Българите в Унгария / Magyarországi bolgárok / Bulgarians in Hungary


Child Migration, Child Labor and School Attainment. Evidence from the Bulgarian Community in Hungary (Late 19th to the 1930s) 

by Penka Peykovska / 2011

  • Published in: Ausflösung historischer Konflikte im Donauraum. Festschrift für Ferenc Glatz zum 70. Gburstag. Herausgegeben von Arnold Suppan. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2011, pp. 345-360.


Child migration was a phenomenon concomitant the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ migration flow to Austria-Hungary in the second half of 19th and early 20th Century, due to children labor (mostly boys) used in market-gardening. Child labor brought master gardeners the biggest profit since children did not get paid but only worked as apprentices for their daily bread. ЧуйтеYounger children helped in the gardens and learnt gardening skills; while those who were already physically strong performed specialized gardening activities. Boys were often involved in strenuous work beyond their abilities, occasionally with fatal outcome. Most often they irrigated the gardens walking monotonically round the horse-driven water wheel - known in Hungary as “the Bulgarian wheel”. If they happened to fall asleep, they could easily end up in the trap where irrigation water was collected. Often these hard working children got sick from tuberculosis caused by overwork and malnutrition - typical companions of the exhausting garden work. Girls helped either in the garden with harvesting the vegetables or more often in household chores (cooking, laundry).
In the beginning of 20th Century a growing number of market-gardeners (small vegetable producers, hired horticultural workers, vegetables merchants and seedsmen) from Bulgaria began settling in Hungary. This meant that they not only came to Hungary annually from March to November to earn their living, but – so as to avoid  the difficulties when crossing the border, they remained for longer time without going back to the homeland.  Market-gardeners who settled in Hungary brought their families from Bulgaria to Hungary or sometimes even got married to Hungarian women. Thus, with the time the number of children within the Bulgarian community increased. Many parents wished to provide aproper education for their children, so that they learnt to read and write, and not necessarily because elementary education became compulsory, both in Hungary and in Bulgaria. Prosperous market-gardeners and vegetables merchants sent their children to Hungarian schools where they entered a predominantly Hungarian cultural environment and often forgot their native language. In 1918 the Bulgarian community in Budapest in collaboration with the Bulgarian and Hungarian states opened the Bulgarian school, which today is the oldest, still functioning* (albeit with a changed status[1]) Bulgarian public school abroad[2].
This paper seeks to describe the external migration patterns of children who migrated from Bulgaria to Hungary and to explore the consequences which this mobility and child labor within Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community had on their scholarization. Main subject of the quantitative analysis is the data for the students from the registers of the Bulgarian Elementary and Junior High School in Budapest that are compared to the data of age characteristics of the Bulgarian mother tongue population collected in the Hungarian Censuses. Patterns of child migration are described on the basis of autobiographical and personal life-stories[3] as well as on the information of students’ birthplace recorded in the registers of the Bulgarian School in Budapest. In particular the dynamics of child migration is followed through an analysis of respective data on age characteristics of the Bulgarian mother tongue population based on the Hungarian Censuses (mainly concerning Budapest) of 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930. Here, the impact of economic dimension child migration on school attendance is investigated by taking into consideration the social background of children with reference to the occupation of their fathers, the dynamics and quantitative parameters of school attendance, students’ mobility and finally the effectiveness of the educational activities of the school with special respect to the gender distribution of students.
Different patterns of child migration can be distinguished based on the autobiographies and personal life stories of market-gardeners:
  • Children who migrated with their market-gardening parents as a family or the of market-gardeners who were born abroad; 
  • Children who migrated with one of the parents (usually the market-gardening father) or with relatives of the market-gardening father so as to “learn the craft”; 
  • Children who migrated with their market-gardening parents as a family, then the parents returned to their homeland with the younger children, while the older child was left abroad to workon a garden” and make his own living, thus supporting his family financially. 
  •  Children who left their homes with a migrating market-gardeners’ group on their own or in accordance with their parents’ decision  in order to workon a garden” in Hungary and to support their families financially.
     Based on data obtained from the population censuses of Hungary the quantitative dimensions of child migration flow of Bulgarian market-gardeners to Hungary could be established, albeit with some approximation. These censuses, however, lack information on the birthrate of the Bulgarian community, as well as on data in correlation with Bulgarian mother tongue, age and birthplace in Bulgaria. So, in this case we use the databases reflecting the correlation between the age of population in Hungary and Bulgarian mother tongue. The investigation of such a database leads to more approximations, since it does not distinguish the childhood population by birthplace. After all, however, a general trend of the child migration flow emerges. In the beginning of 20th century more and more Bulgarian market-gardeners settled in Hungary permanently, thus, the number of children born here obviously increased – even though the examined database does not offer a quantitative expression of their children born in Hungary. We should also consider that according to the data provided by the Hungarian Census of 1910 on Bulgarian mother tongue and birthplace, the majority of the Bulgarian community in Hungary was born in Bulgaria: 94% of the Bulgarians in Budapest were born in their homeland, with reference to  the Hungarian Empire this percentage amounts to 71% (as regards the latter, the proportion was lower because it included the Banat Bulgarians, too, whose mother tongue was Bulgarian, but who were at that time Hungarian nationals, and also because the main migration flow of Bulgarian market-gardeners headed towards the capital, namely Budapest).
In Hungary, this was the period during which the transition from agrarian to industrial society took place, and this process gave rise to revolutionary changes in people’s value system in terms of the concept of child and childhood. Having been considered earlier as a significant source of labor and financial assistance as regards their contribution to economy of agricultural holdings[4], children were gradually becoming economically “useless”. At the same time the primary source of income shifted to the father who by working outside the home became the main breadwinner. Meanwhile, until the late 19th century, not only families but also governments in Hungary (and in Bulgaria too) had changed their attitude towards children. In their attempt to control young people and protect them from violence and poverty, governments introduced laws which took accounts of the specific needs of children. Children were no longer treated as “miniature adults” but as a separate social group with its specific needs and interests whose status, rights and obligations were regulated by respective laws.
As to the specification of the concept of child and childhood, in both Hungarian and Bulgarian societies the upper age boundary was 18/19, while the age of 12 was considered the boundary between childhood and the period of maturation. So, to make some general conclusions about child migration from Bulgaria to Hungary based on the data for the Bulgarian mother tongue population obtained from the Hungarian Census we have subdivided the age group of 0-19-year olds into four subgroups (0-5-, 6-11-, 12-14- and 15-19-year olds).  With reference to the first age subgroup - 0-5-year olds it is important to note that these were mostly children born in Hungary with parents permanently settled in Hungary. It is, however, necessary to take into account that children born in Bulgaria might have been counted here, since personal life stories tell about market-gardeners who sent their wives home to give birth in Bulgaria, so as to safeguard that their children were granted Bulgarian citizenship[5].
In the late 19th and first decade of the 20th century the age group of 0-19-year olds was prevalent in the age structure of the Bulgarian market-gardeners community in Budapest (50%) and Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County (60 %), in both places we find the msot populous communities within the country (Table 1). In the Interwar period these relative proportions dropped by half - 22-23% for Budapest, 37% for Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County. Proportions of the subgroups 15-19- and 12-14-year olds show the same trend.  By 1910 both in Budapest and Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County the 15-19-year olds outnumbered the other subgroups - 43% for Budapest and 49.5% for Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County - being followed by the subgroup of 12-14-year olds - 38% in 1900 and 41% in 1910 for Budapest and 31% for Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County (Table. 2). Taking into consideration that during that period the majority of the Bulgarian market-gardeners in Hungary had not settled yet and the community was growing through migration, the presence of a strong migratory process of children and adolescents becomes apparent.

