Bulgarisation (also known as Bulgarianisation; Bulgarian: побългаряване or българизация) is the spread of Bulgarian culture within various areas in the Balkans.
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A number of government policies are considered to be examples of Bulgarisation, including the attempt of the former communist leadership in the 1980s to assimilate a Turkish minority living in Bulgaria and, more recently, allegedly similar efforts towards the Slavic-speaking people inhabiting Pirin Macedonia. This view is disputed because the ethnic Macedonian identity and nationalism emerged in the 20th century outside Pirin Macedonia and actually the local Slavic people in Pirin Macedonia have always been Bulgarians since Middle Ages, with no other than Bulgarian self-identification, and de facto never could have been bulgarisated.
Turks
During the Communist period of Bulgarian history, the Turkish minority (mainly across Bulgaria's east) of the country were forced to change their names from Turkish or Arabic to Bulgarian in 1984, during Todor Zhivkov's rule. Back then, as well as nowadays, the supporters of this policy refer to it as the "Process of Rebirth" (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, Vǎzroditelen proces), while critics call it "the so-called Vǎzroditelen proces". Turkish culture and language as well as Islamic beliefs were also suppressed. The argument was that the Turkish population of Bulgaria were allegedly Bulgarians forced to convert to Islam during the Ottoman rule.
This project met forceful resistance in the form of large-scale protests, international pressure and cases of terrorism. After the end of Communist rule, people were free to revert to previous names or adopt the names they wished, Arabic/Turkish or other. Some people continued using both names.
In 2003 the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed that religious discrimination remained a major problem, but this has not been noted by other human rights organizations.
Gagauz
According to Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, people from the Gagauz ethnic group remaining in Bulgaria were noted to have been Bulgarianised at the end of the 19th century.