Appendix I The List of Associations and Federations Which I Met the Chairmen and Members in Turkey NameName ofof thethe AssociationAssociation LocationLocation && FoundingFounding DateDate RegionalRegional HometownHometown ofof MembersMembers
Association
Association ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof RumeliRumeli TurksTurks
19501950
İstanbulİstanbul
MacedoniaMacedonia AssociationAssociation ofof CultureCulture andand ServiceService ofof TurksTurks fromfrom BulgariaBulgaria (BULTÜRK)(BULTÜRK) 20032003 İstanbulİstanbul BulgariaBulgaria
The
The CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity AssociationAssociation ofof BalkanBalkan MigrantsMigrants (BAL(BAL--GÖÇ)GÖÇ)
19851985
BursaBursa
KardzhaliKardzhali /Eastern/Eastern BulgariaBulgaria TheThe CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity AssociationAssociation ofof BalkanBalkan MigrantsMigrants (BAL(BAL--GÖÇ)GÖÇ) 19851985 İzmirİzmir BulgariaBulgaria
Association
Association ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof BulgarianBulgarian MigrantsMigrants
20062006
AnkaraAnkara
BulgariaBulgaria AssociationAssociation ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof Thrace,Thrace, RumeliRumeli andand BalkanBalkan TurksTurks ofof SultangaziSultangazi 20112011 Sultangazi/Sultangazi/ İstanbulİstanbul BulgariaBulgaria (especially(especially NorthernNorthern BulgariaBulgaria --Shumen,Shumen, Targovishte,Targovishte, Razgrad,Razgrad, RuseRuse--))
147
AssociationAssociation ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof BulgarianBulgarian MigrantsMigrants ofof SilivriSilivri 20132013 Silivri/Silivri/ İstanbulİstanbul BulgariaBulgaria
Federation
Federation ofof Muhacir’sMuhacir’s AssociationsAssociations ofof EskişehirEskişehir
20052005
EskişehirEskişehir
FormerFormer MigrantsMigrants whowho camecame TurkeyTurkey duringduring BalkanBalkan WarsWars AssociationAssociation ofof SolidaritySolidarity ofof BalkanBalkan TurksTurks ofof EskişehirEskişehir 19871987 EskişehirEskişehir BulgariaBulgaria
Association
Association ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof BalkanBalkan TurksTurks ofof BornovaBornova
20062006
İzmirİzmir
BulgariaBulgaria AssociationAssociation ofof CultureCulture andand SolidaritySolidarity ofof BalkanBalkan TurksTurks ofof CeyhanCeyhan 20012001 CeyhanCeyhan // AdanaAdana FormerFormer migrantsmigrants duringduring BalkanBalkan WarsWars
Association
Association ofof RumeliRumeli WomenWomen ofof AvcılarAvcılar
20052005
AvcılarAvcılar // İstanbulİstanbul
AllAll BalkanBalkan countriescountries FederationFederation ofof AssociationsAssociations ofof RumeliRumeli andand BalkanBalkan 20062006 İstanbulİstanbul AllAll BalkanBalkan countriescountries andand alsoalso ThraceThrace
The
The AssociationAssociation ofof SolidaritySolidarity andand CooperationCooperation ofof BalkanBalkan TurksTurks
19931993
KırklareliKırklareli
SpecificallySpecifically BulgariaBulgaria AssociationAssociation ofof AidsAids forfor MigrantsMigrants 1946/İstanbul1946/İstanbul 1947/Ankara1947/Ankara SpecificallySpecifically BulgariaBulgaria
148
Appendix J List of Associations II
149
150
During
During thethe preliminarypreliminary researchresearch onon associationsassociations ofof BulgaristanlıBulgaristanlı Turks,Turks, II hadhad aa lotlot ofof difficultiesdifficulties gettinggetting informationinformation aboutabout thethe listlist ofof associationsassociations thatthat specificallyspecifically belongbelong toto BulgaristanlıBulgaristanlı TurksTurks andand thethe contactcontact informationinformation ofof theirtheir chairmen.chairmen. II investigatedinvestigated keywordskeywords thatthat werewere supposedsupposed toto relaterelate toto BulgaristanlıBulgaristanlı TurksTurks onon thethe websitewebsite ofof thethe InteriorInterior MinistryMinistry ofof thethe TurkishTurkish Republic.Republic. Then,Then, II searchedsearched everyevery associationassociation onon FacebookFacebook andand otherother socialsocial mediamedia platformsplatforms toto getget inin touchtouch withwith theirtheir members.members. However,However, II couldcould notnot contactcontact mostmost ofof them.them. II hopehope thatthat thesethese findingsfindings willwill makemake easiereasier researchresearch preparationpreparation phasephase forfor newnew researchersresearchers whowho studystudy thethe mobilizationmobilization ofof BalkanBalkan andand RuRumeliamelia TurksTurks andand specificallyspecifically BulgaristanlıBulgaristanlı Turks.Turks.
151
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