Banat Bulgarians
Encyclopedia
The Banat Bulgarians are a distinct Bulgarian
minority group which settled in the 18th century in the region of the Banat
, which was then ruled by the Habsburgs
and after World War I
was divided between Romania
, Serbia
, and Hungary
. Unlike most other Bulgarians, they are Roman Catholic by confession and stem from groups of Paulicians
and Roman Catholics from modern northern and northwestern Bulgaria
.
Banat Bulgarians speak a distinctive codified form of the Eastern Bulgarian vernacular
with much lexical
influence from the other languages of the Banat. Although strongly acculturated to the Central Europe
an region, they have preserved their Bulgarian identity.
Since the Liberation of Bulgaria
in 1878, many have returned to Bulgaria and founded separate villages there.
recognized 1,658 Bulgarians in Vojvodina
, the autonomous province that covers the Serbian part of the Banat. Bulgarian researchers estimate that 12,000 Banat Bulgarians live in Romania and 3,000 in Serbia.
The earliest and most important centres of the Banat Bulgarian population are the villages of Dudeştii Vechi
(Stár Bišnov) and Vinga, both today in Romania
,
but notable communities also exist in Romania in Breştea
(Bréšća), Colonia Bulgară
(Telepa) and Denta
(Dénta), and the cities of Timişoara
(Timišvár) and Sânnicolau Mare
(Smikluš), as well as in Serbia in the villages of Ivanovo
, Konak (Kanak), Jaša Tomić
(Modoš), and Skorenovac
(Gjurgevo).
In Bulgaria, returning Banat Bulgarians populated the villages of Asenovo
, Bardarski Geran
, Dragomirovo
, Gostilya
, and Bregare
, among others, in some of which they coexist or coexisted with Banat Swabians
, other Bulgarian Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox
Bulgarians.
follows:
-mining town of Chiprovtsi
and surrounding villages was possibly established in the Middle Ages
by "Saxon" miners
, who later migrated elsewhere or were assimilated. In 1688, the members of the community organized the unsuccessful Chiprovtsi Uprising
against the Ottoman
rule of Bulgaria. The uprising was suppressed due to organizational flaws and the halting of the Austria
n offensive against the Ottomans. Around 300 families of the surviving Catholics fled north of the Danube
to Oltenia
, initially settling in Craiova
, Râmnicu Vâlcea
, and other cities, where their existing rights were confirmed by Wallachia
n Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu
. Some moved to south-western Transylvania
, founding colonies in Vinţu de Jos
(1700) and Deva
(1714) and receiving privileges such as civil rights
and tax exemption
.
After Oltenia was occupied by Austria
in 1718, the status of the Bulgarians in the region improved again, as an imperial decree of 1727 allowed them the same privileges as their colonies in Transylvania. This attracted another wave of migration of Bulgarian Catholics, about 300 families from the formerly Paulician villages of central northern Bulgaria. They settled in Craiova between 1726 and 1730, but did not receive the same rights as the colonists from Chiprovtsi.
The Habsburg
s were forced to withdraw from Oltenia in 1737 in the wake of a new war with the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarians fled from this new Ottoman occupation and settled in the Austrian-ruled Banat to the northwest. The Austrian authorities allowed them to found the villages of Stár Bišnov in 1738 and Vinga (or Theresiopolis) in 1741. In 1744, a decree of Maria Theresa of Austria
again confirmed their privileges received in Oltenia.
Around a hundred Paulicians from the region of Svishtov
and Nikopol
migrated to the Banat from 1753 to 1777.
The existing Bulgarian population quickly spread throughout the region from the late 18th to the second quarter of the 19th century. They settled in around 20 villages and towns in search of better economic conditions, specifically their need for arable land. Such colonies include those in Modoš (1779), Kanak and Stari Lec
(1820), Belo Blato (1885), Bréšća, Dénta, and Banatski Dvor
(1842), Telepa (1846), Gjurgevo (1866), and Ivanovo (1867).
After they settled, the Banat Bulgarians began to take care of their education
and religion
. The Neo-Baroque
church in Stár Bišnov was built in 1804 and the imposing Neo-Gothic church in Vinga in 1892. Until 1863, Banat Bulgarians held liturgies
in Latin
and "Illyric". Illyric was a strain of Croatian
which had spread in the communities before they migrated to the Banat. However, with their cultural revival in the mid-19th century, their vernacular was gradually introduced in the church. The revival also led to the release of their first printed
book, Manachija kathehismus za katolicsanske Paulichiane, in 1851. "Illyric" was also substituted with Banat Bulgarian in education in 1860 (officially in 1864). In 1866, Jozu Rill codified the dialect with his essay Bálgarskotu pravopisanj.
After the Ausgleich
of 1867, the Hungarian authorities gradually intensified the Magyarization
of the Banat. Until World War I
, they imposed Hungarian
as the main language of education.
, Austria-Hungary
was dissolved and Banat was divided between Romania and Serbia. Most Banat Bulgarians became citizens of the Kingdom of Romania
, but many fell inside the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
.
In Greater Romania
, the Banat Bulgarians' identity was distinguished in censuses and statistics. The main language of education was changed to Romanian
and the Bulgarian schools were nationalized. A Romanian geography book of 1931 describes the Bulgarians in the county of Timiş-Torontal as "foreigners", and their national dress as "not as beautiful" as the Romanian one, but in general the Banat Bulgarians were more favourably treated than the larger Eastern Orthodox Bulgarian minority in interwar Romania.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia denied the existence of any Bulgarian minority, whether in the Vardar Banovina
, the Western Outlands, or the Banat. Official post-World War I statistics provide no data about the number of the Banat Bulgarians. In comparison with the Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians in Yugoslavia, the Banat Bulgarians were treated better by the Yugoslav authorities, although Serbo-Croatian
was the only language of education.
