Пространството в българския юнашки епос
Space in Bulgarian Heroic Epics

Summary/Abstract: This article studies the specifics of epic space in Bulgarian heroic songs. The author maintains the view that Bulgarian heroic epics reflect space in definite artistic forms historically created by epic consciousness. The role of tradition, the dynamics, of historical reality, and the laws of genre poetics for the development and relative stability in depicting space are emphasized. Epic space in Bulgarian heroic songs is studied on cosmic, ethnic and social planes, the specific historical conditions under which Bulgarian heroic epics developed in the epoch of foreign domination being borne in mind. Relations between ‘our own’ and ‘foreign’ space are studied, which are represented in the article as ‘human’ space and that of mythical beings, or as ‘our own’ ethnographic and ‘foreign’ ethnographic space. A specific feature in depicting space in Bulgarian heroic songs is the presence of a mixed ‘own—foreign’ space in the archaic strata, and its actualization in the later stages of the development of the heroic epics. The reversibility of epic space and the space forbidden to the epic enemy are characteristic of Bulgarian matter. Actualization of mixed ‘own—foreign’ space and the reversibility of space are used by bearers of Bulgarian heroic epics to introduce new ideological and aesthetic content into them.

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