Figure 1.--We note a prosperous family in 1899, probably from Sophia. There are five children. The youngest wears a sailor suit with bloomer knickers. His slightly older brother wears a regular knee pants suit. The older boy's suit looks very similar to the middkle brother. The two girls wear white dresses. If the image was not a studio portrait with tthe photofgrapher's information, there woukld hsve been no way to know it was Bulgarian. The names are written in the back of the cabinet card, but unfortunately we are not sure how to read them. Put your cursor on the image to see the back of the card.

We do not yet have much information on Bulgarian families. We are just beginning to build up an archive of Bulgarian images. As with many poorer European countries, the phptographic record is somewhat limited. These family image provide valuable sociological information nd are useful in putting boys' fashions into a period context. We get to see the outfits the whoe family was wearing. Most of the early Bulgarian images we have found seem to be prosperous families. Unlike America, working-class families do not seem to have been able to afford photographic portraits.

The 19th Century

Bulgaria until the Russo-Turkish War (1878-79) was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was backward and technologically behind Christian Europe. This included photography. The first photographic studios set up in the Empire were estanlished by Greeks and other Europeans. We do not know when the first studio was opened. It could have been before independence, but we are sure that photography was not very common. The first images we have fojnd come from the 1880s immediately after independence.

Unidentified Ruse Family (about 1880)

This Bulgarian cabinet card shows an unidentified Bulgarian family with three children about 3-10 years of age. They look like a prosperous middleclass family. The back drop is rather over the top. The boy wears a single-breasted, vested, long pants suit. His older sister wears a plain dress with a ruffled trimmed collar. Notice the little grl's striped stockings. Tht helps to date the portrait. The father wears a frock coat with what looks like a wing collar. Mother wears a voluminous dress. there is a dog in the portrait, but it looks rather like a China figurine. The dealer though the portrait dated to about 1885. We at first guessed the 1870s, in part because of the boy's long pants and the girl's striped stockings. The ruling on the card also suggests the 1870s. But because of backward Ottoman control, the early-80s seems more likely. Only after the independence process began did western technology begin to change Bulgaria. The family was photographed in Roustchouk which was form Ruse, a town in northeastern Bulgaria. The studio was Fr. Bauer in Roustchouk.

Unidentified Sofia Family (1898)

Here wse see a cabinet card portrait of three brothers from Sofia. They look to be about 3-8 years old. They are all dressed alike in matching suits. When mothers decided to do this, often little details do not match, but here everything is perfectly identical. The suits seem a largely a Norfolk styled suit. The lapels seem to ne a touch of sailor styling. It looks like the boys are wearing jackets and vests, but actually it sems on sungle garment. Rather than bows, the boys have a string tie with tassel poms. The pants are bloomer knickers worn with striped long stockings. Also notice the low-cut shoes. At the time high-top shoes were more common. The date written on the back looks to be January 27, 1898. The studio is in script, but looks to be domething like D.A. Kapacmorhob in Sofia.

Unidentified Sofia Family (1899)

We note a prosperous family in 1899, probably from Sophia. There are five children. They look to be about 2-14 vyears old. The youngest wears a sailor suit with bloomer knickers. His slightly older brother wears a regular knee pants suit. The older boy's suit looks very similar to the middle brother. The two girls wear white dresses. Note the short hair cuts. If the image was not a studio portrait with the photofgrapher's information, there woukld hsve been no way to know it was Bulgarian. The names are written in the back of the cabinet card, but unfortunately we are not sure how to read them.

The 20th Century

Sofia Family (1900)

We note a portrait of a Sofia family in 1900. I think the family name is written on the back, but it is difficult to make out the hand writing. It loks to be something like Markovsky. The portrait based on the clothes could have easily been taken in Germany. It is a good example how the Sofia elite had thorogly adopted European styles. The father has a German-style moustache. The family has two young children. The boy wears a sailor suit with a white "V" collar.

