Ретроспективен поглед към ромската общност от средата на 80-те години на ХХ век
A retrospective view on the roma community in the mid 1980s

Summary/Abstract: In the framework of the sociological survey „City and Village, 1986“ 434 persons of the Roma ethnic community were surveyed, amounting to 4,34% of the total population of the survey, a population consisting of all Bulgarian citizens above the age of 16. The group of Roma respondents, a considerable one in terms of number, has been analyzed in a comparative perspective in relation with other major ethnic and confessional groups: Bulgarian Christians, Bulgarian Muslims, and Turks. Over 60% of all Roma respondents spoke Romany; the rest used Bulgarian or Turkish as their main household language. Only 1% of the Roma had no knowledge of Bulgarian. By their religious affiliation 46,6% were Christians (mostly Orthodox), and 49% Muslims. The Roma were the youngest ethnic group - nearly 60% of Roma households consisted of five or more persons. They also had the largest percentage of illiterates – 13,6%. At that time the largest category by education among the Roma was that of people with completed primary education; very few cases were registered of people with an education higher than that. In the socialist society 18% of the Roma received some income from private activities (this was the largest percentage for such income among any ethnic group). The data indicated that about 20% of the Roma were not socially integrated. The article emphasizes that the problem of the social exclusion of large Roma groups and the intolerance towards them is above all socially determined, not a question of ethnicity.

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