Ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria (Macedonian: Македонци во Бугарија, Makedonci vo Bugarija) are a group in Bulgaria concentrated within Blagoevgrad Province and the capital Sofia. In the 2011 Bulgarian census, 1,654 people declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians. They are not recognised as an ethnic minority but were recognised as such between 1947 and 1958. During this period there was a surge of Macedonistic policies, the government went as far as to declare Macedonian an official language of the Pirin region. The Bulgarian Communist Party was compelled by Joseph Stalin to accept the formation of Macedonian, Thracian and Dobrujan nations in order to include those new separate states in a Balkan Communist Federation. There are strong indications that the majority of the population from