Behind the word „chalga“ stands the Ottoman-Turkish çalgı, which means „instrumental music“. According to historian Alexander Stoyanov, the roots of the genre go back at least to the 19th century, and probably even further back in time, he explains to Focus.
In the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, and probably even earlier, orchestras toured the villages, playing at celebrations and on various occasions. Their music was entertaining and danceable, and their occupation was known as çalgı – „chalga“.
These groups include musicians of different origins, often Roma, who make a living from music. They travel between different settlements and combine melodies and motifs from the regions they pass through. The performers themselves are called „chalgadjii“.
In the Bulgarian language, the term „chalga“ entered as a designation for a musical event at which popular songs are performed with instruments. The term was widely used until the end of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom.
After the establishment of the totalitarian system, state control over musical activity led to the decline of the chalgadjii's craft. According to Stoyanov, it was revived in the late 1980s under the influence of two parallel changes – the collapse of the totalitarian order and the increased interest of the Bulgarian public in Serbian turbofolk.
Around 1989, a new wave of orchestras took shape. They performed folk songs, foreign melodies and Bulgarian-style covers brought from neighboring countries.
“This type of music continues to maintain a unified post-Ottoman cultural space“, points out Alexander Stoyanov. According to him, the musical exchange between the Balkan countries preserves the memory of a period in which the peoples of the region lived mixedly within the Ottoman Empire.