site.btaBetween 1 and 2.5 Million Bulgarian Citizens Live Abroad

Between one million and two and a half million Bulgarian citizens live abroad, Assoc. Prof. Dr Mina Maeva said here on Friday.

She spoke on the second day of an international forum on the Cyrillic alphabet titled "Alphabet. Language. Identity." The event opened in Sofia on Thursday, and its second session is held at the Plovdiv Regional History Museum on Friday.

"A large number of Bulgarians have emigrated since 1989. They range from one million to two and a half million. While clear statistics about the exact number of Bulgarians abroad are unavailable, it should be borne in mind that these are Bulgarian citizens. Some are looking for better life, others emigrate for health reasons, and there are also children who live abroad as a result of mixed marriages," Dr Maeva said in her paper on the national identity of Bulgarian citizens living abroad in the period since 1990. She addressed several current issues on the subject, such as what it is being Bulgarian abroad, does emigrants' identity change, etc. 

Prof. Dr Veselka Zhelyazkova dwelt on the role of Cyril and Methodius's cause for preserving the language and identity of Bulgarians in North America in the first half of the 20th century. To make her point, she compared the Makedonska Tribuna and Naroden Glas newspapers. "They annually run stories related to Cyril and Methodius's cause," Prof. Zhelyazkova said. She specified that the Naroden Glas articles present information objectively, whereas the emotional approach predominates in Makedonska Tribuna.

In her paper, Dr Miglena Mihaylova-Palanska of Slovakia discussed the significance of the Bulgarian language for Slovaks. "As a result of a Bulgarian deserted land settlement law, nearly 2,000 Slovaks moved to villages near Pleven like Gorna Mitropolia and Podem. Bulgaria started to influence their life in a number of ways. Generations of Slovaks were raised with Bulgarian as their dominant language, which had a distinct impact on the Slovak language at the phonetic, grammatical and lexical level," Dr Palanska said. She added that the Slovaks who re-emigrated to their home country used Bulgarian mostly to communicate with relatives and institutions in Bulgaria.

At the international forum, Assoc. Prof. Dr Vasil Condov of Moldova contributed a report tracing the development and origin of some Bulgarian surnames in the Moldovan town of Taraclia.