Şiirin tanıklık gücü: 1989 zorunlu göçünün Bulgaristan Türk şiirine yansıması
The testimonial power of poetry: representation of the 1989 forced migration in the poetry of the Turks from Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the representation of the 1989 Forced Migration (of the Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey) in the works of Turkish poets from Bulgaria who have themselves been victims of this tragic event. Providing a comprehensive poetic chronicle of the migration, the article aims to illustrate the testimonial function of poetry, namely its power to complement and/or challenge historiography by constantly pushing the reader’s attention from the poetic text to the original event (the forced migration) itself. After a brief discussion of the 1989 Forced Migration as part of the assimilation policy of the Bulgarian Government, the article examines poems which reconstruct different stages of the process. The poems are divided into two main groups. The first group (departure poems) consists of works which illustrate the migrants’ painful separation from their birthplaces, relatives and neighbors. Infused with deep grief, they provide a mighty indictment of the policy of the totalitarian regime. The second group (arrival poems) starts with a discussion of poems which reveal the mi-grants’ joyful unification with the rescuing image of the Motherland (Turkey) and goes on with the analysis of works which report the subsequent stages in the migrant’s life which are marked by a sense of nostalgia and liminality. To explain the mood of strong nationalism which governs the majority of the poems, this section includes also works which report the repressions the migrants had been subjected to prior to their flight to Turkey.

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