TIRANA, Oct. 22 – Bulgarian researcher Ludmill Stankov has published a monograph on spoken Albanian in the Bulgarian village of Mandrica, founded in the early 18th century by Albanian migrants from Korà§a, and whose inhabitants of Albanian origin still preserve an archaic dialect of the southern Albanian Tosk dialect.
“The 230-page book based on research by Albanian scholars is expected to be published by the University of Sofia and is a great contribution to the development of academic relations between Albania and Bulgaria,” says the Albanian Academy of Science in a statement.
The Mandrica village located on the right bank of the River Byala Reka, 19 km South of Ivaylovgrad and 2 km West of the River Luda Reka, on the Bulgarian-Greek border was founded in 1636 by three Albanian brothers from Vithkuq village of Korà§a, southeastern Albania.
Mandritsa is the only Albanian village in Bulgaria, where even today native people speak this unique archaic Albanian language. “The village was founded in 1636 by three brothers Albanian Eastern Orthodox dairyman (Mandritsa – mandra (dairy), hence the name of the village,” says the Association for revival of the village of Mandrica.
The first group of Albanians known to have immigrated to Bulgaria settled in the village of Arbanasi near the ancient Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnavo in the early 14th century, says Robert Elsie, a Canadian researcher specialized in Albanian studies. In 1480, after the death of Albania’s national hero, Skanderbeg, thousands more Albanians fled eastward through Bulgaria and many settled on the western slopes of Rhodope mountains. Later more Orthodox Albanians settled in various regions of Bulgaria and Thrace, many of whom forced into exile by the Ottoman authorities. A group of Catholic Albanians moved to northwestern Bulgaria Many of the Albanians of Bulgaria were later forced to flee to Romania and Russia. In the late 19th century, Sofia served as a rallying point for the Albanian nationalist movement. Today Albanian can still be heard in the Bulgarian-Greek-Turkish border region, notably in the village of Mandrica. In 1951, there were 1,000 Albanians there. According to the 1992 Bulgarian census, there were 3,197 Albanians in the country.
