The "Big Excursion" (Bulgarian: Голямата екскурзия, romanized: Golyamata Ekskurzia) was the 1989 forced migration (Turkish: 1989 Zorunlu Göç) of Turks and Bulgarian Muslims by the Communist government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. In total, around 360,000 Turks and Bulgarian Muslims crossed the border into Turkey. In late December 1989, a month after the resignation of General Secretary Todor Zhivkov, the "Big Excursion" came to a genuine end, with the new government promising to restore the rights of Turks and Bulgarian Muslims. By the end of 1990, around 150,000 Turks and Bulgarian Muslims had returned from abroad.

The "Big Excursion" has been recognized as an ethnic cleansing, including by the democratic government of now-EU-member Bulgaria in 2012. Though the Excursion is not as widely politicized in the West as the Bosnian genocide and expulsion (and subsequent return) of Kosovar Albanians in neighboring Yugoslavia, as of 1989 it was the largest instance of ethnic cleansing in Europe by number of victims since the expulsion of Germans living east of the Oder–Neisse line between 1944 and 1950.

The terminology used to refer to and describe the "Big Excursion" is controversial. While the Bulgarian forced migrations of 1989 are often viewed as amounting to ethnic cleansing, that term is not always used to describe them.

Though modern use of the term ethnic cleansing dates back to the early 19th century, it is usually understood to have come into common usage with the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in earnest in 1991, two years after the start of the "Big Excursion". In the years since Yugoslavia's dissolution, the term "ethnic cleansing" has gained scholarly acceptance in spite of its own originally euphemistic origin. The term "ethnic cleansing" is consequently not always associated with the 1989 forced migration in Bulgaria of two years prior. Instead, the event is usually referred to by the official (and likewise euphemistic) terms employed by the regime of Todor Zhivkov to describe the events.

The Bulgarian government described the forced migrations as the "Big Excursion" (Bulgarian: Голямата екскурзия, romanized: Goliamata Ekskurziya) because officially the border with Turkey was allegedly opened "to allow tourists to visit the neighboring country," and the regime in Sofia claimed that victims had only left temporarily to visit relatives abroad.

Some, however, have criticized the use of that official and highly ambiguous term. Polish academic Tomasz Kamusella describes continued use of the term "Big Excursion" as tantamount to acceptance of General Secretary Zhivkov's propaganda, and some Turks and Bulgarian Muslims take offense to use of the term "Big Excursion". Conversely, those who wish to belittle the memory of the forced migration of 1989 often do not capitalize the term "Big Excursion".

Bulgarian Turks constitute a substantial portion of both Bulgaria's Muslim population and the victims of the "Big Excursion". While Muslims of non-Turkish ethnicities (Pomaks, Muslim Roma, and Tatars among others) were also affected by the "Big Excursion", Pomaks were often referred to as "Turks" and vicе versa. As a result, the precise identity of victims can be difficult to determine. Estimates of the ethnic composition of victims of the "Big Excursion" thus vary. For example, by one estimate around 90% of victims were Bulgarian Turks, but by another up to 111,000, approximately one third, of the victims of the "Big Excursion" were Pomaks despite official exclusion of Pomaks from the events. Since Pomaks and Turks traditionally lived in different parts of Bulgaria, authorities used individuals' place of origin to "impose a preferred ethnic category on a person."

In 1984, the authoritarian communist regime in Sofia increasingly leaned into Bulgarian nationalism and embarked on an assimilationist campaign known officially as the Revival Process (Bulgarian: Възродителен процес, romanized: Vazroditelen protses). While initially, the regime focused on heightened assimilationist policies, it eventually resolved towards ethnic cleansing. For example, on June 7, 1989, General Secretary Todor Zhivkov said the following of the necessity of the "Big Excursion":