Historical Future, 1997–2006
Историческо бъдеще, 1997–2006
Keywords: bibliography; Historical future
A bibliography of “Historical future” 1997-2006
More...
Keywords: bibliography; Historical future
A bibliography of “Historical future” 1997-2006
More...
Keywords: mental mapping; Eastern Europe; Balkans
The issue of mental mapping of Eastern Europe (Wolff 1994), posed during the Enlightenment, and the similar problem of the image of the Balkans as a periphery of Europe (Todorova 1997), are both multifaceted. This paper is dealing with just one of their various aspects – the image of the Balkans as seen from certain typical European view-points and reactions to that image in Bulgaria. The reactions to the images forged somewhere in “Europe” stem from two opposed attitudes, of acceptance and of rejection.
More...
Scientific Life
More...
The paper focuses on the role of Christian churches and religion among the Bulgarian emigrants in the UK for the practical and emotional integration of newcomers in the multicultural British society. The author shows how the Christian denominations are ethnically/ nationally bound by defining them as “Bulgarian“ and turning them into emigration institutions. Despite their positive role in the emigration process, the Christian churches have a dual significance for the Bulgarian community in the UK. Religion builds ethnic boundaries locking emigrants within (or perhaps trapping them) the “Bulgarian“ and deprives them of the possibility of social and cultural integration in Britain.
More...OUVRAGE PRÉCIEUX ILLUSTRANT LES RELATIONS BULGARO-RUSSES SOUS LE GOUVERNEMENT DE STAMBOLOV (Попов, Радослав . Русия срещу Стамболов или Стамболов срещу Русия . София 2000); WHAT IS IT TO BE A WOMAN AND A MAN IN THE BALKANS (Gender Relations in South Eastern Europe: Historical Perspectives on Womanhood and Manhood in 1 9 th and 20 th Century, Belgrade–Graz 2002); Crampton, R. J. THE BALKANS SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR. London–New York, Longman, 2002; Първанова , Зорка . МЕЖДУ НЕОСЪЩЕСТВЕНИЯ ХЮРИЕТ И НЕИЗБЕЖНАТА ВОЙНА . София 2002; Стоилова Тамара . ТРЕТИЯТ РИМ . МИРНИТЕ РЕШЕНИЯ НА РУСКАТА ИМПЕРСКА ПОЛИТИКА В ЮГОИЗТОЧНА ЕВРОПА ПРЕЗ Х V ВЕК . София 2001; Мутафова , Красимира . СТАРОПРЕСТОЛНИЯТ ТЪРНОВ В ОСМАНОТУРСКАТА КНИЖНИНА Х V-Х V В . В . Търново 2002; Фотић , Александар . СВЕТА ГОРА И ХИЛАНДАР У ОСМАНСКОМ ЦАРСТВУ Х V-XV ВЕК . Београд 2000; Response to the review by Nikolai Aretov on the book “St Mount Athos and the Bulgarian New-martyrdom” (Sofia, 200 ) by Konstantinos Nichoritis*; THE BALKANS: Mapping Identities (8 TH - 2 ST C.) First International NEXUS Conference (Sofia, 18-20 October 2002); SECOND INTERNATIONAL TURKOLOGICAL SYMPOSIUM MOSTAR – 2002; ANNIVERSARY OF THE OUTBREAK OF THE BALKAN WAR; JUBILEE CONFERENCE ON THE EPARCHATE OF VARNA AND PRESLAV; A CONFERENCE ON ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE BALKANS Mont Athos et de Chilandar. Vesko Obreshkov
More...
This text discusses the activities of the Department for Macedonian-Balkan Literary- Historical Relations which was established in 1989 at the Institute for Macedonian Literature, Sts Cyril and Metodij University of Skopje. It analyzes the work of the Department that consists of project researches on the contacts and the relations between the Macedonian and the other Balkan literatures, and the points of contact between the Balkan literatures on typological, literary-historical and ideological level, as well as of the aspects of the cultural pluralism and the intercultural connections in Balkan literatures.
More...ВЪПРЕКИ РАЗΛИЧИЯТА: ИНТЕРКУΛТУРНИ ДИАΛОЗИ НА БАΛКАНИТЕ; Aretov, Nikolay (ur.), Akademično izdatelstvo „Prof. Marin Drinov“, Sofija, 2008.
More...
Keywords: Joseph Conrad; Bulgarian critical reception; migrant writer
This article examines the trends in Bulgarian critical appraisals of Conrad’s writing and the transformations they have undergone over the last hundred years. Though few in number, these appraisals are nevertheless profound and perceptive, keeping in focus the most essential messages of Conrad’s works, as well as the facts of the author’s remarkable life. The scope of these critical endeavours has long been of a rather limited nature, but in some of the articles there has definitely been a noticeable trend towards a monographic approach. The growing fascination with Conrad in Bulgaria became particularly evident during the celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The Polish Institute in Sofia contributed significantly to this event, organizing university lectures and film projections – not only in the capital, but also in other parts of the country. In addition, the Warsaw 150th anniversary exhibition entitled “Twixt land and sea” was invited to Sofia (the co-author of the present article being one of those who took part in the opening ceremony). This heightened interest in Conrad – the man and the writer – is partly the result of current trends towards intensive cultural interaction and also a growing fascination with migrant writers coming from multicultural backgrounds. It may well be that these recent developments have contributed to the publication of two monographs on Conrad: Stefana Roussenova’s comparative study entitled Dialogues in Exile: Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, Eva Hoffman (2010) – which addresses the problems of exile and migration in some of Conrad’s works – and Margreta Grigorova’s monograph entitled Joseph Conrad – the Creator as Seafarer (2011), which not only reviews the seminal achievements that have contributed to the expansion of Conrad studies in Bulgaria, but also builds on them and takes them to completion.