In the 1930s, the Banat Bulgarians in Romania entered a period of cultural revival led by figures such as Ivan Fermendžin, Anton Lebanov, and Karol Telbis (Telbizov). These new cultural leaders emphasized the Bulgarian identity at the expense of the identification as Paulicians and Roman Catholics, establishing contacts with the Bulgarian government and other Bulgarian communities in Romania, particularly that in Dobruja
. The organs of this revival were the newspaper Banatsći balgarsći glasnić (Banat Bulgarian Voice), issued between 1935 and 1943, and the annual Banatsći balgarsći kalendar (Banat Bulgarian Calendar), issued from 1936 to 1940. There was a plan to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the settlement in the Banat which was the most significant manifestation by Banat Bulgarians in that period. It was partially spoiled by the Romanian authorities, but still attracted much attention among intellectuals in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Agrarian Party, a section of the National Peasants' Party
, was founded in 1936 on the initiative of Karol Telbizov and Dr. Karol Manjov of Stár Bišnov, with Petar Telbisz as its chairman, and the Bulgarian National Society in the Banat, also headed by Telbisz, was established in 1939.
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia improved their relations in the 1930s, leading to indirect recognition of the Banat Bulgarian minority by the Yugoslav government. Still, the Banat Bulgarian revival was much less perceivable in the Serbian Banat. The Banat Bulgarian population in Yugoslavia was only partially affected by the work of Telbizov, Lebanov, and the other cultural workers in the Romanian Banat.
. According to Bulgarian data from 1942, 10,000 Banat Bulgarians lived in Hungary, mainly in the major cities, but this number is most likely overestimated. Members of the Banat Bulgarian community in Hungary include several deputies to the National Assembly
, such as Petar Dobroslav, whose son László Dobroslav (László Bolgár) was a diplomat, and Georgi Velčov.
During the Interwar period
, the Banat Bulgarian communities in Romania were among those experiencing the greatest emigration to the USA, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. An organized Bulgarian community was established in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
, where the Banat Bulgarians were mostly farmers.
A significant number of Banat Bulgarians returned to Bulgaria, beginning in the 1880s and 1890s. They founded several villages in Pleven Province
, Vratsa Province
and Veliko Tarnovo Province
and received privileges, as per the law of 1880, for the settlement of unpopulated lands. They introduced superior agricultural technologies to the country and fully applied their farming experience. Their religious life was partly determined by the clashes between the dominant Eastern Orthodoxy and the minority Catholicism, and cultural conflicts with other Roman Catholic communities which they lived with in several villages, such as the Banat Swabians and the Bulgarian Paulicians from Ilfov.
On the eve of World War II
, the authoritarian regime of Carol II of Romania
and the fascist
government under Ion Antonescu
widely discriminated against the Bulgarian minority in the Romanian Banat. Bulgarians were often deprived of property and land, subjected to anti-Bulgarian propaganda, and their villages had to shelter Romanian and Aromanian
refugees from Northern Transylvania
and Southern Dobruja
.
In May 1941, the Bulgarians in the Romanian Banat contributed to the release of ethnic Bulgarian prisoners of war from the Yugoslav Army
, captured by the Axis, from a camp near Timişoara. Communicating with the Bulgarian state, Banat Bulgarian leaders headed by Anton Lebanov negotiated the prisoners' release and transportation to Bulgaria, after the example of the release of captured Hungarian soldiers from the Yugoslav Army. They temporarily accommodated these Bulgarians from Vardar Macedonia
and the Serbian Banat and provided them with food until they could be taken to Bulgaria.
The Serbian Banat was conquered by Nazi Germany
on 12 April 1941, and was occupied for much of the war. In late 1942, the German authorities allowed Bulgarian minority classes to be created in the Serbian schools in Ivanovo, Skorenovac, Konak, Belo Blato, and Jaša Tomić. However, the sudden change in the war and German withdrawal from the Banat forced education in Bulgarian to be discontinued after the 1943–44 school year.
After the war, Banat Bulgarians in Romania and Yugoslavia were ruled by communist
regimes. In the Romanian Banat, some were deported in the Bărăgan deportations
in 1951, but most of those were allowed to return in 1956–57. A Bulgarian school was founded in Dudeştii Vechi in 1948, and in Vinga in 1949. Others followed in Breştea, Colonia Bulgară, and Denta, but these were briefly closed or united with the Romanian schools after 1952, and Bulgarian remained an optional subject.
The Constitution of Romania
of 1991 allowed Bulgarians in the Romanian Banat parliamentary representation through the minority party of the Bulgarian Union of the Banat — Romania
(Balgarskotu družstvu ud Banát — Rumanija), led formerly by Karol-Matej Ivánčov and as of 2008 by Nikola Mirkovič, and Bulgarian remained an optional subject in the schools.
In post-war Yugoslavia, the existence of a Banat Bulgarian minority was formally recognized, but they were not given the same rights as the larger Bulgarian minority in eastern Serbia. Unlike other minorities in Vojvodina, they were not allowed education in their mother tongue, only Serbo-Croatian.
of the Eastern Bulgarian group. A typical feature is the "ы" (*y) vowel, which can either take an etymological place or replace "i". Other characteristic phonological features are the "ê" (wide "e") reflex of the Old Church Slavonic
yat
and the reduction of "o" into "u" and sometimes "e" into "i": puljé instead of pole ("field"), sélu instead of selo ("village"), ugništi instead of ognište ("fireplace"). Another characteristic feature is the palatalization
of final consonants, which is typical for other Slavic languages
, but found only in non-standard dialects in Bulgarian (Bulgarian den ("day") sounds like and is written as denj).
