Northwest Stories / Bulgarian Community Celebration

Bulgaria is located in the middle of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Due to its favorable geographic location and temperate climate, it has been home to civilizations since the 6th millenia B.C.E.  The Moder Bulgarian state came into being in 681 AD through a union among the three major ancestral groups of modern Bulgarians--Thracians, Slavs, and Bulgars--and a peace treaty with Byzantium. In the 10th century, Bulgaria saw its biggest territorial expansion between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Seas and became one of the three most powerful empires in Europe.  Traditional Bulgarian culture is an eclectic mixture of Thracian, Slavic and Bulgur heritage with Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Persian and Ottoman influences over the centuries.  

The Bulgarian community in the greater Seattle area has an estimated population of five thousand people, the Majority of whom arrived in the last fifteen years.  The main influx of Bulgarian immigrants occurred in two waves:  the first during the Socialist Regime in 1970s and 1980s, and the second after the United States opened a quota for Bulgaria in the late 1900s as part of the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, also known as the Green Card Lottery.  

several local ethnic dance and music companies feature Bulgarian folklore.  Radost Folk Ensemble has been bringing the joy of Bulgarian and Eastern European dance, song, and music to the Seattle area since 1976.  The Seattle Balkan Dancers gather weekly for recreational dancing, instructional workshops, and live music.  Local performers of Bulgarian traditional and modern music inlcude Mary Sheehart, Balkanarama, Orkestar RTW, Alex Eppler, Ruth Hunter, Dunava, Drub, and Balkan Cabaret, among others.  (Thanks to Evgenia Angelova and Teodora Minkova).