Религията: промяна и традиция (Образи на религиозното)
Religion: Change and Tradition (Images of the Religious)

Summary/Abstract: The article is a part of a larger study of the images of religion, spread in everyday culture in Bulgaria. The study summarizes data, gathered during the last few years within a number of research projects, concerning two regions with ethnically and religiously mixed population: North-eastern Bulgaria (Razgrad area) and the Western Rhodopes (Gotse Delchev and Velingrad regions), as well as the results of an inquiry held in May-June 1999, on the role of religion in society today. Through a number of fieldwork methods, such as interviews, open inquiry, life history approach, observation, photo and video documentation, a large number of people of a varying social, religious, ethnic background have been examined. A certain number of everyday concepts and images of religion and religiousness proved to be circulating in the social sphere, some of them fostered by official sources like the media, but most of them of a specific shape and interpretation. To outline these “folk” interpretations of the religious is the aim of the article. Here the interpretations of religion as an image of social change and as tradition are mainly discussed. The latter is described by things like the motivating role of family, education and ethnic identity in determining religious affiliation, as well as by the use of religion as a basic symbolic language in expressing social, ethnic, cultural identity. The various concepts of religious belief, religious institution, religiousness, shared by members of different generations, ethnic and religious groups in Bulgaria, are discussed in this perspective. Other popular images: religion as a social integrator and a symbol of diversity, religion as magic action, religion as an indicator of ethnic identity, religion as a remedy against anomie in today’s society, complete the picture.

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