Re: Query: Karakachani minority?

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 13:07:11 +0300 (EET DST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Query: Karakachani minority?

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Simeon Tsonev <[email protected]>

Re: Query: Karakachani minority?


I guess a Bulgarian will do anything to emigrate, even change his nationality. :-)  Why don't those people present themselves as members of a more well-known Bulgarian
minority group?
 
Yes, there is such a minority in Bulgaria but it is hardly oppressed nowadays.  It is even priviliged as Greece claims it as its own and is highly protective of it.  The
organize yearly gatherings which are honoured by members of the Bulgarian and Greek governments.
 
The Karakachans generally live in Southeast Bulgaria.  They had a nomadic way of life, migrating seasonally with their herds from the mountains to the seaside.  They are
(actually were, because they mostly speak Bulgarian nowadays) Greek speakers but their origin is not Greek.  They came from Thessaly and Macedonia (modern Norhtern Greece
where there are still Karakachans/Sarakatsans) and they are belived to be descendants of an ancient Balkan population akin to the Illyrians and Thracians.  They are very
much akin to their neighbours, the Vlachs.  Their customs are very similar.  Whereas the Vlachs adopted the Latin tongue, the Karakachans became Hellenised.  But even in
Greece they are unofficially recognized as a separate ethnographic group due to their customs.
 
During the time of communism their herds were confiscated in Bulgaria and the ust have suffered the usual amount of repression every other Bulgarian suffered.  Their
property is now going to be restored by the Bulgarian government.  The Greek government and the Open Society Foundation in Bulgaria also give them a lot of support. 
Sometimes I wish Greece treated the Pomaks and Macedonians the way the Karakachans are treated in Bulgaria.
 
SImeon Tsonev

-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern Europe

Submissions: [email protected]  
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] 
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================