Unidentified Sofia Children (1910s)

Here are three childern from an unidentifiefd Sofia family a baby, with a boy and girl. They look to be about 2-11 years old. The beautifully composed pose suggests a quality studio. The girl wears a white summer dress dress with a lacy collar. Her long hair is done in ripples, we think the popular term is waves, with a small hair bow. We see this ripple style for long hair in quite a number of Bulgarian portraits. Her brother wears a white summer knee pants sailor suit with stripes. It is a classic sailor suit, but has four rather than three stripe detailing. Sailor suits were very popular for Bulgarian boys in the early-20th century. He has dark long stockings. His sister also probably has long stockings although we can't see them. The portrait is not dated. There are references to prize awards (1886 and 92) on the back. We are a little surprised that they referred to such old rewards. We know the portrait was taken in the 1910s, probably the early-1910s. The back has a place to fill in the month and year. They are, however, not filled in, but the year entry has '191_' printed, leaving only the fourth digit or year to be filled in. So we know it must have been taken in the 1910s.

Unidentified Family (1930)

Here we see an unidentified Bulgarian family in 1930. The parents shows a boy's parents in the window of their home and the boy (about 10 years old) standing outside under the window. Other adult members of the family are also visible inside the house at the same window. Presumably the two figures at the extreme right are the boy's parents because someone has marked the photo in ink with two blue arrows pointing to them. The boy wears a hat that looks oddly like what Americans now call a "pork-pie" hat--of soft construction but with a flexible crown and a small brim turned down all around. The boy wears a dark outfit with matching jacket and very brief short trousers (a length that became popular in Germany during the 1970s and were referred to then as "short shorts"). He also wears extremely long black stockings that cover the entire leg and are obviously fastened to the four hose supporters of a Strapsleibchen. Bulgarian styles for boys' clothes, like hose of other Balkan countries, seem to have been heavily influenced by Germany.

Bauruch Family (1940s)

Here is Israel Baruch with his sister Marietta (just behind him) and his cousin Ida (in back of Marietta). This picture was taken in Sofia, Bulgaria, during 1932. The children are standing in the snow in front of their grandmother's house in Kyustendil (Sofia). The most tragic part of researching the Holocaust is the story of actual individuals. In the case of Bulgaris because of the courage of the King, the Church, and people at large there are many heatening experiences during this sad period of European history. One such account is that of Israel Baruch and his family living in Sofia. Israel and his sister Marietta were the children of Yako and Lisa Baruch. Yako Baruch was a successful lawyer and Zionist activist in Bulgaria during the period between the two world wars. The family was quite affluent. Israel in the photo here wears a double breasted short pants suits with large brass buttons. He wears a white shirt with a large white collar underneath and long tan stockings. Notice the sharp creases in his trousers. The Baurch family like other European Jews had to confront NAZI-inspired anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

Unidentified Family (1961)

We note a photograph of an unidentified Bulgarian family, a mothr and father and their two sons about 5-11 years old, perhaps with their grand mother. The are shown getting off a Soviet or Bulgarian air liner in 1961. At the time, a few DC-3s were still being used in America. Flying suggess that they the father had an important post in Bulgaria's Communist Governmnt or the Party. Ordinary Bulgarians did not travel by air. Bulgaria was one of the poorest of the Soviet satellite contries and not very many Bulgarians would be traveling by air and even fewer families. Every one is dressed up for the flight as was common at the time. the father and boys all wear suits Although taken in Bulgaria, the airplane may look familar. It ws the Soviet version of the Douglas DC-3, the iconic C-47 of world war II fame. The Lisunov Li-2, was a license-built version of the DC-3, built in some numbers during and after World War II by the Soviets. It was virtually an identical copy except that the Douglas specifications were in inches and feet and had to be converted to metric measures for Soviet machine tooling. The Soviet plant was one of the many factories that the Soviets moved beyond the Urals after the German invasion. After the war, the planes wereused both for military transports and cibil aviation in the Soviet Union and satellite countries. A few even made their way to China and North Vietnam.

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Created: 1:29 AM 10/26/2010
Last updated: 4:45 AM 11/11/2018