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The article discusses a few controversial ideas about the ‘essence’ of the Bulgarian nation. The foundation of the autonomous Bulgarian principality (1878) arouse the controversy between the ‘ethnic’ and the ‘civic’ perspective on the Bulgarian nation. This controversy is still actual in the Bulgarian public debates and influences the Bulgarian policy toward ethnic minorities and specific groups, such as Pomaks (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims) and Gagauz (Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians) who did not ‘meet the standard’ for the ‘real’ Bulgarians.
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The paper explores the general issue of how ancient and medieval peoples considered not to be ‘ancestors’ of modern nations are dealt with in academic and popular narratives created in different ideological environments in the 20th century. The case of the modern Romanian conceptual approaches to the ancient Greek inhabitants of the western shore of the Black Sea, particularly to those living in the city of Histria, is examined. These approaches are identified both in the academic works of the archaeologists who have directed excavations at the site since 1914, and in works for larger audiences, such as touristic guidebooks and school textbooks. The picture that emerges from this preliminary research of a rather limited amount of sources is that the West Pontic Greeks were generally perceived as foreigners in contact with the autochthonous Getae, ‘ancestors’ of the Romanians, according to the core of national ideology. Their status was ambiguous because, apart their foreignness, they were bearers of the highly appreciated Classical culture. Consequently, ideological approaches ranged from negative views that portrayed them as perilous exploiters of the locals to positive views that either emphasized their benign influence over the Getae or nationalistically appropriated their cultural achievements. Neutral academic approaches and quasi-complete popular ignorance in favor of the Getae and the Romans are also documented.
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The word “monastirya” is not just a dialect variant, meaning a place (an old place), relative to the knowledge of a monastery that existed or still exists. It has a generalizing emotionally-assessing aspect, regarding the place and the function of the religious Christian monastery in the local memory. The stress in it is the statement that these are monasteries from the age of the Bulgarian kingdom.The topos “monastirya” dynamically produces the process of the ethnic and religious identification and self-identification on the grounds of a particular cult. In this same sense, there is also a variant of designation not only of Christianity. Even places, related to the Islam and most often – tekkes – are also referred to as monasteries. The cult has specific dynamics in time and grows with numerous legends and traditions. They motivate its vitality in the past by the particular character of its realization in sites that have really existed and which, in many cases, have been obliterated in the real space. Nevertheless, even today they still have their place and vitality namely as knowledge.The information that has been preserved and the local knowledge about the Little Sliven Holy Mountain confirm the place and function of the topos “monastirya” in the cultural space. Today, it is the vitality of this knowledge that lies at the root of re-creation of sites which have once existed.
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The article comments the semantics and the functions of Thracian metal engravings in the collection of the Regional History Museum – Sliven, acquired predominantly throughout the study of some rich graves in the region of Sliven. Marriage is a form of transition from a particular social status to a different one. Through the marriage the hero joins the goddess and turns into a god-man – the highest position in society which is available only for the king. From ideological point of view wedding is a form of choosing of the ruler by the god. The ritual burial of female objects might be interpreted as a sacred symbolic signifier of a marriage between the diseased ruler and the Great Goddess. Its meaning implies the new birth of the ruler after his death. The elements of the opposition birth-death in the mythological consciousness are equal as elements of the general structure of the rites of birth, marriage, death. This is necessary in providing the main eschatological reason for the existence of the tomb as a cult building – to secure a new birth of the deceased ruler in the outer world.
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The current text examines the museum representations of Hadzhi Dimitar, Stefan Karadzha, Zahari Stoyanov and Panayot Hitov, whose life connects the areas of Ruse and Sliven. The research is based on observations over four house museums – “Hadzhi Dimitar” in Sliven, “Zahari Stoyanov” in Medven and in Ruse, and “Baba Tonka” in Ruse. These examples display ambiguous presentations of the heroes’ biographies, based on the availability or the absence of a memorial house to the character. The type of presentation is contextualized with the settlement’s history, which in this case appears as an environment for the “spiritual growth” of the hero. The absence of a memorial house leads to a fragmented presentation of the image, turning it into an addition to the main topic.
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During the twentieth century, the male dance verbunk in the village of Kóny, initially performed in traditional lad societies as part of the local heritage, became a staged attraction. Between the two world wars, the Kóny verbunk was performed in the village as a representation practice of the lad societies and, as such, besides maintaining the group identity, served to indicate the spatial segregation and social differences within the local community. The decade after the Second World War brought the socio-economic transformation of local society in line with national processes. The relational network on which lad societies had been based was suppressed. In the first half of the 1950s, along with the persisting practice of the lad guilds, the verbunk became increasingly a staged spectacle for the community. At the same time, it should not be ignored that, under the supervision of the local authorities, the phenomenon shifted from the framework of church holidays to the field of political celebrations.
