Right at the start, one word in the title of this special topic issue requires clarification: the word “minority.” We will not try to define the term here, but it is only fair to say that some of the groups which are mentioned or discussed are not recognized as minorities or have a rather dubious legal position, as, for example, the Kashubs and Lemkos in Poland or Macedonians in Greece. As to the notion of linguistic minority: it is a term very often used but rarely defined. That it is often used has to do with the fact that most minorities in Europe speak a language or a dialect or variant which discriminates them from the majority. As a matter of fact, the nationalist traditions in Europe seem to take more or less for granted that a minority without a separate language is not a real minority. Language questions have been in the forefront of most nation-building projects or ethnic mobilizations in Europe, and so it has become more or less axiomatic that every nation or ethnic group should have its own language. As an example, the Bosnian language may be cited. The Bosnians—or rather the Bosniaks—insist on naming the language they use Bosnian instead of, as before, Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian. They also insist on their right to standardize their language in their own fashion. Another good example is the Rusyn language, or rather—to be more precise—the Rusyn languages in the Carpathian area. As Rusyns, not Ukrainians, they are now trying to create their own standard language or languages on the basis of their own dialects. The Rusyns in Yugoslavia started this process earlier; consequently, the Rusyn language of Yugoslavia is now to be considered one of the standard Slavic languages.

It has been said that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 but the wall around Greece is still standing. It is ironic that, while the governments of Albania, Bulgaria and Rumania have, in recent years, taken measures to safeguard the rights of national minorities, the Greek government continues to stonewall on its own national minorities while fomenting rebellion among those in other countries. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War has benefited the Macedonian minority in Greece. Greece has lost its paramount strategic importance for the western countries, which are now less likely to cast a blind eye on human rights abuses in that country. Conditions for the Macedonians in Greece have improved somewhat as individual members of the minority have become emboldened to demand their rights in public in recent years. They have attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Watch, all the more so due to the heavy-handed attempts by the Greek authorities to silence recalcitrant members of the minority, as described below. The U.S. Department of State (1995: Greece 12) notes that the Greek government “continues to harass and intimidate some of these people.”

This article explores the status of Turks in Bulgaria under the transition from Communism to post-Communism. After a summary of the demography of the Turkish population in Bulgaria, the paper focuses on developments in three specific areas: religious, political, and educational issues. For each issue a brief historical background is given but the emphasis is on developments since 1989. Since the article is an expanded version of a presentation on East European Linguistic Minorities, the issue of Turkish language and Turkish language education in Bulgaria is discussed in greater detail than religious and political issues. This in no way implies that the latter are any less important.

The Roma or Gypsies entered Romania's historic provinces, Wallachia and Moldavia, in the twelfth century. Over the next 200 years, the Roma, who had come to the Balkans from northern India, were enslaved. By the fifteenth century, the practice of Gypsy slavery was widespread throughout the two provinces. In part, their enslavement came about as a means of securing Gypsy skills as craftsmen, metalsmiths, musicians, and equine specialists. Over time, a complex body of laws was passed in Wallachia and Moldavia to strengthen the control of Romanian noblemen over their Gypsy slaves (robi). However, by the eighteenth century, some mild efforts were undertaken to better the plight of Romanian Gypsy slaves.

