Bulgarisation (), also known as Bulgarianisation (), is the spread of Bulgarian culture beyond the Bulgarian ethnic space carried out through educational and ecclesial campaigns, and, at times, policies of forced assimilation and emigration. Within the borders of modern-day Bulgaria, historic Bulgarisation efforts were primarily, but not exclusively, directed at Muslims. There were also Bulgarisation campaigns in present-day Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia, particularly during the First and Second World Wars.
History Ottoman rule
Bulgaria was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for around 500 years. Under Ottoman rule, much of the previous expansion of the Bulgarian ethnic group was reversed. While the Ottoman rulers provided for some cultural and religious autonomy under the "Millet System", and Bulgarians were briefly granted their own Bulgarian Millet, Bulgarians were no longer politically dominant in their own lands. While the Ottomans did not generally require Bulgarians to convert to Islam, the empire did enforce the Jizya tax and other forms of discrimination and practices on non-Muslims (such as the Devshirme). Those Bulgarians who converted to Islam but retained their Slavic language and customs became known as Pomaks. A subset of these converts to Islam also assimilated into the Turkish ethnic group. Between that assimilation and the settlement of many Turkish people in Bulgaria, much of modern-day Bulgaria had an ethnic Turkish Muslim majority prior to Bulgarian independence.
Bulgarian Exarchate
In 1870, Sultan Abdulaziz authorised the establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate. The Bulgarian Exarchate exercised authority over northern Bulgaria, most of Thrace and Macedonia. The establishment of the Exarchate meant official recognition of a separate Bulgarian millet, and in this case the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance. Shortly after its establishment, the Exarchate launched educational campaigns which managed to implant Bulgarian national ideology in the Macedonian Slavs.
The Principality and Tsardom Following the decisive defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Bulgaria regained independence, though initially it remained under limited Ottoman suzerainty. Following the Ottoman defeat, both Russian occupation authorities, during and immediately after the war, as well as Bulgarian administrators attempted to remove traces of Ottoman rule from the area where possible. The Bulgarian nation was ideally to consist of Slavic Orthodox Christians. The state pressed Christians who adhered to the Exarchate to declare themselves as Bulgarians, while those loyal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate were labelled "Greek". Bulgaria made progress in promoting a Bulgarian national identity among the population without a clear nationality, though strong support for nationalism in the cities often hid widespread discontent. In spite of treaty obligations requiring Bulgaria to protect its Muslim subjects, Islamic buildings of many kinds were destroyed (including mosques, schools, and homes).
Assimilation efforts continued thereafter, and many Muslims left Bulgaria in response. In the first post-independence census conducted by the Principality of Bulgaria 26.3% of respondents declared their mother tongue to be Turkish or Gagauz (the two were part of a single combined category), but by 1934 (the final census conducted by the Tsardom of Bulgaria) only 9.7% of respondents declared themselves to be ethnically Turkish and information on the Turkic Gagauz population was not collected. This precipitous drop in the Turkish population of Bulgaria meant that by the time of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, many formerly Turkish-majority areas had become majority ethnically Bulgarian.
Rodina Movement Assimilation efforts in the Tsardom of Bulgaria increased in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The "Homeland" or "Rodina" () movement, originally founded in part by ethnic-Bulgarian Muslims, was associated with particularly acute assimilation efforts in the Tsardom. The movement focused on Bulgarising "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" people in the country.
While the origins of the Rodina movement were popular, the Tsardom eventually provided financial support for the movement. The Bulgarian language was introduced into Muslim worship, and the wearing of traditional clothing among "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" people was curtailed. Eventually, the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to appoint "Bulgaro-Mohammedan" Muftis.
Most notable, however, was the name-changing drive, which was mandated by the Tsardom from 1942. Those identified as ethnic-Bulgarian Muslims were made to change their names, though prior to 1942 name-changes were officially voluntary. Following the passage of the "Bulgarianisation of the Mohammedan Names of Bulgaro-Mohammedans" law, 60,000 were compelled to change their names, though many were able to revert to their non-Bulgarian names following the fall of the regime.
Modern Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia
The region of present-day North Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912. At that time, most independent European observers viewed the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians or as Macedonian Slavs, while their association with the Bulgarian cause was almost universally accepted by Western scholars. However, the majority of local peasants did not have a clear sense of national identity, while clear national identity was espoused mostly by a small social class of educated people – intelligentsia. Immediately after annexation of Vardar Macedonia to the Kingdom of Serbia, during the Balkan wars (1912–1913), Macedonian Slavs were confronted with a state-policy of forced Serbianisation. An anti-Bulgarian cultural campaign was carried out in the areas under Serbian control, in which Bulgarian schools and churches were closed, while clergy and teachers were expelled.
