| Total population |
|---|
| 20,500 (by ethnicity 2002) [1] |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Bosilegrad, Dimitrovgrad and Pirot [1] |
| Languages |
| Religion |
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| Bulgarians |
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Bulgarians are an ethnic group in Serbia. This article focuses on Bulgarians in south-eastern Serbia, one of the two areas in which ethnic Bulgarians are concentrated.
The majority of ethnic Bulgarians belong to the Shopi and Torlaks sub-groups. Around 10,000 Bulgarians live in the city of Bosilegrad, the rest of them are found in the cities of Pirot and Dimitrovgrad (Tsaribrod) and surrounding areas, and other border cities. For information about the ethnic Bulgarians in Banat, a region which straddles Serbia and Romania, see the article on Banat Bulgarians.
Contents |
History
With the conquest of the Pomoravlje by Serbia in 1878, the bulgarians, living around South Morava river, were terrorized and assimilated or emigrated. Later, following World War I, the so called Western Outlands passed to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from Bulgaria as a war indemnity, and the remains of the old border can be seen at Vlasina lake. In the Interwar Period the Internal Western Outland Revolutionary Organisation, countering Yugoslav rule in the region, was engaged in repeated attacks against the Yugoslav police and army. During World War II Bulgaria retook again Western Outlands, as well as Pirot and Vranje areas.
Religion
The dominant religion among ethnic Bulgarians is Orthodoxy. Islam never arrived in areas like Bosilegrad because of the mountanous terrain and most inhabitants dwelled in high mountain villages where they were hard to reach. They use both Serbian and Bulgarian churches due to the low number of Bulgarian clergymen present in the region. There is a church in every village around Bosilegrad, and the oldest ones date to the 11th century.
Controversy
With the wake of nationalism in the Balkans in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bulgarian nationalists began internationalizing the issue. With Serbia (and Yugoslavia as a whole) being under severe sanctions from the international community and in a succession of wars, the Bulgarian minority was an easy target. The contemporary Yugoslav administration was accused of:
- Denying the Bulgarian population education in their mother tongue even though it was available and all other minorities inside the country were practising this right. Bulgarians exercised it the least, even today.[citation needed] Also, the rate of people declaring themselves Yugoslavs in Serbia was among the highest in these two municipalities.
- Not permitting Bulgarians to rename Dimitrovgrad to their traditional name, Tzaribrod (Цариброд).[citation needed] Tito changed the name in 1950 after Georgi Dimitrov's death(Bulgarian president). In a referendum 2004, 57% of voters voted to keep the name Dimitrovgrad. Serbs by this time had completely removed their phonetic preference Bosiljgrad (Босиљград) in favor of the Bulgarian Bosilegrad (Босилеград), a variation more in harmony with Standard Bulgarian.
- Settling thousands of Serbian refugees in the area[citation needed] in the 1990s to diminish Bulgarian influence,[citation needed] which the population Census of 1991 and 2002 proved to be totally untrue, not to mention the poor economic status of the area which could not support such an influx of population.
- Oppression against Bulgarians,[citation needed] even though these municipalities were strongholds of support for Slobodan Milošević's regime, and the party (Yugoslav Left) led by his wife Mirjana Marković. Milošević's support in South Serbia in general was a source of many jokes in Serbia.
- Neglecting the economic development of the area for decades,[citation needed] causing ethnic Bulgarians to leave.[citation needed] As much as this is true, it can be said for the entire south of Serbia which was left without any attention from the central government; this caused these areas to be the least developed in Serbia, regardless of the ethnic structure. Municipalities with an ethnic Serb majority from this area, like Trgovište, Surdulica or Crna Trava are among the poorest in Serbia. Also, Crna Trava set a record in depopulation as it plunged from 13,748 in 1953 to 2,563 in 2002. In February 2007, the lowest average wage in Serbia was in the ethnic Serb majority municipality of Svrljig, near Dimitrovgrad. [1]
Gallery
 Unveiling of the monument of Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in Bosilegrad. |
 Church of the Mother of God built by the Bulgarian state in 1892 in Tsaribrod. |
References
- ^ a b "Serbian 2002 census". www.nsi.bg. http://www.stat.gov.rs/zip/esn31.pdf. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
See also
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