The official language of the medieval Kingdom of Hungaria was Latin until the mid-nineteenth century (Szekfű, 1926); the throne was occupied from the second half of the sixteenth century by the Hapsburgs. The subsequent change to Hungarian was due to several factors, but was caused above all by the ideas of the French Revolution, and by the early anti-Austrian nationalistic endeavors of the Hungarian gentry, endeavors which also expressed the economic interests of the country. As soon as the official idiom of the kingdom became Hungarian, it triggered similar aspirations among the non-Magyar minority groups against the dominating and assimilating Hungarian majority. These aspirations were prominent among the causes of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy at the end of World War I. Within the former Kingdom of Hungary the Felvidék (Upper Land) roughly coincided with what was, after 1919, Slovakia. The eastern part of the kingdom, Ardeal/Erdély/Siebenbürgen/Transylvania, which had enjoyed a certain autonomy between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, became a part of Romania in the same year. Thus, both in Romania and in Slovakia (as also in Yugoslavia and to a lesser extent in Austria) a Hungarian minority was created by the 1919 borders. Revision of the peace treaties became the focal point of Hungarian politics in the inter-war period. During World War II Hungary attained a partial revision in respect to, first, the southern part of Slovakia, and also the entire Ruténföld/Rusinsko, which had from the 1920s been administered by the Czechoslovak State); second, northern Transylvania; and third, two further areas which had belonged to the then-dissolved Yugoslav kingdom. As a consequence of these revisions, a considerable number of non-Hungarians once again became minorities in the Hungarian State. After World War II, the 1919 borders were reinstated (with two exceptions: the major exception being that Ruténföld became part of Ukraine). The situation of the minorities was also reinstated, but differently in each instance. This was the age when some kind of democratic reconciliation was on the agenda in Romania (Balogh, 1985; Lázok and Vincze, 1995; “Mit kíván,” 1946/1988), after a period of thorough self-searching and a synthesizing of historical research and political experience (see Bibó, 1946).

The population of the North Adriatic area has always been linguistically mixed. Slovene, Croatian and Italian populations have lived here for 14 centuries; German people moved here in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the city of Trieste became the official harbor of the Empire, and, as a consequence, the town grew, attracting others immigrants: Greeks, Jews, Serbs, and so on. Linguistically three main groups lived in Trieste: German, Italian and Slovene speakers. The Slovenes in Trieste owned many important activities, such as banks and trading companies. They were organized in the fields of education and culture with their own theater, private schools, library, daily newspaper and magazines. The Slovenes in Trieste also had their own political movement electing some representatives to the Parliament in Vienna. On the whole, they were considered a very well organized linguistic group. The Italians in Trieste were similarly well organized, and many supported a strong irredentist movement, economical and political organizations, as well as the theater. The German speakers were mostly immigrants who had moved to Trieste for business reasons or as civil servants.

The Slovene-speaking minority in Austria—when compared with many other linguistic minorities in Europe—is in an enviable position. Superficially, its minority rights are both constitutionally guaranteed and, for the most part, legally enforced; in the province of Carinthia/Kärnten/Koroška (the home of nearly all the minority; see Map 1) bilingual education is available in many communities at the primary level, and there is a thriving bilingual secondary school; Slovene is officially used in many offices and churches, and can be heard in many shops and on many street corners; there are two weekly newspapers. The picture below the surface is not quite as pleasant: there is anti-Slovene discrimination in several forms, and the pressure on minority members to Germanize themselves is strong; in particular, it must be emphasized that although the minority enjoys virtually full support from the federal government in Vienna, the provincial government in Carinthia has seldom been as favorably disposed. Still, most of the other minorities in Central and Eastern Europe can only dream of living in conditions like those of the Carinthian Slovenes.

One of the most frequently heard phrases in Communist Poland was the notorious nie ma “there is not, is not available, is out of stock,” reflecting the permanent shortage—of virtually everything—that was so characteristic of what was labeled “real socialism.” The phrase disappeared shortly after the introduction of a market economy overnight filled the hitherto empty shelves with an abundance of goods which had been unheard of throughout the postwar decades. The phrase became almost forgotten—only to make a sudden and seemingly unexpected (although foreseen by some) comeback, when the “post-Communists” were returned to power by the September 1993 parliamentary elections. It may not (yet?) concern Warsaw, which devours an unfair share of what the country can produce, and it may not (yet?) concern other larger Polish cities, but across the countryside chronic shortage is often felt only too bitterly. In spite of this most alarming development, however, the strong opinion prevails that there can be no return to the old centrally steered socialist economy. The changes have gone too far, enabling the people to resist attempts at revising the impressive economic, social and political reforms in Poland.