Vlachs in Bulgaria

Vlachs (Bulgarian: власи/vlasi, autonymed Rumâni; Romanian: români, rumâni), are a community concentrated in the Vidin Province in the northwestern part of Bulgaria. Most of this people declare themselves vlasi (Vlachs) when asked in Bulgarian (e.g. on the census). The Vlachs in Bulgaria are not recognized as a national minority, and as an ethnic group and they don't have ethnic rights in schools or churches since the Interwar period.

The Romance-speaking community in Bulgaria (the vlasi) are roughly divided into the "White Vlachs" of Vidin and "Kutzo-Vlachs" of the Rhodopes. A part of the Vidin Vlachs is identified as Romanians, however, the Bulgarian state identifies them as Vlachs and not Romanians.

Vlachs were identified as a separate entity during the 11th century, and their history during the Migration Period is a matter of scholarly speculations. According to one theory, the Vlachs originated from romanised local Balkan tribes, and their Eastern Romance language prove the survival of the latinised Thraco-Roman population in the lower Danube basin. The Vlachs came later into close contacts with sedentary Slavic-speaking communities and adopted Old Church Slavonic liturgy in the First Bulgarian Empire. The Second Bulgarian Empire established during 12th century was called also Vlach-Bulgarian kingdom. In Ottoman times, Eastern Orthodox Christians, were subsumed into the wider ethno-religious group called Rum millet. A distinct Vlach consciousness was not developed until the 19th century, and was influenced by the rise of Romanian national movement. As a result, wealthy, urbanized Vlachs were culturally hellenised during 17-18th century and bulgarised during the 19th. Some Gypsy people, which spoke Vlax Romani language, crossed the Danube during Ottoman era, because of the slavery in Vallachia and Moldova. Most of the slaves there were of Roma (Gypsy) ethnicity. There were ca. 50,000 Vlachs in Bulgaria at the end of the 19th. century. At the beginning of the 20th century, a process of Romanian self-identification began in the community of Bulgarian Vlachs. There is no remaining community in the Dobrogea, which Romania colonized with Vlachs when it held that region briefly between the tho World wars. Vigorous assimilation occurred in the area, especially after the Second World War, and today only small groups identify themselves as Vlach or Romanian in Bulgaria.

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