There Are No "Bulgarian Immigrants", Turks Immigrated From Bulgaria from Turgut Can's blog

There Are No “Bulgarian Immigrants”, “Bulgarian Dignitaries” In Turkey There Are “Turks Immigrated From Bulgaria”

Location: A Deliorman Town where Turks have lived for 100 years.
Date: First Friday of June 1453.
There is a large rock in the middle of the town. A dervish, who climbed on that rock with great agility, suddenly began to call the adhan:
“Allahuekber, Allahuekber…”

Since it is Friday, the villagers and the people of the town who come to the town with the intention of Friday prayers are in a state of astonishment. There is still more to the Friday prayer time. The dervish, who completed the call to prayer with tears flowing from his eyes among the bewildered looks of the people, cries out to the people after the call to prayer:

- O People of Islam, O Descendants of Oghuz, good news. Constantinople (Istanbul) was captured. Hunkar Mehmet Khan's army also took the heart of Byzantium last week. Konstantiniye (Istanbul) is now ours.
The people, who have inhabited the Rhodopes and the Deliforest for 100 years, hug each other. This is how the good news of the conquest of Istanbul reaches these lands that have been Turkish and Islamic for 100 years.

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Person: Naim SüleymanOĞlu
Location: Seoul
Year: 1988
He will make a record attempt shortly. He concentrated, he forgot everything. They powder their hands. It will lift after a while. The town of Mestanlı comes to mind all of a sudden. He is going home after training. Neighbor Hafize sees Granny walking on the road with her stick, crying. Whispers in your ear:
--"What happened to grandma?"
Hafize also whispers to Granny:
-“The man of the party punished me, son, because I said come to invite my grandson, my daughter.”
Naim makes his decision at that moment. He will flee to the Motherland at all costs.
The persecution of 90-year-old Granny Hafize, who said "You are not Turkish, you are Muslim Bulgarians" and that she called her grandson in Turkish, will not stop in this country.

The communist party leader, who said, "As long as you declare "I am Bulgarian, what more opportunities will we give you" has already annoyed him.

While Naim is going to go to the podium with concentration, he suddenly thinks of that scene in Mestanlı. He says "Bismillah" and powders his hands again.

As he walks towards the podium, he is almost the Hercules of the modern age. He feels tremendously powerful. This record will come for millions of Turks watching him at the beginning of the screens. But he thinks of the Turks in Deliorman in the Rhodopes, who will sooner or later learn about this record and success from the Voice of Turkey and the BBC radio broadcast. Most of all, Granny Hafize…

There are many people who do not know the history and are unaware that the Turkish settlement in the lands today called Bulgaria was completed 100 years before the conquest of Istanbul. Of course, not knowing is not a shame, but it is very shameful to be stubborn in not learning.

Otherwise, some of the people who sneer in their newspaper columns, on TV screens or in a neighborhood coffee shop as "who knows a lot"; It is a pity that they do not understand how it hurts us that they still use terms like “Bulgarian Immigrant” and “Bulgarian Turk” when talking about us, and the ugliness of these terms and our sensitivity.

Among the millions of Balkan immigrants living in Turkey, there is not a single person who says "I am a Bulgarian immigrant" when introducing themselves. They usually call me "My Mac". When they need to elaborate, they say “I am a Turk who immigrated from Bulgaria”, “I am a Turk from Bulgaria” or “I am a Bulgarian Immigrant”.
Find out now. There is no “Bulgarian Immigrant”, “Bulgarian Soydas” in Turkey

There are "Turks Immigrated from Bulgaria".

There are “Bulgarian Turks”.
There are "Balkan Immigrants".
We are the descendants of the Akıncıs who settled in the Balkans even before Istanbul was conquered.

We are people who are rotting in the dungeons of Belene in the name of Turkishness and Islam because they do not accept being called “Bulgarians”.
Although we have no economic problems, we are people who have crossed borders and came to Turkey with the love of "Turkey", for the sake of "Turkishness", for the sake of "Azan voice", leaving all their possessions and everything behind and starting life from scratch.

It would not be appropriate for you to speak with the totalitarian Zhivkov regime of that time. Please stop this insensitivity. Not only are you hurting us, you're bringing flour to the mill of that Jivkov head who has been persecuting for years to assimilate us.
Find out now. There is no “Bulgarian Immigrant” or “Bulgarian Soydas” in Turkey, there are “Turks Immigrated from Bulgaria”. There are “Bulgarian Turks” and “Balkan Immigrants”. There are Thessaloniki & RUMELI & BALKAN Turks!