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The importance of settled minorities for facilitating refugee belonging is seldom discussed in research on refugee integration. Drawing on scholarship on belonging, boundary-making, and bordering, this study investigates how boundaries are drawn between settled minorities and refugees in Bulgaria. Based on interviews with integration workers and organizations of settled minorities in a state with the largest historically present Muslim minority in the EU, an Arabic-speaking diaspora settled decades ago, and with minimal state involvement in refugee integration, the study shows how spatial, linguistic, and religious boundaries separate settled minorities from newly arrived refugees. Arabic-speaking diasporas are nevertheless witnessed to overcome the boundaries through geographical proximity, a shared language, and shared countries of origin, whereby they have functioned as facilitators of refugee belonging and inclusion. Furthermore, Muslim institutions led by Bulgarian Turks have functioned as spaces for refugee belonging. The study finds that settled minority communities have, despite multiple boundaries and some assimilatory discourses, contributed to refugee belonging in ways that in part has compensated for the state absence. The study calls for further research investigating the role of settled minorities in inclusionary processes in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulgarian majority and Turkish minority relations have remained peaceful in the post Communist era despite a significant potential for civil strife. These antagonisms were a product of Bulgaria's historical political development.The most recent episode of forced assimilation policies under the Communist regime was a critical grievance contributing to the democratic transition in 1989. Unlike in neighboring Yugoslavia, communal ethnic conflict did not escalate to violence with political liberalization and the emergence of democratic political competition. A critical factor in the political formula for maintaining interethnic peace in Bulgaria has been Turkey's comparatively constrained behavior as a 'motherland state' with regard to the Turkish Diaspora in Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Ottoman Empire's millet system with a focus on the Muslim populations in Greece and Bulgaria during the period of 1912 to 1923. The influence of this system on peace treaties, social institutions, and the status of religious minorities, the role of ethnicity and the concept of corporate autonomy in the millet system, the system's effect on assimilationist policies and social norms, the muftis who were considered to be civil servants, and the millet-system model as a way to protect minority rights are discussed.

Examines Islam in post-communist Bulgaria. Forcible assimilation of the Muslim minority under communist rule in the 1980s; Diffusion of religious antagonisms by considering the majority side and the dynamics of identity changes among Islamic communities; Consequences of the 1984-1989 assimilation campaign; Restoration of Muslim rights; Nationalist movements; Formation of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.