Bulgaria
East of the Illyrians and north of the Macedonians lived, in classical
times, the Thracians. Their territory reached beyond the Danube on the
north
to the border of Scythian country, and on the east to the Black Sea. In
the
period of their greatest power, between 450 and 300 B.C., they were a
numerous and im****tant people; Herodotus called them the most numerous
west
of India. The southern Thracians were more or less Hellenized culturally,
the northern ones in later times were Romanized, and were also influenced
by
the settkment of Goths among them. The invasions of the South Slavs,
however, put an end to what remained of their ethnic identity.
The Thracians are introduced here, at this late date, because they were
not
discussed in Chapter VI, along with the other Indo-European-speaking
peoples
of the Iron Age. The reason for this omission is that no skeletal material
worthy of mention has been described which can be associated with them. A
single skull which was probably Thracian, however, was dolichocephalic and
leptorrhine. 132 Classical descriptions of Thracians make them tall,
powerful, and apparently fair. As such they fit into the general scheme of
the Iron Age Indo-European-speaking peoples.
Bulgaria was once Thracian country; a few centuries after its
Romanization,
it was submerged by a Slavic invasion, the advance guard of the movement
which brought Slavic speech into Serbia. This Slavic invasion, which
resulted in a permanent settlement of the country, was followed by a
further
invasion of still heathen Ugrian tribes under Turkish leader****p, similar
to
the movement which brought the ancestors of the Magyars to Hungary. The
subsequent history of Bulgaria was the opposite to that of Hungary; the
Bulgars, who had left their eastern Russian home before the rise of the
Bolgar Empire, kept their Ugrian name, but gave up their language, in
favor
of the speech of their Slavic predecessors. Whereas the Magyars became
Catholics, the Bulgars adopted Orthodox Christianity The next invaders of
Bulgaria of im****tance were the Ottoman Turks, who took over the fertile
Danubian farm lands, and settled large colonies of Asiatic Turks on them.
S****adic invasions of Tatars from South Russia mingled themselves with
this
Turkish body. At the time of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, many
Moslem Cherkesses fled to Bulgaria to avoid submission to Christians.
Since the war, many of the Turkish peasants have left Bulgaria, and many
of
the Cherkesses as well. There are still islands of these people throughout
the country, but especially in the eastern lowlands, and there are minor
colonies of Greeks, of Tatars, and of Rumanians. To the west, the
Bulgarians
occupy the greater part of Yugoslavian Macedonia, and border in this
neighborhood on the Albanians. To the south, they extend to the head of
the
Aegean, where their settlements are interspersed with those of Turks and
Greeks. Most of the Bulgarians are still Orthodox Christians, but a large
minority, especially in Macedonia, is Moslem.
The stature of the Bulgarians varies regionally from 166 cm. to 168 cm.;
133
the tallest are found in Macedonia, and also in the very northeastern part
of Bulgaria. There is a strong social segregation on the basis of stature;
students at the Sofia Military Academy had, in 1906, a mean stature of
171.5
cm.; 134 other socially selected samples rise to 170 cm. The Bulgar
colonists who live in the Crimea have a mean of 169 cm., those in the
Rumanian Dobruja, 167 cm. The mean cephalic index of over 5000 Bulgarian
soldiers is 79.6; this varies within the kingdom of Bulgaria from 80.8 in
the north, to 79.9 in the southwest, and 78.2 in the south. Christian
Bulgars of Macedonia have a mean of 83.3, in the region of Monastir this
rises to 85; Moslem Bulgars are less brachycephalic, with a mean of 80.5,
while in the neighborhood of Salonika small local samples of Bulgars are
actually dolichocephalic, with a mean of 76.4, and in the neighborhood of
Adrianople in Turkish Thrace, the mean is only 78.3. Bulgarian émigrés in
the Crimea have a mean of 78.7.
Thus within the Bulgarian people there is a strong tendency toward
dolichocephaly, strong enough to impress mesocephaly upon the nation as a
whole. The strongest expression of this tendency is found in the southern
part of the kingdom, and beyond Bulgarian territory proper. True
brachycephals are found only among the Macedonian Bulgars who live in
close
contact with Albanians.
