and presented in quotations. Background The "Revival Process" In 1984, the authoritarian communist regime in Sofia embarked on an assimilationist campaign known officially as the "Revival Process" (). Bulgarian Muslims were made to formally change their names to sufficiently "Bulgarian" ones (primarily those of Slavic and Christian origin). This action provoked backlash from the Muslim population and sparked protests, a rarity in the thirty years in which Todor Zhivkov had led the country as General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party. Tensions continued to simmer, even after the renaming process had been completed, and many Muslims were arrested and even deported from Bulgaria during the 1980s prior to 1989. As the 1980s wore on, however, the Eastern Bloc and Soviet support both waned, undermining the communist regime in Bulgaria. Often in current Bulgarian discourse, the "Big Excursion" is merged with the longstanding assimilationist policies of the Bulgarian state towards its Muslim minority or the "Revival Process" in particular. It is sometimes treated as merely the endpoint of the latter. In contrast to assimilation campaigns, however, the "Big Excursion" was unprecedented before 1989. Similarly, the Holocaust was of a distinct and unprecedented character from the series of pogroms and anti-semitic campaigns which preceded it and is treated as such by historians. History Start of the Excursion Following on from the simmering tensions between the regime and Muslim population, the state increasingly cracked down. Many Muslim political leaders were deported in the beginning of 1989, primarily to Austria and Sweden, and the state threatened individual Muslims. One Bulgarian Turk, Rasim Ozgur, recalled that in early May 1989, communist state militiamen told him that they would kill him if he was seen conversing with "'reported people,'" and they also told him that he "was about to emigrate." He thus prepared to leave Bulgaria, doing so once the border with Turkey was opened later that month. On May 29, 1989, General Secretary Todor Zhivkov announced the opening of the border with Turkey, ostensibly "to allow tourists to visit the neighboring country." Large numbers of Muslims, many of whom, like Rasim Ozgur, had already prepared to leave the country in the face of state intimidation, surged to the Turkish border. Turkey in-turn fully opened the Kapıkule border crossing near the Bulgarian town of Kapitan Andreevo on June 3. End of the Excursion By late August, over 300,000 Muslims had crossed the Bulgarian-Turkish border, leading to