Nice. It’s amazing to see the progress Bulgarians have made in the last 20 years after joining the EU. I can imagine it hasn’t been an easy process.
replies(3):
* Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better
* Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks
Also, under under the Communist rule supported by USSR, they indoctrinated people into a version of history that Turks are the absolute evil, and Russians are the absolute angels saving them from the ottomans.
I.e. in pre-EU era it was called Ottoman slavery, later they start calling it Ottoman era as it was more accurate as Ottoman’s system was based on collecting taxes and resources from the conquered places when giving them plenty of autonomy. Obviously not ideal but far from slavery.
Devshirme, Janissary corps, Batak massacre? There is huge blood debt that is owed to the Balkans and Armenia by the Ottoman Empire and their successor states.
BTW Just like the way Bulgarians may not recognize that the Bulgarian Empire had a military and killed people in order to take others stuff and force them into things they wouldn't do unless defeated through slathering each other, Turks also tend not to understand that institutions like Devshirme or Janissary weren't liked by the people subjected to those.
For example In their mind Devshirme was an education program that gave the opportunity to minority children to have great careers and indeed that was the result(they don't think about how those kids were taken into the program).
Similarly Janissary were elite units with lots of sway in the administration, in their minds Janissaries were spoiled soldiers that are hard to satisfy.
Also, all the wives of the sultans were women from minorities. In the Turkish mind they were lucky women with a lot of influence on the empire. An entire genre of soap operas are made around this and they are very popular in the countries that used to be under the Ottoman rule. Including Bulgaria.
Let's hope that we never go back to these days. Imperialism is evil and I'm sorry that Erdogan and other autocrats are trying to revive those days. I also agree that it was very offensive for the christians to turn Hagia Sofia into a mosque again(was a museum till recently) and I would love to see it becoming a church again.
Also, let's stop renaming stuff. If you like Istanbul you can move to Istanbul, if you want to own istanbul you can purchase a property in Istanbul.
This is not what it's about. It's not about the Turks being evil and Bulgarians et al being angels. It's about the fact that Turks refuse to accept responsibility.
Let me give you an example. I'm Romanian. There are many uneducated folks you'll meet in Romania who deny we killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in WW2. But no serious politician, historian, public figure, or educated person denies that.
The same is not true in Turkey. Pretty much everyone denies the Armenian Genocide.
All of us have shameful periods in our history, but some of us at least have the decency to not deny it.
But, of course, how could you see the genocide as evil when you can't even come to grips with the older Devshirme, a practice where boys were abducted, mutilated (circumcision), forced converted to Islam, executed if they were found praying to Jesus, and trained to fight and kill their own countrymen.