20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

900 Emil ŢîrcomnicuThe Timokenian Romanians are located mainly in Serbia, whichexpanded administratively in the Timok area in year 1833, in about 132villages and several cities, in an estimated number between 200.000 and300.000 inhabitants. A small part of the Timokenian population was caughtwithin the borders of Bulgaria, as autonomous region.At the last census in 2001, 10.566 Vlachs (Vlasi) and 1.088 Romanianswere counted. In Vidin oblast, only 155 Vlachs and 166 Romanians areregistered.The Bulgarian statistics have been reporting the Romanian presencefrom 1822. This is the year when E. Klein found 200.000 Romanians inBulgaria. In official Bulgarian statistics, Romanians appear to count 49.070people in 1881 and 75.235 in 1887. The two numbers, recorded six yearsone from the other, show the shortcomings of the census system. In 1900,there were approximately 130.000 Romanians, with additional 30.000Aromanians. 2In the census of 1905 there are 89.847 Romanians counted, and in year1910 – 96.502. In the census of 1920, 75.065 Romanian are counted, andin year 1926 – 83.746. In year 1934, in the official statistics only 16.405Romanians are registered, which shows that, since the 1910 census, 80.097lives disappeared from Bulgaria, especially from compact regions. 3The actual number of the Romanians in Bulgaria, according toethnographer Florea Florescu, in 1942, was between 250.000 and 280.000.The situation at that time was the following: “Although the number of theRomanians in Bulgaria is so large, they do not have any rights as minorities.They do not have schools, and the churches, where tradition left Romanianas preaching language, were closed under our sight, between 1931-1934.The persecutions take place one after the other, under various forms: finesfor speaking the Romanian language, ban on the use of the national costumeor deportation to camps or to cities in Macedonia”. 4 This is the imageof Bulgaria’s policy regarding the Romanian minority in decades threeand four of XX century. On this policy of becoming Bulgarian by force,history professor Nicolai Pacev from Kozloduy comments: “In 1936, theBulgarian state, through force… Everybody has a Bulgarian name. And inone night they went to bed Romanians and woke up Bulgarians”. 5 He refersto the fact that the Bulgarian state decided in 1936 that Romanians names2Florea Florescu 1943, Românii din Bulgaria, pull quote from The Bulletin of theRomanian Royal Geography Society, year LXI, 1942, Bucharest, 126.3Ibidem, 138.4Ibidem, 142.5July 2009, Kozlodui, Bulgaria, field information.