In any case there would appear to be at least half a million Roma in Bulgaria. One of the reasons they are visible as a group is that there is almost no town of any size without one or more segregated Roma districts. Some of these are walled off, as in Kazanlak, and, as B tells us, these are ‘walls of shame’. As an ethnicity they were, and are, the most economically vulnerable in the society, with the lowest level of education, health care and other community services as well as living in over-crowded housing with less than half the average space per person for the country as a whole. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Health plans to increase the number of health care centres in Roma areas as well as to introduce mobile health units, they still have the lowest life expectancy of any group. Statistics show that over 65% of Roma are under 30 years old and only 5% are 60 and over. This is a demographic curve exhibited by pre-industrial societies. On the other hand, they have adopted the religion (Moslem, Christian) of the communities on the periphery of which they find themselves. This, and other factors, has meant that Roma interests are often bound up with those of the larger groups. Moslem Roma, for example, are thus a minority within a minority – the nested doll situation. This, and the cultural tendency of the Roma to identify primarily with their immediate group, has meant that in the past it has proved difficult for Roma organisations to agree strategies for finding a unified political voice…

Apart from this, and linked to it, is widespread discrimination. It is not a recent phenomenon. According to Crowe, the struggle for national independence in the 19th century also had the consequence of institutionalising prejudices against the Roma and, with the end of Ottoman rule, this was especially the case for Moslem Roma, who today form about 40% of the Bulgarian Roma. Negative government policies were, however, by no means consistent.

After the Balkan Wars (1912—13), for example, there was a wave of forced Christianisation of Moslem Roma though after the end of the First World War when the BANU (Peasant’s) Party formed the government, Roma demands for the restoration of their rights were acceded to.

After the 1923 coup Roma political activity was curtailed and after the coup of 1934 Roma organisations were made illegal. On the economic level, Bulgaria became increasingly dependent on Germany and the Roma were subjected to an unvaryingly negative media campaign. Together with Jews, they suffered under the Law to Protect the Nation.  Restraints on their mobility (e.g. they were prohibited from using public transport) and residence restrictions as well as being subject to detention in work camps. During World War II those living in the territory of pre-war Bulgaria were generally spared deportation to the Nazi death camps, though those who lived in the territories nominally ceded to Bulgaria yet controlled by German troops were not.

After WWII, in an initial attempt to win the groups for the task of building up scientific socialism, the initial Communist Party attitude to Roma was similar to that towards the Pomaks – generally supportive. This policy was repeated throughout the future Warsaw Pact countries and is described in the novel Zoli. The attitude aimed at ‘full integration in the construction of socialism and their transformation from beggars and robbers into conscientious and good constructors of socialism’ (SCCBCP). This policy meant that there was e.g. a newspaper in Romany and that their culture and music started to be accepted into mainstream culture. The change in doctrinal interpretation from assuming that religion and ethnicity would die out as the Roma became assimilated to formulating policies to suppress any identity based on those factors (which might provide a core for resistance to the Communist Party and its hegemonic politics) began in earnest in the early 1950s.