Big Excursion
The "Big Excursion" () also known as the 1989 migration () or Big Migration () was the ethnic cleansing of Bulgarian Muslims by the Communist government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Between May and August 1989, 360,000 Bulgarian Muslims crossed the border into Turkey. In late December 1989, a month after the resignation of General Secretary Todor Zhivkov, the "Big Excursion" came to a genuine end, with the new government promising to restore the rights of Bulgarian Muslims. By the end of 1990, around 150,000 Bulgarian Muslims had returned from abroad. While the "Big Excursion" is sometimes alleged to have been a case of voluntary mass-migration, it has been widely recognized as ethnic cleansing, including by the democratic government of now-EU-member Bulgaria in 2012. Though the Excursion is not as widely remembered in the West as the subsequent Bosnian genocide and expulsion (and subsequent return) of Kosovar Albanians in neighboring Yugoslavia, as of 1989 it was the largest case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since the expulsion of Germans living east of the Oder-Neisse line between 1944 and 1950. Terminology Though use of the term "ethnic cleansing" dates back to the early 19th century, the term is usually understood to have come into common use with the breakup of Yugoslavia which had not yet occurred by 1989. The term "ethnic cleansing" is thus not usually associated with the 1989 ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria. Instead, the event is usually referred to by the official euphemistic terms employed by the regime of Todor Zhivkov. The Bulgarian government officially referred to the flight of Bulgarian Muslims as the "Big Excursion" () because officially the border with Turkey was opened "to allow tourists to visit the neighboring country," and the victims of the Excursion had only left temporarily to visit relatives. Some, however, have criticized the use of that official and highly ambiguous term. Polish academic Tomasz Kamusella describes use of the term "Big Excursion" as tantamount to acceptance of General Secretary Zhivkov's propaganda, and some Bulgarian Muslims take offense to use of the term "Big Excursion". Even in the modern day, the name by which this event is called is the subject of contention. Those who wish to belittle its memory do not capitalize the term "Big Excursion". In this article, the term "Big Excursion" is used to refer to the ethnic cleansing of Bulgarian Muslims in 1989 but it is capitalized and presented in quotations. Background The "Revival Process" In 1984, the authoritarian communist regime in Sofia embarked on an assimilationist campaign known officially as the "Revival Process" (). Bulgarian Muslims were made to formally change their names to sufficiently "Bulgarian" ones (primarily those of Slavic and Christian origin). This action provoked backlash from the Muslim population and sparked protests, a rarity in the thirty years in which Todor Zhivkov had led the country as General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party. Tensions continued to simmer, even after the renaming process had been completed, and many Muslims were arrested and even