Lexically, the language has borrowed many words from languages such as German
(such as drot from Draht, "wire"; gáng from Gang, "anteroom, corridor"), Hungarian (vilánj from villany, "electricity"; mozi, "cinema"), Serbo-Croatian (stvár from stvar, "item, matter"; ráčun from račun, "account"), and Romanian (šedinca from şedinţă, "conference") due to the close contacts with the other peoples of the multiethnical Banat and the religious ties with other Roman Catholic peoples. Banat Bulgarian also has some older loanwords from Ottoman Turkish
and Greek
, which it shares with other Bulgarian dialects (e.g. hirgjén from Turkish ergen, "unmarried man, bachelor"; trandáfer from Greek τριαντάφυλλο triantafyllo, "rose"). Loanwords constitute around 20% of the Banat Bulgarian vocabulary. The names of some Banat Bulgarians are also influenced by Hungarian names, as the Hungarian (eastern) name order
is sometimes used (family name
followed by given name
) and the female ending "-a" is often dropped from family names. Thus, Marija Velčova would become Velčov Marija.
Besides loanwords, the lexis of Banat Bulgarian has also acquired calque
s and neologisms, such as svetica ("icon", formerly used ikona and influenced by German Heiligenbild), zarno ("bullet", from the word meaning "grain"), oganbalváč ("volcano", literally "fire belcher"), and predhurta ("foreword").
The Banat Bulgarian language uses its own script, largely based on the Croatian
version of the Latin alphabet
(Gaj's Latin Alphabet), and preserves many features that are archaic in the language spoken in Bulgaria. The language was codified as early as 1866 and is used in literature and press, which distinguishes it from plain dialects.
The music of the Banat Bulgarians is classed as a separate branch of Bulgarian folk music, with several verbal and musical peculiarities. While the typically Bulgarian bars
have been preserved, a number of melodies display Romanian, Serbian, and Hungarian influences, and the specific Bulgarian Christmas carols have been superseded by urban-type songs. Roman Catholicism has exerted considerable influence, eliminating certain types of songs and replacing them with others. Similarly, Banat Bulgarians have preserved many Bulgarian holidays but also adopted others from other Roman Catholic peoples. One of the most popular holidays is Faršángji, or the Carnival
. In terms of dances, Banat Bulgarians have also heavily borrowed from the neighbouring peoples, for example Hungarian csárdás
.
The women's national costume of the Banat Bulgarians has two varieties. The costume of Vinga is reminiscent of those of sub-Balkan cities in Bulgaria; the one of Stár Bišnov is characteristic of northwestern Bulgaria. The Vinga costume has been particularly influenced by the dress of Hungarians and Germans, but the Stár Bišnov costume has remained more conservative. The Banat Bulgarian women's costume is perceived as particularly impressive with its crown-like headdress.
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
minority group which settled in the 18th century in the region of the Banat
Banat
The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
, which was then ruled by the Habsburgs
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
and after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
was divided between Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, and Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. Unlike most other Bulgarians, they are Roman Catholic by confession and stem from groups of Paulicians
Paulicianism
Paulicians were a Christian Adoptionist sect and militarized revolt movement, also accused by medieval sources as Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian. They flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire...
and Roman Catholics from modern northern and northwestern Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
.
Banat Bulgarians speak a distinctive codified form of the Eastern Bulgarian vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
with much lexical
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
influence from the other languages of the Banat. Although strongly acculturated to the Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an region, they have preserved their Bulgarian identity.
Since the Liberation of Bulgaria
Liberation of Bulgaria
In Bulgarian historiography, the term Liberation of Bulgaria is used to denote the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 that led to the re-establishment of Bulgarian state with the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, after the complete conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire, which...
in 1878, many have returned to Bulgaria and founded separate villages there.
Population
The official Romanian census states that 6,468 people of Bulgarian origin inhabit the Romanian part of the Banat. The Serbian census of 2002Demographics of Serbia
The demographics of Serbia have been shaped by its unique geographic location. Situated in the middle of the Balkans, many different ethnic groups are citizens of Serbia. Serbs are overwhelmingly the largest ethnic group in the country. Furthermore, Albanians have represented the largest minority...
recognized 1,658 Bulgarians in Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
, the autonomous province that covers the Serbian part of the Banat. Bulgarian researchers estimate that 12,000 Banat Bulgarians live in Romania and 3,000 in Serbia.
The earliest and most important centres of the Banat Bulgarian population are the villages of Dudeştii Vechi
Dudestii Vechi
Dudeştii Vechi is a commune in Timiş County, Romania...
(Stár Bišnov) and Vinga, both today in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
,
but notable communities also exist in Romania in Breştea
Denta
-Villages:The commune is composed of four villages: Breştea, Denta, Roviniţa Mare and Roviniţa Mică.Breştea was founded in 1842 by around 110 families of Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians from Dudeştii Vechi ....
(Bréšća), Colonia Bulgară
Dudestii Vechi
Dudeştii Vechi is a commune in Timiş County, Romania...
(Telepa) and Denta
Denta
-Villages:The commune is composed of four villages: Breştea, Denta, Roviniţa Mare and Roviniţa Mică.Breştea was founded in 1842 by around 110 families of Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians from Dudeştii Vechi ....
(Dénta), and the cities of Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
(Timišvár) and Sânnicolau Mare
Sânnicolau Mare
Sânnicolau Mare is a town in Timiş County, Romania and the westernmost of the country. Located in the Banat region, along the borders with Serbia and Hungary, it has a population of just under 13,000...
(Smikluš), as well as in Serbia in the villages of Ivanovo
Ivanovo (Serbia)
Ivanovo is a village located in the Pančevo municipality, in the South Banat District of Serbia.It is situated in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.- Geography :...
