The Name
One of Dramsha’s greatest
riddles is its name. There are different possible etymologies, most of them,
impossible to prove.
Some locals claim that
Dramsha was the daughter of the Bulgarian king Samuil or of his brother Aaron.
She had two sisters – Balsha and Tsarichina. Each of them received as a wedding
gift a village. Of course, Dramsha was the prettiest of the sisters. She was
even the most beautiful woman which had ever lived on earth. According to the
legend a Turkish aristocrat or the Sultan himself wanted to marry her. Dramsha
proudly refused and preferred death instead of that forced marriage.
Despite of this legend’s
romanticism it is marked by a striking anachronism: the daughters of king
Samuil lived almost four centuries before the Ottoman invasion. However, the
legend for the royal ancestry of Dramsha, Balsha, Tsarichina and Boyana is
still alive in the villages of the same name.
“The truth is, an old perk
from Dramsha will say, the road to Dramsha was very bad. When turcs came they
couldn’t depredate the village, because they broke their carriages. “Shashav
drum, shashav drum (bad road)” they said and this is why we still call the
village Dramsha.”
The Ottomans might have
broken their “carriages” along the roads of Dramsha, but most likely they did not say that the “dram” (the road) is “shashav” (bad). These
words simply do not exist in Turkish. There is, in fact, a similar Turkish word,
“durum” and it means “condition, state-of-affairs”. This word has nothing in
common with the Slavic “drum”, which is a derivation of the Greek “dromos”,
road. “Shashav” really originates from Turkish, but şaşırtmak means “to puzzle,
to bewilder”, not “bad”.
Local authorities believe
that the name most likely derived from the Dramsha words for “bush” – дръмки, друмак. It is up to the reader to evaluate the plausibility
of this etymology.
It is possible that the name
of Dramsha is somehow related to the words for “road”. Dramsha is located in a wide pass. During
Ottoman times the citizens of Dramsha had a special status: they were voynutsi
or voynugani. The voynutsi had a six month shift during which they took care
for the Sultan’s horses. Among their other duties was maintaining the Sultan’s
meadows. Voynugan villages were usually of strategic importance and were
located near the state borders. This facts lead some people from Dramsha to the
conclusion that the occupation of their ancestors gave the name of their village.
Internet commentaries
present a totally different image.
According to users the name is related to the (unidentified) title
“durum shah” (protobulgarian origin), while according to others it is related
to the Thracian “drъme [drume, dryme]. Not only internet
users, but also some renowned researchers believe “Dramsha” has protobulgarian
origins.
Of ancient protobulgarian
origin are names, such as Bisercha, Kyulevcha, Satovcha, Nevsha, Dramsha, all
of them ending on the particular eastern suffixes CHA and SHA, characteristic
for the region of Pamir and Hindu Kush . (Колев, Петко
и Димитров, Димитър. История на Българите потребност от нов подход)
At least at this point it is hard to give a satisfactory etymology of Dramsha’s name. Nevertheless, it remains as pleasant-sounding and beautiful, as the village itself.
At least at this point it is hard to give a satisfactory etymology of Dramsha’s name. Nevertheless, it remains as pleasant-sounding and beautiful, as the village itself.
The Language
Something else with which
Dramsha is famous is the “Dramsha language”. The local newspaper, Dramsha's Pride, is the only
one in Bulgaria