A demographic crisis
Bulgaria is currently in the midst of a major demographic crisis. The World Bank estimates that by 2050 the population will fall to less than 4 million. Every year, the number of deaths is almost double the number of births. Many young people are leaving their country for better job opportunities or the hope of a better life elsewhere, especially in Germany and Spain. As a result, the country is aging and is not renewing itself. Faced with this crisis, the government had even launched the "DNA-Do it for Bulgaria" campaign in 2017, encouraging Bulgarian women giving birth to register their child for baptism, the sacrament considered the most important in the Orthodox religion. Parents-to-be were also encouraged to post photos of their positive pregnancy tests and ultrasounds on the Internet. Political parties, in the midst of an early parliamentary election campaign, even promised couples expecting a child or getting married an increase in their benefits, lower interest rates on loans or easier access to housing.
A predominantly urban population
The majority of Bulgarians live in the country's major cities, including the capital Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo in the Balkans, Plovdiv on the Thracian plain, Bourgas and Varna on the Black Sea coast. Today, there are over 200 ghost towns where not a single human soul lives, and over 500 villages with no more than twenty inhabitants. But it has to be said that there are no very large cities, as is the case in France, for example. Despite the fact that the majority of Bulgarians live in towns, some of them, for financial reasons or because they have lived there all their lives, still live in the countryside. Some young people have even taken the initiative to revive a particular village, offering cheap accommodation to bring locals and tourists (back) to their village, or even developing a local business.
Originally, the Thracians
The Thracians are the ancient inhabitants of Bulgaria. They are the oldest people whose name is known in southeastern Europe. Thrace was a region of central Europe, which is now divided between northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), European Turkey (Eastern Thrace) and southern Bulgaria (Northern or Upper Thrace). It is assumed that the Thracians belonged to the first waves of Indo-European immigrants from the northeastern steppes.
This civilization is still very mysterious. Since the summer of 2000, archaeological discoveries have been made, including the remains of a palace and the largest sanctuary discovered to date. The two sites, Perperikon and Starossel, which date from thefifth and fourth centuries BC, have uncovered places of habitation, something unheard of. The latest archaeological excavations have revealed hidden sides of Thracian life, especially in the region of Stara Zagora, near Kazanlak.
The Thracians considered the Earth "mother goddess" at the origin of the universe. She gave birth to the Sun and the rocks that it illuminates. The rocks were places of sacred worship. The Thracian king was the son of the Earth and the Sun. He had to live in several palaces in order to spread his holiness over the whole territory, as the sun illuminates the earth.
Little by little, from the counters installed on the banks of the Black Sea, the Greeks reinforced their influence in Bulgaria, and controlled the valleys, being much less interested in the less fertile mountainous regions. We owe them mainly the construction of cities like Varna, Nessebar and Sozopol. In the 6th century BC, the Persians, then at war with the Greeks, made an incursion into Bulgaria, and disputed territories on the coast with the Thracians who lived more in the plains. After their departure, the relations between Greeks and Thracians intensified, primarily in the commercial field, and ended only with the conquest of the whole territory by the Macedonians of Philip II who, with the passage, founded Philippopolis (Plovdiv) in IVe century BC.
The Romans took over from the Macedonians and Greeks at the beginning of the Christian era, modernizing the Thracian and Greek cities, and bringing a personal touch, such as the thermal baths of Varna and the theater of Plovdiv. The first Slavs appeared in the region in the 6th century. They brought the language of the present Bulgarian people.
Three minorities
The Turks represent the largest minority in the country with about 10% of the population. They are mainly present in the Rhodopes and Thrace.
The Roma (about 800,000), whose origins probably date back to the Middle Ages, were urbanized and settled by the communist regime, so that they are more integrated than the Roma of Romania, for example. They are mainly Orthodox Christian (37%) and Muslim (18%).
But relations with the Roma also remain a problem. The Communists, despite their ambitions to unite the whole of society, never managed to turn them into workers or farmers. Throughout the years of communist rule, the minority remained on the margins of Bulgarian society. Even though the Roma population in Bulgaria has been settled for several centuries and is administratively part of the official Bulgarian population, their status remains differentiated and their rights are less. The same is true for the census of the Roma, which remains approximate. Indeed, the Bulgarian model is based on the sovereignty of the people, not on their belonging to an ethnic group. The authorities in power have tried to find solutions to bring this population into line, without success. Unemployment among Roma is close to 50%. The 8 per cent of the Bulgarian population that is Roma occupies almost 90 per cent of garbage collection, waste disposal and cleaning jobs, and more than 70 per cent of construction jobs. Even though, with the free movement of people within the European Union, this population is employed by subcontracting companies on public works sites, their contracts and working conditions remain very precarious.
More exposed to exclusion, they continue to live on the bangs of society, begging and living most often on the outskirts of large cities, in disaster areas abandoned by other Bulgarians. The authorities seem reluctant to improve the lot of a community that the population despises, and inter-ethnic tensions continue to grow.
Finally, the Pomaques, who are few in number, are Muslim Bulgarians who were converted (by force) during the Ottoman occupation. They are present especially in the Rhodopes. The question of the Bulgarian belonging of the Pomaques opens the debate on national identity because they are not considered as belonging to the Bulgarian people for some. This ethnic group is also present in Greece and Turkey.
Bulgarian, Slavic language with Cyrillic writing
Bulgarian has been the dominant language since the 10th century. Christianization accelerated the Slavization of the Bulgarian people at the expense of their original language. Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, the alphabet created by the monks Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century, to ensure that the population had a common script and that everyone understood the religious texts they were copying. On road signs, the language is always written in Cyrillic and in the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic comprises 33 letters and is used by 230 million speakers from Serbia to Russia.
As in many countries, regional dialects persist. The Pomaks, for example, converse in Pomak (or Pomatski), a derivative of Bulgarian.
In addition to Bulgarian, minorities speak their mother tongues: Romani for the Roma (almost everywhere in the country), Turkish for the Turks (especially in the Rhodopes and the Thracian plain), whose language has only been officially taught to the Turkish community since 1992.
In Pirin, close to Macedonia, some inhabitants speak Macedonian.
All Bulgarians who attended school during the Communist era speak some Russian. German is sometimes spoken, especially on the Black Sea coast (where many German tourists come). The younger generation of Bulgarians and city dwellers increasingly speak English.
The teaching of Greek has been very successful in recent years, and applicants for Greek courses at Sofia University are numerous. Young people aim to find jobs with Greek companies setting up in the Balkans, as Greece is the leading investor in the region.
Bulgaria has been a member of the French-speaking world since 1993. While French is spoken and understood in academic circles, it is less so in political circles and virtually non-existent among the rest of the population, including in tourism.
