Czechs and Slovaks in Bulgaria

Following the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878, a large number of Czechs and Slovaks arrived in the country from Austria-Hungary to foster its cultural and economic development.

These included many intellectuals and entrepreneurs, such as the historian Konstantin Josef Jireček (Minister of Education 1881–1882), the painters Ivan Mrkvička and Jaroslav Věšín, the archaeologists Karel Škorpil and Hermann Škorpil, the engineer and entrepreneur Jiří Prošek and the Prošek family (who built Lavov most and Orlov most and founded the Sofia brewery), Václav Dobruský (first director of the National Archaeological Museum), the brewer Franz Milde (founder of the Shumen brewery), the architects Josef Schnitter (long-time chief architect of Plovdiv), Antonín Kolář (first chief architect of Sofia) and Lubor Bajer (who designed Stara Zagora's modern street network), and many others.

Besides urban emigration, the Law for the settlement of the desolated lands of 1880 attracted many ethnic Czech and Slovak colonists, mostly Protestants from the regions of the Romanian Banat (particularly Sfânta Elena and Nădlac) and modern Vojvodina, Serbia.

Other places where Czechs and Slovaks settled were the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa and the villages of Belintsi and Podayva, Razgrad Province, with a significant Slovak community also present in Pleven Province (Gorna Mitropolia, Podem, Brashlyanitsa).

[3] Between 1948 and 1950, over 2,000 Czechs and Slovaks from Sofia and the aforementioned localities responded to the call of the government of Czechoslovakia and returned to their native land to populate areas deserted in World War II.