Поглед върху етноложките изследвания за фолклора на гагаузите
Review of Ethnological Investigations of Gagauz Folklore

Summary/Abstract: The author points out some important problems related to investigating Gaga folklore. The mentioned above assumptions are based on analysis of the available relevant publications, but there has also been taken into consideration her own personal fieldwork experience among Gaga in North-east Bulgaria. The publications present the facts concerning the Gagauz folklore on the background of different ethnogenetic hypotheses, as well as arguments for them. Those supporting the hypothesis that the Gagauz are an ethnic community different from the Bulgarians usually: 1) search for parallels with folk cultures different from the Bulgarian one; 2) the inevitable conclusion of the registered identity between the Gagauz and the Bulgarian folklore is interpreted as resultant from their long cohabitation; 3) more often than not the Gagauz folklore is presented as existing only in Tyurkish language; 4) often folklore in Tyurkish, Turkish and Tyurkish folklore are interpreted as identical. Other investigators present the Gagauz folklore as: 1) an immanent part of the Bulgarian ethnoculture; 2) created both in Gagauz and in Bulgarian, with the strong predominance of the latter; 3) related to particular domains where either the Bulgarian or the Gagauz language is predominant. Having in mind all that, a conclusion is drawn that the role of the investigator is extremely important in the process of investigation and presentation of the bilingual culture of the Gagauz. Especially underlined is the need to study the Gagauz folklore from a contemporary and nonprimordialist point of view.

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