Hello in this file I have submitted my feedback about the Balkans.
In it I have explained why the Bulgarian ethnicity must reach all the way to Belgrade and Morava river as well as south as Thessaly.
I have also suggested custom content for Bulgaria as well as Volga Bulgaria, but mostly it is about ethnicity.
And
@Pavía please tell me if the development team agrees with what I've written and whether they would incorporate the changes I've mentioned in the document.
If somebody disagrees please explain why.
I swear I have read many of the lines of the albanised bulgarians section word for word but bulgarians simply replaced with serbians. It was easy to realise why, most of these sources are from the 19th century before or shortly after the balkan wars were historians were encouraged by their governments to set up claims to any areas they desired through basically propaganda history filled with falsehoods. The game also starts in the 14th century so using sources wich barely if ever talk about the time period or one close to it is not very helpful.
"Undoubtedly, Turkish slavery inflicted the greatest damage on the Bulgarian language in Kosovo. The most massive was Turkicization and Albanianization in the late 16th andearly 17th centuries during the invasion of Albanian Muslims in the east as a means ofprotection from their violence. The memory of the forcible Islamization before that duringthe time of Sultan Selim I (1512-1520), called the Fierce, the Bloody, is preserved. Then40 thousand Christians who refused to accept Islam were killed in Prizren. The actionitself took place along the banks of the White Stream river, which later acquired thenickname Black. In the entire Prizren region, including the settlements where Albaniansand the Albanianized local population have long lived, only 2% of the names of thevillages are not of Slavic origin. The same applies to many of the names of rural areas:Tsareva Livada, Kobilina Glava, Rayeva Polyana, Katin Zabel, Rybnitsa, Vranya, etc.(Jovan Hadji Vasilevich, ""Мюслимани наши крви уюужной СреМу"", Belgrade, St.Sava stamp shop, 1924)"
"Until the beginning of the 19th century, in this westernmost Bulgarian region,the population was purely Bulgarian and Christian. When the great Albanian invasionsbegan in the direction of Debar, Polog, Ohrid and Bitola, a large part of the localpopulation was forced to either flee or convert to Islam. However, the fate of some of thelocal Bulgarians was differen"
I beg of you to find a source about these events happening at all cause no modern day books or papers ranging from historians like Oliver Jens Schmitt,Robert Elsie or the book Kosovo: a short history alongside many others ever mention this happening. Neither do Ottoman sources themselves mention such an event happening.
The rest of this post is now about the location of Dibra/Debar and its ethnic/cultural composition and can be seen as a addition to my previous post: (incase the devs still read this thread)
First off what historians and most historical sources mean with the region of Dibra/Debar ISNT what EU5 considers Debar.
in EU5 its this single location
Historically Dibra/Debar is represented as roughly this area. So around half of the Dibra area books about history and contemporary sources talk about is not even included in EU5s Dibra.
Here is one of the earliest accounts beyond by Martin Barleti 1505 a History of Skanderbeg:
"The entire guard, as we said, consisted of Dibra soldiers. The people there obeyed Skanderbeg, but they were not everywhere with an Epirote name and language. And truly, that province has two Dibras, which are distinguished from each other both by nature and by names. And precisely one of the two the inhabitants of Epirus call the lower, and the other the upper. The lower is almost entirely flat and surrounded by fertile fields, which produce everything.
The Arber and the Epirotes inhabit that country, peoples very brave in war, with whose weapons Kastriot first saved and increased the kingdom and helped them in every difficult and very difficult task, thus having them like a Colophon against all the wars and atrocities of the enemies. From here he had at all times distinguished and very ready men, who served the Epirot cause no less as captains than as soldiers.
Upper Dibra is mountainous and harsh, with all this, fertile and close to Macedonia both by the very neighborhood of the country, and by the similarity of customs. It is inhabited by Bulgarians or Tribals, a tribe brave in war, also beloved by Skanderbeg for the many merits of an unparalleled bravery and loyalty. Being, in spite of this, closer to foreign customs than to Epirote customs and disagreeing in many things with the Arbër civilization, that tribe lived according to the Greek wayb and followed many of their vain beliefs."
For context the terms Arber, Epirotes and Tribesmen is referring to Albanians. Arber is obbvious. Epirots started when most historians of pre medieval and early medieval times still described the general area of Albania as just Epirus due to it being part of a proince called Epirus. Others have been referred to as Epirots too like Vlachs and slavs in the area of Albania and Epirus during the migration period but it solidified itself as being mostly used for albanians and the people who live in the area. Tribesmen we can attest to being most if not nearly all albanians since unlike the Bulgarians serbs and greeks there was no central authority one can refer them too alongside albanians still having had a strong system of different tribes wich only entrentched itself during this time. Also referring to the tribe " being closer to foreign customs then epoirote customs" is a very big indicator that these tribes are in contact and the same people as the epirotes cause he doesnt make the same points for the Bulgarians who he alos mentions as being there. With Greek way he is very likely referring to the tribes and or bulgarians being orthodox and mocking them for it since he is a catholic priest.