Table 1. Number and proportion of the Bulgarians in Budapest, Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County and Hungary by Bulgarian mother tongue and age groups, 1900-1930 г.[6]



After World War I the proportion of 12-19-year olds fell sharply mainly on the account of the age group of 20-39-year olds and followed by the age group of 40-59-year olds: in Budapest the decrease of 15-19-year olds was 2.7 times and of 12-14-year olds it was 7 times, in Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County the decrease of 15-19-year olds was 1.6 times and of 12-14-year olds it was 6.5 times. This fact was mainly due to the legal regulation of child labor. Hungarian laws on the use of child labor, treated children aged between 12 and 16 in a special way because they were still insufficiently strengthened for heavy physical labor. The age of 12 was defined as the minimum age for admission to employment (1907, 1922). In 1907 children aged 12 and above were allowed by law to be hired to work in agriculture[7]. In Bulgaria (as in Hungary) the ages of 12 and 14 were markers in labor law: the minimum age for admission to employment was also 12 according to the Act of Female and Child Labor (1905), this age limit was adjusted to the age of 14 in 1921[8]. Even though the laws on compulsory education (during the 1920s compulsory eight-year primary education was initiated for the age of 6 to 14 in Hungary and compulsory seven-year primary education for the age of 7 to 14 in Bulgaria) and the use of child labor in agriculture were not strictly adhered neither in Hungary nor Bulgaria, emigrants and foreigners Bulgarian market-gardeners were observed both, by the Bulgarian and the Hungarian authorities. 
     In the second decade of 20th century the Bulgarian community in Hungary was increasingly experiencing the need for an educational facility where their school-age children would receive an education in their native Bulgarian language. They were Bulgarian citizens and as such according to the current Education Act of 1909 children were subject to compulsory primary education. Moreover, in 1914 they made the first step to organize themselves institutionally: they established the Society of Bulgarians in Hungary. In June 1916 at a general meeting of the Society it was decided to initiate the opening of a Bulgarian school in Budapest. A year and a half later, on December 4, 1917 a resolution of the Budapest Municipality was released which related to the opening of a “primary school for children of Bulgarian nationals as well as the establishment of a Bulgarian church to perform services”. The school opened its gates on February 26, 1918. Meanwhile, the Society organized a petition and collected funds to construct a building[9] for the Bulgarian school in Budapest. As it is evident from the documentation of the Bulgarian Legation in Budapest, its budget was compiled by sums provided, on the one hand, by the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and on the other hand, by the Bulgarian community in Hungary, which collected funds for the maintenance of the school staff. 
     The Interwar period coincided with the legislative establishment of the education system in Bulgaria[10]. In 1921 the government of the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union (further BAPU) led by Alexander Stamboliiski amended the Public Education Act of 1909. Primary education legislator included the preschool, elementary, junior high and professional schools and the additional courses. The three-year junior high was declared a compulsory school level. Thus a seven-year free and compulsory primary school education was introduced and 7-14-year olds were guaranteed by the state to receive training and be protected against early involvement in productive labor. Heavy fines were envisaged in cases when the regulations on compulsory primary education were violated. In accordance with the then Bulgarian legislation the Budapest Bulgarian School was founded as an elementary one with four grades. Passage in the upper grade was based on the annual marks. Students studied religion, Bulgarian language, algebra, geometry, knowledge of the fatherland and civil society, natural science, national economy and personal hygiene, drawing, singing, gymnastics, handiwork. The junior high school was opened in 1922/23 as required by BAPU’s educational law for compulsory and free three-class junior high scholarization. Since its very foundation the School worked as a Bulgarian state school (and not as a minority one).
     The teachers were sent from Bulgaria they were appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Confessions and administratively belonged to the Bulgarian General Consulate in Budapest[11]; teaching was held according to the programs of schools in Bulgaria; learning of Hungarian language started from the first grade and was few hours a week[12]. First the Bulgarian School in Budapest was housed in the building of one Hungarian elementary school in Lónyai street without paying rent, for free heating and lighting.
The quantitative analysis of the registers of the Budapest Bulgarian School are the subject of our present study. The register of the Elementary School pertains 18 school years - from 1917/18 to 1934/35, while the one of the Junior High is available for 10 school years - from 1927/28 to 1935/36. The Register of the elementary school contains information about each student's full name, nationality, confession, date and place of birth, father’s name and occupation, the student’s residence (address) and marks. Sometimes the reason for student’s having left school was indicated. The register of the junior high includes the same columns plus two additional ones giving information on each student's citizenship, date of leaving the school and the respective reasons. Based on the data of the registers, during the period of two decades the school (on elementary and junior high level) was attended by 196 students: 161 studied at the elementary level, from which 34 continued their education at the junior high school level, and another 35 who attended only the junior high school. The column for students’ confession was filled only during the first two years of the School’s existence noting only when it was different from the typical for the Bulgarian market-gardeners Orthodox confession: thus four of them were registered as western rite Catholics (one came from a mixed marriage - mother was Hungarian) and two as “Jews”. 
The quantitative analysis of fathers’ occupations recorded in the registers gives evidence of students’ social backgrounds. It is noteworthy that during the first year of the elementary school only children of Bulgarians working in horticulture were enrolled. The same was valid for the first and second year of the junior high school. In the next school years we see children of parents from other professional fields, too.
     Merchants’ children significantly prevailed at both, the elementary (67.4%) and junior high level (60%). Let’s make clear that these fathers were mainly vegetables merchants, but among them there were also seedsmen, gardening tools- and implement merchants who sold their goods with a permit issued by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice. The fathers – merchants are followed by the fathers – market-gardeners: 21.8% for the Elementary School and 29.2% for the Junior High.
The intellectuals among parents were in fact the priests at the Bulgarian church, the teachers at the School and the staff of the Legation, i.e. the Bulgarian employees in Hungary - 5.3% for the Elementary School and 7.7% for the Junior High. At that time the local Bulgarian community did still not have their own intellectuals; the latter emerged precisely from among the generation that is the subject of this study. Craftsmen’s, small and medium-sized owners’ children were 2.6% for the Elementary School and 6.1% for the Junior High. The smallest was the proportion of workers children (exp., 1.9% for the Elementary School). The correlation between the relative shares of the merchants, gardeners, intellectuals, craftsmen’s/small owners and workerschildren was almost one and the same for the Elementary and for the Junior High except that the proportion of the intellectuals’ and craftsmen’s/small owners children at the Junior High was much bigger than that at the Elementary School.
