Bulgarians in Brazil cherish their link with the homeland as a precious heritage

"Bulgarian Footprints in Faraway Brazil" - a book dedicated to prominent immigrants in this country

published on 6/25/24 2:41 PM

Photo: Angela Georgieva (BTA)

Brazil is perhaps one of the least popular destinations for Bulgarians today. Although the standard of living in Brazil is not very high, it is usually preferred by people who are highly qualified. Many are university professors, music teachers, artists, IT specialists, business consultants, etc. The Bulgarians who go there to stay - for work or through marriage - are all citizens of the world.

It is a very pleasant country to live in, both in terms of climate and atmosphere, say those in the know. Among the migrants who have chosen Brazil as their second home is Daniel Metodiev. A geologist by profession, he has travelled to all the countries where Portuguese is spoken.

He settles in Brazil after falling in love with the Brazilian Helena. Like all Bulgarians there, Daniel Metodiev remains very attached to his homeland. In addition to his professional career and doctoral studies in geology, he became a driving force for the Bulgarian community in Brazil. He also runs a Facebook group and is often asked to find information about Bulgarians who used to live in Brazil. This is how his interest in the biographies of emigrants from Bulgaria was born.

Daniel Methodiev participated online in the presentation of his book.

With diligence and perseverance, Daniel Metodiev searches for documents, meets heirs, collects photos from family archives and comes up with incredible facts about the fate of prominent people who are also well known in Bulgaria.

Among them are the writers Matvey Valev and Ilko Minev, the father of former Brazillian president Dilma Rousseff and close friend of Elisaveta Bagryana - Petar Rusev, the director Ivan Hlebarov. The great collector and patron of the arts Iliya Delev, founder of the "Earth and Man" Museum, and the popular architect and artist Dolly Michailovska lived in Brazil.

Daniel Metodiev has collected their stories and those of many other Bulgarians in the South American country in his book "Bulgarian Footprints in Faraway Brazil". The book was highly praised by experts - ethnographers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, including the scientific editor of the book, Dr Lina Gergova.

Presentation of the book at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences .

"Daniel Metodiev's book is remarkable in that it is an account of the life stories of different immigrants. In this way we can understand the personal journeys of individuals rather than the emigration flows. Personal experiences, difficulties, successes - all this is described in the book" - says Dr Lina Gergova in an interview for Radio Bulgaria:

"I like to call Brazil the "laboratory of Bulgarian migration" because there are two very different communities. One is the descendants of the Bessarabian Bulgarians who emigrated 100 years ago, in the 1920s. They are a very strong community with rich traditions. The other group are the Bulgarians who emigrated from Bulgaria in different periods - from the end of the 19th century until today. Most interesting are the fates of Bulgarian intellectuals and artists who emigrated to Brazil and became famous there.

For example, Radi Gorski was the first known Bulgarian migrant to Brazil - he was a scientist, biologist, agronomist and tried to establish Bulgarian gardeners there. He emigrated at the beginning of the 20th century.

The famous writer Matvey Valev also emigrated to Brazil between the wars. We cannot speak of a Bulgarian organisation in Brazil in those years. There were associations that were more involved in dissident life and supporting anti-communist movements. In reality, the institutionalisation of Bulgarians in the country began after the 1990s.

But we have to take into account the fact that the Bulgarian surname opens doors in Brazil, it is a good reference. A characteristic of Bulgarians in Brazil is their commitment to preserving the Bulgarian language and traditions for future generations. This is something we are already seeing lacking in emigration to Western Europe and the USA.

Maya Slavova of Netland Publishing - the book's publisher - also contributed to the collection with a Brazilian story close to her family:

"I found some letters from 1923 in the family archive of Radi Gorski, an emigrant to Brazil. He wrote them to his family friends - Anka and Petar Velichkov, my husband's grandparents. It was a family legend that this man had gone to Brazil and disappeared, leaving no trace. We read the letters, written in a beautiful archaic Bulgarian that we no longer use. Radi Gorski was a university lecturer in chemistry and physics. In the book, we have included a number of the undergraduate courses that he taught at the university.

But being a loner, he did not marry, he remained single, and we couldn't find any record of him after 1970. I very much hope that some of the students who were in the faculty at that time will recognise themselves when they see the photograph with the professor. It's a shame that we can't find people who remember him and add to the story about him. It turned out that Daniel Metodiev was able to find his death certificate in the archives in Brazil. So we learned that he died in 1970, but we couldn't find out where he was buried.

Most of the life stories in the book are about some forgotten or unknown Bulgarian emigrants who left a shining mark on Brazilian society, while in Bulgaria only their close relatives know about them - explains Daniel himself in the Facebook group of Bulgarians in Brazil.

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Bulgarians in Brazil cherish their link with the homeland as a precious heritage

"Bulgarian Footprints in Faraway Brazil" - a book dedicated to prominent immigrants in this country

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