Маскарадът в Драмско

Author(s): Iglika Mishkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

Basing herself on field studies in the villages of Kali Vrissi, Volak and Petrusa in Drama Region in Northern Greece, the author reviews the current state of the masquerade, which now takes place regularly between 6 and 8 of January. Banned after World War II and restored in the 1960s, the masquerade is today a part of the cultural heritage but also a living cultural practice whose elements (rituals, masks and verbal communication) have undergone remarkable changes through the years. Being a cultural construction that points to the past and unifies the heterogeneous population in this border region, every year the masquerade recreates the present and addresses day-to-day issues. Although different in each of the three settlements, the masquerade is a social phenomenon everywhere: from a traditional holiday it grew into an act of diachronic community presentation. At the same time the roles of those taking part in the masquerade are perceived by the local people not as a brief change of identity but as a special status.

Medzi radnicou a kostolom: mestská škola v Bardejove v stredoveku

Author(s): Mária Fedorčáková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2017

This article describes the city school and education in Bardejov in the Middle Ages. The development of school and education in Bardejov was strongly connected to the local church. Despite the city’s governance under the school, the education remained religious and teachers associated with ecclesiastical authorities. As the author points out, relation between schoolmaster and parish priest was not always respectable. The article explores educational level, social background and geographical origin of the individual lectors. It focuses on the duties of students, especially within the liturgical life of the parish church. The role of the city and its contribution to the school is described on payments from the town account books.

Czechoslovakism in Mentalities of Košice’s Inhabitants and Its Implementation in the Public Space of the City in the Interwar Era

Author(s): Ondrej Ficeri / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 was refused by a large proportion of its inhabitants, mainly from the part of Czechoslovak Germans and Hungarians. Beside them, a certain number of Slovaks rebelled against the state project of Czech and Slovak political elites as well. Some of them preferred to remain in the frame of the historical Hungary because they shared with Hungarians for centuries transmitted cultural patterns and cultural repertoire, the use of which came by implementing the idea of Czechoslovakism to the threat. Rebelling attitudes against Czechoslovak statehood were registered especially in the ethnically heterogeneous regions and cities which were located in the contact zone between the territories with the majority Slovak population on the one side and the minority Hungarian one on the other. Analysing the archival documents, the author of the paper focuses firstly on reactions of indigenous inhabitants of Slovak origin of the city of Košice to the establishment of Czechoslovakia, secondly, on pursuits of the political elites to implement the Czechoslovak state idea in the public space of the city, its successes, failures and tensions between the Czechoslovak and Slovak (autonomous) camps of nationalists. Thirdly, the analysis of the electoral behaviour stands in the spotlight, according to which the majority of local indigenous Slovaks voted the oppositionist parties what indicates that, in the long term, the idea of the Czechoslovak state was refused by these inhabitants. The purpose of the study lies in recognizing differentiated attitudes of the Slovak interwar (mainly urban) society to the Czechoslovak statehood and, hence, in outlining an alternative story to the traditional, in the cultural memory reproduced narrative about the establishment of Czechoslovakia as a “national liberation”.

Založenie Východoslovenskej galérie v Košiciach

Author(s): Ján Kovačič / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2017

The East Slovak Gallery in Košice was founded in 1951 as the first regional gallery in Slovakia. The rich artistic past of Kosice and its cultural potential predetermined this town as the seat of the first regional gallery in Slovakia. Its genesis dates back to the second half of the 19th century, when the foundations of today's East Slovak Museum, a key partner in the building of the East Slovak Gallery, were laid. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive image about the foundation of the East Slovak Gallery using acquired knowledge, archival sources and period contemporary press.