22.5% of merchants’ children and 19% of market-gardeners’ ones continued their education from the elementary to the junior high school level. This indicates that among the local (i.e. permanently residing in Budapest) Bulgarians appeared an aspiration for their children’s not only learning to read and write but obtaining also a higher education. A kind of indicator for child migration in the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community in Budapest lies in the correlation between the students newly enrolled at Junior High and those who continued their education from the Bulgarian Elementary School to the Bulgarian Junior High. The newcomers among market-gardeners’ children at the Junior High were twice as many as those coming from the Elementary School, and among the merchants’ children this proportion was 1.6 times a higher. The registers of the Bulgarian School in Budapest do not contain information on where the newly enrolled students at junior high level had finished their elementary education. Perhaps among them there were students who came from Hungarian elementary schools, but most came from Bulgaria together with their migrating parents or to their parents already living in Budapest.
  Some conclusions about the patterns of child migration from Bulgaria to Budapest can be drawn based on the data on the birthplace of the students at the Budapest Bulgarian School. The school registers contain such information on 187 students born in 35 settlements: 4 of them in Hungary (Tóváros, Beregszáz, Budapest and Szeged), 1 in Romania (Timişoara), 1 in Serbia (Niš, being a child of a teacher), 3 in Italy (Rome, being a Bulgarian diplomats children). 
     Most of the children of the Bulgarian community in Budapest who had migrated from Bulgaria to Budapest together with their parents and enrolled at the Budapest Bulgarian School were born in Bulgaria - the majority of them were children of market-gardeners and vegetables merchants mainly from the horticultural villages of Polikraishte, Draganovo and Lyaskovets of the Veliko Tarnovo Region (50.3%). But there were also children of craftsmen and others (3.7%). Children of the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community who had migrated together with their parents secondarily, i.e. first to Hungary’s neighboring countries (e.g. from Romania) and from there to Budapest, represent 0.5%. Children of the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community who migrated together with their parents secondarily, i.e. from other cities and towns in Hungary to Budapest, are 2.2%. Children of employees at the Bulgarian Legation in Budapest (who were temporary residents), teachers, priests, who had migrated together with their parents from Bulgaria and abroad to Hungary are 4.8%. The share of children born in Budapest from parents living there permanently reached 38,5%.
Were (and to what extent) the figures of the School’s attendance and its quantifiers in accordance with the efforts of the Bulgarian community to make it an educational center? The school board compiled annually in advance a list of the children within the Bulgarian community in Budapest and surrounding towns who were subject to compulsory training[13]. For the school year of 1936/37 the school board registered more than 120 Bulgarian school-age children across Hungary having in mind the presence of about 3000 market-gardeners all over the country[14]. During this school year 27 students[15] studied at the Budapest Bulgarian School, i.e. one-fourth of all school-age children within the community. Unfortunately, we do not know how many children of the Budapest Bulgarian community were subject to compulsory training this very school year which would have provided us with comparable data. However, we believe that such an attendance of the Bulgarian school was not low and when assessing its activities it should be taken into account that the school lived up to the educational needs of the Bulgarian community in the region. Also, the school did not have its own boarding house.
     More comparable with the number of children that attended the Bulgarian School in 1920/21 and 1930/31 is the data on the number of school-age children (for Hungary 6-14 year olds) in Hungary with Bulgarian mother tongue taken from the Hungarian censuses of the years 1920 and 1930. (Though, these censuses included only the residents of country.) In 1920 there were 20 Bulgarian mother tongue children residing permanently in Budapest. During the academic year 1920/21 the Bulgarian Elementary School was attended by 33 children - three of them were children of employees at the Bulgarian Legation and 3 children are estimated (based on name and surname) of mixed origin (Hungarian mother). By the fourth year of its existence (1920/21) the School had 100% attendance, exceeding significantly the 73.2% of school attendance in Bulgaria[16]; and it surpassed the 82.8% of compulsory school attendance in Hungary[17]. The census of 1930 registered in Budapest 36 Bulgarian mother tongue people aged 6-14 years. And during the school year of 1930/31 a total of 30 children attended the Bulgarian Elementary and Junior High School. Therefore, in a year of the global economic crisis the School had an attendance of 83% (data of the Hungarian school attendance in 1930 was 92.5%[18]). As to statistical information on literacy in Bulgaria, the Veliko Tarnovo Region, where the Bulgarian market-gardeners and vegetable merchants predominantly came from, was known for its highest literacy and advanced cultural level[19]. (Speaking more generally in the context of the intensive educational reforms in Hungary in the 1920s we do not want to underestimate the benefits of the Hungarian cultural and educational environment on the prompting of Bulgarians in Hungary to educate their children[20].)
The existing conditions and successful activity of the Bulgarian Elementary School in Budapest was due to the efforts of the Bulgarian community. The enrollment of children in school ran into difficulties. Circumstances demanded teachers and the priest to visit the Bulgarian families and convince parents of the benefits of the Bulgarian school. Many students lived outside of Budapest, went to school by public transport and besides learning worked in the vegetable gardens of their parents. In the reports of the Bulgarian plenipotentiaries in Budapest to the Ministry of Education they often wrote about the poor conditions under which teaching was done. There were not enough teachers, they were poorly paid and often suffered from deprivations. 
     The dynamics of school attendance is determined by three streams of students: students passing in the next grade passed students, newcomers and leavers. The curve, which reflects the total number of students at the Bulgarian Elementary School, goes on the ascendant in the first five years of its existence, reaching its peak in the school year of 1921/22, followed by a downward trend with the lowest points in the school years of 1925/26 and 1931/32 (Fig. 1). The newcomers’ curve follows the dynamics of the curve of the students’ total number; dissonance between the two curves is observed in 1918/19. It was not before 1921/22 and 1925/26 when the newcomers’ number once again reached the level of the school’s opening. The lowest number of newcomers - from 3 to 5 children - was recorded in the school years of 1926/27 and 1931/32-1934/35.


