Bulgarian nationalist Dragan Tsankov came to Istanbul, in 1854 where he converted from Orthodox into Roman Catholic Church and started to propagate for establishing of an independent Bulgarian Church. In order to maintain an influential propaganda he founded a publishing house in the French School Saint Benoit. This step was an important milestone in connection with convert of Bulgarians from Orthodox into Catholic faith. After this date, Bulgarians started to settle in Edirne and in surrounding area, where they developed their own community. This process went hand in hand with the foundation of Bulgarian schools in this region. There were totally twelve Bulgarian schools in Edirne. One of this schools was however a catholic one, which was founded by the Polish resurrectionists. It was the main reason, why the inhabitants of Edirne named this school as Polish Minority School (Polak Mektep). Because of attending only by the Catholic Bulgarian pupils; this school was known as Catholic Bulgarian School as well. According to the German archives, Polish Minority School was known as German-Bulgarian School among Germans and Austrians. The reason for this was that Resurrectionists taught German as a foreign language in their school. The main goal of this school was to diminish the Russian influence in Bulgaria and Turkey. Therefore this school and its Catholic Church were supported by French and Austrian governments. Polish Minority School played an important role in the spreading of Catholic faith among the Bulgarians of Edirne.
Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda bütün cemaatler kendi dillerinde eğitim hakkına sahiptiler. Bu yüzden İstanbul, Selanik ve Edirne gibi şehirlerde yaşayan gayrimüslim azınlıklar kendi okullarını(1) açmışlardır. Rum, Ermeni ve Yahudi cemaatleri daha önceki yüzyıllarda Edirne’ye yerleşmiş olmalarına rağmen, Bulgarlar ilk olarak 19. yüzyılın ortalarından itibaren Edirne ve civarına yerleşerek büyük bir hızla cemaatleşmeye başlamışlardır. Söz konusu dönemde Doğu’da etkinliklerini artırmaya çalışan Katolik cemaatler Rumeli’ye dolayısı ile de Bulgarlara el atmışlardır. Katolikliğin Bulgarlar arasında hızla yayılmasında Fransızlar, Katolik Ermeniler ve Polonyalılar önemli bir rol oynamışlardır
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Journal Section | Araştırma Makaleleri |
Authors | |
Publication Date | December 1, 2009 |
Published in Issue | Year 2009 Volume: 73 Issue: 268 |
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