Kronika

Author(s): Ondřej Jirásek,Adam Górka,Mikuláš Jančura,Martin Počátko,Lucia Tokárová / Language(s): Slovak,English Issue: 2/2017

NEPLÁNOVANÉ PLÁNOVANÉ MESTÁ [UNPLANNED PLANNED CITIES] BRATISLAVA 8. NOVEMBER 2017; VÝSKUM KULTÚRNYCH DEJÍN V STREDNEJ EURÓPE [CULTURAL HISTORY IN CENTRAL EUROPE : PRESENT STATE AND PERSPECTIVES] RUŽOMBEROK 7. – 8. SEPTEMBER 2017; VOLNÝ ČAS V DĚJINÁCH [FREE TIME IN THE PAST] OPAVA 26. SEPTEMBER 2017; JUHOSLAVIZMUS VERZUS ČECHOSLOVAKIZMUS: KONFLIKTNÉ DEJINY IDEOLÓGIÍ V STREDNEJ A JUHOVÝCHODNEJ EURÓPE [YUGOSLAVISM VERSUS CZECHOSLOVAKISM: THE HISTORY OF CONFLICTING IDEOLOGIES IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE] KOŠICE 4. OKTÓBER 2017; MEMORY IN URBAN SPACE: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF COMPARATIVE RESEARCH, KOŠICE 24. OKTÓBER 2017; WORKSHOP HISTORICAL TOWN ATLAS OF SLOVAKIA, BRATISLAVA 30. NOVEMBER – 1. DECEMBER 2017;

Лекционният курс по „потестарно-политическа етнология“ – перспективи и предизвикателства

Author(s): Petya Vasileva-Grueva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

The article presents to the audience the structure and thematic scope of the lecture course “Potestas-Political Ethnology”. The course aims to acquaint the students of Ethnology with the emergence, development and the subject of “Political anthropology” subfield discipline. There are distinct three thematic panels, presenting not only the historical and theoretical development of the science, but also attention is paid to the perspectives and the challenges facing both the lecture and the scientific field itself.

Новооткрити документи за историята на една 200-годишна църква

Author(s): Svetlana Muhova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

The year 2017 marks the 200th anniversary of the building of the “Dormition of the Mother of God” church in Koprivshtitsa. This important event of the town history was celebrated by a Jubilee Science Conference organized by The Directorate of Museums. The accent was placed on the local church history, which is so far insufficiently studied and popular. My participation in the conference gave me an occasion to share the result of my about four-year work on some documents saved in Koprivshtitsa’s museum archive. Among them, as the most significant and rich in information stands out the previously considered lost The Book of Account of the church, which contains accounting notes for the period 1815 – 1843. Along with it, subject of this article is another newly discovered document, specifically related to the history of the construction of the temple in 1817. It is The Book of Account of the churchwarden Gruju Popgenchovich.

Приемната грижа в медийното пространство

Author(s): Hristinka Basheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

The general aim of this article is to promote the idea and organization of foster care as a protection measure and social service as reflected by the media. The media plays an important role in introducing, popularizing and evaluating the foster care – showing examples of both „bad“ and „good“ practices. The positive direction it creates is to inform the public about the service by showing these practices. The negative direction, the sceptical thinking and even the denial of this new form of care for children in need and risk, which is still seeking its place in Bulgaria and worldwide, come from the media suggestions that the foster parents are living and often profiting on the back of the children.

Стари надгробни паметници от района на Судак, Крим

Author(s): Leniyara Dzhelilova,Akhtem Dzhelilov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2017

The paper presents the authors’ research on gravestones found in villages near Sudak. Most gravestones date back to the second half of 19th and early 20th centuries. Gravestones in the villages near Sudak have their own history. The most ancient one is dated by 1218 a.h./1802–1803 c.e., and the most recent one – by 1362 a.h./1943 c.e. The gravestones found in Khoz, Tokhlukh and Tarakhtash can be classified in three groups:1. Ancient gravestones;2. Fragments (remnants) of ancient gravestones; 3. Top parts of the ancient gravestones – fez, dal fez [turban], sarykh, fragments of an astrakhan cap.Crimean Tatar gravestones found in these three villages were made in pillar on in slabstone form. The face plate contains inscriptions, called epitaphs (from Greek έπιτάφιος – “specific of gravestone”). The other sides of gravestones contain engravings (decorations and drawings): the Islamic symbol of a star and crescent, Koran, ewer and plants, including fig-tree, six-petal flowers, etc.The tradition of Crimean Tatar gravestones, found in Khoz, Tokhlukh and Tarakhtash villages near Sudak, originated from Ottoman Turkey. There is also some similarity between the gravestones in Sudak and the thombstones from the Roman period on the territory of contemporary Turkey.

