Oldal 62 [62]
CHRIS KOSTOV
Society Tarsie, Bitola Bulgarian Mutual Benefit Society, Macedono-Bulgrian
Progressive Club Christo Botev, Balkan Star and Makedonska Tribuna
[Macedonian Tribune] newspapers.
As many as 90 per cent of the first Bulgarian immigrants were peasants and
they worked as laborers or as small business owners, primarily in meatpacking
and small shops.*? Most of them had a very strong village identity and associating
with others from the same village or region was common among them. Hence,
soon after their arrival in Canada, Bulgarians started to organize benevolent
associations and mutual benefit societies named after their villages, such as
Banitza, Oschima, Zhelevo, Zagorichane, Tarsie, e.g. Banitza Benevolent
Society, Oshchima Benefit Society, Zhelevo Benevolent Society, Zagorichane
Mutual Benefit Society, and Bulgarian Economic Mutual Benefit Society Tarsie.
This fulfilled their need for a social safety net in the new land. The mutual
benefit societies were also a focal point of informal communication, as well as
for community campaigns to raise money for a cause or to plan social events like
dances, banquets, and picnics. All charity organization founding documents
and other organizational documents were written in standard Bulgarian as late
as the 1960s but the Bulgarian language was gradually replaced by English in
all organizational documents after the 1960s.
Some immigrants, such as Nasto Jigeroff and Toma Petroff, who came
from small Macedonian villages could not boast a university education, were,
nevertheless, very active in organizing the Bulgarian ethnic community. Nasto
Jigeroff was born in the village of Oshchima, near Kastoria, Aegean Macedonia
in 1879. He participated in the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 and
settled in Toronto in 1912. Jigeroff was among the founders of both pre-W WII
Macedono-Bulgarian Orthodox churches in Toronto (Sts. Cyril and Methody
and St. George) and an active participant and co-founder of the Macedonian
Political Organization (MPO) Chapter ‘Lyuben Dimitrov’ in Toronto. He died
in 1975, at the age ninety-six. Toma Petroff, another Ilinden rebel from Aegean
Macedonia, was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Mutual Benefit Society
Homeland in 1935.*° In fact, as Peter Vassiliadis acknowledged, the devastating
outcome of the Balkan wars for Bulgaria prompted an increasing number of
Macedono-Bulgarians to settle permanently in Toronto and to preserve an
even ‘greater loyalty to Bulgarian institutions.’
Once they settled permanently, Bulgarian Canadians also needed well¬
educated intellectuals, who could publish books and newspapers and organize
Bulgarian schools and churches in order to preserve their Bulgarian culture
and ethnic identity. Such highly educated leaders of the Bulgarian Canadian
”® Gurdev, Bulgarskata emigraciya, 58.
24 Ibid., 117-144.
25 Ibid., 77-78.
26 Vasiliadis, Whose Are You?, 196.
* 60 °