Fig. 1. Total number of students at the Bulgarian Elementary School in Budapest, number of newly enrolled students and students that passed to the following grade by school years, 1917/18-1933/34.




Usually, the number of newcomers did not exceed the one of the passed students. Exceptions were the school years of 1923/24, 1925/26 and 1930/31, because then the number of leavers was the highest. Especially critical were the school years of 1923/24, when two thirds of students in the grades did not continue their education and 1930/31, i.e. the second year of the global economic crisis when half of the passed students at the Elementary School did not continue schooling. 
The dynamics of Junior High School attendance doubled by the school year of 1930/31 (Fig. 2), reaching its peak in 1935/36. There was an increased market-gardeners’ migration flow to Hungary in 1930s, which was triggered by the activities of the Bulgarian Gardeners’ Union in favor of the act on the encouragement of gardening (1934-1935) and the respective Regulations (1936)[21].

Fig. 2. Total number of students at the Bulgarian Junior High School in Budapest, number of newcomers and students continuing their schooling from its Elementary to its Junior High by school years, 1927/28-1936/37.



During the period of ten years 49% of the students enrolled at the Budapest Bulgarian Junior High School came from the Bulgarian Elementary School. Curves of the newcomers and of the students continuing from the Bulgarian Elementary are also oriented upward. Observing Fig. 2 it is noteworthy that at the Junior High School during the first three years of its existence there was almost an equal proportion between newcomers and students continuing from the elementary level. In the 1930s the number of newcomers was significantly lower than those who continued their studies. This trend changed essentially in 1936/37 when the number of newcomers at the Junior High was three times higher than the number of students continuing from the Elementary School.
     As to gender distribution in both, Elementary School and Junior High the proportion and number of boys somewhat exceeded those of the girls’ (59%:41%) no significant difference if we consider that the gender structure of the Budapest Bulgarian community was primary dominated by males.[22] Due to the significant presence of females in the age group of 6-14 year-olds, the proportion of girls at the Budapest Bulgarian School amounted to 41%: according to the Census of 1920, in Budapest within the age group of Bulgarian mother tongue 6-14 year-olds the proportion of males exceeded females only by 1,5:1 ratio, while in 1930 the number of s was lower than that of females with a ratio of 0,7:1. This phenomenon was characteristic only of this age group[23].
Ample evidence of the advanced views of the Budapest Bulgarians on the education girls, i.e. overcoming the patriarchal bias that education of girls was not needed, is provided by the desire of the Bulgarian community in Budapest to educate their female offsprings and not only in reading and writing but also in acquiring higher education, which quantified in the proportion of 24% of girls who studied at the Budapest Bulgarian Elementary School and then continued for the smaller share of 19% of boys.
During the first three school years of the Budapest Bulgarian Elementary School (which coincided with the end of World War I) girls were quite more than boys (Fig. 3): in the first school year - almost twice. This was because during the War, almost all Bulgarian market-gardeners were called in the army. By necessity vegetable gardens remained in the care of elderly men, women and children; boys, instead of going to school, did whatever they could to save the gardens. In the following years the difference between the sexes within the age group discussed was gradually decreasing and from 1920/21 onwards boys started prevailing; in fact this phenomenon corresponds with 1920 Census data for Budapest Bulgarian community by Bulgarian mother tongue, where the number of girls was higher in the age group of 4-11 year old boys.
  
Fig. 3. Number of students at the Bulgarian Elementary School in Budapest by sex and school years, 1917/18-1933/34.

 
The dynamics of Junior High School attendance by sex (Fig. 4) differs from that of the Elementary School. Noticeable is the imbalance between men and women at the Junior High during the first year (no girls were enrolled) in 1930/31, (when the ratio of girls was exceedingly hiah) and in 1934/35 (when boys exceeded a lot). Female presence was strong at the Junior High in the period of 1931-1933, which was not uncommon: according to 1930 Census in the Bulgarian mother tongue population of Budapest the age group of 12-14-year olds (age of junior high school attendance) was dominated by women.


Fig. 4. Total number of students at the Bulgarian Junior High School in Budapest by sex and school years, 1927/28-1936/37.



