[citation needed] The First Tatar settlements in Bulgaria may be dated to the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century when military units persecuted in the wake of dynastic feuds in the Golden Horde defected to Bulgarian rulers (Pavlov, 1997).

The records show that the Tatars were inclined to raid villages and resist authority, and were therefore resettled among the local, just as restive, populations in Thrace.

The Ottoman conquest of Bessarabia created conditions for the constant migration of Tatars from the Northern Black Sea region to Dobruja in the 1530s and 1540s.

[2] The 18th century saw the beginning of a radical change in the ethnic composition of the northern Black Sea region as a result of Russian invasions.

This first period in the modern history of the Tatar group in Bulgaria (1862–1878) was characterized by economic and environmental adjustment to the new realities and the consolidation of all Kipchak-speaking refugees.

Having settled in the Ottoman Empire, the Tatars, who had not changed their ethnic and ecological environment, suddenly found themselves in another political organism - Bulgaria, a state that differed greatly from its predecessor.

The second factor of ethnic changes was the nascent Crimean Tatar national "renaissance" and differentiation in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In the post-Liberation period (1878-1912/1918), there were generally no major changes in the Tatar group - there was no large-scale emigration, and the process of ethnic consolidation continued.

On the other hand, the start of this period coincided with a short-lived Tatar nation-state in Crimea and the constitution of the Turkish secular state.

Modern Tatar nationalism embraced Pan-Turkism arid turned to Ankara for support as a result of Kemalist propaganda.

This period saw large-scale Tatar emigration to Turkey and the establishment of a circle around the magazine "Emel" (1929-1930 in Dobrich), which used Pan-Turkic slogans as a cover for the promulgation of Turkish policies.

The general tendencies remained the same in the next period (1940 to the early 1950s), except that Bulgaria recovered Southern Dobruja, whose Tatar population had decreased by half.

The natural but slow assimilation into the Turkish community endogamy was no longer possible considering the small number of the Tatar population - was intensified by modernization.

It originally adopted Moscow's attitude to the Crimean Tatars, officially ignoring their presence in Bulgaria (they were last mentioned in the 1956 census, before reappearing as late as 1992).

This attested to a new policy: accentuating the community's ethnocultural specificity in an effort to highlight and restore the distinction (blurred as a result of Turkification) between Tatars and Turks.

The reforms in the 1990s have led to a restoration of Islamic Turkic names and the creation of conditions for normal contacts with relatives in Turkey, as well as for independent cultural and educational activities.

Informants have the clearest perception of the Nogay as a separate group of a distinct type of people (prominent cheekbones and inure Mongolian), dialect ("truer Tatar"), livelihood (horse-breeding), and even character.

Apart from the ethnic terms, Tatars are also divided into subgroups distinguished by territorial origin: Kerisler (from Kerch), Shongarlar (from Chongar), Orlular (from Or; Russian Perekop).

The main ethnic components that were successively incorporated into the new ethnos were the ancient indigenous populations (for example -Bat-Bayan's protobulgarians), the Kumans, and finally, the Kipchakized Mongol clans.

Their consolidation was based on the close languages, common destiny, and political idea of belonging to the former Crimean khanate and respective ethno-social formations.

Respondents distinguish the two communities by the Islam-based segregation of women in the case of the Turks and the absence of such discrimination among the Tatars, as well as by the attitude to the Christians and the Alevites.

The "Tatar mosque" (for instance, in Vetovo) is a natural centre not only of religious, but also of socio-political life, a place for social contacts and internal demonstration of ethnicity.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the traditional occupation of Tatars in the countryside was agriculture and in the towns, small-scale trade and various crafts: cartage, candle-making, furriery, butchery, coffee-making, bow production, barbering.

They recount the reasons for the emigration (wars, dynastic feuds), the quest for suitable places for settlement (they had to be fertile, to be like the Crimea), the problems of adjustment (other hostile people, strange trees, other seasons).

Knowledge of history is an element of the general attainments of the Tatar intellectual elite, whereas ordinary people have only a vague idea of their past.

The main character traits are associated with tolerance in relations among individuals, the genders and ethnic communities, cleverness, hospitality, mutual help.

The following positive traits are also believed to be typically Tatar: quick adoption of new developments; diligence; moderateness; persistence; friendliness; patience; courage.

The main reason why the general public is not familiar with the Tatars is that the latter has for years deliberately and naturally gravitated towards the Turkish community.

A cultural-educational association of Tatars in Bulgaria, Asabay (Kinship), based In Silistra and chaired by Ziya Ismail, was set up in 1993.

The association has not undertaken any considerable projects to date and remains but a symbol of the Tatar presence in Bulgarian public life.