Revival Process

Revival Process
	People protesting for the return of their birth names
Date	December 1984–December 1989
Location	Bulgaria;
Type	Assimilation campaign
Target	Bulgarian Turks
Perpetrators	People's Republic of Bulgaria; Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP);
Outcome	Authorities forced about 850,000 people to change their names.; Some later reverted to their previous names.; Restrictions were rescinded in late 1989.;
Deaths	Various estimates
Injuries	Several thousand
Arrests	Several thousand

The Revival Process (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, romanized: Vazroditelen protses) was a government-enforced assimilation campaign in the People's Republic of Bulgaria. It began on Gregorian Christmas 1984 and continued until December 1989. The state imposed new Bulgarian names on about 850,000 people, banned public use of the Turkish language, and restricted religious and cultural practices. The government declared the forced renaming complete on March 31, 1985, but restrictions on language, religion, and cultural practice remained until December 1989. In 1989, state pressure led more than 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to leave in a migration that began on May 29, 1989. After party leaders removed Todor Zhivkov on November 10, 1989, the new government under Petar Mladenov restored the right to hold Turkish names and eased religious and cultural restrictions on December 29.

Officials argued that Bulgarian Turks were descendants of Bulgarians who had been forcibly converted to Islam and Turkish culture, and presented the campaign as a restoration of Bulgarian origins. Authorities implemented the renaming campaign by surrounding Turkish villages with security forces and military vehicles, while employers carried out some name changes at official direction. Language, religious, and cultural restrictions were enforced through fines, surveillance, detention, and internal exile. Deaths occurred during state suppression of protests and opposition to the campaign and in prison camps such as the Belene labor camp, though death toll estimates vary among sources.

The campaign drew criticism from Turkish and Western officials and media outlets, human-rights organizations, and international bodies. After 1989, the Revival Process was condemned by Bulgarian political, religious, and civic institutions. Following the fall of communism in Bulgaria, legal mechanisms for name restoration were established and Bulgaria undertook minority-rights reforms. On January 11, 2012, the National Assembly of Bulgaria formally condemned the Revival Process.