Ethnic and Regional Dimensions of the Demographic Crisis in Bulgaria
https://doi.org/10.31857/S2587556620060084
Abstract
The formation of a specific socio-psychological discourse regarding demographic processes in Bulgaria, a country which lost over 2 million of its population from 1989 to 2019, is presented in the article. In the public debate in Bulgaria there is an overproduction of terms that attempt to describe negative demographic trends (e.g.: “genocide”, “demographic suicide”, “demographic catastrophe”, etc.). Despite the abundance of emotional assessments of the situation by political stakeholders and mass media representatives, the main dilemma is the question: is it a demographic crisis or a demographic disaster? In addition to the illustration on this issue at the national level, the author attempted to interpret it in ethno-demographic and regional aspect. The main theses of the author are confirmed by selected empirical data which illustrate the serious scale of depopulation of Bulgaria as a whole and its regions in particular, as well as the population aging and emigration of young and educated Bulgarians. Low birth rates of the ethnic Bulgarians are accompanied by high birth rates and natural increase of the Roma population. Attention is also drawn to the depopulation of Bulgarian villages, which has lasted since the 1950s, as well as to the concentration of population and investment in several large cities. The helplessness of Bulgarian society and Bulgarian politics, suffering from a long-term, chronic lack of an adequate approach to neutralizing negative, long-term social and demographic trends, is also emphasized.
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Review
For citations:
Mihaylov V.T. Ethnic and Regional Dimensions of the Demographic Crisis in Bulgaria. Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya Geograficheskaya. 2020;84(6):832-843. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31857/S2587556620060084
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