Bulgarian Turks: Revival Process Should Be Included in Schoolbooks

The former Bulgarian Communist's regime attempt to forcefully assimilate Bulgarian Muslims, known and the "Revival Process", should be included in the country's history schoolbooks, according to the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS).

The names of the ethnic Turks who were oppressed by the totalitarian regime should be mentioned in schoolbooks alongside Bulgaria's national heroes, DPS representatives said during a commemorative event in the village of Barutin, according to the Cross news agency.

Some 500 people gathered to mark the anniversary of the infamous "Revival Process" in Barutin on Sunday. Senior DPS officials and Bulgaria's Chief Mufti were among those who attended the event.

Some 300 000-400 000 Bulgarian Turks fled in the late 1980s when the Bulgarian Communist Party and Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov staged the so called "Revival Process" or "Regeneration Process" - a campaign to assimilate first ethnic Bulgarian Muslims and then ethnic Turks by forcing them to adopt Slavic-Christian names instead of their Arab-Turkish ones.

In 2012, Bulgaria's Parliament condemned the assimilation policy of the totalitarian Communist regime against the Muslim minority in Bulgaria, including the Revival Process.

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