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Ethnic Bulgarians in present-day Albania live mostly in the areas of Mala Prespa, Golo Brdo and Gora. According to the Bulgarian State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, 40,000 to 50,000 persons of Bulgarian origin are living in Albania, but other sources have estimated Albania's Bulgarians to number as many as 100,000. Most speakers of Slavic languages in Albania converted to Islam during the period of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. Ethnic identity can be fluid among the Albania's Slavophonic population, who might identify as Albanian, Bulgarian or ethnic Macedonian, depending on the circumstances.
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Middle Ages & Ottoman Period
The first reference to a Slavic presence in Albania dates to 548, when the Slavs reached Epidamnos (Durrës), capturing fortresses in the city's vicinity. Slavic settlement near Epirus in southern Albania is mentioned in a note in a 10th-century manuscript of Strabo's Geographica, and near Durrës in a Middle Bulgarian translation of the Manasses Chronicle.
Archaeologists have suggested the existence of a Bulgar archaeological culture in what is now modern Macedonia and eastern Albania, citing fortresses, burials, various products of metallurgy and pottery that could be of Bulgar origin.
According to toponymic evidence, Slavic settlement was concentrated in the region between the Vjosë and Devoll Rivers. Slavic placenames in this region suggest an eastern South Slavic (i.e. Bulgarian, as opposed to Serbo-Croatian) dialect. Bulgarian Slavs were the majority of the population in the area by the Early Middle Ages, and remained a significant group in central and southern Albania through the 15th century. In the 850s and 860s, Simeon I's First Bulgarian Empire included the Slavic-inhabited areas of what is today western Macedonia and southern Albania, which constituted the Kutmichevitsa administrative province. Kutmichevista included the cities of Ohrid, Glavinitsa (Ballsh), Belgrad (Berat) and Devoll (at the village of Zvezdë). The Bulgarian enlighteners Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav are known to have worked in Kutmichevitsa, where according to the 11th-century account of Theophylact of Bulgaria, Clement had 3,500 students. Clement's and Naum's activity, as well as the consolidation of Bulgarian religious and state authority, helped establish the Bulgarian identity of this Slavic population.
From 989-995 to 1005, Albania was ruled Samuel of Bulgaria. Under Samuel's rule, the region was governed by Ivan Vladimir, his vassal and the husband of his daughter Kosara. In 1005, the area was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. While the area was under Byzantine rule, a Bulgarian leader named Tihomir headed an uprising against the Byzantines near Drach; he was first supported but then killed by another insurgent, Peter Delyan, who proceeded to head the uprising and briefly ruled much of Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and western Bulgaria. In 1078, Nikephoros Vassilaki raised an army from the area surrounding Drach, consisting of "Franks (who came from Italy), Bulgarians, Romans (i.e. Byzantine Greeks) and Arvanites (i.e. Albanians)"
The area fell under Bulgarian rule again between 1231 and 1240, under Ivan Asen II, who "routed the Greek army ... and conquered the entire Greek, Albanian and Serbian land from Odrin [Edirne] to Drach." John Kukuzelis, a famous medieval composer of Bulgarian descent, was born in the city in the late 13th century. During the Angevin period(1250–1350), the Slavic population lived mainly in the cities and villages near the sea, along the Drin River and in the vicinity of Lake Ohrid.
In the late 14th century, Venetian records note a number of Bulgarians (de genere Bulgarorum) from southern Albania being sold as slaves, suggesting the Albanians may have subjugated the Slavic population, which ultimately led to its extermination, migration and assimilation.
Francois Pouqueville, in his 1820 book Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly described Bulgarian villages in the Devol region.
20th century
In the 1920s, Albanians referred to orthodox Slavs in Albania as Bulgarians. The new Albanian state did not attempt to assimilate this minority or to forcibly change the names of local towns and villages. During the second Balkan Conference in 1932, the Bulgarian and Albanian delegations signed a protocol regarding the recognition of the ethnic Bulgarian minority in Albania.
Acknowledgement of the Bulgarian minority
In 1932, based on a resolution, that was voted by the Second Balkan Conference in Istanbul, Bulgaria and Albania signed a final protocol, which stated that the Albanian delegation acknowledges the existence of a Bulgarian minority in Albania. Due to a change in the government and the upcoming World War, the resolution was never ratified. The question is still bilaterally raised invariably since then. Among the questions, sensitive for the Bulgarian side and the bilateral relations, is the question of the rights of people with Bulgarian ethnic origin. In Albania, officially there are three recognised national minorities (Greek, “Macedonian” and Montenegrin), as well as two ethno-linguistic - Roma and Vlach/Romanian. The Bulgarian ethnic group is not recognised. That unfavourable position for Bulgaria creates advantages for Macedonia, which for years has ran policy for establishing the thesis of “Macedonian character” of the Bulgarian population in Albania.
The Bulgarian community is one of the most endangered, due to three main reasons:
Although the 1989 Albanian census recorded 782 people who claimed either Romanian, Czechoslovakian or Bulgarian nationality, The Albanian statistics institute denies the existence of a Bulgarian minority in Albania. In 1998 Paskal Milo, then the foreign minister of Albania, made the following statement on minorities: "After World War II, we know this minority as Macedonian. I’d rather not elaborate on why we chose this way, but the Communist regime made this decision and it’s difficult for us now to change that." Recent official reports from Albania have not stated that any people have identified as Bulgarian in the last census.
The Bulgarian government and some inhabitants of the Mala Prespa, Golo Bardo and Gora regions dispute this.
Two organisations for Bulgarians in Albania exist: "Prosperitet — Golo Brdo" and the cultural association "Ivan Vazov" in Mala Prespa. More than 800 Albanian citizens of Bulgarian descent have acquired Bulgarian passports based on claims of Bulgarian origin.
According to Macedonian authorities, the Slav minority of Albania consists only of ethnic Macedonians and not Bulgarians. In 2008, the Bulgarian government reported that it had reached an agreement with the Albanian government that forms in Albania's next census would allow the Bulgarian community in the country to be counted. In 2011, Bulgaria's Finance Minister, who is responsible for relations with the Bulgarian diaspora, met with members of the Bulgarian community in Albania, announcing that a Bulgarian cultural center would be opened in Tirana
On 15.02.2017 the EU parliament for the first time in its 2016 Annual Progress Report on Albania, called on the country to recognize the Bulgarian minority in the country.
The official text of the report says: Notes that further efforts are needed to protect the rights of all minorities in Albania, through the full implementation of the relevant legislation; recommends that the rights of people with Bulgarian ethnicity in the Prespa, Golo Brdo and Gora regions be enshrined in law and ensured in practice;