, Konak (Kanak), Jaša Tomić
Jaša Tomic (place)
Jaša Tomić is a town located in the municipality of Sečanj , in the Central Banat District of Serbia. It is situated in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The town has a Serb ethnic majority and a population numbering 2,982 people .-Name:The town is named after Jaša Tomić , a Serb journalist...
(Modoš), and Skorenovac
Skorenovac
Skorenovac is a village located in the Kovin municipality, in the South Banat District of Serbia, in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.-Geography:The closest towns are Kovin , Smederevo , Pančevo , and Belgrade...
(Gjurgevo).
In Bulgaria, returning Banat Bulgarians populated the villages of Asenovo
Asenovo, Pleven Province
Asenovo is a village in northern Bulgaria, part of Nikopol municipality, Pleven Province. It was founded in 1892 by Roman Catholic 203 households of Banat Bulgarians returning to Bulgaria from the Banat...
, Bardarski Geran
Bardarski Geran
Bardarski Geran is a village in northwestern Bulgaria, part of Byala Slatina municipality, Vratsa Province. It is among the several villages founded by Banat Bulgarians returning from the Banat after the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878, and is thus predominantly Roman Catholic...
, Dragomirovo
Dragomirovo, Veliko Tarnovo Province
Dragomirovo is a village in central northern Bulgaria, part of Svishtov Municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. As of January 2006, it has a population of 864 and the mayor is Hristo Yordanov of the National Movement Simeon II....
, Gostilya
Gostilya
Gostilya is a village in central northern Bulgaria, located in Dolna Mitropoliya municipality, Pleven Province. It was founded in 1890 by 133 families of Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians from Stár Bišnov and Ivanovo in what was then Austria-Hungary...
, and Bregare
Bregare
Bregare is a village in central northern Bulgaria, part of Dolna Mitropoliya municipality, Pleven Province. Bregare lies on the left bank of the Iskar River, from its mouth in the Danube, at an elevation of around...
, among others, in some of which they coexist or coexisted with Banat Swabians
Banat Swabians
The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to what was then the Austrian Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic Banat Swabian...
, other Bulgarian Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Bulgarians.
Historical population
According to various censuses and estimates, not always accurate, the number of the Banat Bulgarians varied asfollows:
| Source | Date | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jozu Rill | 1864 | 30,000–35,000 | |
| Hungarian statistics | 1880 | 18,298 | |
| Hungarian statistics | 1900 | 19,944 | |
| Hungarian statistics | 1910 | 13,536 | "evidently underestimated" |
| Various authors | second half of the 19th century |
22,000–26,000 | "sometimes including the Krashovani Krashovani The Krashovani are a South Slavic people indigenous to Caraşova and other nearby locations in... " |
| Romanian census | 1930 | 10,012 | Romanian Banat only |
| Dimo Kazasov | 1936 | 3,200 | Serbian Banat only; estimated |
| Romanian census | 1939 | 9,951 | Romanian Banat only |
| Karol Telbizov | 1940 | 12,000 | Romanian Banat only; estimated |
| Mihail Georgiev | 1942 | up to 4,500 | Serbian Banat only; estimated |
| Romanian census | 1956 | 12,040 | Romania only |
| Yugoslav census | 1971 | 3,745 | Serbian Banat only |
| Romanian census | 1977 | 9,267 | Romania only |
| Romanian census | 2002 | 6,486 | Romania only |
| Serbian census | 2002 | 1,658 | Serbia only |
Origin and migration north of the Danube
The Bulgarian Roman Catholic community in the north-western oreOre
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
-mining town of Chiprovtsi
Chiprovtsi
Chiprovtsi is a small town and municipality in northwestern Bulgaria, administratively part of Montana Province. It lies on the shores of the river Ogosta in the western Balkan Mountains, very close to the Bulgarian-Serbian border...
and surrounding villages was possibly established in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
by "Saxon" miners
Germans in Bulgaria
Germans are a minority ethnic group in Bulgaria . Although according to the 2001 census they only numbered 436, the settlement of Germans in Bulgaria has a long and eventful history and comprises several waves, the earliest in the Middle Ages....
, who later migrated elsewhere or were assimilated. In 1688, the members of the community organized the unsuccessful Chiprovtsi Uprising
Chiprovtsi Uprising
The Chiprovtsi Uprising was an uprising against Ottoman rule organized in northwestern Bulgaria by Roman Catholic Bulgarians, but also involving many Eastern Orthodox Christians...
against the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
rule of Bulgaria. The uprising was suppressed due to organizational flaws and the halting of the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n offensive against the Ottomans. Around 300 families of the surviving Catholics fled north of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
to Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
, initially settling in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
, Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea is the capital city of Vâlcea County, Romania .-Geography and climate:Râmnicu Vâlcea is situated in the central-south area of Romania...
, and other cities, where their existing rights were confirmed by Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu
Constantin Brâncoveanu
Constantin Brâncoveanu was Prince of Wallachia between 1688 and 1714.-Ascension:A descendant of the Craioveşti boyar family and related to Matei Basarab, Brâncoveanu was born at the estate of Brâncoveni and raised in the house of his uncle, stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino...
. Some moved to south-western Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, founding colonies in Vinţu de Jos
Vintu de Jos
Vinţu de Jos, also known as Vinţ is a commune located in the centre of Alba County, Romania. It is composed of eighteen villages: Câmpu Goblii , Ciocaşu , Crişeni , Dealu Ferului , Gura Cuţului , Haţegana , Inuri , Laz , Mătăcina , Mereteu...
(1700) and Deva
Deva, Romania
Deva is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania, on the left bank of the Mureș River. It is the capital of Hunedoara County.-Name:...
