Bilingualism in a larger Slavonic background: Russian minorities and the Russian language in Bulgaria
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Angel G Angelov
Abstract
Kinship ties between Bulgarians and Russians have aroused heated debate concerning the essence of Slavdom and the common ancestry of at least ten nationalities today in Eastern Europe. Russians and Ukrainians, incomparably, are more numerous and populate larger territories than the Southern Slavs. Viewed from historical perspective, however, the importance of these less numerous peoples — Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats — is not proportional to contemporary situations. In earlier periods — from the 10th through the 14th centuries — the now smaller nations, due to location and other circumstances, were more active in cultural and political contacts. Especially for the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages, the direction of cultural influence was from southwest toward the northeast. Over the next centuries, the migration of people and ideas repeatedly changed direction, while in the 18th and 19th centuries, the influence of the Russian Empire gave a crucial impetus to formation of national self-identity among Balkan Slavic-speaking nationalities.
© Walter de Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction: ethnolinguistic minority language policies in Bulgaria and their Balkan context
- Bulgarian Turks in the context of neighborhood with other ethnic-religious communities in Bulgaria
- Code-switching among Muslim Roms in Bulgaria
- Romani dialects in Bulgaria
- Bilingualism in a larger Slavonic background: Russian minorities and the Russian language in Bulgaria
- The Armenians in Bulgaria: a community portrait
- Bulgaria and linguistic matters of Bulgarian Jews
- The Aromânians: an ethnos and language with a 2000-year history
- Bulgarian Muslims from the Chech region and their linguistic self-identification
- Catholic Bulgarians and their dialect
- The four transitions in Bulgarian education
- Book reviews
- Language and religion: a case study of two Ambonese communities
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction: ethnolinguistic minority language policies in Bulgaria and their Balkan context
- Bulgarian Turks in the context of neighborhood with other ethnic-religious communities in Bulgaria
- Code-switching among Muslim Roms in Bulgaria
- Romani dialects in Bulgaria
- Bilingualism in a larger Slavonic background: Russian minorities and the Russian language in Bulgaria
- The Armenians in Bulgaria: a community portrait
- Bulgaria and linguistic matters of Bulgarian Jews
- The Aromânians: an ethnos and language with a 2000-year history
- Bulgarian Muslims from the Chech region and their linguistic self-identification
- Catholic Bulgarians and their dialect
- The four transitions in Bulgarian education
- Book reviews
- Language and religion: a case study of two Ambonese communities