The historian Oliver Jens Schmitt in his book
"Skanderbeg: der neue Alexander im Balkan" (2005) uses this passage, other sources and the tax dfter names to conclude that in lower Dibra the majority of the population is albanians with the amount of albanian names being the majority in most cases while in upper dibra there is a more complicated spit depending on the altitude with higher altituide places and villages being like in upper dibra more albanian names appearing whille in the more flat lands and citys you would see slavic names more often with albanian names mixed in with a center of slav majority in Piskupijal/Peshkopia for serbian slavic names and the further south you went from there the names becoming more Bulgarian. The author Oliver Jens Schmitt also makes sure to emphasize that names do not show what language one speaks since there is no clear cut off of languages and people in this area. Wich is good cause the book "Kosovo: a Short History" already went through the point that names are not a good indicator and must be viewed with the context of the times as well like orthodox Albanians not having their own orthodox church and being stuck with being part of either the serbian, bulgarian or greek one thus making all 3 interchangable due to not understanding whats being spoken in any. So I wont emphasize this point again.
While Oliver Jens Schmitt is mostly right the book doesnt go into too much detail and only mentions this in 2 pages total.
Meanhile
"Defteri i hollësishëm për zonat e dibrës i vitit 1467. Caka, Eduart (2019)." is specifically about this topic with it going through all the Ottoman Defters from the general area around and in Dibra/Debar itself. In this he goes through the names of the villages and writes them all down. What we need to remember is the names are all males cause the Ottomans only wanted to know their names for tax paying purposes. As with Oliver Jens Schmitt the effect is even more widespread on both sides of the modern day border of albania and macedonia you see villages and citys with mixed names showing a measurable presence of bulgarians/serbs in the current day region but its also clear from how often the name appears, wich we have to remember that names arent the be all indicator of language/ethnicity/culture, that the names in whats current day Albania are by the vast majority from the albanian kind with up to 1-3 slavic names appearing in a vilage or city. There starts being more mixed names once we get to the modern day border, mixed in both somebody having both albanian and slavic names and mixed in terms of number, appearing more often wich you kinda of expect in areas of mixed. Once you pass over to modern day Macedonia it stays the same with cases of both villages with only slavic names and villages of only albanian names still happening but in general the mix being towards more slavic names once you go past Debar/Dibra. I dont remember the split between serbian and bulgarian names but several wiki pages about villages in albania and macedonia have used the book as a source so you can see for yourself how this trend I mentioned is reflected.
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https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Caka,+Eduart+(2019)&title=Spezial:Suche&ns0=1&searchToken=btvgmdr4gr74mwq1v9j23trcs)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Defteri+i+hollësishëm+për+zonat+e+dibrës+i+vitit+1467&title=Special:Search&ns0=1&searchToken=arekn4exvaprayuqv4e1t7rx6)
So your suggestion for a majority in Debar (wich I just have to assume only looked up Dibra area and found the modern day political borders) is wrong It was not a majority there and despite the constant wars and raids in this area we can conclude there wasnt a significant change or the ethnic makeup of this region due to nobody telling of this unlike in Epirus and Thessaly where contemporaries mention how the country side is under the occupation and control of Albanians. This did not occur for Debar before or after 1337. For more you can read my post about Dibra/Debra cause I only used sources I havent used there.
On your suggestion for the coast, while there was a Bulgarian minority in Durres with even a famous Bulgarian priest and poet coming from Durres, this has changed since the days of the Bulgarian Empire, several of the accounts of Durres mention many of the people in it leaving after the destructive earthquake in the 13th century. Was there still Bulgarians? Possible but the number must have been so small for them to not even be mentioned as part of the inhabitants of the city of Durres wich 2 irish pilgrims did. "Two Irish pilgrims who visited Albania on their way to Jerusalem in 1322, reported that Durrës was "inhabited by Latins, Greeks, perfidious Jews and barbaric Albanians".
[54]" Could they have referred to Bulgarians as Greeks? Possible but thats purely fueled by speculation. So Bulgarians werent a sizable minority in Durres at the time of EUV 1337.
Shkoder I already discussed in a previous post alongside Ulcin.
In regards to Vlore, Berat and Korce. 100% not a sizable minority in Vlore.
Potentially in Berat but very unlikely a sizeable minority too cause from Berat alot of the albanian immigration into modern day Greece has been stated to be started and ater the migrations were over there was no mention of Bulgarians in the area despite the fact that they should now be way more of the % of the area.
Korce? I didnt bother looking too much into it but the same as Berat applies there due to it having the same conditions pre and post migration(espacially in terms of albanian and sometimes vlach bandits/tribeds raiding southwards)
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