THE IMAGE OF TURKEY FOR THE TURKISH IMMIGRANTS FROM BULGARIA

Abstract

The Turkish minorities who came to Turkey after the immigration in 1989 form the corpus of this study. In the same way, their impressions about Turkey, whether they suffered alienation after that immigration and probable reasons for it are the main issues in this study. The questionnaire formulated accordingly is intended to find out the problems that these immigrants encountered in Bulgaria along with their reasons for immigration, as well as social, economic and political situations that they have experienced in Turkey. The aim of this study is also to analyze whether there was a change in the impressions of the immigrants about Turkey before and during the immigration and, if there were, any probable causes of it. By the same token, the feelings of Bulgarian Turks about belonging to the Turkish land, society and nation as well as their level of consciousness with regard to national identity as a community suffered from otherness and assimilation has been studied. The respective questionnaire consisting of 42 items were implemented to 70 of the members of Balkan Migrants Society, who immigrated to Turkey between 1989 and 1992. The questionnaires were evaluated with SPSS program. According to the findings, the immigrants feel themselves belonging to the Turkish society with respect to history, culture and even language; nevertheless, consider themselves different from social point of view. The government has to develop strategies to improve the consciousness of citizenship, to make people sensitive about the problems of a society and also support all these with public relations activities.