(1714) and receiving privileges such as civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and tax exemption
Tax exemption
Various tax systems grant a tax exemption to certain organizations, persons, income, property or other items taxable under the system. Tax exemption may also refer to a personal allowance or specific monetary exemption which may be claimed by an individual to reduce taxable income under some...
.
After Oltenia was occupied by Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in 1718, the status of the Bulgarians in the region improved again, as an imperial decree of 1727 allowed them the same privileges as their colonies in Transylvania. This attracted another wave of migration of Bulgarian Catholics, about 300 families from the formerly Paulician villages of central northern Bulgaria. They settled in Craiova between 1726 and 1730, but did not receive the same rights as the colonists from Chiprovtsi.
The Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
s were forced to withdraw from Oltenia in 1737 in the wake of a new war with the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarians fled from this new Ottoman occupation and settled in the Austrian-ruled Banat to the northwest. The Austrian authorities allowed them to found the villages of Stár Bišnov in 1738 and Vinga (or Theresiopolis) in 1741. In 1744, a decree of Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
again confirmed their privileges received in Oltenia.
Austrian and Hungarian rule
Svishtov
Svishtov is a town in northern Bulgaria, located in Veliko Tarnovo Province on the right bank of the Danube river opposite the Romanian town of Zimnicea. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Svishtov Municipality...
and Nikopol
Nikopol, Bulgaria
Nikopol is a town in northern Bulgaria, the administrative center of Nikopol municipality, part of Pleven Province, on the right bank of the Danube river, 4 km downstream from the mouth of the Osam river. It spreads at the foot of steep chalk cliffs along the Danube and up a narrow valley...
migrated to the Banat from 1753 to 1777.
The existing Bulgarian population quickly spread throughout the region from the late 18th to the second quarter of the 19th century. They settled in around 20 villages and towns in search of better economic conditions, specifically their need for arable land. Such colonies include those in Modoš (1779), Kanak and Stari Lec
Stari Lec
Stari Lec is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Plandište municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,094 people...
(1820), Belo Blato (1885), Bréšća, Dénta, and Banatski Dvor
Banatski Dvor
Banatski Dvor is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Žitište municipality, in the Central Banat District, Vojvodina province...
(1842), Telepa (1846), Gjurgevo (1866), and Ivanovo (1867).
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. The Neo-Baroque
Neo-baroque
The Baroque Revival or Neo-baroque was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture which displays important aspects of Baroque style, but is not of the Baroque period proper—i.e., the 17th and 18th centuries.Some examples of Neo-baroque architecture:*...
church in Stár Bišnov was built in 1804 and the imposing Neo-Gothic church in Vinga in 1892. Until 1863, Banat Bulgarians held liturgies
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and "Illyric". Illyric was a strain of Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
which had spread in the communities before they migrated to the Banat. However, with their cultural revival in the mid-19th century, their vernacular was gradually introduced in the church. The revival also led to the release of their first printed
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
book, Manachija kathehismus za katolicsanske Paulichiane, in 1851. "Illyric" was also substituted with Banat Bulgarian in education in 1860 (officially in 1864). In 1866, Jozu Rill codified the dialect with his essay Bálgarskotu pravopisanj.
After the Ausgleich
Ausgleich
The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Compromise re-established the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hungary, separate from and no longer subject to the Austrian Empire...
of 1867, the Hungarian authorities gradually intensified the Magyarization
Magyarization
Magyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...
of the Banat. Until World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, they imposed Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
as the main language of education.
Interwar Romanian and Serbian Banat
After World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
was dissolved and Banat was divided between Romania and Serbia. Most Banat Bulgarians became citizens of the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
, but many fell inside the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
.
In Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, the Banat Bulgarians' identity was distinguished in censuses and statistics. The main language of education was changed to Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and the Bulgarian schools were nationalized. A Romanian geography book of 1931 describes the Bulgarians in the county of Timiş-Torontal as "foreigners", and their national dress as "not as beautiful" as the Romanian one, but in general the Banat Bulgarians were more favourably treated than the larger Eastern Orthodox Bulgarian minority in interwar Romania.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia denied the existence of any Bulgarian minority, whether in the Vardar Banovina
Vardar Banovina
The Vardar Banovina or Vardar Banate or Vardarska Banovina was a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. It was located in the southernmost part of the country, encompassing the whole of today's Republic of Macedonia, southern parts of Central Serbia and southeastern parts of...
, the Western Outlands, or the Banat. Official post-World War I statistics provide no data about the number of the Banat Bulgarians. In comparison with the Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians in Yugoslavia, the Banat Bulgarians were treated better by the Yugoslav authorities, although Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
was the only language of education.
In the 1930s, the Banat Bulgarians in Romania entered a period of cultural revival led by figures such as Ivan Fermendžin, Anton Lebanov, and Karol Telbis (Telbizov). These new cultural leaders emphasized the Bulgarian identity at the expense of the identification as Paulicians and Roman Catholics, establishing contacts with the Bulgarian government and other Bulgarian communities in Romania, particularly that in Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
. The organs of this revival were the newspaper Banatsći balgarsći glasnić (Banat Bulgarian Voice), issued between 1935 and 1943, and the annual Banatsći balgarsći kalendar (Banat Bulgarian Calendar), issued from 1936 to 1940. There was a plan to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the settlement in the Banat which was the most significant manifestation by Banat Bulgarians in that period. It was partially spoiled by the Romanian authorities, but still attracted much attention among intellectuals in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Agrarian Party, a section of the National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
, was founded in 1936 on the initiative of Karol Telbizov and Dr. Karol Manjov of Stár Bišnov, with Petar Telbisz as its chairman, and the Bulgarian National Society in the Banat, also headed by Telbisz, was established in 1939.
