Ivan Batakliev – RESETTLEMENT OF THE BULGARIAN PEOPLE IN SLAVERY

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.1

This is an original text written in 1968 by Prof. Ivan Batakliev, unpublished until now, presented here without any editorial intervention. In his paper, the author talks about the difficult historical fate of the Bulgarian people during its thirteen centuries of existence, as well as the reasons for that, some of which are the crossroad geographical positioning of Bulgaria and its relief, providing foreign troops from various historical eras, an easy access to the Asian continent. Apart from those factors, the author emphasizes other factors such as political, economic, demographic and even epidemic reasons. According to Prof. Batakliev, one of the main reasons – not only for the preservation of the Bulgarian people, but also for the formation of the Bulgarian nation, formed during the Bulgarian Renaissance – are the migratory movements and resettlement of Bulgarians as a result of which a number of settlements – even rather significant ones – disappeared, while others emerged. The author analyzes many historical events since the establishment of the Bulgarian state, which led to the resettlement of thousands of Bulgarians in different parts of Europe, thus transferring their traditional lifestyle, customs and religious views, which have left their mark to this day in places where those people settled down. Prof. Batakliev examines migration not only outside the borders of Bulgaria, but also the relocation of people from abroad into Bulgaria. He deliberates the settling down of foreign tribes and peoples on the territory of Bulgaria in various historical periods – before the fall of Bulgaria under Turkish yoke, during the Ottoman rule, and after the Liberation in 1878. Showing personal feelings, the author talks about the plight of Bulgarians during on the five-century yoke, the persecution, destruction, exile and slavery, which caused numerous deportations of tens of thousands of people from their native lands and their emigration to Romania, northern Greece, Serbia, Asia Minor, Bessarabia, Tavria and Kherson provinces of Russia, as well as to various places in Bulgaria itself. The fifteenth century stands out with the most severe consequences, during which, according to Prof. Hr. Gandev, as a result of the Turkish invasion, 680 000 out of a total of 1 127 294 Bulgarians perished. Many settlements were depopulated and devastated, while new small refuge settlements and neighborhoods emerged. A dark period in Bulgarian history is the conversion to Islam in the period between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century in the Rhodopes and Northern Bulgaria. During the Ottoman rule, along with the de- Bulgarianization, Turkish population settled on the territory of the country – mainly in Eastern Stara Planina Mountain and the Ludogorie region. During the Bulgarian Renaissance, part of this population returned to Turkey, while Bulgarians returning from abroad, as well as those who came down from the higher mountain areas, settled in its place and began to develop various economic activities. The Kardzhalii brigandic raids caused great displacements, as well as the wars between Russia and Turkey – 1762-1796, 1828-1829, 1854-1856, and 1877- 1878. After the Liberation of Bulgaria, however, the life of the Bulgarian people did not become much easier. As a result of the wars that broke out in the early twentieth century – the First Balkan War in 1912-1913, the Second Balkan War in 1913, the First World War – 1915- 1918, there was a large exodus of Bulgarians from Western and Eastern Thrace, southern and northern Macedonia. Prof. Batakliev prepared a report, according to which 55 940 households or 253 067 refugees settled in Bulgaria in the period between 1912 and 1930. The Bulgarian population was only assimilated in Serbia. It is interesting to note that those refugees were sent money by the Red Cross from many countries around the world, and a £ 2 250 000 loan was granted through the League of Nations, while a commissioner had been appointed to provide refugees with arable land and housing. The Karaboaz lowland along the Danube River, as well as some marshlands around the Bay of Burgas, etc., were drained. A number of refugee settlements were built, and 9 838 houses were supplied with water. According to the Craiova Agreement of 1940, Southern Dobrudzha was returned to Bulgaria, and as a result, 7 000 Bulgarians moved in from Northern Dobrudzha.
We express our heartfelt gratitude to the son of Prof. Ivan Batakliev – Mr. Todor Batakliev, for providing this valuable material that enriches our ideas about the fate of our people in our turbulent historical past.