Bulgarian primary education of the period faced the problem that students were rarely able to finish the full seven-year course of compulsory education. The majority of them dropped out after the first or second year. As for the students of Bulgarian School in Budapest it is not possible to determine the relative share of those who passed successfully the full seven-year course of primary education for two main reasons. One is the high mobility of members of the Community - children constantly migrated with their parents from Bulgaria to Hungary and back. This was their way of life: market-gardeners spent a time in Hungary until they made a fortune, then came back to Bulgaria for a year or two, building a house and left for Hungary again. So, their children attended school where they just were at the very moment - either in Bulgaria in their home places or in Hungary at the Bulgarian school. Another reason is that there were children who attended Hungarian schools or moved from the Hungarian school to the Bulgarian one and vice versa. At the Bulgarian School in Budapest 17% are the children with no consistency in the passing from grade to grade starting from the second grade upwards (including those who continued at junior high school), i.e. they passed one or two grades, moved and studied somewhere else, then returned. That is why it is difficult to estimate the effectiveness of the educational activities of the Bulgarian School in Budapest. 
     The registers also give evidence of the mobility among students. Another question is how strict the teachers marked where a new student – applicant for an upper grade came from or why he had left his previous school or where a student of theirs moved to: from all the 161 children “passed” through the primary school, 132 finished one or two grades and only for 30 of them were recorded the reasons to leave the School. The most common reason to leave the school was relocation, but there was also a transfer to a Hungarian school, being “in poverty”, “disease”, death. Problem for the children of Bulgarian School was the fact that most of them had to combine learning and market-gardening. However, this was reflected in a single case of a girl: left by lack of time” says the Register. Another difficulty impeding children to attend the Bulgarian school was remote location. As it is seen from the parents’ addresses the majority of students at the Elementary (76%) and Junior High (77%) lived in Budapest; 15% of the students at the Elementary and 9% of the students at the Junior High School lived in villages located in the belt around Budapest - these were the villages of Pestszenterzsébet, Rákoskeresztúr, Rákospalota, Rakosszentmihály, Pestszentlőrinc[24] and a little remote village of Tököl; only several students of the Elementary School were referred to more distant villages (such as Tokod in Komárom-Esztergom County and Gátér in Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskún County) as well as few students of the Junior High School (Ercsi and Érd in Fejér County and Miskolc in  Borsod County). Actually, all students who passed only one or several grades potentially could have continued their education in Bulgaria or at a Hungarian school. The School’s registers included five cases of transfer of students from schools in Bulgaria to the Budapest Bulgarian School. 
     Summarizing the information coming from the quantitative analysis of 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 Hungarian Census data on Budapest population by Bulgarian mother tongue and the data of the registers of the Bulgarian Elementary and Junior High School in Budapest we have come to the following conclusions:
     Typical was the migration of children who left homeland with their market-gardening parents as a family or market-gardeners’ children who were born abroad. The foundation of the Bulgarian School in Budapest was instigated by the growth of the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community in Hungary and Budapest. Because of its spatial dispersion in the Interwar period, the Bulgarian community in Hungary was naturally prone to integration and assimilation processes. However, these processes did not proceed for several reasons: firstly, because of the peculiar reticence and conservatism of the Bulgarian market-gardeners’ community, which constituted the bulk of the Bulgarian Diaspora in Hungary; secondly, because of the community’s affinity to preserve their own cultural traditions; thirdly, due to the arrival of newcomers and the continuous, live contact with the homeland; and fourthly, because of the proneness of the Hungarian authorities and society towards the Bulgarian market-gardeners who produced cheap and fresh vegetables to supply the industrially developing city’s population. More compact was the largest Bulgarian community in the country the one living in Budapest, but it was exposed to more “integration” challenges, too. Thus, the community created for the first born Bulgarian generation in Budapest such a powerful ethnostabilizing factor as the Bulgarian school. In fact, the Bulgarian school in Budapest was attended by the children of those families who were residing there and the already prospered Bulgarian market-gardening and commercial elite. Quite visible is the positive effect of migration on the acquisition of education for the children in the Bulgarian community in Budapest, which is reflected in the fact that their attendance and the number of school-years spent at the Budapest Bulgarian School was higher compared to children educated in Bulgaria.

