After the Cold War: The Ethnic Conflict in Bulgaria and Emigration between Trauma and Return

The text will be situated within the historical context of the fate of the Bulgarian Turks, particularly during the 1980s, exploring the possibilities of examining social trauma through the lens of the migration wave cynically referred to by the communist authorities as “The Great Excursion” and the subsequent “great return.” Affective experiences, contextualized in time and space—not only geographically, but also socially, politically, and economically—constitute an essential layer of the historical narrative, even though they lie far from the realm of factual narration. The specificity of the migratory experience, together with its broader historical and social context, provides an opportunity to direct attention toward particular aspects and themes. After the so-called “great excursion”, as well as after the migration waves to Turkey in the 1990s, and to this day, we are witnessing the reverse process of the return, and both then and now, this is a significant phenomenon, for the fuller understanding of which it is necessary to explore the emotional world and the affective life of the returnees, their experiences in a foreign land (as foreign as it is) and their sense of home, as well as what they perceive as foreign and what they regard as their own. In the text we will try to outline how emotions and affections can be driving forces in certain processes, not least determining the demographic, ethnic and economic reality in Bulgaria.