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Heracles was a popular figure in the antique and barbarian art, first of all in the art of Scythian and Thracian periphery of the antique world. In the Scythian area he was interpreted as a forefather of the Scythes by the Greek masters (dressed in the Scythian manner), in Thrace (Rogozen) they used the antique motifs. The motif of marriage (sacred marriage) of the hero as forefather was the most essential in the local Barbarian traditions. During great migrations the barbarian art became mainly nonfigurative, but some items survived the old antique (Byzantine) traditions. The mount of scabbard from Grinev (Ukraine) first centuries A.D. with a beast fighting snake, gryphon, sacred marriage and hero-horsemen is one of the most ancient examples of the tradition popular among the German tribes. The similar motifs one can see on the Avarian tongue-piece of the belt from Dolné Dunajevice (8th century): a beast (boar?), sacred marriage, fighting of a hero with the beast (centaurs or lion), hero alone with a skin and club. J. Dekan interpreted the composition as manifestation of Heracles’ heroic deeds: boar (killed by the hero), struggling with Hippolyte, queen of the amazons, killing of centaur. These pieces of the barbarian art are the unique witnesses of the survival of the antique tradition in the Dark Ages: once again Heracles’ theme became popular in the Romanesque and Byzantine art in the 11th – 12th centuries.
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The idea of erecting monuments dedicated to the heroism of Bulgarian soldiers on the battlefield assumed its place in Bulgarian public thought from the very beginning of military action in 1912. The majority of Bulgarian soldiers killed were buried outside of the country’s territory. Due to the impossibility of repatriating their remains to Bulgaria, monuments built in their home cities or towns became the place for honoring the dead and their heroism in the name of the homeland. Before the Ministry of War undertook the construction of memorials to Bulgarian soldiers, this duty was performed by friends and family, as well as by local comrades who had also served in the same regiments. Most of the early memorials are the work of local stonemasons. They are reminiscent of gravestones, although they are not always located in the graveyard, but rather are within the village limits, and in some cases even in the central square. Monuments erected in church yards are the most numerous, as a result of the initiators’ understandable desire for the monuments to be located in a frequently visited place. A smaller number of memorials are located in school yards. The courtyards of army bases offer another place with great potential. Some of these early memorials were built within the confines of village graveyards, where they are more akin to a symbolic mass grave rather than a memorial to heroic events. The initiators agitating for the creation of memorials dedicated to Bulgarian soldiers were usually local committees and associations. They gathered funds via donations or secured volunteer labor. Even before the end of World War I, the Ministry of War created a mechanism within its organizational teams to guarantee that proper respect was paid to those who gave their lives on the battlefield. In 1914 as part of the Active Army Staff, a Military Historical Commission was created, whose task it was to collect documents and to write the history of the wars. Following a decision by the Army Staff in June 1917, the Department for Researching, Organizing and Decorating Military Graves of Those Killed on the Battlefield or from Wounds and Illnesses Resulting from Military Service was created. In 1927, the commission began publishing the periodical the Military Historical Journal, and in 1931 the Department for Military Museums, Monuments and Graves was also added to implement control over and to direct the practical activities connected with the creation of military monuments in Bulgaria until the very end of the Second World War.
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This article provides an overview of some key themes pertinent to the study of contemporary European cinema. It focuses on the cinematic reaction to the political and economic integration of Europe and to the recent trends in globalization. Combining artistic analysis with considerable attention to political and social context, the essay interprets the recent developments in European cinema, highlighting its transnational and cross-cultural structures, influences and themes. The text demonstrates that in an era no longer marked by the sharp divisions between nation states in Europe, European cinema must be factored into the increasingly hybrid notion of transnational cinema. Thus, the issue of European identity and its representations in cinema is related to the debates over cultural plurality and diversity, and to the hybridizations of the national formation. The paper provides an over- view of recent European films that fashion their narrative to more then one national or cultural community and reflects on the impact of new media technologies in an increasingly interconnected world. I demonstrate that the crossing of borders generates significant shifts in both the aesthetics and the ethics of European cinema as a representational art, and that this crossing enhances the understanding of how transnational European films help shape a new sense of multiculturalism.
