Talk:Romanians in Bulgaria

Complete mess
Gosh, we have a complete mess here! First, there are practically no Romanians in northwestern Bulgaria: there are speakers of "Vlach" (Romanian dialect of some kind) who self-identify as Bulgarians, respect that.

The census data you provided is totally confusing: it implies that only Vlachs in northwestern Bulgaria are counted, when in fact it includes many other parts of the country. Specifically according to 2001 census data, there are 16 Romanians and 155 Vlachs in Vidin Province, as well as 6 Romanians and 34 Vlachs in Vratsa Province, 14 Romanians and 252 Vlachs in Pleven Province, no Romanians and 19 Vlachs in Montana Province, etc.

I've already explained a thousand times that "Vlachs" and Romanians are for the most part Vlach Roma. Or do you really believe there are 3,620 ethnic Vlachs in Varna Province, 1,066 in Veliko Tarnovo and 1,137 in Shumen? The same goes for the 440 "Romanians" in Varna.

What I propose is: redirect to and expand Timok Vlachs, which covers the real Vlach group of Serbia and Bulgaria, thus erasing any mention of the fabricated and non-existent ethnic "Romanian minority in Bulgaria" and the total confusion between Vlach speakers of northwestern Bulgaria and Romanian Roma which reigns in the article.

I mean, if you'd like to write an article about Romanian(-speaking) Roma, go for it, but don't fabricate minorities and don't imply Bulgarianization in cases that you don't (or refuse to) understand.

I have no desire to discuss with sockpuppets, so no Bonnies here, OK? Todor→Bozhinov 10:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I cannot decipher what to make of entries like "1905: 89,847 (79,910 Romanians)". So what are the other 10,000 or so? - Jmabel | Talk 03:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 89,847 Romanian speakers, of which 79,910 Romanian ethnics bogdan 08:34, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Also 37000 in Vidin province which has total of 100000 population - where is this data from its hilarious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.90.182.67 (talk) 06:38, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Title
Census data and academic sources speak predominantly about Vlachs in Bulgaria, not on Romanians. The title of that article must be changed to Vlachs in Bulgaria. Look for example on Vlachs of Serbia, who are the same people. Thanks. 88.203.200.74 (talk) 06:59, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Separate paragraphs for separate views
There are opposite views of historians so we need separate paragraphs in order to avoid war edits.

There are important differences in approaching Vlachs or Romanians. It is important to keep both views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.231.27.72 (talk) 10:31, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Romanian and Bulgarian views are different. Romanians consider Bulgarian theory as nationalistic. Probably the Bulgarians think Romanian theory as nationalistic.
 * Do not make significant changes without gaining a consensus on talk. We need here a neutral POV. Neither Bulgarian, not Romanian. Provide reliable neutral sources supporting NPOV. Thank you. Jingiby (talk)

Justification on move
Hello, I've moved the article from "Vlachs in Bulgaria" to "Romanians in Bulgaria". For some reason some Wikipedias say "Vlach" is an official term used in Bulgaria for Romanians, Aromanians and Romanian-speaking Gypsies. However, not only I have not found anything about this on official documents of some kind but neither in regular academic sources. "Vlach" is not official, it is just the most common name these three groups use and the ones they choose to identify with. The lack of "formalities" already damages the justification for an article like this. Now, I will provide sources showing that Bulgarian Vlachs are considered Romanian:


 * "There are two basic ethno-cultural groups of Vlachs in the Balkans today. The first one is ethnically, linguistically and spatially close or identical to today's Romanians. Broadly speaking, this group lives in territories of Eastern Serbia and Northwest Bulgaria. Their dialect is almost identical to one of the Romania-proper dialects." p. 211.
 * "C. Vlach: Representing well-known historical synonym for Romanian..." p. 572, "For Bulgaria official data are even less veridical, only 0.01 mil. are recognized as Romanians / Vlachs" p. 570.
 * : see title of this article. I think the author is a Serbian Vlach, so these peoples are close to her, and she probably knows better than several Bulgarian and Romanian researchers. "The Vlachs of north-western Bulgaria inhabit the area circumscribed by the port town of Vidin and the rivers Timok and Danube, but villages with Romanian population can be found well beyond this area, mostly along the Danube" p. 188, "At the end of the 19th century, Gustav Weigand, a German linguist, traveling in the regions inhabited by Romanian-speaking population north and south of the Danube, concluded that in the Vidin area there were 40,000 Romanians, while in Vratsa – 13,000" p. 189. Weigand is a German researcher, not Romanian nor Bulgarian.
 * "We aimed in this study to present the situation of Vlachs (Romanians) in Bulgaria in the period 1920-2013" p. 443

This is not the situation of Serbia. Serbia is attempting a policy of denationalization and the creation of a new ethnicity in Timok through a new alphabet, standardized language, etc.. But in Bulgaria, it just happens that an old name has sticked. Same as in North Macedonia, Greece or Albania for the Aromanians. I'd like to ask for sources that show the opposite here, that the Vlachs of the north of Bulgaria are not Romanians.

By the way, one might argue that such an article, "Vlachs in Bulgaria", should exist to cover all peoples ever termed "Vlachs" on the history of Bulgaria. In my opinion they are all Romanians and Aromanians anyway but I haven't checked if sources verify this. Such a topic should anyway be covered on a new article called "Vlachs in the history of Bulgaria" or "Vlachs in medieval Bulgaria", in the style of Vlachs in the history of Croatia, Vlachs in medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina or Vlachs in medieval Serbia. Most of this article is dedicated to more modern and recent times, not to older ones, so I don't think it would have made sense to have moved this article to one about Vlachs in the history of Bulgaria.

I also want to note four things. One is that I made a page for the Aromanians in Bulgaria. So Wikipedia doesn't refer to the Bulgarian Aromanians as "Romanians" now with this move. I don't think we need a separate article for Romanian-speaking Gypsies in Bulgaria. That may be covered on Boyash. Second, the move to "Vlachs in Bulgaria" was done by editor Zoupan in 2016 without any justification on the edit summary. This user is now blocked. Since no reasoning was given and the move goes against what reliable sources show, I've not bothered on doing a RM, because I don't think it's necessary the discuss that water is wet. Also, I've deleted the (what should have been) redirect Vlachs in Bulgaria, because there was no use for it. It couldn't have redirected here, because "Vlach" is also used for the Aromanians who also have an article, so the only option would have been a disambiguation page. This would have been new in Wikipedia, as we don't have disambiguation pages for Vlachs in Greece, Vlachs in North Macedonia, Vlachs in Serbia, etc.. There's simply no need for such a thing. That some peoples are known under this name can be specified on their respective pages. Thus, I've deleted the redirect. And lastly, I've only done a formality, as this article was already being treated as if it was about Romanians on Wikipedia, see these edits. And no-one complained. Why do it now? With all this, I believe the move is justified. Super  Ψ   Dro  13:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)