"Bulgarians abroad are at the same time so close and so far - with their language, with their holidays and weekdays, with their worries, joys and hopes for a better future" - writes in the preface to the third volume of the series "Bulgarians Abroad –So Close, So Far" Snezhana Yoveva-Dimitrova, compiler, initiator and author of the first two books.

She has been working with Bulgarian communities abroad for years, and currently she is also the director of the State Cultural Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But it was a surprise to her, when the first part of the collection was published in 2016, that it generated so much interest.

Over the years throughout all the promotion tours the texts in the book had huge emotional impact on the audiences of Bulgarians who have left their homeland but remained close to it in their hearts.

The third volume was prepared by Snezhana Yoveva-Dimitrova together with Prof. Dr. Anna Gocheva, linguist at the Section for Bulgarian Dialectology and Linguistic Geography at the Bulgarian Language Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The volume is divided into two parts. The first part consists of literary texts, and the second – of scientific works of specialists from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"This third volume is different in that it contains much more personal and emotional texts," the compiler of the collection tells Radio Bulgaria. It was printed in the middle of 2021, but because of the pandemic situation its promotion was postponed. The premiere of the third volume took place outside Bulgaria - in Berlin, at the invitation of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute (BCI) in the German capital. Among the participants was Prof Iliana Garavalova, who contributed to the book with a scientific paper on the Bulgarian community in Sredna Zupa, Republic of Kosovo.

"One of the most interesting things about the third volume is that the Bulgarians in Moscow come into focus for the first time, points out Prof. Garavalova. - In addition, there is a truly enthralling text by Borislav Petranov, the director of the BCI in Berlin, who writes about the cultural and artistic communities in Vienna and Berlin. Each text shows the unique personal perspective of its author. Especially in the texts that tell us about how Bulgarian communities cope with the pandemic and the way it affects their way of life. The scientific work of prof. Garavalova, which takes us to Bulgarians in the area of Sredna Župa in Kosovo, is of great interest."

"The Sredna Župa region and the Bulgarian minority there remain somewhat in the background, very little is known about the diaspora there. The reason may be because this is a very old diaspora - it is assumed that the Bulgarian minority migrated to this region in the 12^th century, during the persecution of the Bogomils in Bulgaria. Today the community is made up entirely of Bulgarian Muslims who have a clear memory of what their ancestry is and where their roots are. It is a very closed community high up in the Shar Mountains and precisely because of this isolation it has preserved its identity, and itsbeautiful Bulgarian language that combines both very archaic features and modern elements of the language. The people of the area zealously guard their Bulgarian identity and are proud of it."

Every year, the local Society of Bulgarian Muslims organizes courses for the children of Sredna Župa region, helping them to master the literary Bulgarian language so that they can apply to Bulgarian universities. At the moment there is a very large group of students in Bulgarian universities who come from this area in Kosovo, says Prof. Garavalova.

The third edition of the series is again published thanks to the Agency for Bulgarians Abroad and is online on the website of the e-magazine "Ongal", with the first two books also available in English.

Also available in English