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia improved their relations in the 1930s, leading to indirect recognition of the Banat Bulgarian minority by the Yugoslav government. Still, the Banat Bulgarian revival was much less perceivable in the Serbian Banat. The Banat Bulgarian population in Yugoslavia was only partially affected by the work of Telbizov, Lebanov, and the other cultural workers in the Romanian Banat.
Emigration to Hungary, the United States and Bulgaria
Some Banat Bulgarians migrated again, mainly to Hungary and the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. According to Bulgarian data from 1942, 10,000 Banat Bulgarians lived in Hungary, mainly in the major cities, but this number is most likely overestimated. Members of the Banat Bulgarian community in Hungary include several deputies to the National Assembly
National Assembly of Hungary
The National Assembly or Diet is the parliament of Hungary. The unicameral body consists of 386 members elected to 4-year terms. Election of members is based on a complex system involving both area and list election; parties must win at least 5% of the popular vote in order to enter list members...
, such as Petar Dobroslav, whose son László Dobroslav (László Bolgár) was a diplomat, and Georgi Velčov.
During the Interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, the Banat Bulgarian communities in Romania were among those experiencing the greatest emigration to the USA, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. An organized Bulgarian community was established in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
Lone Wolf is a town in Kiowa County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 438 at the 2010 census. The town was named for Chief Lone Wolf , a warrior chief of the Kiowa who fought to preserve his people's autonomy and way of life.-Geography:...
, where the Banat Bulgarians were mostly farmers.
A significant number of Banat Bulgarians returned to Bulgaria, beginning in the 1880s and 1890s. They founded several villages in Pleven Province
Pleven Province
Pleven Province is a province located in central northern Bulgaria, bordering the Danube river, Romania and the Bulgarian provinces of Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo and Lovech. It is divided into 11 subdivisions, called municipalities, that embrace a territory of 4,333.54 km² with a population, as...
, Vratsa Province
Vratsa Province
Vratsa Province , former name Vratsa okrug) is a Bulgarian province located in the northwestern part of the country, between Danube river in the north and Stara Planina mountain in the south. It is named after its main town - Vratsa...
and Veliko Tarnovo Province
Veliko Tarnovo Province
Veliko Tarnovo is a province in the middle of the northern part of Bulgaria. Its capital city, Veliko Tarnovo, is of historical significance as it is known as the capital of Medieval Bulgaria...
and received privileges, as per the law of 1880, for the settlement of unpopulated lands. They introduced superior agricultural technologies to the country and fully applied their farming experience. Their religious life was partly determined by the clashes between the dominant Eastern Orthodoxy and the minority Catholicism, and cultural conflicts with other Roman Catholic communities which they lived with in several villages, such as the Banat Swabians and the Bulgarian Paulicians from Ilfov.
World War II and later
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the authoritarian regime of Carol II of Romania
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
and the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
government under Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
widely discriminated against the Bulgarian minority in the Romanian Banat. Bulgarians were often deprived of property and land, subjected to anti-Bulgarian propaganda, and their villages had to shelter Romanian and Aromanian
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
refugees from Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
and Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja is an area of north-eastern Bulgaria comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of Dobrich and Silistra...
.
Yugoslav Army
Aside from the Yugoslav People's Army, the terms Yugoslav Army, Army of Yugoslavia, or Military of Yugoslavia may refer to:* Yugoslav Partisans , the Yugoslav resistance army during World War II...
, captured by the Axis, from a camp near Timişoara. Communicating with the Bulgarian state, Banat Bulgarian leaders headed by Anton Lebanov negotiated the prisoners' release and transportation to Bulgaria, after the example of the release of captured Hungarian soldiers from the Yugoslav Army. They temporarily accommodated these Bulgarians from Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
and the Serbian Banat and provided them with food until they could be taken to Bulgaria.
The Serbian Banat was conquered by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
on 12 April 1941, and was occupied for much of the war. In late 1942, the German authorities allowed Bulgarian minority classes to be created in the Serbian schools in Ivanovo, Skorenovac, Konak, Belo Blato, and Jaša Tomić. However, the sudden change in the war and German withdrawal from the Banat forced education in Bulgarian to be discontinued after the 1943–44 school year.
After the war, Banat Bulgarians in Romania and Yugoslavia were ruled by communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
regimes. In the Romanian Banat, some were deported in the Bărăgan deportations
Baragan deportations
The Bărăgan deportations were a large-scale action of penal transportation, undertaken during the 1950s by the Romanian Communist regime. Their aim was to forcibly relocate individuals who lived within approximately 25 km of the Yugoslav border to the Bărăgan Plain.-Reasons:After relations...
in 1951, but most of those were allowed to return in 1956–57. A Bulgarian school was founded in Dudeştii Vechi in 1948, and in Vinga in 1949. Others followed in Breştea, Colonia Bulgară, and Denta, but these were briefly closed or united with the Romanian schools after 1952, and Bulgarian remained an optional subject.
The Constitution of Romania
Constitution of Romania
The 1991 Constitution of Romania, adopted on 21 November 1991, voted in the referendum of 8 December 1991 and introduced on the same day, is the current fundamental law that establishes the structure of the government of Romania, the rights and obligations of the country's citizens, and its mode...
of 1991 allowed Bulgarians in the Romanian Banat parliamentary representation through the minority party of the Bulgarian Union of the Banat — Romania
Romanian ethnic minorities parties
The Romanian Constitution , under the contitions imposed by the Electoral Law, reserves a seat in the Chamber of Deputies for the party and cultural association of each ethnic minority in Romania...
(Balgarskotu družstvu ud Banát — Rumanija), led formerly by Karol-Matej Ivánčov and as of 2008 by Nikola Mirkovič, and Bulgarian remained an optional subject in the schools.