Keywords:: refugees, Ottoman invasion, settlement, resettlement, migration movements

Georgi Bardarov – PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR ROMA INTEGRATION

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.2

The demographic tendencies in Bulgaria in the last two decades determine apart from a demographic crisis in the country and the decrease in population in absolute numbers, also serious changes in the structures of the population. One of the serious changes is related to the change in the ethnic structure of the population which is seen in the decrease of the main Bulgarian ethnos and gradual increase in the Roma population ethnos. According to prognosis data around the year 2050 the Roma ethnos will be about 22-23% from all the population. From this point of view the integration of the Roma people is turned into a priority task for the Bulgarian society in the next few decades. The aim of the present article is to study the genesis of the problem with the difficult integration and marginalization of the Roma Ethnos in Bulgaria, as well as to analyze successful integration models and to see how applicable they are in other parts of the country with Roma population. During the analysis we have found out that when we talk about the difficult integration of the Roma people, we get to their educational level. At present only 0,5% of the Roma people have a high education, and just 9% are with high-school education, which means that over 90% of them are with lower than high school education. That is exactly the big ethnic problem in Bulgaria. The Roma people with their younger age structure can easily be a reserve in the labor market in our country, where an acute deficit of working people is felt. But this can happen only with a sharp increase of their educational level. The happy news is that we already have such positive examples in Bulgaria, such as the integrational educational model based on the Iclandic educational model in the town of Straldja, where only for a year a real increase of the attendance of the Roma students was achieved with 40%. Our main conclusion is that the integration of the Roma people, which determines the future of Bulgaria, goes through several important steps. The first one is Education, and the next ones are degetoisation, mutual studying and understanding of the cultures among the young people from the different ethnoses in the country, breaking the stereotypes and the negative attitudes in the society, stimulation of the labor realization, and improvement of the social and living conditions of the Roma people.

Keywords:: integration, Roma people, educational level, demographic trends,
degetoization, ethnopsychology, integration educational model

Viliyan Krastev – GEOPOLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF BULGARIAN “SOFT POWER” IN PUBLIC (PEOPLE’S) DIPLOMACY

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.3

The article is dedicated to an actual range of problems, connected with achievement of “soft power” at the international level by using public diplomacy. The “soft power” refers to ability of building up reputation, trust, reliability and attractiveness of the countries in the international community as a nonmaterial geopolitical resource. By the example of Bulgaria, the historical experience, the current state, and the definition of concrete directions of public diplomacy initiatives implementation are traced. The problems are identified and some variants for enlargement of the country international presence in the sphere of its interaction with the outside world are offered. The attention is focused on the possibilities of Bulgaria to achieve a “soft power” in the spectrum of public diplomacy: expansion of the network of centers and the activity of the Bulgarian cultural institutions abroad; creation of conditions to attract and hold international events with wide public repercussion; stimulation of the intercultural dialogue and contribution by using cultural tourism. On the basis of the previous geopolitical position of Bulgaria, the author’s position of supporting for wider international presence in geographical terms is defended.

Keywords:: soft power, public diplomacy, Bulgaria, intercultural dialogue, event
economy

Rumen Penin – LANDSCAPE-GEOCHEMICAL RESEARCH OF THASOS ISLAND

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.4

Landscapes geochemistry is a priority scientific field in physical geography, studying the behavior, migration and differentiation of chemical elements and compounds, both in natural and in anthropogenized to varying degrees natural land and aquatic complexes. The establishment of the contents and the microelement composition in the soils and bottom sediments is an important part of the research in the field of geoecological monitoring. These two natural components are particularly informative, as they accumulate the result of geochemical processes in the natural complexes of a given area. In recent decades, a number of landscape and geochemical studies have been conducted in areas close to Thassos island in natural conditions – the Rhodope Mountains, the Slavyanka Mountain, Belasitsa, Bozdag, Mount Athos, etc. The contents of association of heavy metals (Cu, Pb, Co, Zn, Mn, Ni, Cr) in soils, bottom sediments, vegetation were studied. This is why our scientific interests are also directed to Thassos Island, where field research and collected material for geochemical research were conducted. The article analyzes and interprets the obtained geochemical results from field and laboratory research and comparisons are made with soils and bottom sediments in other spatially close objects. Associations of concentrating and dispersing microelements were found in the two studied sites. Such studies provide a basis for conducting systematic geochemical observations in the framework of environmental monitoring.

Keywords:: heavy metals, landscapes, soils, bottom sediments, environmental monitoring.

