Bilingualism in a larger Slavonic background: Russian minorities and the Russian language in Bulgaria

Kinship ties between Bulgarians and Russians have aroused heated debate concerning the essence of Slavdom and the common ancestry of at least ten nationalities today in Eastern Europe. Russians and Ukrainians, incomparably, are more numerous and populate larger territories than the Southern Slavs. Viewed from historical perspective, however, the importance of these less numerous peoples — Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats — is not proportional to contemporary situations. In earlier periods — from the 10th through the 14th centuries — the now smaller nations, due to location and other circumstances, were more active in cultural and political contacts. Especially for the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages, the direction of cultural influence was from southwest toward the northeast. Over the next centuries, the migration of people and ideas repeatedly changed direction, while in the 18th and 19th centuries, the influence of the Russian Empire gave a crucial impetus to formation of national self-identity among Balkan Slavic-speaking nationalities.