Bulgarian Geography and Ethnography

The heart of Bulgaria is the Thracian plain, trapped between the Balkan Mountain range to the north and the Rhodope Mountains to the south. It was one of the most important granaries of the Roman Empire, a rich agricultural area the size of the State of Israel, where the major cities are located – Sofia at the end and Plovdiv in the heart. At its eastern end lies the port of Burgas and the coastline of the Black Sea.

Northern Bulgaria is another rich agricultural area of plains and hills about 100 km wide, which slopes down from the peaks of the Balkan Mountains to the Danube River. There are interesting and important historical sites in the area, but today it is quite remote. In contrast, the Black Sea coast has become a popular resort for tourists in recent years; in its center are the cities of Varna and Burgas.

But in my humble opinion, the more interesting areas in Bulgaria are the mountain ranges. Bulgaria has five towering mountain ranges, each of which is a separate cultural and scenic area. Each of them has different costumes, folklore, music and dance, historical tradition, and local pride.

The biggest and most different of all is the Rhodope Mountain range, which separates Bulgaria from Greece; the longest and most inhabited of them is the Balkan Mountain range, called the ‘Good Mountain’ (or the ‘Old’), around which nationalism and culture developed. The highest and most impressive in terms of scenery are the Rila and Pirin Mountains, which reach heights of 3,000 meters; near Sofia there is a small mountain range called Vitosha, but it rises to a height of 2,200 meters and serves as the green lung of the city. These are the five well-known mountain ranges, and to them must be added the beautiful Strandja and Sakar Mountains, located in the southeast on the border with Turkey.

Who is Bulgarian?

The Bulgarians claim to be the descendants of the original Thracian inhabitants mixed with Slavic settlers that introduced a new culture and language into the land. They were ruled by an invading nomadic Turkic tribe who created the first Bulgarian state in the 7th century AD. According to Dunov, as a result, the Bulgarians have three important characteristics: from the Thracians they received the tendency towards mysticism, from the Turkish Bulgarians courage and determination, and from the Slavs – patience, the ability to give and sacrifice.

According to Dunov, the word Bulgarian means to do good. The Bulgarian people in particular, and the Slavs in general, are ripe to be the standard-bearers of contemporary human development that will lead to the development of a new and universal religion of love, wisdom, and truth. The Bulgarians were prepared for this for thousands of years through exposure to Orphism in the classical period, and the study of Cyril and Methodius and the Bogomils in the Middle Ages.
Be that as it may, the Bulgarians have a cultural and national continuity of 1,300 years, a very rare thing in the history of the nations of the world. Although there are people older than them, like the Greeks, they have changed over the course of history. In contrast, the Bulgarians, despite being under occupation for many years, preserved their folklore, language, religion, and culture.

Minorities in Bulgaria

Over 80% of the inhabitants of Bulgaria are Bulgarians, but there are a few minority groups, the major ones are as follows:

The Pomak

The Pomaks are Bulgarian Slavs who became Muslims and live mainly in the Rhodope Mountains, where there are areas where they are a majority. They number about 250,000 people and have their own Bulgarian dialect. According to the Bulgarians’ version, they became Muslims under the pressure of the Ottoman authorities, and therefore there were attempts to forcefully convert them back to Christianity by the communists in the 1980s.

But the Pomaks have a different version, and today they are developing a separate identity based on a narrative according to which they are the successors of the ancient Thracian people or the medieval Bogomils, who lived in the Rhodopes having a distinct culture.

In any case, in the heart of the Rhodope Mountains, the Pomaks preserved unique traditions of poetry, music and folklore, mythology and language, and at the end of the 19th century the region even had a brief period of independence.

The Turks

A large Turkish minority lives in Bulgaria, which is sometimes confused with the Pomaks. These are the Turks who speak Turkish, living in their own villages, mainly in the southeast of the country, but also in the Rose Valley and other areas. In this context, it is worth mentioning that today the Turkish government is making an effort to preserve the sites and the heritage of the Ottoman Empire, in the Balkans in general and in Bulgaria in particular.

The Vlach people

It is a general name for groups of speakers of a language close to Latin in the southern Balkans: Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Serbia, numbering close to a million people. According to one theory, the Vlachs came from Romania to the various Balkan countries and are of Dacian origin, while according to another version, the Vlachs are populations left over from the Roman provinces of Illyria or Thrace who found refuge in the mountains.

Be that as it may, today the Vlachs are mainly shepherds in the highlands of the Balkans who speak a language similar to Romanian. They are also called Aromanians. It is typical for Vlachs to engage in bi-seasonal herding; in the summer they go up with the herds to their villages in the high mountains, and in the winter they go down to the valleys. In the Middle Ages, the Vlachians had a great influence on the Second Bulgarian Empire, and even today there are populations of them all over Bulgaria, especially in the Balkan Mountains.

The Vlachians did not have their own national consciousness until the 19th century, when the educated classes joined the local people, since those who preserved the language and culture were the simple people in the mountains. Upon gaining its independence, a movement began in Romania addressing the Vlachians as members of the Romanian people and calling on them to express loyalty to the Church and the Romanian idea. However, most of the Vlachs in Bulgaria are Bulgarian Christians, while in the area east of Meteora in Greece, which is the most populated of this minority, they are Orthodox Greeks.

The Sarakatsani people

This is a people of shepherds of Greek origin who are common in the Balkan countries, including Bulgaria. According to their language, they are considered the purest of all the Greeks. In the past, they were nomads who stayed in the mountains in the summer and in the valleys in the winter (like the Vlachians).

The holy day of St. George symbolized for them the beginning of the late winter migration to the mountains, and the holy day of St. Dimiter symbolized the beginning of the late summer migration to the valleys. It should be noted that St. George is associated with high places, while St. Dmitri is the patron saint of Thessaloniki.

The Sarakatsani are experts in folk medicine, they have a unique art in clothing and sculpture somewhat reminiscent of pre-classical Greece, and some claim they are descendants of the Dorian tribes. In contrast, there is an opinion that they only started migrating due to the pressure of the Turks, and the origin of the name expresses the words “refugee” or “black” in Turkish.

Today there are about 100,000 Sarakatsani people throughout the Balkans, most of them living in the Pindos Mountains in Greece, while about 5,000 or more live in Bulgaria. The Bulgarians claim that they are ancient Thracians who went through the Hellenization process and did not mix with the invading Slavs.

Gypsies

Very large minorities of Gypsies live in the Balkans, and their exact number is unknown. According to the legend, they came from Egypt, and this is the origin of the name, but apparently they came from India. Gypsies in many places (although there is change in this recently) do not integrate into local societies and have their own culture and language. They live on the fringes of society; some are Muslim and some are Christian, but mostly they keep their pagan–mystical beliefs. In Bulgaria, they are called “Roma” and number more than half a million people, making up about 10% of the population.