site.btaAlbania Home to One of Oldest Bulgarian Communities in Balkans, Scholar Spas Tashev Says

The Bulgarians in Albania are an extremely interesting community and they are among the oldest Bulgarian communities in the Balkans, while also being the youngest in terms of recognition - they were recognized in 2017, Assoc. Prof. Spas Tashev, a demographer, said on Friday at a press conference on "The 2023 Census in Albania and the Bulgarian National Minority: results and implications for the Western Balkans." The event took place at the Institute for Population and Human Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

Tashev reported that there are four historical Bulgarian communities in Albania - Mala Prespa, with nine villages, consisting only of Christians; Golo Brdo, with 16 Bulgarian villages with a population between 95 and 99% Muslims; Poleto, with six villages; and Kukeska Gora, with nine villages and a population of 100% Muslims.

"All available statistics until 1944 - Ottoman statistics, Albanian, French, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, Bulgarian - register this population as Bulgarian," Tashev said. He also spoke about the actual number of people with Bulgarian origin. He clarified that by Bulgarian origin he meant people with ancestors who were recognized as Bulgarians in the past, which did not necessarily imply that their descendants today have the same ethnic identity. Tashev specified that he has been visiting Albania regularly since 1992 and has been collecting statistical data. He added that the percentage of Bulgarians in the four abovementioned regions is declining. "If 95% of Bulgarians in the 1990s lived in these four regions, nowadays I think that it is even less than 20%, according to the data from the census in 2023", Tashev said.

In 2017 Albania recognized the Bulgarian national minority. Nowadays there are 9 registered Bulgarian organizations in the country and around 8,000 ethnic Bulgarians have received Bulgarian citizenship. Tashev stressed that over 800 students have graduated or are currently studying in Bulgaria, and a large number of them either remain in Bulgaria or return to Albania. He clarified that currently there are around 2,142 Bulgarian students in Albania and added that "for a long time there has been an initiative to establish a Bulgarian lyceum in Tirana, so that these children, who are mainly in the capital Tirana, can be educated in Bulgarian."

Tashev highlighted the need for electronic and print media in Bulgarian. "At the moment, the National Albanian Television has a five-minute broadcast in standard Bulgarian, but it is not enough". A serious issue is the mountainous terrain of Albania, which makes the areas inhabited by Bulgarians hard to reach. "If a decent information website is created, supported by a print publication, the Bulgarians will be much more united and will be able to interact with each other much more easily", Tashev said. "It will also enhance contacts with Bulgaria proper".

He also spoke about the need to create a database of all students who graduated in Bulgaria - ethnic Bulgarians from Albania. This database should be made available to Bulgarian businesses interested in Albania. Such graduates would be a perfect choice for business personnel that can be used to expand economic contacts between the two countries, Tashev argued.