The Bulgëri are a historical
Albanian tribe (''fis'') and tribal region in the districts of
Lezha and
Mirdita of northern
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
. It is one of the four traditional bajraks of the Highlands of Lezha (''Malësia e Lezhës''), alongside the
Kryezezi
The Kryezezi are a historical Albanian tribe (''fis'') and tribal region in the districts of Lezha and Mirdita of northern Albania. It is one of the four traditional bajraks of the Highlands of Lezha (''Malësia e Lezhës''), alongside the Bul ...
,
Vela and
Manatia.
Geography
Bulgëri tribal territory is situated along the banks of the lower
Fan and
Mat rivers, from Milot to Rubik. It is bordered by the Manatia tribal region to the west, the Kryezezi tribal region to the north, the
Kthella tribal region to the east and the Mat river to the south. Their main settlements include Fang, Bërzana, Fierza, Rasfik and Bulgër (now Katundi i Vjetër).
Etymology
The tribal name and toponym ''Bulgër'' (and its local dialectal form, ''Bulgjër'') is derived from the Albanian
bujgër' referring to
Macedonian oak
''Quercus trojana'', the Macedonian oak is an oak in the turkey oak section
( ''Quercus'' sect. ''Cerris'').
It is native to southeast Europe and southwest Asia, from southern Italy east across the southern Balkans (Croatia, Albania, Serbia, N ...
(''Quercus trojana'') which grow in abundance in the region.
Marin Barleti
Marin Barleti ( la, Marinus Barletius, it, Marino Barlezio; – ) was a historian and Catholic priest from Shkodër who was a humanist. He is considered the first Albanian historian because of his 1504 eyewitness account of the 1478 siege o ...
labels the region as ''mons Bulgari'' in his work, with the form ''Bulgari'' likely representing the toponym's original form in Old Albanian as the unstressed vowel /a/ would later be reduced to /ë/, creating the modern forms of ''Bulgër'', ''Bulgjër'', etc.
History
The villages of Bërzana and Rasfik (''Fiku'') are both attested in the
Ottoman ''defter'' of 1467 as ''
hass-ı mir-liva'' properties in the
vilayet
A vilayet ( ota, , "province"), also known by various other names, was a first-order administrative division of the later Ottoman Empire. It was introduced in the Vilayet Law of 21 January 1867, part of the Tanzimat reform movement initiated ...
of
Dimitri Gjonima. Bërzana only had a single household represented by ''Peter Mirdida'', while Rasfik had a total of six represented by the following household heads: ''Mëhill Suma'', ''Lazar Stojani'', ''Dimitri Kasini'', ''Gjon Balkosi'', ''Lazar Plasha'', and ''Benk Bardi''.
In 1640 the region is described as belonging to the
Diocese of Kruja and had a total of 364 inhabitants. It occurs as the toponym ''Bulgari'' in 1866 with an estimated population of 97 households. It was estimated to have 110 households in 1905, and 122 households with 769 inhabitants in 1918. The Bulgëri are a Catholic tribe, like the rest of the Highlands of Lezha, and joined the
Mirdita tribe in 1818 along with the rest of the tribes of the Highlands of Lezha.
References
Tribes of Albania
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