Moscow University
Anthropology
Bulletin
Anthropology
Bulletin
Institute of Experimental Morphology, Pathology and Anthropology with Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
Stoev Racho, e-mail: rastesto@abv.bg.
In 1938–1943 the famous Bulgarian academician, physiologist and genetic Methody Popov, who opposed Nazi racial theories, collected a large anthropological material. This is the second and the widest ethno-anthropological survey of the Bulgarian population. The material has been elaborated and the results were published only after M. Popov’s death (1954) by his student Georgi Markov in 1959. However, because of political reasons Markov had to make a conscious error in the text (not in the numeric data), to ensure the publication of the results. This error has been repeated in some later Bulgarian works about the anthropology of Bulgarians for inner use. In this paper the material of M. Popov’s survey is analyzed by region and by county, using methods such as cluster analysis, which have not been applied to those data. The results are compared with those of three other nationwide ethno-anthropological surveys of Bulgaria carried out in the 20th century. This analysis shows that the anthropological map of Bulgaria is very patchy. Northern Bulgaria is an area of predominance of the Dinaric type (in combination with Alpine and East Baltic types), which is characteristic of Central Europe. Southern Bulgaria is the area of Atlanto-Pontian (Atlanto-Mediterranean) type. There are few areas of intrusion of Dinaric forms in southern Bulgaria – in the eastern part of Sofia region, in the Rhodopes, and in Eastern Thrace. There are also areas of Atlanto-Pontian intrusions in North Bulgaria – along the Black sea coast and along the Danube. However, the Atlanto-Pontian type (which is the most frequent anthropologic type in Bulgarians) is concentrated mostly in southeastern, not northeastern Bulgaria, as in the text published by G. Markov. This confirms the opinion of anthropologists such as J. Czekanowski, C. Coon, A. Poulianos, V. Alekseyev, etc., that modern Bulgarians descend mainly from ancient populations living in the Balkans before the Great Barbarian Migration. This conclusion is confirmed by dermatoglyphic and genetic studies.
bulgarians, ethnic anthropology, Dinaric type, Atlanto-Pontic type, political misuse of anthropology
Цит.: Stoev Racho THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL MAP OF BULGARIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY: CORRECTING A CONSCIOUS ERROR // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2014; 3/2014; с. 82-83
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