Kopilovtsi is a village in
Georgi Damyanovo Municipality
Georgi Damyanovo Municipality ( bg, Община Георги Дамяново) is a frontier municipality ('' obshtina'') in Montana Province, Northwestern Bulgaria, located on the northern slopes of western Stara Planina mountain and the area o ...
,
Montana Province
Montana Province ( bg, Област Монтана, transliterated: ''Oblast Montana'') is a province in northwestern Bulgaria, bordering Serbia in the southwest and Romania in the north. It spreads its area between the Danube river and the Balka ...
, north-western
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
.
History
Some documents like those of Catholic priests and bishops prove the
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
origin of the population living in the mining village of Kopilovtsi. The documents prove that the population of the village spoke Albanian by the sixteenth century. In its relation to Rome In 1640, a Catholic Bulgarian from Chiprovtsi named
Petar Bogdan wrote to Catholic authorities in Rome about Kopilovtsi and stated that "Catholic sacrament has 1,200 people, 360 children, I can tell by nationality Albanians, because they came long ago from Albania and even now keep this language”. Bogdani writes about the village several times later focusing on the growth of Catholic Albanian population. In 1653, he wrote to Church authorities in Rome that almost all the villagers were traders.
[Гюзелев, pp. 45–47.]
References
Villages in Montana Province
{{MontanaBG-geo-stub