THE BULGARIAN REGISTRY BOOK OF BIRTHS OF THE KURŠUMLIA CHURCH (1916-1918) AS TESTIMONY OF THE ATTEMPT TO BULGARIZATION OF THE POPULATION OF TOPLICA IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR Cover Image

БУГАРСКА МАТИЧНА КЊИГА РОЂЕНИХ КУРШУМЛИЈСКЕ ЦРКВЕ (1916–1918) КАО СВЕДОЧАНСТВО ПОКУШАЈА БУГАРИЗАЦИЈЕ СТАНОВНИШТВА ТОПЛИЦЕ У ПРВОМ СВЕТСКОМ РАТУ
THE BULGARIAN REGISTRY BOOK OF BIRTHS OF THE KURŠUMLIA CHURCH (1916-1918) AS TESTIMONY OF THE ATTEMPT TO BULGARIZATION OF THE POPULATION OF TOPLICA IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Author(s): Saša Stanojević
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Social history, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Sociology of Religion
Published by: Institut za strategijska istraživanja
Keywords: The First World War; Occupied Serbia; Bulgarization; Toplica; Kuršumlia; Toplica Uprising 1917; birth register; church; clergy;

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents for the first time the register of births of the church of St. Nicholas in Kuršumlia, kept during 1916-1918, during the occupation of Serbia in the First World War. The book is part of the Collection of register books of the Historical Archive of the Toplica in Prokuplje, which consists of 96 books in total, kept between 1878 and the Second World War. It is a unique document due to the fact that, unlike the others, the data in it are filled in the Bulgarian language and script. They were brought in by the Bulgarian clergy, who, in accordance with the forced policy of the occupation authorities aimed at the Bulgarianization of the population, took over the duties of the liquidated or interned former Serbian clergy. Unlike other books born here, there was no usual rubric „nationality“, and the most obvious proof of an attempt to change the national identity can be taken the modified and Bulgarianized surnames of the local Serbian population (here: Vukašinov, Miloev, Radulov...).

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 217-226
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Serbian
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