The Bulgarian Ethnic Presence in Western Thrace and Edirne Area during the 19th—21st Centuries
Българското етническо присъствие в Западна Тракия и Одринско XIX—XXI в.
Language: Bulgarian
The book explores the Bulgarian ethnic presence in the southernmost limits of the Bulgarian ethnic territory in the Ottoman Empire. Bulgarian ethnos is recognized in these territories as a predominant population by the Ambassadorial Conference in Constantinople in 1876 and by the firman establishing the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1872. These lands remained under the Berlin Treaty of 1878 outside the borders of the modern Bulgarian state.
The author refers to geography and history of Thrace during the Hellenistic and Roman period. The information about the early penetration of Slavic tribes into Thrace and especially the proto-Bulgarians before the emergence of Danube Bulgaria, is also analyzed. Clarifying the demography and statistics, which should give an idea of the ethnic character of Thrace until the Balkan Wars (1912—1913), is the most problematic task, for the solution of which various sources are used.
The book also sheds light on a little-known problem in Bulgarian historiography, related to the displacement of Bulgarian-Mohammedans in Turkey in the period after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877—1878 and the Balkan Wars.