site.btaBook about Bulgarians in Albania and Kosovo Lauded for Its Detached Analysis of a Complex Subject

The book, The Bulgarian Communities in Albania and Kosovo. Socio-Political Processes and Demographic Consequences (1913-2024), by Spas Tashev was press-launched at the Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Sofia on the evening of April 23.

The event was attended by Vice President Iliana Iotova and her Chef de Cabinet Nadya Mladenova, Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad CEO Raina Mandzhukova, Albanian Ambassador in Sofia Inid Milo, Kosovo Embassy officers Bujar Deskaj and Bekim Misini, Radostin Vankin of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s Southeastern Europe Directorate, and Yulian Krumov of the Diplomatic Institute under the Bulgarian Foreign Minister. There were also professors and students from the University of Sofia and the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, and representatives of the Bulgarian community in Albania.

Journalist Milena Milotinova, who hosted the event, said the book was published under a programme of the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad. It explores a period of more than a century, putting a spotlight on the communist era in Bulgaria between 1944 and 1990, which was a blank spot in the studies on the Bulgarian communities in Albania and Kosovo.

Vice President Iotova praised the author Spas Tashev for his arduous research and his vast knowledge of a subject considered by many as very difficult to master. Tashev is a doctor of statistics and demography at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and former vice president of the State Agency (today’s Executive Agency) for Bulgarians Abroad.

According to Iotova, the book is remarkable for the long period it covers and the highly reliable statistical data it uses, which is particularly important at a time when “neighbours of Bulgaria go to great lengths to question the existence of compact Bulgarian communities in this part of Europe”. The Vice President described the book as “a very valuable document for diplomats and Bulgarian institutions to work with when they need to make political decisions about our communities in Albania and Kosovo”.

Raina Mandzhukova expressed her appreciation of the fact that Tashev managed to put his emotions aside and to present such a complex subject using “numbers, facts and policies”. She hopes that the book will be presented to the Bulgarian communities in Albania and Kosovo. When possible, it will be published in English as well, Mandzhukova added.

Tashev said the book owes a lot to his friend Liljana Stojmenova, who currently lives in Strumica, North Macedonia. More than 20 years ago, she gave Tashev names and contact information about people in Albania who identified themselves as Bulgarians. After starting correspondence with them, he began to receive information from other people as well. In 1992, he toured Golloborde (Golo Bardo), Vernik (Vrabnik) and Mala Prespa in Albania for the first time.

The Bulgarian embassies in Albania and Kosovo joined the book’s press-launch in Sofia online.