_______________________________

[*] This article was written in 2010. The school was closed in June 2011.
[1] Today it is called “Hristo Botev” Bulgarian-Hungarian Primary and Secondary School in accordance with the bilateral agreement of 1992 signed between the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science and the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Education concerning the status of the current Bulgarian kindergarten, primary and secondary school in Budapest. The school functions as aco-dependent Bulgarian-Hungarian public school”. Its director and the teachers are appointed by the Bulgarian Minister of Education and Science, the teachers of subjects taught in Hungarian are appointed by the school director based on a proposal from the Hungarian side. The Hungarian state provides financial support respective of the statutory amounts specified in the Education Act of Hungary and the annual budget of the country; the other funds, needed for maintenance of the school, are provided by the Bulgarian side.  
[2] There were other Bulgarian schools in: Miskolc (Hungary) from 1924 to 1970; Pécs (Hungary) from 1954 to 1968; Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) from 1940 to 1953; Brno (Slovakia) from 1949 to 1960; Prague (Czechia) and Bratislava (Slovakia) from 1949 to nowadays.
[3] Published in: Български портрети. 28 интервюта с българи в Унгария. Съст. Динолова, Д., А. Д. Петкова, Р. Симеонова. Будапеща, 1998;  Разговори с българи от Унгария. Beszélgetések magyarországi bolgárokkal. Szerk. Papadopolusz Petkova A. Budapest, 2005; Менихарт-Чангова, П., Под слънцето на Унгария. Очерк за стопанската дейност на българските градинари (1720-1980). С., 1989.
[4] In the beginning of 1930 on the strong request of the Bulgarian community in Hungary the Deputy Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary Dr. P. Pál turned in a letter to the mayor of Budapest, in which he put the needs of the Bulgarians for a school and asked municipal council to provide for this purpose a suitable place for construction. Taking into account the friendly relations between the Hungarian and Bulgarian people, the municipal council voted a donation for the benefit of the Bulgarian community - a large area of land to build a church and school. In May 1931 the foundation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was laid; however the school was never built. 
[5] Български портрети..., p. 36. 
[6] Sources: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), tables №№ 47 и 48 (Budapest, population, demographic correlations, 1900), table № 12 (Pest County, population by Bulgarian mother tongue and age, 1910), table № 12/с (Budapest, population by Bulgarian mother tongue and age, 1910), table 12/ІІ (Budapest, population by Bulgarian mother tongue and age, 1920, 1930), table № 12/ІІ (counties, population by Bulgarian mother tongue and age, 1930), table № 12/ІІ (Hungary, population by confession, Bulgarian mother tongue and age, 1930). In the table data is not presented by gender, because women in the Bulgarian community were in very small number and the proportion by gender is not particularly important for the aspect researched. 
[7] Dányi D., Szociálpolitika [Social policy]. – InKollega Tarsoly, István (Ed.), Magyarország a XX. Században [Hungary in the 20th century]. Szekszárd, 1997, Vol. II, p. 254. http://mek.niif.hu/02100/02185/html/228.html. 
[8] Даскалов, Р., Българското общество. 1878-1939. Т. 2. Население, общество, култура. С., 2005, с. 301-302. 
[9] In the beginning of 1930 on the strong request of the Bulgarian community in Hungary the Deputy Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary Dr. P. Pál turned in a letter to the mayor of Budapest, in which he put the needs of the Bulgarians for a school and asked municipal council to provide for this purpose a suitable place for construction. Taking into account the friendly relations between the Hungarian and Bulgarian people, the municipal council voted a donation for the benefit of the Bulgarian community - a large area of land to build a church and school. In May 1931 the foundation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was laid; however the school was never built.
[10] Люлюшев, М., Й. Колев, Е. Сачкова, Н. Филипова, А. Чавдарова, В. Атанасова, Ст. Стефанов, История на педагогиката и българското образование. С., 1998, с. 380. 
[11] Гърдев, К., Устройство и дейност на българската колония в Унгария между двете световни войни. – ИДА, кн. 31 (1976), с. 170. 
[12] Information on studying Hungarian language at the Budapest Bulgarian School in Budapest is from the period of 1927-1937. 
[13] This list was drawn up in accordance with “Regulations for conducting church and school affaires of the Bulgarian community in Hungary”, according to which every city where at least 20 Bulgarian families lived and where there were at least 10 school-age children, Bulgarians were allowed to ask (through the Bulgarian Legation in Budapest) Bulgaria’s Government to appoint them a priest and a teacher or just a priest who at the same time could be a teacher too. A Bulgarian elementary or junior high school was to work at every Bulgarian church.
[14] Гърдев, К., Устройство и дейност на..., с. 175-176. According to the 1930 Hungarian census there were in 2816 Bulgarian mother tongue people (not only gardeners).
[15] Ibid. We have data for the Bulgarian Junior High School - 17 children for 1936/37 academic year, but the register of the Elementary School for the same school year has not been kept. 
[16] Даскалов, Р., Българското общество..., p. 364.
[17] Szabó Attila, A trianoni Magyarország kultúrgeográfiai térképe” [Thecultural-geographical mapof post-Trianon Hungary]. – Földrajzi Értesítő LVII, 2008, N 3-4, p. 442.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Даскалов, Р., Българското общество..., Т. 2, с. 17.
[20] Indeed, even after 1878 Russian-Turkish War and formation of the Third Bulgarian state the official Bulgarian statistics showed that the literacy of the population of this region was higher than the usual for the country: in 1905 the average literacy in Bulgaria was 29.9% and for Veliko Tarnovo Region it was 37.8%, while in Sofia Region it was 34 2%. See: ЧуйтеБъчваров, Ст., Бългрско градинарство. Исторически бележки. С., 1986, с. 61. 
[21] Issuing visas for gardeners was provided with relief, also a 50% off for travelling by the Bulgarian and Hungarian railways, ships of the Hungarian and German Danube Shipping Companies (1938).
[22] Пейковска, П., Историко-демографска характеристика на българската общност в Будапеща. – В: Tanulmányok a magyarországi bolgár, görög, lengyel, örmény, ruszin nemzetiség néprajzából. 2. Bp., 1998, p. 26.
[23] In the age group of 0-5-year olds men also exceeded women, but less. The difference between the two sexes in the age groups of 20-39- and 40-59-year olds was much more in favor of men. Generally in the whole Budapest Bulgarian community (and all the Bulgarian community in Hungary), women not only never exceeded men, but were considerably less, although together with the migrants’ settling increased  the proportion and number of women.

* * *

Ethnic Identity of the Bulgarians in Hungary at the Turn of the Millenium


by Penka Peykovska / 2001

  • Published in: The Minorities at the Turn of the Millenium. Chances, Possibilities, Challenges. Lectures of 7th International Conference on Ethnographic Nationality Research, Bekescsaba, 2-3-4 October 2001. Ed. Gy. Ando, E. Eperjessy, I. Grin, A. Krupa. Bekescsaba-Budapest: 2004, pp. 212-218. 


