Битката на змея с орлите. Формулите на бугарщиците и съвременните записи
Dragon Fight with Eagles. The Formulas in Bugarštica and the Contemporary Recordings

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses the attitude of Bulgarian researchers towards the phenomenon of bugarštica, with special reference to the book “Croatian Bugarštica Songs and Their Bulgarian Counterparts. Studies and Texts”, edited by Stefana Stoykova and published in 2015 by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum. Stefana Stoykova substantiates the thesis about the Bulgarian origin of the bugarštica, present in the research spanning from Ivan Shishmanov to Antonina Afanasieva-Koleva, by analysing Bulgarian recordings from the 20th century in which, according to Stoykova, traces of bugarštica singing still remain preserved. By analysing the formula “orao se vijaše” [an eagle hovered] and the conceptualization of the falcon figure (in metaphors, as a mythical mediator between the worlds, etc.) in oral lyrical poetry in South Slavic context, this paper uncovers the consonance between bugarštica singing and other genre patterns from the 15th until the 20th century primarily in shared formulas, in style and language, in archaic mythological symbolism. The commonness of these elements is attributed to cohabitation, frequent migrations and the broadest processes of creation and duration in oral epic and lyrical traditions in South Slavic cultures.

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