During both the First and Second World War, Bulgaria administered occupation zones in the modern-day state of North Macedonia as well as parts of Kosovo and Serbia. During both occupations, Bulgarian authorities implemented policies aimed at the Bulgarisation of the local population.
In 1915, Bulgaria came to occupy half of the Kingdom of Serbia. The goal of the Bulgarian government was to create pure Bulgarian territories by denationalising and assimilating the other Slavs. The Bulgarian occupations were administered by both military and civilian officials, almost all of whom were brought in from Bulgaria. In a report to his supreme command, the Austro-Hungarian colonel Julius Lustig wrote that the Bulgarian authorities were ruthless and brutal in introducing their new administration, and that Bulgarisation was implemented through the destruction of the local intelligentsia and by the enforced introduction of the Bulgarian language. Shops, libraries and church archives were raided, and schools and churches closed or destroyed. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was also prohibited in schools. In Macedonia, Bulgarian clerks, teachers, and priests opened schools, organised associations, and published materials, often alongside coercive measures. Similar policies were applied to Albanians and Turks in Kosovo and Macedonia.
The occupation authorities in Macedonia sought to impose Bulgarisation by force, employing measures that were regarded by people from outside as ridiculous. Religious paintings, icons, saints and inscriptions were replaced with Bulgarian ones, and traces of Serbian rule in medieval Macedonia were erased. Schools were reorganised with the primary goal of promoting Bulgarian national identity rather than to improve education. Attendance at Bulgarian schools and participation in national and religious events were made compulsory, with economic penalties for noncompliance. Individuals who refused to comply with the authorities and become Bulgarian faced severe repression, including torture, internment, and gruesome killings. Historian Andrej Mitrović stated that the Bulgarisation in Macedonia assumed the character and proportions of psychological terror. The Austro-Hungarian supreme command in Kosovo reported:
Resistance to the occupation and Bulgarisation led to the Toplica Uprising of 1917 in Southern Serbia.
During the Second World War, Bulgaria occupied most of Vardar Macedonia, then officially called Vardar Banovina. Until then, the Serbian authorities had carried out a state-policy of Serbianisation and de-Bulgarisation occurred. At the same time the Bulgarian government promoted Bulgarisation by supporting pro‑Bulgarian organisations in Macedonia to advance its territorial claims. The Bulgarian authorities considered the Macedonian Slavs as no more than unruly Bulgarians.
Soon after the occupation began, the authorities realised that only some of the Slavic Macedonians felt Bulgarian or were pro-Bulgarian. Consequently, they initiated a program of intense Bulgarisation in all occupied areas. Some researchers describe this process as "re-Bulgarisation" and "de-Serbianisation". Schools and libraries were closed, and cultural institutions, archives, cemeteries, and churches were destroyed. Measures were taken to eliminate Serbian and Macedonian identity markers, including personal and place names, language use, and national symbols. These actions were accompanied by repression and despotism. Local Serbo-Croatian press was banned and youth organisations inspired by fascist ideas were established. Shortly after, schools at all levels were reorganised to promote Bulgarian national feeling among the Macedonians, and large numbers of teachers were imported from Bulgaria while the Macedonian teachers who were suitable were sent to Bulgaria for study and indoctrination. Those who were not suitable were transferred to administrative jobs outside of the school system or dismissed. Serbian personnel in banking, industry, and commerce were removed and replaced with Bulgarians from Bulgaria or Macedonian Bulgarians. The majority of those who identified as Macedonians either resisted the policies or remained passive. Remaining forests and grazing lands that had not been nationalised before were also nationalised.
Harsh treatment by occupying Bulgarian troops further reduced pro-Bulgarian feeling among Macedonian Slavs. The intensive Bulgarisation policies generated significant discontent in Macedonia, leading even anti‑Yugoslav Macedonians who returned from exile to seek allies among the communists. All of these events confirmed to the Macedonians that the Bulgarian regime behaved in the same oppressive manner as the previous Serbian-dominated Yugoslav one. So, the Bulgarisation campaign ultimately failed. The German historian Björn Opfer drew parallels between Nazi Germany's Germanisation campaigns and the Bulgarisation effort in Macedonia. He wrote that Bulgarian authorities acted considerably more repressively compared to the other Axis states, such as Romania, Hungary and Finland.
Greek Macedonia and Thrace
At the beginning of the 20th century, Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace were ethnically diverse. Greeks, Slavs, Turks, and others could be found throughout the region. The Tsardom of Bulgaria gained most of what is now the Greek administrative region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in the Balkan Wars. It further occupied some of the Greek-assigned portion of Eastern Macedonia around the cities of Drama and Kavala for half of the First War.