Shifting Identities as a Strategy to Remain in the Homeland: The Remarkable History of Kurfallı, Eastern Thrace's Last Bulgarian Village

Abstract

The Bulgarians of the village of Kurfallı in Silivri, who had previously survived the aforementioned wave of migration by asserting their identity as Greeks, also survived the 1923 Population Exchange by reaffirming their Bulgarian identity. However, in the 1930s, when it became evident that they could no longer maintain their identity as the sole remaining Bulgarian community in the region, they chose to xchange places with a Turkish village from Bulgaria. This represented the final instance of population xchange in the Balkans. The paper is primarily based on Turkish archival sources.