The memories of the Bulgarians from the rural areas of Western Thrace about their lives under Bulgarian rule 1913-1919
The memories of the Bulgarians from the rural areas of Western Thrace about their lives under Bulgarian rule 1913-1919

Summary/Abstract: In this article I will view the life under Bulgarian government in Western Thrace by using the “look from underneath” of part of the local Bulgarians from the villages. I will try to illuminate a period of time and topic which are less investigated by historians and anthropologists, but can fit into researches regarding the village (cultural and social dynamics, anthropology) and the urbanization processes. I will point my work towards a contemporary view of well-known Bulgarian authors whose positions I will mix with archived and with materials that have not been scientifically interpreted as of this moment.Until their refuge to Bulgaria during the summer and early autumn of 1913 the majority of the Bulgarians in Western Thrace live in the rural areas. At the end of that same year when the area becomes a part of Bulgaria again, they go back to it, so that they can live in their native villages. They settle in their own villages or in old Turkish or Greek ones. Many of them are not able to restore their old means of livelihood and look for help from the official institutions regarding land and material support. In the reviewed materials an information about the huge hardships, hunger, separated families, the life without fathers and men, supporting by hard labor (even by women and children), relying on their own familial structures could be found. These mutual memories about the individually lived events are elements of the collective memory of the Bulgarians from the rural areas of Western Thrace about the life in the motherland during the Bulgarian government.

• Details
• Contents