Rumen Penin – BIOGEOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF HEAVY METALS ON THE ISLAND OF THASSOS – PART OF THE BASIS OF GEOECOLOGICAL MONITORING

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.5

Biogeochemistry has an increasingly important place in complex studies of the natural environment. Among its tasks are the study of the content of ecologically priority heavy metals in vegetation, as well as laying the foundations in the organization of geochemical monitoring of the natural environment. Biogeochemical studies are an important part of uncovering the geochemical features of landscapes in a given area. On the basis of the field and laboratory studies of trace elements (Cu, Zn, Pb, Mn, Ni, Co, Cr) in the vegetation cover of Thassos, their content and degree of interaction in the soil-plant system was analyzed and inferred using the biological uptake coefficient – Ah. The factors influencing the formation of the trace element composition of plants are indicated. Associations of heavy metals accumulating or dissipating in the studied object are revealed. The trace element association with the highest degree of accumulation is Zn, Cu and Pb, while nickel and chromium are trapped to a lower degree compared to the other heavy metals. A geochemical comparison is made with another biogeochemically studied site located relatively close to the island of Thassos – Mount Athos. The obtained data are the basis for the establishment and implementation of systematic geoecological observations on Thassos and the organization of biogeochemical monitoring on the priority heavy metals for ecological research. This paper is a continuation of the complex landscape geochemical studies of the island.

Keywords:: biogeochemistry, heavy metals, landscape, soils, geoecological monitoring

Nadezhda Ilieva, Mariana Sultanova, Alexandra Ravnachka – CONCEPT FOR CREATION OF A GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATIONAL PORTAL “SCIENCE IN THE CLASSROOM”

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.6

The dynamic development of science in the last decade, resulting from the wide spread of information technologies, poses new challenges to the modern educational paradigm. The creation of joint projects involving schools, on the one hand, and universities and research institutes, on the other, provides direct access for teachers and students to scientific achievements. The National Strategy of Scientific Research envisages the establishment of a sustainable connection between education and science and business, as a basis for the development of a knowledge-based economy. The geographical educational portal “Science in the classroom” is oriented towards the creation of an interactive map of Bulgaria which has not been created so far, nor has it been published on the Internet, and will be easily accessible without the need to install additional specialized GIS software. The interactive map will be applicable in each of the lessons, replacing a wide range of specialized thematic maps, which, for a number of reasons, are missing from the current geography and economics lessons, while at the same time are an inalienable attribute of geographical education. The interactive map is designed to provide quick access to various geographical information about the components of the natural environment, the demographic and economic processes, and their temporal and spatial development. This enables students to observe the dynamics of geographical processes in the country, and to make projections of their future development. The entry of science into the classroom also provides benefits to geographical science itself. How will the student contribute? – the portal envisages students to be involved in the process of collecting and adding attributive information about their local area of residence to the interactive map. In this way, students will get involved in cognitive activity and thus experience the sense of discovery as an interesting and useful model of human behavior, giving them confidence as researchers. The portal envisages that students collect a database of natural objects which have not been classified by science so far, and locate them on the interactive map during the study of their local area of residence. After an additional inspection, that database will become part of the geographical database of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), and thus save a lot of scientific time and significant financial resources. The interactive map will be linked to the specially created geographical educational portal “Science in the classroom”, which will be virtually linked to the site of the National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography at the BAS. Another module of the geographical educational portal, under the general name “My research”, aims to introduce geography into the classroom and meet the need of the teaching community for up-to-date scientific geographical information. This module substantiates the research, educational and cognitive activity of the students from a methodological, technological and didactic point of view. The module provides a valuable educational resource to the teacher of geography and economics, for conducting and optimizing activity lessons, which are largely neglected due to their insufficient scientific and didactic provision. The described research practices are accompanied by demonstration videos, specially created for the purpose. The research modules can be used in the lessons for students majoring in geography, so as to take the learning process out of the classroom and integrate it with other related subjects. The educational portal will shorten the distance between the latest geographical research, teachers of geography and economics, and students studying this subject.

Keywords:: Geographical educational portal, scientific achievements, geographical
information systems, information and communication technologies, “knowledge triangle” (science-education-innovation), science in the classroom, interactive teaching methods

Dimitar Parlichev – CONCEPTUAL AND CLASSIFICATION PROBLEMS OF THE CONCEPT OF THE GLOBAL (MORPHOSPHERIC) GEOMORPHOLOGY

https://doi.org/10.35101/prg-2021.3-4.7

The lack of a commonly accepted classification of the “landforms” in the geomorphology motivates the author to attempt some time ago (Parlichev, 1989, 1992, 2017a) a revision the classification of I. P. Gerasimov (1946). The author‘s classification was used in the preparation of his concept of morphospheric geomorphology to reflect the geomorphological processes concomitant with the geotectonic ones described by the Plate tectonics. Almost complete coherence of the tectonic and morpholytodynamic processes and an adequate reflection of the latter in the new classification is established. The latter, although composed of only four basic concepts, facilitates the work of the researcher and inspires confidence that, when completed, it will fully meet the requirements of the concept of the morphospheric geomorphology.

Keywords:: morphosphere, tectosphere, morphostructures, classification, morphospheric
geomorphology