Apparently, there is a Jewish dance called булгар / bulgar / bulgarish / bulgărească, which is a type of клезмер / klezmer horah.

2 comments

1. The annexation of the Ottoman Moldavian province of **Bessarabia** by **Russia in 1812** had a significant effect on the development of klezmer music, and on the composition of professional musicianship in northeastern Europe. The Russian annexation of 1812 resulted in several **demographic movements**. Yiddish-speaking **Jews from Ukraine began to settle in Bessarabia** in increasingly large numbers, because the Russian government was less oppressive toward the Jews in its newly acquired southern territories than in the older Pale of Settlement. In addition, **Christian Bulgarians** and Turkic Gagauz **migrated from Ottoman Bulgaria to Russian Bessarabia**. While there had been a Jewish population of Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and other (probably Crimean) origins in pre-nineteenth-century Moldavia, the Russian annexation of Bessarabia caused a significant increase in the number of Jews living in that province, which became significantly higher than the number resident in the Turkish (later Romanian) portion of Moldavia.

   The dance **bulgărească (in the Bulgarian manner)** was **documented in the first half of the nineteenth century in Bessarabia**; the dance, with its characteristic music, is known primarily in Bessarabia. **It is therefore doubtful that the dance existed prior to the migration of Bulgarians** after 1812, or it would have appeared more prominently in other regions of Bulgaro/Romanian contact. Choreographically, the **bulgărească** is related to the **sîrba, the chain dance that is ubiquitous in every region of Moldavia and Wallachia**. The sîrba is based on a six-beat measure, consisting of cross to the right, kick to the right, kick to the left. **This dance pattern was alien to Ashkenazic dance, which followed symmetrical patterns.**

   It is likely that the **bulgărească** adopted some of these rhythmic patterns from the **Northern Bulgarian pravo dance** genre, but, in any case, they were exotic in Jewish dance music.

2. Not so surprised. The history of Khazaria is quite interesting and bulgars played a big role in their society – in fact, they were more or less assimilated and stopped existing as a major force due to becoming part of Khazaria and the subsequent entities on that territory.

   I highly recommend to anyone to read the history of Khazaria – it’s fascinating how the bulgars were separated and mixed with other ethnicities in the empire. Explains a lot about certain cultural similarities with people in Ukraine and western Russia.