The Bulgarians of the kingdom have heads of moderate size, with a mean
length of about 189 mm. and a breadth of 150 mm.; they are comparable in
this respect to the longer-headed Greeks. Their faces, however, are
narrower
than those of most Balkan peoples; the minimum frontal mean is 105 mm.,
the
bizygomatic 139 mm., and the bigonial 108 mm. As with the Greeks, the jaw
is
wider than the forehead, but both widths are much narrower than with the
latter. The face height, 121 mm., is moderate, the facial index, 87,
mesoprosopic. On the other hand the upper facial index, 55, is relatively
high. The ratio between the two facial indices assumes a Mediterranean
position. The nasal diameters, 55 mm. by 36 mm., yield a moderately
leptorrhine index, 65.
So far, the metrical position of the main group of Bulgarians is that of a
moderately tall-statured Mediterranean group, with the addition of some
brachycephalizing agent in a minor numerical position. The pigmentation of
the Bulgars, while lighter than that of the Greeks, is predominantly dark.
About 25 per cent have pure dark eyes, about 15 per cent light and
light-mixed; the remaining majority are dark or evenly mixed. The head
hair
is dark brown or very dark reddish brown in almost the entire group; even
among children, definitely blond combinations of hair, eye, and skin color
do not exceed 10 per cent of the whole. Among adults light head hair is
rare. The beard, however, shows the same tendency to dispro****tionate
lightness found among Albanians, Montenegrins, and Cretans, but not among
Greeks; the brunet colors found in about 90 per cent of the head hair
occurs
in only 50 per cent of the beards. Medium and light brown beards account
for
most of the rest. There is a notable absence of ash-blondism in this
group.
Most of the Bulgars have straight nasal profiles; concave forms are found
principally in the northwest, adjoining Serbian territory, where they
amount
to 12 per cent. Convexity is rare among all Bulgarians, but least so in
Macedonia. The snubbed tip so characteristic of northern and eastern Slavs
is by no means unknown among them, but is in the minority.
The Bulgarians are a composite people, with the following racial elements
easily discernible: (a) a medium to tall-statured Atlanto-Mediterranean;
(b)
a partially blond Neo-Danubian, of typical snub-nosed form; (c) a Nordic;
(d) a Dinaric, with the usual Alpine corollary; (e) a brachycephalic
central
Asiatic Turkish or Tatar form. The basic element is the
Atlanto-Mediterranean, which probably goes back to the Neolithic; the
Neo-Danubian is probably of both Slavic and Ugrian introduction, although
some of it may be older; the Nordic may be of several origins, including
Thracian; the Dinaric is simply the result of Bulgarian admixture with
local
elements in Macedonia; the Turkic is found mostly in eastern Bulgaria, and
then among townsmen and shepherds rather than among agriculturalists. Of
these varied elements, the first two are the most im****tant, and the first
more than the second. The presence of a strongly entrenched
Atlanto-Mediterranean population of Neolithic date in all of the lowland
Balkans south and east of the Iron Gate is becoming increasingly evident.
In
Bulgaria it is geographically most concentrated along the southern ethnic
periphery, and among Bulgarian colonies abroad, as in the Crimea.
Notes:
132 Weisbach, A., MAGW, vol. 29, 1899. The foregoing discussion of the
Thracians is based mainly on Lebzelter, V., MAGW, vol. 49, 1929, pp.
61-126.
See also, Pittard, E., Les Peuples des Balkans, pp. 139-153.
133 Wateff, S., BMSA, ser. 5, vol. 5,1904, pp. 437-458.
Drontschilow, K., AFA, vol. 42, 1915, pp. 1-76.
Hasluck, M., and Morant, O. M., Biometrika, vol. 21, 1929, pp. 325-334.
Kirkoff, N., BMSA, ser. 5, vol. 7, 1906, pp. 226-233.
Lebzelter, V., MAGW, vol. 59, 1929, pp. 61-126; vol. 53, 1933, pp.
233-251.
Nosov, A., Z. AntrK, vol. 3, 1929, pp.1-53; PCZA, 1930, pp. 311-312.
Pittard, E., Les Peuples des Balkans.
134 Kirkoff, N., BMSA, 1906.
--
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows
I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know
many
strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have
stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they
dare not speak."
They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him
everywhere. Is he is Heaven or in Hell? That demmed, elusive pimpernel.
'Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!
Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The ***** that bore him is in heat again.'
- from Bertolt Brecht
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