Bulgarian Turks Who Left in 1989

I haven't posted in a long time. I moved back to the US to finish my master's and now I live in Arizona and work at Northern Arizona University.
I not doing anything that is connected to Bulgaria, but I figured if there are people out there who find this blog and want to learn more about Bulgaria, then I should update it. So anytime I find something interesting I will post it.

I came across this story yesterday from the BBC. It's about the exodus of 300,000 Bulgarian-Turks who left Bulgaria for Turkey in 1989. Throughout the 1980s, the Bulgarian government began strict laws enforcing the "Bulgarization" of Muslim-Turks. The government forced them to change their names to Slavic-sounding names as well as outlawed Turkish to be spoken in public. This was part of the "rebirthing" process in which the government would transition the Turkish population back into the Bulgarian nation. When the government was met with strong opposition, Bulgarian-Turks were allowed to emmigrate out of the country. This was in the summer of 1989. Later that year, the Berlin Wall came down and the communist regime in Bulgaria was overthrown. Many Turks returned to Bulgaria (since in many cases they were not welcomed by the population in Turkey) and began their lives again. Relations between Turks and Bulgarians is tenuous at times. There is a lot of history between these two groups of people. It seems to be getting better, but I know there is a lot of bad feelings between the two at times.
It's a unique and little-known moment of European history.

For more information on Bulgarian-Turks today in Bulgaria, check out this story about a girl who is blogging about her experiences northeast Bulgaria. This topic is of particular interest to me since I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in this region for two years. I made many friends with both Bulgarians and Turks.