The European genes are the most common ones for the profile of the Bulgarians. These are the results of a recent large scale multinational research, which ones again refutes the widespread theory on the Bulgarian population being of Turkic origin. It turns out that our Turkic genes are barely 1.5 percent and that actually hot European blood is running through these veins.

Turkic people or Europeans – what are we after all? Everybody knows that our ancestors, the proto-Bulgarians came from the areas of ancient Asia. The question is which part of Asia? A hypothesis has been recently approved, based on in-depth research, saying that our ancestors came not from Altai and the regions to the North of Caucasus, inhabited by Huns and Turkic-Altai tribes, but from what’s today Iran and the Pamir Mountain with mostly Indo- European population. In the 7 c. those settled on the territory of now-a-days Bulgaria, mixing with the local population – Thracians and Slavs, in an indecipherable genetic cocktail. The latest and biggest till now research of top Bulgarian geneticists, anthropologists and microbiologists, along with their colleagues from the University of Pavia, Italy, also support the theory for our European origin. Scientists say it unanimously – contemporary Bulgarians are really close to the population of northern Greece and mid-Italy. We have identical genes with the Macedonians. No such researches have taken place in neighboring Serbia, so we can’t say whether our peoples are close. At the same time we are too far away in terms of genes from Belarusians and Russians, who used to be presented as our closest brothers during the era of socialism.

“The peoples might face language similarities, but not genetic ones,” says Academician Angel Galabov from the Institute for Microbiology with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). “The Bulgarians are quite far away from several Slavonic populations, such as the Russian, Slovenian, Czech and Slovakian ones and are really remote from the Scandinavians and the Germanic peoples. However, we turned out to be close in terms of mitochondrial DNA with the people from North Greece, Croatia and Italy. At the same time we have less than 1.5 percent of the so-called Altai- Mongol genetic characteristic with the Turkic-speaking peoples of Middle Asia.”

The general conclusion is that the Bulgarians have both Mediterranean roots due to the Thracians and also some Eastern influence, but not a Turkic one – it is Indo-European, related to the presence of proto-Bulgarians and Slavs. There is one more curious detail from the research: it turns out that the 5-century-long Ottoman rule didn’t have any substantial impact on our genetic characteristics. How is that possible?

“It was more like a transition of Bulgarian blood to the Turkish population via the Janissary phenomenon and the kidnapping of maidens and not vice versa,” Academician Angel Galabov claims. “The Bulgarian people wouldn’t let any mixing of the genes with the Turks. Medieval morality preserved the purity of the Bulgarian population. Our genetic researches do show that contemporary Bulgarians are too far away from Turks and no genetic supplements have occurred due to the Ottoman rule.”

Scientists describe a quite homogeneous profile of contemporary Bulgarians. It turns out that it is not a chaotic mixture of genes, left by each people, who crossed these lands over the centuries, nor have we Turkic, Hun or Slavonic roots. Despite our Slavonic language, we appear to be closer to some Mediterranean peoples than to the Slavs and strong European blood can be found in our veins. “The DNA research of samples, taken from tombs in the region, dated back to the 9 – 10 c. confirms that thesis,” Academician Angel Galabov says in conclusion.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev