Torlaks (Торлаци, Турлаци, Torlaci, Turlaci) is a name for Slavic inhabitants of western Bulgaria, south-eastern Serbia and northern Macedonia who speak the Torlakian dialect. Being a distinctive South Slavic ethnographic group in the past[citation needed], in each country the members of the group are considered and self-declare as Serbs, Macedonians or Bulgarians respectively.
Contents |
Origin of the name
According to one theory, name Torlak derived from the South Slavic word "tor" ("sheepfold" in English), referring to the fact that Torlaks in the past were mainly shepherds by occupation, or the old Turkic word for a Dog.[citation needed] Population of Belogradcik area in Bulgaria call themselves Turlaks (Турлаци) which and do not agree with theory that the name is coming from the word "tor" (тор. More over the word "buniste" ("бунище") is more frequently used to describe "sheepfold".
Subgroups
The Torlak population also includes three distinctive ethnic groups - Gorani in Kosovo and Macedonia, Janjevs in Kosovo, and the Krashovani in Romania. The difference between these three groups and the rest of Torlaks is mostly religion - while most of the Torlaks are Orthodox Christians, the Gorani population is Muslim and the Krashovani and Janjevs populations are Roman Catholic. The Krashovani are also somewhat remote from all other Torlaks and South Slavic groups in that they form a linguistic island within Romania, embedded by speakers of Romanian.
The Janjevs of Kosovo are Catholic by religion and have a separate identity. Closely linked to today's Croats, they trace their arrival to their present homeland many centuries back and their presence too forms a part of the Torlakian community.
Connection with Shopi
The Shopi population living in the east of Torlak-inhabited territory (mainly in the western Bulgaria) is cognate to Torlaks. Some researchers even thought that names Torlaks and Shopi are only two names for the same population, but since Torlaks considered themselves different from the Shopi[citation needed], more accurate definition is that Torlaks and Shopi are two cognate but different groups. In the 19th century, Torlaks were aware of the exact border between Torlak and Shopi settlements.
Cultural marginalization and ethnic affiliation
The regional names once used by many people in the Torlakian-speaking region was Torlaci and Šopi. The borders in the region frequently shifted before the Ottoman conquest among Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian rulers. According to some authors during the Ottoman rule, the majority of native Torlakian Slavic population did not have national consciousness in ethnic sense.[citation needed] Therefore, both, Serbs and Bulgarians, considered local Slavs as part of their own people, while local population was also divided between sympathy for Bulgarians and Serbs. Other authors from the epoch, take a different view and maintain that during the Ottoman rule the inhabitants of Torlakian area had begun to develope predominantly Bulgarian national consciousness.[1][2] The first known literary monument, influenced by Torlakian dialects is the Manuscript from Temska Monastery from 1762, in which its author, the Monk Kiril Zhivkovich from Pirot, considered his language as: "simple Bulgarian".[3] In the 19th century the region was one of the centres of Bulgarian national revival and was included at a whole in the Bulgarian Exarchate (1870-1878). It was also stipulated the area to be ceded to Bulgaria according to the Constantinople Conference in 1876 and most of it according to the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878.
With Ottoman influence ever weakening, the increase of nationalist sentiment in the Balkans in late 19th and early 20th century, and the redrawing of national boundaries after the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Balkan wars and World War I, the traditional Torlakian-speaking region was split several times between Serbia and Bulgaria. After World War II, a Macedonian national affiliation arose in the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia. Today, there is no state-sanctioned education in Torlakian language or culture, and the usage of both the language and the regional name Torlaci is gradually vanishing. Torlakian is now seen in Serbia—and to a degree in the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria—as an uneducated and provincial dialect of the dominant language. Also, among the traditional speakers of Torlakian are Slavs of Kosovo and Metohija such as the Muslim Gorani and Catholic Janjevci, as well as Catholic Krasovani from Romania, whose ethnic affiliations are appropriated by neighboring nations.
References
- Kosta V. Kostić, Prilog etnoistoriji Torlaka, II izdanje, Novi Sad, 1995.
Footnotes
- ^ Felix Philipp Kanitz, (Das Konigreich Serbien und das Serbenvolk von der Romerzeit bis dur Gegenwart, 1904, in two volume) # "In this time (1872) they (the inhabitants of Pirot) did not presume that six years later the often damn Turkish rule in their town will be finished, and at least they did not presume that they will be include in Serbia, because they always feel that they are Bulgarians. ("Србија, земља и становништво од римског доба до краја XIX века", Друга књига, Београд 1986, p. 215)...And today (in the end of XIX century) among the older generation there are many fondness to Bulgarians, that it led him to collision with Serbian government. Some hesitation can be noticed among the youngs..." ("Србија, земља и становништво од римског доба до краја XIX века", Друга књига, Београд 1986, c. 218; Serbia - its land and inhabitants, Belgrade 1986, p. 218)
- ^ Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui, „Voyage en Bulgarie pendant l'année 1841“ (Жером-Адолф Бланки. Пътуване из България през 1841 година. Прев. от френски Ел. Райчева, предг. Ив. Илчев. София: Колибри, 2005, 219 с. ISBN 978-954-529-367-2.) The author describes the population of Nish sandjak as ethnic Bulgarians, see: [1]
- ^ Василев, В.П. Темският ръкопис – български езиков паметник от 1764 г, Paleobulgarica, IX (1986), кн. 1, с. 49-72
See also
 |
This article about an ethnic group in Europe is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