The Bulgarian community is one of the thirteen national and ethnic minorities living on the territory of Hungary, which are recognized by the Hungarian legislation[1]. It has a past of more than one hundred years. Although it is small in number (See: Table 1.) as compared to other minority groups the Bulgarian community in Hungary has succeeded to preserve its ethnic identity and to found its own institutions.
           The present paper reveals the state of the ethnic processes that have been passing within it by analysis of data coming from the censuses being taken in the 20th Century (and in parti­cular the Census of 1990[2]) and by the results of a last year field research of mine, when I made some observations, inquiries and interviews among the Bulgarians in Halásztelek and Budapest (including the children who visit the Bulgarian school). Taken alone the statistic data can be only an external criteria for the real ethnic processes and the information they contain can show only their basic tendencies. That's why in order to reveal a more trustworthy picture of the interethnic changes within the Bulgarian community and since these interethnic changes reflect the social, economic, political and cultural processes going on within it we have taken into consideration some specifics of its formation and development.
           Except for the favorable social conditions in Hungary, the successful preserving of the Bulgarians’ ethnic identity in Hungary is due namely to these specifics. What are these specific features?
           The Bulgarian community in Hungary came into being in the last quarter of the 19th Cen­tury as a result of a spontaneous immigration of big groups of Bulgarian seasonal workers - market-gardeners. These were men who originated mainly from one and the same geographic region in Bulgaria, that is the villages around the town of Veliko Timovo (North Bulgaria), which are characterized by conservative, very traditional and patriarchal Bulgarian population.
           In the course of many years they didn't settle and weren't Hungary's permanent residents: they rented land and stayed there only throughout the work season and in winter came back to their families in Bulgaria. Their settling in Hungary happened bit by bit by buying land or continuing to rent it and by bringing along from Bulgaria their families but even then most of them preserved their Bulgarian citizenship. The process started actively after the Balkan war and World War I. In the Interwar period the bilateral agreements which Hungary and Bulgaria came to[3] caused an organized and intensive influx of Bulgarian market-gardeners to Hungary.
           A very essential factor for the preservation of Bulgarian community's ethnic identity in the early period of its formation as well as in the Interwar period was the keeping of permanent relations with the homeland and with the relatives living there. Since the immigrants were predominantly young, still not married men, the Bulgarian community of that period can be called "a men's society", at that it was very conservative and closed mainly because of the way the hard work in the garden was organized: all the men lived and worked together in big groups, called "taifa"-s that were inferior to a leader (called "gazda") and who by their capital and work took part together in one common enterpise. (Here should be mentioned that at that time joint life and work was traditional for the Bulgarians.) Despite that in the 1920s and 1930s the proportion of men to women was 6:1 traditionally those who wanted to get married brought along with them brides from their home village in Bulgaria. Mixed marriages happened too but they weren't a typical phenomenon.
           Another characteristic in the formation of the Bulgarian community having influence on the evolution of its identity was its territorial distribution: Bulgarians were not concentrated in one or several regions but scattered throughout the country. With respect to the increasing needs of the Hungarian market for fresh vegetables the Bulgarian gardeners settled in the surroundings of Hungarian cities and bigger towns[4], that is, they developed as an urban community and, as it is well-known, a city doesn't create so favorable conditions for keeping the traditions as a village.
           Bulgarians in Hungary have succeeded to overcome the originating from their initial demographic slate natural predisposition to integration into the Hungarian society thanks not only to the above-mentioned specifics in their ethnic behavior but to the fact that they had already created their own cultural institutions at the very beginning of their ethnic life. They founded their own society (1914), a reading club (1923), church- and school boards in Budapest (1918) and Miskolc (1923) which contributed to their interethnic communication.
           After the end of World War II important political, social and economic changes (collecti­vization) came in the development of the Bulgarian community in Hungary, changes that determined its contemporary ethnicity. Most of its members settled there once and for all. The social and economic changes that were on made the influx of Bulgarian market-gar­deners to Hungary stop. Since then the Bulgarian community was enlarged by a spontaneous individual immigration that resulted from mixed marriages[5].
           What was the demographic image of the Bulgarian community in the second half of the 20th Century according to the data of Hungarian censuses?
           The data concerning the Bulgarians' number according to the index of mother tongue reflect 1.5 times decrease in their number in the period between 1960 and 1990, that is from 2119 people to 1370 people (See: Table 1). Here we should underline that in this respect the Bulgarians are not an exception: this process of decrease in the number of population of a minority language as mother tongue is characteristic for nearly all the minority groups in Hungary (except the Germans and the Gypsies).
           The process of the Bulgarians' concentration in the capital Budapest where today live more than half of the community members has become more intensive (See: Table 2). Another Hungarian towns where Bulgarians live in more significant number are Halásztelek (73), Szentendre (55), Pécs (41) and Miskolc (31).
           The age characteristics of the Bulgarian community according to the data of 1990 shows a process of getting on in years (See: Table 3).
           Together with the final taking up of Bulgarian market-gardeners’ residence in Hungary the proportion of men to women is nearly equalized and it has already lost its gardeners’ image (Sec: Table 4).
           Today the predominant employment of its members is in the field of ser industry. According to the character of the labour half of the working population of Bulgaria mother tongue deals with mental work. In this respect the percentage of the people working in the intellectual sphere (50.41 %) is of the highest ones comparing to the other minorities (See: Table 5.). This fact pertains the increasing of intellectuals - by 1990 the percentage a graduates exceeds 20 %. According to this index Bulgarians are on the fourth place among the other minorities in Hungary (See: Table 8.). And this is not accidental: many of the interviews taken by me reflect the respect and the aspiration for high education. The latter makes the impression that good education has a special, important place in the values of the first generation immigrants.
           Although some of the Hungarian censuses don’t contain index of nationality all of then reflect the most important factor for its determination - the mother tongue. The Census of 1990 shows the population according to nationality too but there is no data about the Bulgarians because they were included in the column of „others”. So some conclusions about the Bulgarians in Hungary’s ethnicity, about the processes of adaptation, integration, natural assimilation and bilingualism among them can be drawn on the base of the foil correlations: total number of all the population that speaks Bulgarian in relation to this one that knows Bulgarian as mother and not as mother tongue (See: Table 6.), number of population that knows Bulgarian as mother tongue in relation to nationality and other languages spoken, number of population that speaks Bulgarian as mother tongue in relation to its knowledge of other languages (See: Table 7).
           Almost all the population of Bulgarian mother tongue has declared Bulgarian nationality too and only 6 % of it - Hungarian nationality. Bulgarian is the mother tongue of nearly half of the total number of people speaking Bulgarian. The Bulgarian community can be characterized as bilingual. 93 % of those who know the Bulgarian as mother tongue know Hungarian too. Having command of Hungarian by almost all the community is an indicator of its integration into Hungarian society and is a precondition for the passing of natural assimilation processes. As the data of the Census of 1930 shows even at that time the bilingualism among the Bulgarians in Hungary was in too advanced stage - it was 63 % of the population that knew Bulgarian as mother tongue; the interesting here is that 27 % of all who knew Bulgarian were with mother tongue Hungarian. These facts are quite understan­dable having in mind that the conditions of working in Hungary and the needs of market forced the command of Hungarian language. All the more that in the Interwar period because of the high range of unemployment the Hungarian authorities gave more easily a permission for working in the country if the Bulgarian gardeners engaged Hungarians too. And to communicate they had to know each other’s languages.
           Since the parents’ role in preserving the minority language is decisive, an important factor in keeping the ethnic identity is the family. Some data of the 1990 Census give us pieces of evidence about what family background (that is ethnically mixed marriages or not) children from the Bulgarian community live in today. In particular these data come from the foil correlations: number of population having children of Bulgarian mother tongue according to parents’ mother tongue and sex (See: Table 9.) and number of population having children of either Bulgarian or Hungarian or other mother tongue, according to parents’ mother tongue and sex (See: Table 10.). Nowadays more than half of the children having Bulgarian as mother tongue live in ethnically mixed marriages. Leaders in the list of mixed marriages amongst the minorities in Hungary are the Ruthenes and the Poles where their percentage goes beyond 90, and the last are the Slovenes where the percentage of mixed marriages is under 10; with its 52 % the Bulgarian community is somewhere in the middle of the list.
           Usually most of the children whose parents’ mother tongue is Bulgarian are also of Bul­garian mother tongue. In the case of mixed Bulgarian-Hungarian (and vice versa) marriages only 27 % of children are of Bulgarian mother tongue: where the mother is Hungarian 96 % of children have Hungarian as mother tongue; where the mother tongue is Bulgarian 84 % of the children have Bulgarian mother tongue. As we see the determining factor of the child's language and ethnic identity is the mother, although the Hungarian social background also has some influence. Nevertheless in their interviews the very Bulgarians from the community in Hungary say that in the case of mixed marriages the child’s ethnicity is determined by the parent who succeeds in prevailing.
           The inquiries done at the Bulgarian school amongst the children[6] coming from Bulgarian-Hungarian (and vice versa) mixed marriages add interesting details to this picture and especially to the use of the Bulgarian mother language in the family: 64 % of them determine their nationality as Hungarian and the rest - as half-Bulgarian/half-Hungarian. They answer the question of what language is spoken at their homes as follows: 79 % say both languages are spoken at home (the rest answer Hungarian is spoken). If children are born by parents having Bulgarian as mother tongue in their everyday life Bulgarian is spoken at home in the case when they belong to the immigrants of the first generation, in case of immigrants from the second and third generation both languages are spoken at home.
           To summarize: It is obvious that during the last decades the increasing of the number of intellectuals and of ethnically mixed marriages as well as the changes taken place in the professional structure of the Bulgarian community in Hungary and in the Bulgarians' immigration to Hungary have created favorable conditions for passing of natural assimilation processes. Since the practicing of the Act 1993 on Minority rights has brought significant changes in the cultural life of the Bulgarian community in Hungary (mainly in direction to the use of the mother tongue) it is believed to influence positively in the very near future the keeping of ethnicity among the Bulgarians in Hungary.


