site.btaPublications, Exhibitions in Turkiye Mark 35th Anniversary of "Great Excursion"

Various events in Turkiye have been marking the 35th anniversary of the mass exodus of Bulgarian Turks.

That unprecedented emigration wave, referred to as "the Great Excursion" in the newspeak of the day, was triggered by a May 2, 1989 statement by Bulgaria's communist leader Todor Zhivkov in which he urged Turkiye to open its border for Bulgarian Muslims who wished to visit or settle permanently. From June 3 to August 21, 1989, while the border between the two countries was opened, over 350,000 ethnic Turks from various parts of Bulgaria moved out. 

The emigration came as a response to a several-year-long internationally condemned campaign of Bulgaria's Communist regime to force the local Muslim minority to adopt Slavic names, limit their religious activity, and refrain from speaking Turkish in public, which was euphemistically called the "Regeneration Process".

Prof. Ayse Kayapinar, who was born in Bulgaria, said that none of the previous emigration waves of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkiye before 1989 had been as large-scale and concentrated within a short span of time as the "Great Excursion."

Quoted by the Anadolu Agency, the historian described this wave of forced emigration from Bulgaria to Turkiye as "sudden, massive, ethnic-based, politically motivated, and coercive". 

In her words, the expulsion was a turning point in the life of Bulgarian Turks and also in world history as it "speeded up the fall of the communist regime in the countries behind the Iron Curtain."

A black-and-white photo exhibition by journalist Behic Gunalan captured tragic moments from the summer of 1989, when thousands of scared and exhausted people of all ages arrived from Bulgaria in Turkiye by train, car or on foot.

Turkish Radio and Television Corporation channel TRT Avaz broadcast a special programme on the events that unfolded 35 years ago. Assoc. Prof. Bulent Yildirim of Trakya University in Edirne commented on the reasons that led to the emigration of Turks from Bulgaria and on its political, economic, social and cultural consequences. He called the process "the most massive deportation of people in the world after World War II."

The online news portal OdaTV wrote in a publication: "35 years since the expulsion… They opposed the obliteration of the Turkish name by moving to the ancient homeland."

BULTURK, a Bulgarian Turks' association for services and cooperation, organized a news conference in Istanbul about the events of late May 1989 and the ensuing exodus of Bulgarian Turks.