site.btaEthnologist Grigor Grigorov Tells About Gagauz Culture, Language

Ethnologist and cultural expert Grigor Grigorov says the language of the Gagauz in Moldova uses Turkish vocabulary and Bulgarian grammar, and for the Gagauz of today Bulgaria is a friendly country.

Grigor Grigorov is a PhD in Theory and History of Culture, lecturer at the Department of Cultural Studies at the Neofit Rilski University of Southwestern Europe in Blagoevgrad, southeastern Bulgaria. He taught for two years at the University of Comrat, the main city of the Gagauzia in Moldova, and for five years at the University of Bucharest. Currently he teaches Bulgarian at the University of Szeged, Hungary. He is the author of more than 50 publications in the field of ethnology and cultural studies.

The Gagauz language is Turkic in origin, but Bulgarian in syntax. It is part of the so-called Balkan Language Union, which includes Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek and Romanian. The grammar of Gagauz is similar to that of Bulgarian and Romanian. In short, Gagauz language has Turkish vocabulary and Bulgarian grammar. The Gagauz have the same folklore - these are Bulgarian songs sung in Turkish, Grigorov explains.

The Gagauz in the territory of today's Moldova, the province of Bessarabia, have been there since the time when Moldova was a principality, and they settled in the lands between the Prut and Dniester rivers. The Gagauz ended up there in several waves of settlement because of the Russo-Turkish wars, which were nine in total, Grigorov recalled.

Research has shown that in anthropological appearance they are people of the Balkan southern European type, as found in the Balkans and the northern Black Sea coast. This means that there is no difference between Bulgarians, Gagauz, Romanians and Ukrainians. New research from the 1990s confirms that Gagauz do not have Asian racial admixtures.

The first Gagauz arrived in Bessarabia at the end of the 17th century and the last in 1829. The largest groups of settlers were in 1806-07 and 1810-12. The Gagauz were refugees. They moved because wars were fought on the territory of their settlements and they, as victims and destitutes, sought salvation.

The Bessarabian steppe turned out to be a place where they preferred to wait for the end of another war to return to the places where they lived. In the meantime, they received certain privileges from the Russian Empire and it turned out that the new place was a comfortable place to live. The Bessarabian Bulgarians and the Gagauz ended up in present-day Moldova in the same way. Only that in some refugee waves there were more Gagauz and in others more Bulgarians. The Russian Empire readily accepted them because it gained a Christian population with good agricultural know-how. Bulgarian and Gagauz settlers were relied upon to turn the desolate lands of southern Bessarabia into arable land, vineyards and orchards. The initial migrations were spontaneous and unforeseen, while the later ones were directed and negotiated between the two empires - Russian and Ottoman.