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On the eve of the political changes that gripped Bulgaria on September 9, 1944, the National Theatre found itself in a situation showing all the signs of a crisis, primarily in terms of directing. The repertoire during several subsequent seasons in the beginning of the 1940s, which was a combination of esteemed classical plays and every-day pieces, indicates the exhaustion of criteria and ideas about staging, as well as the drop in artistic creativity. The theater had begun moving without clear orientation, while the engines behind the movement itself had lost their strength. This created anticipation for change within the theatrical organism. The political upheaval of the fall of 1944 brought about change. But was it really the change that had been anticipated? After the end of the Second World War theater all across Europe was gripped by the process of change in the field of ideas, as well as in the sphere of formal expression. The change that was specifically imposed on the National Theatre was achieved through strong pressure of a political nature and was directed towards not only mastering repertoire with a new content, but also in renewing the means of expression. The new government assigned theater the task of adhering to the norms of socialist realism in its orienting activity. Efforts to fulfill this requirement dominated the following several decades and became the fundamental problem of directing at the National Theater. Due to a series of objectively occurring circumstances, theaters in the provinces turned out to be unprepared to immediately join in the emerging process of change. In the first place, it was necessary to strengthen the institution of the director, since there was relatively stable directing staff in only a few of the theaters in the larger cities. While at the National Theatre „director-style“ performances had already been established for more than a decade, in provincial theaters „actor-style“ directing still dominated. Thus, overcoming this style of directing and the type of performance connected with it became the primary task of the changes.
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The Sofia Archaeological Museum is holding in storage an icon of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child and saints, whose origins are unknown. The icon is signed ηχρισομαγγούρτιοτισα, an unusual epithet – this text is dedicated to deciphering this signature. In the upper portion of the visual field, the Virgin is presented to the waist, holding the Christ Child in her left hand. The lower por- tion shows St. George on a horse, St. Char- alampos and St. Stylianos, who is holding an infant, and St. Demetrius on a horse. The icon’s relatively small dimensions and the choice of images indicate that it was likely created for a domestic iconostasis. The icon painter’s name is not known, but his icons are known along the southern Black Sea coast – from Nessebar to Tsarevo and in some of the towns in Strandzha – and date from the final years of the 18th century to the second decade of the 19th century. The icon in question should be dated roughly to the beginning of the 19th century. Its origins can be ex- plained by the existence in Sozopol of a Chapel of the Virgin Mary Chrysomagriotissa. An analysis of the epithet – Our Lady of the Golden Coin – indicates the possibility that the icon from the Archaeological Museum could be a reproduction of a miracle-working original. The text notes examples of miracles in which the Virgin gave someone a coin or helped him discover a treasure, which was usually used to build a chapel in her honor. The chapel in Sozopol was built in the 20th century on older foundations and does not contain old icons. In the city the legend of the Virgin’s miracle has been completely forgot- ten, but a series of circumstances confirms the likelihood that the chapel had contained a miracle-working icon.
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The face of Young Bulgarian theatre today is defined in large part by a few directors who debuted and played key roles in the appearance of new tendencies and forms of theatrical practice during the 1990s: Galin Stoev (b. 1969), Yavor Gardev (b. 1972), Marius Kurkinski (b. 1969) and Elena Panayotova (b. 1968). Their work in recent years is clearly influenced by their successfully staged productions from this period. At the same time, in their work there also distinctly exists tension caused by the interaction of their own personally inherited ideas and means with the cultural and theatrical context of the first decade of the 21st century as a whole and, in part, in Bulgaria. While they were categorical representatives of postmodernism during the beginning of their careers in the 1990s, today all four directors in one way or another have grappled with new cultural developments and transformations. During the period of their appearance and establishment, they gave themselves over to the hedonistic delight of playing with quotes and references, affected by the belief of the 1990s in the inorganic compatibility of all theatrical traditions, styles and languages, as well as all cultures. Today their work is heavily influenced by the complexity of the contemporary cultural situation and by the changes that have taken place in spiritual attitudes. In the last decade these changes have led to the creation and wide distribution of the theatrical niche as something that happens as an experience in real time for the actors as well as for the public. Most of the performances created by the leading young directors in contemporary Bulgarian theatre gravitate around precisely this type of theatrical practice. The crucial moment here is that while orienting themselves in one way or another towards performance as an experience in real time, each of them retains to a significant extent the expressive means and staging strategies that were their trademarks in the 1990s. This is the reason why today when we examine the landscape of Bulgarian theatre, we can immediately distinguish the territories they have „marked off“: Galin Stoev’s energetic interdisciplinary performances; the works of Yavor Gardev, which are conceptually interwoven into the theatrical space; Elena Panayotova’s skilful mix between dramaturgical text and physical theater; and Marius Kurkinski’s effective literary performances for a single actor.
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