The Toponymy of Tsaribrod Region and Other Western Outlands – Testimonies of National Identity

The absence of enough literary sources in Bulgaria is only one of the reasons to turn with even greater attention to the study of Bulgarian microtoponymy and especially that outside today’s borders of the country. 

The subject of this study are the microtoponyms of the settlements in a former Bulgarian region (Tsaribrod) that are left outside the Bulgarian state border according to the Treaty of Neuilly of 1919. The paper offers linguistic data from the corpus of 3000 microtoponyms researched, and outlines the old layers of names in our onomastics. The old toponyms are a rather large and crucial part of our lexicological heritage. 

They testify to the culture, lifestyle and spiritual explorations of an indigenous Bulgarian population that inhabited the lands of Middle Western Bulgaria.