Bulgarians in Ukraine

Ethnic group

Bulgarians in Ukraine

болгари bolhary
Total population
204,574 ( 2001)
Languages
Bulgarian (94%), Russian (60%), Ukrainian (55%)
Religion
Of the total Of the religious
Related ethnic groups
Bessarabian Bulgarians

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Subgroups
Anatolian Bulgarians Banat Bulgarians Bessarabian Bulgarians Dobrujan Bulgarians Macedonian Bulgarians Pomaks Șchei Shopi Thracian Bulgarians
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v t e

Bulgarians in Ukraine (Bulgarian: Българи в Украйна, Bǎlgari v Ukrayna; Ukrainian: Болгари в Україні, Bolhary v Ukraïni) make up the fifth biggest minority in the country and primarily reside in southern Ukraine. Bulgarians make up a significant minority of the Odesa Oblast, especially the city of Bolhrad.

Bulgarian-inhabited areas in Budjak (purple)

By language (2001)

Second largest ethnic groups according to the 1926 census (dark brown paints Bulgarians)

Largest ethnic groups according to the 1926 census (dark brown paints Bulgarians)

In

• Odesa: 150,700 (6.1%)
• Zaporizhzhia: 27,800 (1.4%)
• Mykolaiv: 5,600 (0.4%)
• Donetsk: 4,800 (0.1%)

The modern population of Bulgarians settled in the region at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, at the time of feudal sedition in the

After arriving, the Bulgarians founded their own towns, such as Bolhrad (1819) and Comrat, and around 64 villages. In 1856, after the Treaty of Paris, the region of Bessarabia was divided with the southwestern parts, including Bolhrad, Izmail and Kiliia, incorporated into Moldova (since 1861 – Kingdom of Romania), and the northeastern ones, centered on Comrat, remaining in the Russian Empire. A Bulgarian gymnasium (school) was founded in Bolhrad on 28 June 1858, which had a significant effect on the development of Bulgarian education and culture and was the first modern Bulgarian gymnasium.^{[citation needed]}

In 1861, 20,000 Bulgarians from the Romanian part of Bessarabia moved to

After the whole region was incorporated once again into the Russian Empire in 1878, the process of Russification grew stronger, as many Bulgarian intellectuals returned to the newly established Principality of Bulgaria to help set up the Bulgarian state. The Russian Empire deprived the Bulgarian minority of the rights earned during Romanian control.

The whole of Bessarabia was ceded to Romania in 1918 after the

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 led to the June 1940 Soviet ultimatum, the invasion and annexation of Bessarabia by the Soviet Union. Although an officially accepted minority under Soviet rule, the local Bulgarians lost some features of their cultural identity.

A movement of national revival began in the 1980s, with the publication of Bulgarian newspapers, establishment of cultural and educational associations, and the introduction of Bulgarian into the local schools, accelerating after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and primarily offered as an elective, but later as a compulsory subject. The Association of Bulgarians in Ukraine was founded in 1993.

During the

• Dimitar Agura, historian
• Grisha Filipov, former leading member of Bulgarian Communist Party, Prime Minister of Bulgaria
• Dimitar Grekov, politician and public figure, Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, Minister of Interior, president of the Sofia District Court, president of the Bulgarian Supreme Court, deputy in Constituent assembly,
• Aleksandar Malinov, politician and public figure, three times Prime Minister of Bulgaria
• Ruslan Maynov, bulgarian actor, singer and TV host
• Danail Nikolaev, a Bulgarian officer, Minister of War and General of the Infantry
• Ivan Plachkov, politician, two times Minister of Energy of Ukraine,former Chairman of the Management Board, General Director and chief engineer of Joint Stock Energy Supply Company "Kyivenergo".[1]
• Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, linguist, first rector of Sofia University
• Ivan Kolev, lieutenant general and officer in the Bulgarian Army
• Anton Kisse, ukrainian politician, currently and previously serving as People's Deputy of Ukraine, leader of Bulgarian minority,former member of Party of the Regions ,and current president of the Association of Bulgarians in Ukraine, current member and co-chairman of politician's party Наш Край

• Grek, Ivan and Nikolay Chervenkov. Българите в Украйна и Молдова. Минало и настояще (Balgarite v Ukrayna i Moldova. Minalo i nastoyashte), Sofia, 1993.
• Navakov, Saveliy Z. Социально-экономическое развитие болгарских и гагаузких сел Южной Бесарабии (1857–1918) (Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoe razvitie bolgarskikh i gagauzkikh sel Yuzhnoy Besarabii (1857–1918)), Chişinău, 2004.
• Rodolyubets Almanach, volumes 1—6, (Sofia, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004).

• Bulgaria–Ukraine relations
• Bessarabian Bulgarians
• Bulgarian diaspora
• Ethnic groups in Ukraine
• Ukrainians in Bulgaria