The study of ethnography and folklore is based on the current and recent populations in region, however this is complex for Bulgarians in Dobruja. This map is based on the Bulgarian population at the end of the Ottoman period.
The region of Dobruja takes its name from the Ottoman rendition of Dobrotitsa, who was the ruler of the Principality of Karvuna (14th century) from 1347, prior to the Ottoman invasion. The populated area of the Principality of Karvuna was the coastal region from the Razim Lake to the area around Varna as the hinterland between the Black Sea and the Danube was arid and uninhabited at this time.
There is a continuing Bulgarian culture in some north Dobruja villages. Dance expert Jora Roman[1] lists Lunca, Vișina, Izvoarele, Caugagia, Cerna and Nalbant as having people of Bulgarian ethnicity and it is clear there are derivatives of Bulgarian dances within the local dance repertoire still taught by the Romanian choreographers. The village of Vișina has an active Bulgarian cultural group.
The population exchanges after the 1940 Treaty of Craiova and the new division of Dobruja led to most of the Bulgarian population from north Dobruja moving south to Bulgaria (some 62,000) and Romanians, Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians from the south moving north.[2]
During the 19th century following the fall of Ottoman rule around the north Black Sea there were continual treaties that allowed for population emigration and immigration. Between 1850[3] and 1900[4] the Tatar population left for Turkey and the population of these villages was replaced by Bulgarians from other regions of Bulgaria.
It is very difficult to say where the Bulgarian population of north Dobruja was during the Ottoman times, not only because the Ottoman data only records “Christian”, meaning both Romanian and Bulgarian, but also because there has been continued immigration since the early 19th century.[5] My map is based on the Christians recorded at the end of the Ottoman period, assuming they are Bulgarian except for the settlements that have an “old Romanian” population. This gives a cluster of Bulgarian villages south of Babadag and another cluster around Shabla further south.
Note: I use Dobruja (the English spelling) for the whole historic region, Dobrogea for the northern part now in Romania, Dobrudzha for the southern part now in Bulgaria.
References
- Roman, Jora (2006). Folclor coreografic nord-dobrogean. Constanța, Ex Ponto.
- Deletant, Dennis (2006) Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania 1940-1944. London, Palgrave Macmillan.
- Pantea, Călin (2020) Dobrogea la 1850 (dupa ion ionescu de la Brad) (Source: Ion ionescu de la Brad (1850). "Carte Topographique et Ethnographique d’un partie de la Dobrodja". Excursion agricole dans la plaine de la Dobroudja. Journal de Constantinople. Vintilă Mihăilescu (1922). "Harta etnografică a unei părți a Dobrogei la 1850 lucrată dupăharta lui Ion Ionescu". Analele Dobgei 3(1).)
- Ionescu, M D (1904). Dobrogia in pragul veacului al xx-lea – geografia matematica, fisica, politica, economica și militara. București, Atelierele Grafice I. V. Socecu.
- Baş, Ahmet Ilker (2015). Demographic engineering: Bulgarian migrations from the Ottoman Empire to Russia in the nineteenth century. Masters, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University. Ankara: İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, Department of History.