Germans in Bulgaria
German Bulgaria ( Bulgarian немци, nemtsi or германци, germantsi ) are an ethnic minority in Bulgaria. Although their number amounted only to 436 according to the 2001 census, the settlement of Germans has a long and storied history and consisted of several settlement waves, the first of which in the Middle Ages.
Historian
Early Settlements
Groups of German crusaders already attracted during the First and Second Crusade, as well as in the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire by Bulgaria. The population of the then belonging to the Byzantine Empire area met them with hostility, as the Germans of the local Orthodox population faced hostile.
The Crusaders under the Frankish nobles Renier of Trit -founded the Duchy of Philippopolis near the present-day Plovdiv, but were defeated at the Battle of Adrian Opel ( 1205 ) by Kaloyan of Bulgaria to flight.
Saxon miners ( Bulgarian саси, sasi ) then settled in the mineral rich regions of Southeast Europe. In the 13th and 14th century German also were added from the resin and Westphalia and settled in the area of Chiprovtsi in present-day north-western Bulgaria (then part of the Second Bulgarian Empire) for the promotion of ore in the western Balkan Mountains at. There they were given special rights by the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Schischman.
The miners brought the Roman Catholic religion in this part of the Balkans, but most after the invasion by the Ottoman Empire left the country again. The remaining part was " Bulgarianised ", by marriage with women from the local population to the middle of the 15th century. Evidence of assimilation can be found in the marriage registers this time, in which German names were provided with Slavic suffixes. In addition to the spread of Catholicism, the Saxons took the German language also influence the common vocabulary in this area, and also introduced a number of mining techniques, and metalworking tools in Bulgaria.
Erzschürfende German miners left their mark on the area between Bulgaria and the present-day Republic of Macedonia Osogowo and Belasiza - mountains, as well as in the area of Samokov in the Rila Mountains, in different parts of the Rhodope Mountains and around Etropole. Also, they were assimilated, but without spreading Catholicism here. After their expulsion from Hungary ( 1376 ) and Bavaria ( 1470 ) settled German -speaking Ashkenazim in Bulgarian lands.
After the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878
The liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 and the restoration of the monarchy in Bulgaria following four Tsar Alexander I, Ferdinand I, Boris III. and Simeon II were of German descent, the. latter three from the House of Saxe -Coburg and Gotha German architects such as Frederick Grünanger and Viktor Mayer lumber supported Bulgaria in its cultural development,
Until the Second World War was scattered in several villages located over northern Bulgaria, a small but notable German rural population.
The first settlers of these groups were Banat Swabians from the Banat area of Romania at Timisoara. They spoke dialects that can be attested from the original source, such as Tyrolean, Alemannic, or bavarian. On April 17, 1893, the first seven families moved down the Danube to the Bulgarian port city Oryahovo. From there they went on until they on April 19, 1893 in the village Bardarski Geran Oblast Vratsa reached, which was inhabited by Banat Bulgarians since 1887.
In subsequent years an increasing number of German families arrived in the village until their number reached a peak of 95 families. The Germans, who were like the Banat Bulgarians predominantly Catholic, celebrated their faith first together in the Bulgarian Catholic Church. 1894 a Polish cleric with knowledge of German was appointed to the village, so that kept German fairs from this time and songs were sung in German.
After conflicts with the local Bulgarians, German settlers built in 1930 Bardarski Geran own Roman Catholic church in the Gothic Revival style. As a result, German choirs were founded and built in 1932 a German school, which replaced the provisional German lessons. 1935 reached the number of students with 82 to peak, of which 50 German and 32 Bulgarian background had. In 1936, the number of ethnic German inhabitants amounted to 282
Other ethnic German settlers moved from the Banat by Gostilya in the Oblast Pleven and Vratsa Oblast Voyvodovo in on where they lived together with Protestant Czechs and Slovaks and Banat Bulgarians with in the villages.
A further populated by Germans village, the village was founded in 1899 Tsarev Brod in the Oblast Shumen. Here lived the early 20th century about 70 dobrudschadeutsche, Bessarabia German and banatschwäbische families together with different other ethnic groups and used in the place a private school. 1939 was the predominant parts of the village population Catholic, the number of church members amounted to 420
In the Southern Dobruja, which was before 1913 and since 1940 part of Bulgaria, also existed since 1903 dobrudschadeutsche a community called Ali Anife ( Kalfa ), which today bears the name Dobrevo and is located in Dobrich Oblast. The colonists came from Kherson and Crimea peninsula (see also: Krimdeutsche ) in today's Ukraine. The local church was consecrated on 23 October 1911. 1939, the village had a total population of 285, of which 129 were of German descent. The place was in the 1940s briefly the name Germantsi 1943 lived 150 Catholics.
German settled as part of the originating from Western and Central Europe group of so-called Levantine from the lower reaches of the Danube in the larger cities in Bulgaria, as in Ruse, Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Svishtov and Vidin. In the 1860s and 1870s, at the time of the former empire of Austria, this number rose to 200-300 in Russian. The first Bulgarian census in 1883 showed there 476 German, which thus represented the fifth largest ethnic group of the city.
A majority of the German population in Bulgaria was resettled with the Heim ins Reich initiative in the former borders of the German Empire in the time of National Socialism. So 2,150 ethnic German Bulgarian citizens were deported from the country in 1943, including 164 from Bardarski Geran and 33 from Gostilya.
2003, a vanishingly small number of people of German nationality in rural Bulgaria, for example, two elderly women lived only among the 2,360 inhabitants of Bardarski Geran, who had not been deported because of her marriage to Bulgarian.