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Bulgarians refer only to rural Sofia as Shopluk. Macedonians are also doesn't aware of Shopluk in Eastern Macedonia. Torlak, on the other hand, more like a meta-linguistic classification, and Shopluk is just a sub-ethnic group within Torlak speakers, the separative ethnological factors probably come from various other elements rather than linguistical difference. Black, White terms sources from Turkic Ak and Kara, were used to determine North and South in the Medieval. They are also borrowed by Vlachs, Greeks, and the rest of Bulgarians. Note that Pulevski classified this region as Black and White Shopluk in the 1860s and Cvijić in the 1890s.Originally Posted by vbnetkhio
At that time period, covered regions in North Macedonia and Blagoevgrad and around were roughly half Muslim(incl. Turks and Pomaks) half Christian. The Southern part, East of Sandanski and the region included Greece, was around 80% Muslim, and almost all population were Pomak.
The Christian Slav population in Western Bulgaria as a whole were migrated to Eastern and Central Bulgaria from Russo-Turkish War to the Communist regime. This created a homogenous Bulgarian population and led regional characteristics to die. For example, see how the surname Shopov is seen all over Bulgaria and has no concentration in Western Bulgaria:
https://forebears.io/surnames/shopov
So, I would presume that Cvijić's drawing could be superficial, for example, I do not believe Samokov and around had Shopis(they could be migrated there at that time period though?) and he drew this region to contribute to map integrity. However, there should be a reason why he and other classifiers who lived in these periods marked these further South and North as Shopluk. The events take place in the 20th century should be taken into account. Most reasonable explanation in my opinion would be the dissolution of Shopi culture in some regions in an attempt to create homogeneity within Christian Slavs and also I have to note the great possibility that some part of Shopis were Muslim, in North Macedonia and Southwestern Bulgaria, and these are/were left the region in an attempt to escape to Turkey or to the regions where Pomaks are the great majority. Eventually, Shopi identity carried out only in Sofia where the Shopi population created a great concentration. In the rest of the regions, it is standardized into other populations, by migrating to some other place.
My village is in the further East of the region painted in Greece, and in between the Mountainous Komotini and Xanthi. Ancestral surname/nickname of my maternal lineage that comes from my great-great-grandfather is Şop(Šop.) Furthermore, Pomak language is not standardized in the region and even differs radically between neighboring villages. And this is one of the reasons why Pomaks switched their language into Turkish in the last 150 years. How the language can differ at such a level if all the population has the same regional origin? I think it can't.
I can also supply this kit who is exactly from the painted region within Greece. Believing you are interested.
Code:Population North_Atlantic 17.04 Pct Baltic 27.29 Pct West_Med 17.19 Pct West_Asian 13.29 Pct East_Med 21.18 Pct Red_Sea 0.44 Pct South_Asian 0.39 Pct East_Asian 0.83 Pct Siberian 1.19 Pct Amerindian 0.73 Pct Oceanian 0.42 Pct Northeast_African - Sub-Saharan - Population Gedrosia 6.18 Pct Siberian 0.68 Pct Northwest_African - Southeast_Asian 0.85 Pct Atlantic_Med 24.55 Pct North_European 33.17 Pct South_Asian - East_African - Southwest_Asian 6.02 Pct East_Asian 0.7 Pct Caucasus 27.85 Pct Sub_Saharan - Distance to: Karlıkova 2.43897519 Pomak_Bulgaria 2.54998039 Pomak_Greece 2.65789390 Bulgarian_Central 3.08442863 Bulgarian_West 3.42860030 Bulgarian_East 3.55156304 Moldovan_Gagauz 3.59094695 Greek_Macedonia 3.92522611 Moldovan_South 4.34451378 Romanian 4.43758944 Macedonian_Northeast&Skopje 5.05372140 Macedonian_Polog 5.73715086 Macedonian_East 6.34733802 Montenegrin 6.54463903 Macedonian_Vardar 6.74487213 Turk_Deliorman 6.97385833 Macedonian_South 7.16557744 Turk_Makedonya 7.78752207 Bulgarian_Thrace 8.28214948 Albanian_Kosovo 9.27037755 Serb 9.58776825 Greek_Thessaly 9.60307763 Greek_Thessaloniki 9.75013846 Turk_Trakya 9.89987374 Moldovan_Central 10.05896615 Greek_Thrace
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