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The article represents the folklore groups created in the second half of the 20th century. They allow for the local village tradition (preserved as a living practice of its bearers) to enter the local chitalishte. The analysis of the filed-work research in the villages of Bistritsa (Sofia City Municipality) and Alino (Samokov Region) reveals different aspects of the relation between chitalishte institution and intangible cultural heritage in the changing social and cultural contexts, as well as in relation to the changing cultural policies. Thus the article offers an anthropological point of view to the transmission of traditional knowledge, skills and experience in chitalishte environment.
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Poprelka in the village of Breznitsa, Gotse Delchev Region is an event deeply related to the tradition as far as its model and content are concerned, but at the same time it represents the contemporary condition of the local culture. This is the place for the performance of the well-preserved, “living” traditional musical folklore in the natural environment. The article is an attempt to typologize the intonational models of women two-part singing in Breznitsa, which is interesting because of the still existing specifics of the ancient musical thinking in the present. The scholarly research on which the article is based was provoked by fieldwork observation allowing for the accumulation of detailed knowledge about the processes of development and change thus functioning as a key to the understanding of the immanent specifics of the traditional Bulgarian culture.
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The article examines the Bulgarian political and ethnic presence in Thessaly during the Middle Ages. Thessaly is part of the early medieval Bulgarian Tsardom for short periods yet this helps to establish Bulgarian ethnic consciousness among part of Slavic population in the area. There are data in various sources for Bulgarians in Thessaly in the 11th – 15th centuries, who participate in local riots and internecine struggles.
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Ethnic entrepreneurship is a peculiar mechanism for manifestation of ethnocultural identity and a specific resource for the preservation of cultural heritage. The topic is relatively unexplored in Bulgaria but the authors have experience in its study in general. The article attempts to clarify the terminology related to the problem and systematizes and typologies the manifestations of Russian ethnic entrepreneurship in the country. Thus, on this basis as well as with the help of the fieldwork interviews and the research of Internet publications devoted to owners of various Russian entrepreneurial structures and their staff (Beryozka and similar retail stores as well as representatives of various types of individual businesses) the study searches for and finds (or does not find) manifestations orientated towards preservation of the Russian cultural heritage in the Bulgarian social environment.
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The Roma people joined the general migratory flows a bit later than the other ethnic groups; however, the mobility patterns and routes do not differ significantly compared to those of the rest of the population. For the Roma communities, this is one of the few opportunities for employment. For the present, the financial transfers help break the vicious circle of unemployment – poverty – lack of education in the sending communities, which circle many families have entered. Along with better financial security, migrants bring back new ideas and knowledge which stimulate social development in the encapsulated neighbourhoods. The crossing of the physical borders symbolically destroys the mental boundaries of the communities. The stress is put on the opening to the world which creates opportunities but leads to two main risks: complete dependency on labour mobility and loss of human capital(brain drain) in the Roma communities; this could hinder the processes of social development at a later stage.
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The article presents a case study of a particular part of the Bulgarian-North Macedonian border – the border regions of Petrich, Republic of Bulgaria, and Strumica, Republic of North Macedonia. The study is focused on the level of everyday experience. Its aim is to study how in their everyday life and transborder experience the people from the border regions adapt to the changing border regime and do this alter their“traditional” forms of contact. After the setting of a state/political border between the regions of Petrich and Strumica, the people adopt a pragmatic approach to this border and the life in the context of borderness. The pragmatism in the transborder contacts is not a particular form of relations rather one of their features which expends its range and significance in the course of time. The various layers of relations transform into tools for solving pragmatic issues in everyday life in the border regions, i.e. the pragmatisation turns into a peculiar form of adaptation to the border. At the same time, the pragmatic attitude towards the border rearranges to a certain extent the different layers of the traditional relations putting the family, kin, friend and cultural ties aside. Nevertheless, as long as they function as tools for solving pragmatic issues, they remain and revitalize.
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The text deals with the mutual influences – the infestations – between different parts of the world in the newer stages of its development. Answers are sought to questions from different levels of analysis: from the point of view of Bulgaria, as а former socialist state, whether for 28 years could be outdated the past nearly 45 years; from a global perspective, how the self-awareness of young states, former colonies, reflects on the general development of the world; from third part – can the historical justice be restored, and if the answer is positive – to what extent. "Where" in the subtitle refers to ideological, historical, value, self-consciousness and self-determination connotations.How does the colonial history of Western European countries relate to the present? How the filling of the white spots of the past is superimposed on the claims of (Western) Europe, which advocates the myth of itself as more civilized, more liberal, more tolerant. With a number of examples is argued the power of ideological influence, which is difficult to overcome by historical science and even more difficult by the media. The thesis is also about the "restoration of the historical justice".A little more than 25 years after 1989, we are trapped in a trap set by ourselves as humanity: against the backdrop of a suppressed and unknown history that has developed mainly Eurocentric to almost the present day, decades of strong ideological influences, controversial morality, wick allows a lot of money from western companies and individual PR consultants to work to polish the images of modern dictators – we cannot find out which news about / from the world are true and which do not.
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