Aromanians in Bulgaria

The Aromanians in Bulgaria (Aromanian: armãnji or rrãmãnji; Bulgarian: Арумъни), commonly known as "Vlachs" (Bulgarian: Власи) and under several other names, are a non-recognized ethnic minority in the country. There are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Aromanians in Bulgaria, although estimates coming from Bulgarian Aromanians themselves raise this number to 6,000. They live in the Western Rhodopes, the Blagoevgrad, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv and Sofia provinces and in the city of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria itself. More precisely, the Aromanians of Bulgaria are concentrated in the villages of Anton and Dorkovo and on the cities and towns of Blagoevgrad, Dupnitsa, Peshtera, Rakitovo, Samokov, Sofia and Velingrad, as well as on parts of the aforementioned provinces located in the Balkan Mountains. Some also live on the towns of Bratsigovo and Pirdop and on the cities of Plovdiv and Pazardjik, as well as on the Rila mountain range.

Following the recognition of the Ullah millet in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, which gave the Aromanians rights such as the one to have their own churches and schools, ethnic Bulgarian and Greek bands on the Ottoman Empire began to persecute and attack the Aromanians, with instances of killings of Aromanian priests or of attacks on entire Aromanian villages. The Greek authorities would later also join in this persecution during the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, and so did the Bulgarian ones, which began to seize Aromanian churches and hand them over to Bulgarian-speaking congregations. All this violence and instability prompted some Aromanians to emigrate to Romania, which was attempting to portray itself as a "homeland" for this ethnic group at the time. More precisely, they migrated to Southern Dobruja, formerly a Bulgarian region conquered by Romania in 1913.