In post-war Yugoslavia, the existence of a Banat Bulgarian minority was formally recognized, but they were not given the same rights as the larger Bulgarian minority in eastern Serbia. Unlike other minorities in Vojvodina, they were not allowed education in their mother tongue, only Serbo-Croatian.
Language
The vernacular of the Bulgarians of Banat can be classified as a Paulician dialectPaulician dialect
The Paulician dialect is a Bulgarian dialect of the Rhodopean group of the Rup dialects. The Paulician dialect is spoken by some 40,000 people, nearly all of them Catholic Bulgarians, in the region of Rakovski in southern Bulgaria and Svishtov in northern Bulgaria...
of the Eastern Bulgarian group. A typical feature is the "ы" (*y) vowel, which can either take an etymological place or replace "i". Other characteristic phonological features are the "ê" (wide "e") reflex of the Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
yat
Yat
Yat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel...
and the reduction of "o" into "u" and sometimes "e" into "i": puljé instead of pole ("field"), sélu instead of selo ("village"), ugništi instead of ognište ("fireplace"). Another characteristic feature is the palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of final consonants, which is typical for other Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, but found only in non-standard dialects in Bulgarian (Bulgarian den ("day") sounds like and is written as denj).
Lexically, the language has borrowed many words from languages such as German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(such as drot from Draht, "wire"; gáng from Gang, "anteroom, corridor"), Hungarian (vilánj from villany, "electricity"; mozi, "cinema"), Serbo-Croatian (stvár from stvar, "item, matter"; ráčun from račun, "account"), and Romanian (šedinca from şedinţă, "conference") due to the close contacts with the other peoples of the multiethnical Banat and the religious ties with other Roman Catholic peoples. Banat Bulgarian also has some older loanwords from Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, which it shares with other Bulgarian dialects (e.g. hirgjén from Turkish ergen, "unmarried man, bachelor"; trandáfer from Greek τριαντάφυλλο triantafyllo, "rose"). Loanwords constitute around 20% of the Banat Bulgarian vocabulary. The names of some Banat Bulgarians are also influenced by Hungarian names, as the Hungarian (eastern) name order
Hungarian name
Hungarian names invariably use the "Eastern name order", or family name followed by given name, except in foreign language text. Hungary is the only European and Western country to do so....
is sometimes used (family name
Family name
A family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
followed by given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
) and the female ending "-a" is often dropped from family names. Thus, Marija Velčova would become Velčov Marija.
Besides loanwords, the lexis of Banat Bulgarian has also acquired calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
s and neologisms, such as svetica ("icon", formerly used ikona and influenced by German Heiligenbild), zarno ("bullet", from the word meaning "grain"), oganbalváč ("volcano", literally "fire belcher"), and predhurta ("foreword").
The Banat Bulgarian language uses its own script, largely based on the Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
version of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
(Gaj's Latin Alphabet), and preserves many features that are archaic in the language spoken in Bulgaria. The language was codified as early as 1866 and is used in literature and press, which distinguishes it from plain dialects.
Alphabet
The following is the Banat Bulgarian Latin alphabet:| Banat Bulgarian Latin Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome... Cyrillic Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School... equivalents IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
А а A A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :... Ъ /ɤ/ |
Á á Á is a letter of the Czech, Faroese, Hungarian, Icelandic, Slovak and Sámi languages. This letter also appears in Dutch, Galician, Irish, Occitan, Portuguese, Spanish, Lakota, Navajo, and Vietnamese as a variant of the letter “a”. Some writers use á incorrectly to denote a quantity, often used on... А /a/ |
B b B B is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds , most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive.-History:... Б /b/ |
C c C Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets... Ц /ts/ |
Č č C Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets... Ч /tʃ/ |
Ć ć C Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets... Ќ (кь) /kʲ/ |
D d D D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the... Д /d/ |
Dz dz Dz (digraph) Dz is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Polish, Kashubian, Macedonian, Slovak, and Hungarian to represent . In Dene Suline and Cantonese Pinyin it represents .-In Polish:dz generally represents... Ѕ (дз) /dz/ |
Dž dž Dž Dž is the seventh letter of the Croatian and Bosnian alphabets, and the Latin forms of Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian, after D and before Đ. It is pronounced . Dž is a digraph that corresponds to the letter Dzhe of the Cyrillic alphabet used for writing the Serbian, Montenegrin and... Џ (дж) /dʒ/ |
E e E E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:... Е /ɛ/ |
É é É is a letter of the Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kashubian, Luxembourgish, Slovak, and Catalan, Danish, English, French, Galician, Irish, Italian, Occitan, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese language as a variant of the letter “e”... Ѣ Yat Yat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel... /e/ |
| Latin Cyrillic IPA |
F f F F is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The origin of ⟨f⟩ is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like or . Graphically, it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club... Ф /f/ |
G g G G is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,... Г /ɡ/ |
Gj gj Ѓ (гь) /ɡʲ/ |
H h H H .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts.... Х /h/ |
I i I I is the ninth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:In Semitic, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound... И /i/ |
J j J Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic... Й , Ь /j/ |
K k K K is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA.... К /k/ |
L l L Ł or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka , Łatynka , Wilamowicean, Navajo, Dene Suline, Inupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai alphabet... Л /l/ |
Lj lj Љ (ль) /lʲ/ |
M m M M is the thirteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu . Semitic Mem probably originally pictured water... М /m/ |
N n N N is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet... Н /n/ |
| Latin Cyrillic IPA |
Nj nj Њ (нь) /ɲ/ |
O o O O is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin , which represented a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a... О /ɔ/ |
