The Turks of Bulgaria

[Crn Volk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Bulgaria



Bulgaria's constitution and various international treaties required it to grant minorities, including the Turkish population, equal treatment before law (however, the Tarnovo constitution also required, discriminatorily, direct government control over all, minority or majority, religious communities[74]). The policy of equal treatment was pursued inconsistently.[75] All in all, Turks and other Muslims were able to freely maintain their own cultural life during most of the time until World War II, but with periods of gross human rights violations, including a major onslaught during the right-wing authoritarian regime in the last decade of that period. Other abuses included denied access to public service and refusal of tax relief and agricultural loans as a way to encourage emigration,[76] as well as state appointment of Muslim muftis.

The condition of Turks and Bulgarian Muslims worsened gravely after the 1934 coup d'état and the establishment of Boris III's quasi-dictatorship[77] and remained so until the Communist takeover. Muslim minority teachers were deprived of pensions and the participation of the Muslim community in political and cultural life was minimized. As mentioned above, there was an immediate assault on Turkish-language press and by 1941 all Turkish-language newspapers were banned. This was justified with the claim that it promoted Kemalist ideas.[66] In general, pro-Kemalist organizations were systematically dissolved, as Kemalism was regarded as a form of pan-Turkism that turned the Bulgarian Turks into a fifth column of Turkey.[78] Ironically, emigration to Turkey was nevertheless banned during this until the early 1940s, when the government decided to issue emigration permits en masse in order to get rid of the "fifth column". Turkey, on the other hand, was very reluctant to admit any huge immigration from Bulgaria. At the same time, the overall conditions worsened even more, as the pro-Nazi regime closed all Muslim minority schools as well as schools with a significant number of Muslim or Turkish members, shut down mosques and even medical centres in predominantly Muslim areas, and systematically distributed smaller wartime foodstuff portions to Turks and other Muslims than to non-Muslim Bulgarians.[79]

The Turks were not targets of violent assimilation attempts during most of this period, although Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Pomaks) were targeted in two such state-organized campaigns - once during the Balkan wars (which was later revoked by the Liberal Party government elected also with Pomak votes), and once in 1942,[80] by the notorious “Bulgarian-Mohammedan Cultural-Educational and Charitable Association - Rodina”. This also involved a ban on Pomak-Turkish intermarriage and coercive replacement of the Pomaks' Muslim names with Christian ones.[81]

[Bugarash 1893]

Feel better now? cuz Im sure your felt better momentarily

[Crn Volk]

Feel better now? cuz Im sure your felt better momentarily

Yeah, a little;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movemen...s_and_Freedoms

[Guapo]

Движение за права и свободи
Hak ve Özgürlükler Hareketi

[Crn Volk]

Independent Western Thrace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisi...Western_Thrace



The Provisional Government of Western Thrace[1][2][3] (Ottoman Turkish: غربی تراقیا حكومت موقتهسی - Garbi Trakya Hükûmet-i Muvakkatesi), later renamed to Independent Government of Western Thrace[1][4] (Ottoman Turkish: غربی تراقیا حكومت مستقلهسی - Garbi Trakya Hükûmet-i Müstakilesi), was a small, short-lived unrecognized republic established in Western Thrace from August 31 to October 25, 1913. It encompassed the area surrounded by the rivers Maritsa (Evros) in the east, Mesta (Nestos) in the west, the Rhodope Mountains in the north and the Aegean Sea in the south. Its total territory was c. 8.600 km².

This administration was created during the Second Balkan War by a joint rebellion of Turks and Pomaks against the withdrawing Bulgarian forces who had recently annexed the region. It survived for 3 months, between two Balkan treaties; between the May 1913 Treaty of London and the August 1913 Treaty of Bucharest that ended the Second Balkan War.

It was founded as a provisional state, in order to return the territory to the Ottoman Empire later. However, Greek forces occupied its major cities (Porto Lagos, Komotini and Alexandroupolis) and handed them over to Bulgaria, according to the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest (1913). The area remained a part of Bulgaria until 1919 when it was taken under French protectate. It was finally annexed by Greece in 1920 and has been part of that country ever since, except for the Bulgarian occupation between 1941-1944. Its capital was Gümülcine, now (Greek: Κομοτηνή, Komotini), in Greece.

[Crn Volk]

Republic of Tamrash

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Tamrash



The Republic of Tamrash (Bulgarian: Тъмръшка република, Tamrashka republika) was a short-lived self-governing administrative structure of the Pomaks, living in the Tamrash region of the Rhodope Mountains. It existed from 1878 to 1886.

Geography

The territory spanned over the area locked between the Vacha River and the Chepelare River. The rebel territory initially consisted of 17 villages but its number increased up to 21 in 1880. Some of those villages were Trigrad, Mugla, Beden, Mihalkovo, Skoblevo, Churukovo and Devin.

History

The self-governing territory emerged as the Pomaks of the Tamrash region struggled to avoid the influence and the rule of the Christian Bulgarians and the Russians after the Russo-Turkish War.

President of the territory was Ahmed Agha Tamrashlyata. He had participated in the April Uprising, supported by the dwellers of the Tamrash villages on the Ottoman side, so when two years later the Bulgarian and Russian forces advanced to the south, he and his fellows fled even further south to avoid retaliation.

After the Russian army withdrew from the hard to supply Rhodope Mountains, the agha and his party returned to their villages to establish the self-governing territory.

Ahmed Agha Tamrashlyata imposed three times lower taxes which led to expanding the territory from 17 to 21 villages in the autumn of 1880. At the same time the Republic of Tamrash sent a representative in Plovdiv and introduced visas. But in the winter of the same year officials from Tamrash, the Ottoman Empire and the authority of Eastern Rumelia met and agreed that the newly added 4 villages should be returned to Eastern Rumelia.

[Guapo]

jebata turska bugarska kopilada

[Crn Volk]

It seems the bulgars need to look at their own backyard, instead of looking to gain more land.

[Guapo]

It seems the bulgars need to look at their own backyard, instead of looking to gain more land.

Gain what? To be closer to their other Turkic kin the Albanians as well as Turkey? :

[Methmatician]

Sokol, Pomaks aren't Turks.