Appendix (only fragments)

Census  
Male
Female
Total
in figures
1920
1064
213
1267
1930
2429
387
2816
1941
x
x
4117
1960
1389
730
2119
1990
751
619
1370
%
1920
83
17
100
1930
86
24
100
1941
x
x
100
1960
66
34
100
1990
55
45
100
               x No data

            Table 1. Number of the Bulgarians in Hungary according to mother tongue and sex, 1920-1990.


Census
Cities and big towns
Budapest
Province
Total
in figures
1920
294
532
551
1277
1930
781
721
1314
2816
1960
312
1044
763
2119
1990
164
782
424
1370
%
1920
23
42
35
100
1930
28
26
46
100
1960
15
49
36
100
1990
12
57
31
100

Table 2. Number of Bulgarians in Hungary according to mother tongue and geographic distribution, 1920-1990.

Occupation
1930
1990
1930
1990

in figures
%
Agriculture
1690
109
83
18
Industry
69
168
3
27
Trade
227
113
11
18
Services and free professions
25
186
1
30
Transport, post
х
30
х
5
Other
12
7
2
2
Общо
2046
613
100
100

Table 4. Number and share of the working Bulgarians in Hungary according to citizenship (for 1930)/mother tongue (for 1990) and occupation.


Speak Bulgarian as mother tongue
Speak Bulgarian not as mother tongue
Speak Bulgarian Total
in figures
Female
751
871
1622
Male
619
794
1413
Total
1370
1665
3035
%
Female
46
54
100
Male
44
56
100
Total
45
55
100












Table 6. Number and share of Bulgarians in Hungary according to mother tongue, sex and the way they speak Bulgarian, 1990.


Mother tongue
Speak only the mother tongue
Speak other languages too
Speak Hungarian too
Speak Bulgarian too
in figures
Bulgarian
39
1331
1272

Hungarian



1508
%
Bulgarian
100
3
97
93
Hungarian



91

Table 7. Number and share of Bulgarians in Hungary according to mother tongue and languages spoken not as mother tongues, 1990.

 
Mother tongue
Speak Bulgarian lang.
Total
Number of university graduates
% of university graduates
Bulgarian
1336
269
20,1
Croat
17041
1021
6,0
Romanian
8369
509
6,1
Russian
4456
2133
47,9
Serbian
2838
330
11,6
Slovak
12550
841
3,3
Slovenian
2565
84
3,3
Ukranian, Rusin
666
212
31,8

Table 8. Number of population in Hungary above the age of 7 according to mother tongue and university graduation, 1990.







[1] Act LXXVII of 1993 on the Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities.
[2] Since the last census realized at the beginning of 2001 is not still processed.
[3] In 1924 the two countries negotiated to permit Bulgarian market-gardeners to work in Hungary.
[4] M. BOROSS: Bolgár és bolgár rendszerű kertészek Magyarországon 1870-1945. (A magyarországi piacra termelő kertészetek kialakulásához.) - In: Tanulmányok a bolgár-magyar kapcsolatok köréből. Budapest. 1981. p. 357.
[5] T. ДОНЧЕВ : Социолингвистично проучване на езика на българските преселници в Унгария като съставка на етническата им идентичност. – В: Унгарска българистика. Съст. П. Кирай. София, 1988, с. 181.
[6] 20 children above the age of 11 (14 coming of mixed Bulgaruian-Hungarian and vice versa marriages) were asked about their mother tongue, nationality, language spoken at home.