P p P P is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Usage:In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words... П /p/ |
R r R R is the eighteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was rêš . It developed into Greek Ρ and Latin R... Р /r/ |
S s S S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent... С /s/ |
Š š Š The grapheme Š, š is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiceless postalveolar fricative. In the International Phonetic Alphabet this sound is denoted with , but the lowercase š is used in the Americanist phonetic notation, as well as in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.For use in computer... Ш /ʃ/ |
T t T T is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets... Т /t/ |
U u U U is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details.... У /u/ |
V v V V is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Letter:The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y. See F for details.... В /v/ |
Z z Z Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal... З /z/ |
Ž ž Ž The grapheme Ž is formed from Latin Z with the addition of caron . It is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiced postalveolar fricative, a sound similar to English g in mirage, or Portuguese and French j... Ж /ʒ/ |
Examples
| The Lord's Prayer Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his... in Banat Bulgarian: |
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|---|---|
| Banat Bulgarian | English |
| Baštá náš, kojtu si na nebeto: Imetu ti da se pusveti. | Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. |
| Kraljéstvotu ti da dodi. Olete ti da badi, | Thy kingdom, come thy will be done, |
| kaćétu na nebeto taj i na zemete. | as in heaven so on earth. |
| Kátadenjšnija leb náš, dáj mu nám dnés. | Give us this day our daily bread. |
| I uprusti mu nám náša dalgj, | And forgive us guilty as we are, |
| kaćétu i nija upráštemi na nášte dlažnici. | as we also forgive our debtors. |
| I nide mu uvižde u nápas, | Also do not bring us into temptation, |
| negu mu izbávej ud zlo. | But free us from this evil. |
Culture
Banat Bulgarians have engaged in literary activity since they settled in the Banat. Their earliest preserved literary work is the historical record Historia Domus (Historia Parochiae Oppidi Ó-Bessenyö, in Diocesi Czanadiensi, Comitatu Torontalensi), written in Latin in the 1740s. The codification of the Banat Bulgarian vernacular in 1866 enabled the release of a number of school books and the translation of several important religious works in the mid-19th century. There was a literary revival in the 1930s, centred around the Banatsći balgarsći glasnić newspaper. Today, the Bulgarian Union of the Banat – Romania issues the biweekly newspaper Náša glás and the monthly magazine Literaturna miselj.The music of the Banat Bulgarians is classed as a separate branch of Bulgarian folk music, with several verbal and musical peculiarities. While the typically Bulgarian bars
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
have been preserved, a number of melodies display Romanian, Serbian, and Hungarian influences, and the specific Bulgarian Christmas carols have been superseded by urban-type songs. Roman Catholicism has exerted considerable influence, eliminating certain types of songs and replacing them with others. Similarly, Banat Bulgarians have preserved many Bulgarian holidays but also adopted others from other Roman Catholic peoples. One of the most popular holidays is Faršángji, or the Carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
. In terms of dances, Banat Bulgarians have also heavily borrowed from the neighbouring peoples, for example Hungarian csárdás
Csárdás
Csárdás is a traditional Hungarian folk dance, the name derived from csárda . It originated in Hungary and was popularized by Roma music bands in Hungary and neighboring lands of Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Burgenland, Croatia, Ukraine, Transylvania and Moravia, as well as among the Banat...
.
The women's national costume of the Banat Bulgarians has two varieties. The costume of Vinga is reminiscent of those of sub-Balkan cities in Bulgaria; the one of Stár Bišnov is characteristic of northwestern Bulgaria. The Vinga costume has been particularly influenced by the dress of Hungarians and Germans, but the Stár Bišnov costume has remained more conservative. The Banat Bulgarian women's costume is perceived as particularly impressive with its crown-like headdress.
Notable figures
- Colonel Stefan DunjovStefan DunjovStefan Dunjov was a Banat Bulgarian military figure and revolutionary known for participating in both the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and the Italian unification , as well as for being the first ethnic Bulgarian Colonel.Born in Vinga in the Austrian Empire to a Roman Catholic Bulgarian farming...
(1815–1889) – revolutionary, participant in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848Hungarian Revolution of 1848The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many of the European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas...
, and member of Giuseppe GaribaldiGiuseppe GaribaldiGiuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
's forces during the Italian unificationItalian unificationItalian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century... - Eusebius FermendžinEusebius FermendžinEusebius Fermendžin was an Austro-Hungarian high-ranking Roman Catholic cleric, Franciscan friar and academic of Banat Bulgarian origin....
(1845–1897) – historian, high-ranking FranciscanFranciscanMost Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
cleric, theologian, polyglot, and active member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and ArtsCroatian Academy of Sciences and ArtsThe Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded in 1866 as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :... - Leopold Kossilkov (1850–1940) – teacher and writer
- Jozu Rill – 19th-century teacher and internationally acclaimed textbook writer; codified the Banat Bulgarian orthography and grammar in 1866
- Carol TelbiszCarol TelbiszCarol Telbisz was an Austro-Hungarian public figure of Banat Bulgarian origin and a long-time Mayor of Temesvár ....
(1853–1914) – long-time mayor of Timişoara (1885–1914) - Anton Lebanov (1912–2008) – lawyer, journalist, and poet
- Karol Telbizov (1915–1994) – lawyer, journalist, and scientist
External links
- The website of Náša glás and Literaturna miselj, offers PDF versions of both publications, as well as information about the Banat Bulgarians and a library (in Banat Bulgarian)
- The spiritual life of the Banat Bulgarians, featuring 1938 publications
- BANATerra, a "becoming encyclopedia of the Banat", version in Banat Bulgarian. Includes diverse information and resources pertaining to the Banat Bulgarians.
- Falmis, Association of the Banat Bulgarians in Bulgaria
- Sveta ud pukraj námu, Nick Markov's blogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
in Banat Bulgarian - Falmis, Svetlana Karadzhova's blog about the Banat Bulgarians
- Star Bisnov, Website for Banat Bulgarian people