Една „неюбилейна“ конференция в чест на 140-годишния юбилей

Author(s): Tina Georgieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

Local Communities and the Social Involvement of the Ethnographic Museums

Author(s): Nikolay Nenov / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This text describes and problematizes examples of Bulgarian and foreign museums focusing on mechanisms of social involvement. Examples are united by an anthropological discourse which gives Bulgarian ethnographic museums an opportunity to expand the thematic issues of their exhibits and activities. Alternative ways to develop and use the museum as an instrument for social criticism are part of the quest of today’s ethnographic museums. At the same time, the author makes his bias towards the Ecomuseum format clear in the search for an ethnographic reading, showing that the establishment of these museums creates a connection between local communities and the museum, which makes it possible to share local identity with various audiences.

National Character and Folklore in the Distorting Mirror of Bulgarian Animated Cinema

Author(s): Nadezhda Marinchevska / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The article examines various interpretations of folklore elements in Bulgarian animatedcinema as well as authors’ personal generalizations about main features of theBulgarian national character and ethos in the period from the late 1940s to these days.In the 1960s, the process, which has begun in the framework of ideological censorship,Bulgarian folklore tradition included, quickly transformed into satirical film model aiming its criticism at the Bulgarian national character. This model was based on the unconventional visual representation of folklore through the modern graphics and caricature, through the grotesque and decorative drawing. The next stage of the transformation of mythological and legendary subjects in the 1980s was related to radical neo-vanguard practices in Bulgarian animated cinema, which compared Bulgarian tradition to foreign cultures and ideas on a global scale and in a wide range– from the direct parallels in art to the psychoanalytical interpretations visualized insurrealistic stylistics.After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, all aspects of Bulgarian culture experienced a crisis – institutional, financial, and artistic. One could expect that the abolishment of ideological sanctions would push artists to openly revive topics that were forbidden until then, to interpret plots from folklore that had been unacceptable until that moment, or at least would prompt a new understanding of the meaning of the national character, broadening the worldview from the 1980s. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort occurred.

Bulgarian Mosaic

Author(s): Rossitza Guentcheva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The article is dedicated to the travel notes on Bulgaria, Down the Donkey’s Path.Bulgarian Mosaic, written in 1978 in East Germany by the East German writer Kurt Bizalski and republished in 2001 in united Germany without any changes, explanations or supplements. Bizalski based the book on his experience in Bulgaria in 1977 when he paid an official visit at the invitation of the Union of the Bulgarian Writers.However, the Embassy of People’s Republic of Bulgaria in Berlin criticizes the travel notes, stigmatizes the author and recommends not to translate the book into Bulgarian.The Committee for State Security accuses the work in distorting the socialist reality and prevents its distribution in Bulgaria. This article presents Down the Donkey’s Path as a mobile book – restricted but not everywhere, prohibited but not completely,occupying the extra-national art space extended across the political borders within the socialist bloc from the 1970s and the 1980s. Analysing the author of travel notes as an anthropologist, Bulgaria as a field of research and the Bulgarian readers as a local critical public allows us to look at the problem of the relation between anthropology, literature and political censorship from another angle.

Amateur Football – Identity and Memory

Author(s): Iva Kyurkchieva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This paper analyses the role of a village near Sofia’s football tournament and the football museum established in that same village as specific times and places of memory.The author’s interest is provoked by the fact that football occupies a significant part of the living world of the bearers of that culture; it touches them emotionally and their experiences related to it are extremely important to them. Football gives meaning to their workdays and holidays and at the same time, it becomes a kind of regulator of neighbourly and village relations. It also contributes to the adaptation of young people into modern society. The football occupations of the local people seriously influence their social life. By means of football, they provide themselves with the components of their local identity construction, which increase communal confidence and differentiate them from others.

