Democratic Bulgaria (DB) submitted amendments to the Civil Registration Act aimed at addressing what the formation described as a long-standing problem of excessive administrative burden on Bulgarian citizens whose names were forcibly changed during the so-called “Revival Process”, DB’s press office said on Wednesday.
The administrative problem stems from the fact that not all authorities comply with the principles of the Electronic Governance Act, DB said. A certificate of identity of names would be unnecessary if administrative bodies used internal electronic services to check, through a person’s personal identification number, whether the Unified System for Civil Registration and Administrative Services of the Population (ESGRAON) contains more than one name for that person – one resulting from the forcible name change and another being the original name.
The proposed amendments seek to simplify the restoration of names, provide for automatic electronic exchange and updating of data in official registers, and abolish the requirement for citizens to submit certificates of identity of names. They also provide for the free issuance of a new identity card following the restoration of a person’s name and would remove the requirement for notarisation of the signature on an application to restore a name.
In late 1984 and early 1985, Bulgaria’s Communist regime forced Bulgarian Turks to adopt Slavic names, limit their religious activity, and refrain from speaking Turkish in public. Following the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, Bulgaria formally ended the Revival Process. In December 1989, the Communist Party decided to restore the original names of affected citizens, and legislation adopted in March 1990 annulled the assimilation policy. Within a year, some 600,000 people had reclaimed their original names, according to historian Petya Pavlova.
The country subsequently strengthened minority protections through the 1991 Constitution and by joining the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1999. In 2018, Bulgaria also included the Revival Process in secondary school history curricula, following years of public debate, according to Deutsche Welle Bulgaria.
However, despite restoring civil rights and officially condemning the assimilation campaign, Bulgaria has never created a comprehensive compensation or reparations programme for the victims. In 1991, former communist leader Todor Zhivkov and four other senior officials were charged over their role in the campaign, but none were ultimately convicted. While victims have received political rehabilitation and official recognition of the injustice, broad financial compensation has not been provided.
Democratic Bulgaria Proposes Easier Name Restoration for People Affected by Revival Process 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-09-30 10:00:46
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BULGARIA NEWS – NEWS AGENCY 2009–2026 2026-09-30 10:00:46
