Elżbieta Szyszlak

The article addresses the cultural security of ethnic and national minorities by analysing the example of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. It is the most signifi¬cant minority in the country, present there for several centuries. Moreover, the Turks, alongside the Pomaks and some Roma, constitute part of Bulgaria’s most considerable religious minority – the Muslims. The preservation of their identity and the protection and development of their cultural heritage, i.e. the fundamental elements of cultural security, are conditioned by many exogenous and endogenous determinants. The most important ones include the policies of the state of residence and the home state, demographic factors, the nature of the settlement, and economic factors, among others. On the other hand, one can distinguish the preservation of the Turkish language, the protection of material cultural heritage, and the possibility of intergenerational cultural transmission among the challenges of cultural security for Turks in Bulgaria. The main research problem is to situate the cultural security of the Turkish minority in the broader context of the socio-political and economic changes occurring in Bulgaria. In the theoretical part, the cultural security of ethnic and national minorities is defined, and then the concept of cultural genocide and securitization of ethnic and national minorities were introduced as selected threats to cultural security. The next part presents the policy of the communist authorities towards the Turkish minority, the negative consequences of which are still noticeable today. It is followed by the outlined contemporary situation of the Turkish minority after 1989 in the context of the possibility of preserving and developing its culture and cultural identity. The considerations conclude with a detailed analysis of selected problems of cultural security of the Turkish community, which limit the opportunities for the Turks to use their undoubted advantages in maintaining their cultural security – the number of people, territorial concentration, a strong sense of identity, geographical proximity to Turkey. Therefore, the Turkish minority faces the necessity to take measures to strengthen these assets and eliminate the factors adversely affecting its cultural security level.