Етносоциална характеристика на населението в София при Освобождението
An Ethnosocial Characterization of the Population of Sofia before the Liberation

Summary/Abstract: The author studies this problem above all on the basis of data provided from the census of buildings in Sofia in May, 1878, which data have not as yet been the subject of scientific research. From a heterogeneous town, in an ethnic respect, after the Liberation Sofia became a homogeneous town. Mahalata, as a basic inhabited microsphere in the pre-Liberation town, was a comparatively small residential agglomeration. The principle of national and religious affiliations a principal criterion for structuring the population in individual mahalas (quarters) was already dying away on the eve of the Liberation. On the other hand, the principle of social and class structuring, appearing in certain cases in the region of the individual ethnical communities, was becoming firmly established. The process of social and class differentiation led to the structuring of the population in three main socio-class zones: those of the top crust, the mean existences and the town poor, who occupied definite parts of the town. The mahalas had a clearly marked socio-class aspect, and were nuclei of one of the three polarized zones. The socio-class groups, regardless of their ethnic affiliation, had dwellings which were of one and the same type in plan on general lines. Class polarization stratified the population of the pre-Liberation town in individual social groups, settled in socially inhabited mahalas and town sections with plans of the dwellings quite specific for the individual groups.

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