Oldal 57 [57]
THE SHIFTING IDENTITIES OF THE BULGARIAN¬
CANADIAN DIASPORA, 1900-2015
—t1o>
CHRIS KosSTOV:
ABSTRACT
The Bulgarian-Canadian diaspora in Canada is concentrated primarily in
Toronto and Montreal, even though smaller numbers of Bulgarian immigrants
could be found in Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Newfoundland.
This paper argues that over a period of almost 100 years, the Bulgarian¬
Canadian diaspora was transformed by a number of identity shifts, which were
strongly influenced by complex political processes in both the Balkan Peninsula
and Canada. Also, due to the 45-year communist regime between 1945-1990,
the Bulgarian immigration to Canada as well as the interaction between the
Bulgarian diaspora and the mother country almost ceased to exist.
The economic situation in the Balkans was critical during the nineteenth
century. Many families lost their small patches of land, and men of working
age left their farms to go to big cities on the Balkan Peninsula and in
Central Europe in search of work. Perfectly aware of the conditions in the
region, Canadian steamship companies launched promotion campaigns for
immigration to Canada and they offered fares for the trans-Atlantic journey
for about twenty dollars at the beginning of the twentieth century.” Canadian
immigration officials welcomed contract labor as a way of ensuring that
immigrants would not rely on charity, but would help populate Canada’s
vast western reaches. Dincho Ralley, a Bulgarian immigrant, whose family
migrated to Toronto in 1907 from the Aegean Macedonian village of
Zagorichane, recalled an English-speaking labor agent in the Geeek city
of Florina who arranged for several men from Ralley’s village to emigrate.
Within a few years, most of them had railroad or factory jobs near Toronto’s
heavily-industrial Eastern Avenue.’
! Schiller International University, Madrid.
? Peter Vasiliadis, Whose Are You?: Identity and Ethnicity Among the Toronto Macedonians,
New York, AMS Press Inc., 1989, 154-156. We need to bear in mind as well that twenty
dollars in 1910 would be equivalent in purchasing power to at least 500 dollars in 2020.
3 Dincho Ralley, interviewed by Irene Markoff, 26 May 1977, MHSO Bulgarian collection.