Етнодемографски изменения в Пиринския край в резултат на Освободителната война
Ethnodemographic Changes in the Pirin Region as a Result of the War of Liberation

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of varied source material, largely unused hitherto, the author considers the ethnodemographic processes which developed in the Pirin region under the direct impact of the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation (1877— 1878). Attention is chiefly focused on studying the dynamics and extent of migrational movements. The author comes to the conclusion that the mass of Moslems, who emigrated from the liberated Bulgarian lands, and who withdrew with the retreating Ottoman troops, passed along the valleys of the Rivers Strouma and Mesta, and settled, above all, along their lower reaches. A comparatively small part of them settled in some of the towns of the Pirin region, owing to which they were unable to change the existing structure of the population. Migration among the Bulgarian population was far more considerable in extent. Part of this population was forced to leave their place of birth (chiefly in the Kresna region and around Razlog), and to seek temporary refuge in the liberated lands. The reasons for this temporary migration were the political persecutions of the Bulgarian population by the Ottoman authorities, because of the part they had taken in the national liberation struggle. The author has analyzed the data on the number of participants in the migrational processes and finds that there can be no question of a de-Bulgarization of the regions concerned. He observes that soon after the political situation had been stabilized quite a large part of the emigrants returned to their birth places.

• Details
• Contents