More...
Keywords: personalism; collective identity; Byzantium after Byzantium; morphology of history; conservative avant-garde; Bulgarian intellectual culture 1919–1944
In this paper I investigate the compatibility between personalist philosophy and the Bulgarian identity discourse between the two World Wars. Having outlined the variability and conceptual tensions (on “collective personality,” e.g.) within Russian and French personalism(s) of the 1910s-1940s, I delineate four prerequisites for emerging and adopting personalism in interwar Bulgaria: (1) the post-idealist crisis of identities and identifications; (2) the reception of foreign personalist (or close to such) philosophy; (3) the reassessment of “home” (East-Christian) theological tradition and its philosophical implications; (4) the discovery of someone “other” needed worthy of being recognised as (collective) “Thee.” Postponing the exploration of the third prerequisite for a subsequent study, I conclude so far that within interwar Bulgarian secular thought only random juxtapositions between personalism and identity discourse can be expected, and I examine three such cases.
More...
Keywords: Greek Language; Bularian Language; Transfer of Knowledge; Modernization; Economic Life;
Abstract: The purpose of this text is to present several exemples of the Bulgarian history that reveal the role of the Greek language in the transfer of knowledge concerning economic life and its importance for the modernization processes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I comment on the use of Greek as a vehicle for knowledge in the field of commerce and I retrace the penetration of double-entry bookkeeping and the knowledge in commercial epistolography and geography, closely linked to commercial activities. The analysis of the correspondence of Bulgarian merchants of the 19th century reveals the current use of this language in trade, even after the cooling of relations between Bulgarians and Greeks during the second half of the 19th century due to the incompatibility of their national programs.
More...
Keywords: bilingualism; diglossia; multilingual environments; Teodor Kasap; Shutosh; Petko Slaveykov
Residing within the confines of the multi-cultural and multi-lingual Ottoman Empire Bulgarians spoke and wrote in different languages, depending on the type of communication and the audience. This paper presents several examples of Bulgarian enlighteners from the 19th century who used a language other than their own native Bulgarian. Shutosh was a comic newspaper, published in Istanbul in the 1870s. It was the Bulgarian version of a periodical owned by the Greek Teodor Kasap. Almost all publications in the newspaper were either anonymous, or signed with pen names. Large parts of them were translations, but neither the names of the authors, nor the translators were mentioned. One such translation was in fact an adaptation of Voltaire’s Zadig ou la Destinée. This article traces the history of that newspaper and presents some of its publications that have to do with literature.The observations lead to the conclusion that there was considerable multilingualism among Bulgarians in the mid-19th century. There were some multilingual periodicals, and there were texts published in languages other than Bulgarian and Greek. After the establishing of the new Bulgarian state (not so much in Eastern Rumelia), the trend changed and the Bulgarian language gained its high status and almost monopoly position, as well as the status of a lieu de mémoirе.
More...
Keywords: Liberation; Bulgarian literature; hygienе; prevention; epidemics; health laws
This text aims to present the way in which hygiene and prophylaxis have been conceived in Bulgaria after its Liberation: both as a problem of the newly emerging state and of the Bulgarian literature. After the Liberation in Bulgaria, hygiene and disease prevention have been as important as the construction and functioning of the state. However, health laws, projects, reports have proven unable to change the sanitary and hygiene conditions of life in the state, nor the mentality of its citizens. From this point of view, it is possible draw comparisons with other peoples and countries’ experience, mainly with a view to unifying certain documents. At the same time, in social terms, it is not just a delay we can identify but a lag behind developed countries. Institutionalisation after the Liberation, which also forms part of the sphere of healthcare, can be accepted as a contentious issue as it may be interpreted as a rapid course of external imposition or as a set of concepts and practices against the slow pace of internal change. If non-fiction texts insist on the need for hygiene and prophylaxis, then in literary texts these problems fail to turn into ‘events.’ Commenting on some hygienic and prophylactic practices, Bulgarian literature actually deals in most cases with other things (about what happens to the national body, the socio-economic, political and moral shocks that shake the ‘new earth’), a context in which different moral, ethical and societal problems are encountered.
More...
Content of the main Bulgarian scientific journals for the current year in linguistics, literature, history, folklore, ethnography, archaeology and art studies
More...
Keywords: righteous living; earthly joys; typological parallels; Boccaccio; Elin Pelin
The present text tries to compare two seemingly quite different works – the emblematic Renaissance collection “Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio and the original Elin Pelin’s collection “Under the monastery vine”. The original idea of this study was to compare the image of the clergy, but a closer reading revealed other possible typological parallels between the works. This is why, similarities will be sought in a broader sense – in the existential questions posed, in the human measure of good and evil, righteous and sinful, in the author's concepts of love and happiness, in the search for a lesson through moral examples.
More...
Keywords: Balkans; Orient; Occident; stereotypes; cultural identity
This article is, formally speaking, an attempt to show a diversity of theories, opinions and thoughts about the Balkans, primarily as a cultural category, and to picture a position of “Balkanism” as a concept in contrast to Orientalism and Occidentalism. Before going into that, we present definition(s) of Orientalism and Occidentalism and how these terms were or were not applied to different Balkan countries through history, especially Bulgaria. Throughout the text we point to several (possible) analogies, related problems and concepts from different areas, such as psychoanalysis, philosophy and anthropology, in order to show how cooperation between different areas can be beneficial for a better understanding and picturing of certain – more or less – controversial topics.
More...