Gypsies in Ottoman Empire according to the 16th–17th Centuries Bursa and Balıkesir Shari’a Court Records

Author(s): Ömer Düzbakar / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2016

Various ethnical groups such as Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Assyrians who lived within the borders of the Ottoman Empire have been subjects to several researches. Unfortunately, the available researches done about the ethnical group called Gypsies are so few that they cannot even be compared to the researches available for other ethnical groups. The expression “Half Nation”, which is frequently used to identify the Gypsies who had been casted away from the society because of their life styles, is maybe the most important expression used to describe gypsies’ position in the society. This study, which is based on the 16th–17th centuries Bursa and Balıkesir Shari’a Court Records, aims to put forward the position of the Gypsies in the Ottoman society and the empire’s attitude towards the gypsies. I owe my thanks to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Abdulmecit MUTAF who helped me have access to Balıkesir Shari’a Court Records and to İsmail TORACI who shaped my research with his precious opinions.

Governing Catholic religious education in Italian state schools: Between the revision of the Concordat and social movements, 1974-1984

Author(s): Guillaume Silhol / Language(s): English Issue: 20/2017

This article focuses on the redefinition of Catholic religious education in Italian state schools, from compulsory religious instruction into a non-compulsory discipline of “religious culture”, by analyzing how the issue is framed and negotiated by political, religious and educational actors between 1974 and 1984. The negotiations between governmental and Church representatives in the revision of the Concordat led to attempts at a compromise on religious education, its regime and its guarantees for students’ choices. However, social movements and school reforms forced various actors and institutions to reframe it in non-confessional, pedagogical and professional terms in public arenas. “Religious culture”, as a category promoted by teachers and intellectuals, became both a social problem and the main justification for the ownership of the Catholic Church over the problem.

Konstytucyjna zasada oddzielenia państwa od kościoła w działalności Wydziału do Spraw Wyznań Urzędu Wojewódzkiego w Krośnie wobec Kościoła Katolickiego

Author(s): Konrad Dyda / Language(s): Polish Issue: 20/2017

The subject matter of this article is the analysis of the action of the Department for Religious Affairs in Krosno against the Catholic Church in the light of the constitutional principle about Church and State separation. The Constitution of the Polish People’s Republic of 22 July 1952 set forth the separation of Church and State (Art. 70, para. 2) and stipulated that the Church can freely carry out its religious functions (Art. 70, para. 1). This provision applied also to other religious associations. Under the constitutional law at that time, this freedom was understood as the freedom to proclaim doctrine, organize religious assemblies, provide ministry and teaching, establish religious orders, and maintain contacts with the believers abroad. The law was used to discriminate against the Church, which became a kind of standard. For example, legal measures, especially penal and administrative sanctions, were employed to block and restrict the construction of buildings used for religious purposes. The constitutional principle concerning Church and State separation was understood by the Department of Religious Affairs in Krosno as a total secularization of social life. For example, it was used to justify taking actions against the development of buildings used for religious purposes or against any pastoral activities undertaken by the Catholic clergy, especially concerning the youth ministry.

Между канона и традицията – локални версии на Мевлида сред турци сунити в Североизточна България

Author(s): Behrin Shopova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

Mevlid is one of the basic ritual complexes in the culture of the Turks in Bulgaria and is practiced by all Muslim communities. It is believed to be religious in nature and is an immanent part of the system of calendar and family rites. Mevlid first appears among Sufi Muslims, but soon becomes an element of the traditional Suni rites. The article follows the appearance and the diffusion of the rite and further compares Mevlid in mosque practice with its performance in the village tradition by revealing the specifics of the ritual as it is performed in the village of Gorna Hubavka, Targovishte region. The use of a text which differs from the conventional one, the appointment of specific months in the religious calendar for the performance of the ritual, the inclusion of authors songs not related to the Prophet, as well as the nature of the ritual stereotypes that are built form the local specifics of the ritual in the village. The analysis of the Mevlid and its particular local characteristics opens the possibility for the study of a very important aspect of the culture of the Suni in Bulgaria. It reveals the mechanisms of functioning of the so-called Balkan Islam which differs substantially from the high Islamic religious culture.

Тритомно издание за фолклора на българите в Албания

Author(s): Natalia Rashkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

Book Review

Национална научна конференция „Традицията в народната култура“

Author(s): Bilyana Popova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2018

Events