The first chapter of this paper is devoted to presenting thorough information about
ethnic minorities in Bulgaria with a special emphasis on the two biggest groups – Roma
and Turks. It will also attempt to outline attitudes towards these groups among the
Bulgarian ethnic majority.
Minority questions are especially important for Bulgaria, because a significant portion
of its population – about 15% identify themselves as belonging to ethnic minorities.
84.8% are ethnic Bulgarians. The two biggest ethnic minority groups in the country are
the Turkish (8.8%) and the Roma – 4.9%.1 Other notable, but much smaller minority
groups include Armenians, Jews, Pomaks, Greeks, and Macedonians.
There is a link between ethnic and religious belonging with about 87.6% of the ethnic
Turks being Muslim, which makes the majority of Bulgaria’s Muslims of Turkish ethnic
origin. Of the remaining less than 13% more than two thirds have chosen not to answer
the question in the 2011 Census, while about 14 700 people have stated that they do not
belong to any religious groups and about 8 800 are part of different Christian
denominations (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant).2
Pomaks, or Bulgarian Muslims,
officially considered part of the Bulgarian ethnic group, constitute about 10% of the
Muslim population in the country (or between 1-2% of the total population).3
Another line of consistency is the connection between mother tongue and ethnicity.
99.4% of ethnic Bulgarians also speak Bulgarian as their first language. Among selfidentified
Turks 96.6% speak Turkish as their mother tongue while the first language of
3.2% is Bulgarian. The most linguistically diverse group of the three is the Roma with
85% of the people in it speaking Romani as their first language. At the same time 7.5%
of self-identified Roma people’s mother tongue is Bulgarian and for 6.7% – Turkish