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The article analyses the socio-cultural construction of the topic of menstruation in the period of state socialism. State power, institutions, biomedicine and the media intervene in the intimate sphere of women in order to promote their emancipation and full inclusion in the building of a socialist society. Through modernization, medicalization and control over bio-bodily functions, the socialist state attempts to improve women’s health and reproductive abilities, but also to manage and instrumentalize women’s role, behaviour and responsibilities to society. The research examines medical literature, publications in health and popular science journals, educational policy documents on the topic, and personal narratives of physicians, which show how the menstruating female body was turned into a problem not only in healthcare and health education but also in employment, education and demographic policies.
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The article examines the essence of (and life in) Home No. 8 for children and adolescents with mental disabilities in Sofia until the beginning of the 1960s. For this purpose, a microhistorical approach is used, based mainly on the documents from the archive of the home. Through a rare case of a pet who won the Toto 2, the daily life of the home for disabled children, the living conditions, the upbringing and education of the adolescents, and their participation in work activities and organized intertainment is presented. The question is raised about the reticenceof this type of institution in the period of socialism and the possibilities and ways of contact between them and the outside world.
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The child health care system during the Socialist period is the subject of a number of recent in-depth studies by Bulgarian historians, sociologists and anthropologists. Based on extensive research and knowledge of the variety of children/student/pioneer camps during the second half of the 20th century, this article aims to draw attention to the health camp. Situated as an organisation and normative basis between “public health care” and “communist education”, the convalescent camp with its history and functions reveals unexplored ethnological fields related to the individual–society–Totalitarian State relationship. The systematized and analyzed archival documentation provides grounds to look for parallels, both between the different political regimes in Bulgaria and in the value-normative order.
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This article analyses the efforts for establishing and operating the first elders’ care institutionsin Albania during the monarchical regime of Ahmet Zogu and the fascist occupation. Based on archival documents, a detailed description is given of the Albanian authorities' efforts to found a care institution for the elderly, of the taxes collected for this purpose, of the negotiations between the central and the local institutions during the process, of the justifications encouraging the payments of those taxes made by the state representatives. In addition, a comparative analysis is offered of the main dimensions of social care with the social care conceptualized and provided by the Albanian state. The concept of social care is broader than that only for the elderly, but in this article, only social care for the elderly is considered. The basic concept of the Albanian state is that the main provider of elders’ social care is the family. Only a few individuals, who do not have families or stable incomes, should be taken care of by the state institutions and their care would be paid through special taxes.
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The present text, the first parts of which are published in the previous two issues of “BulgarianEthnology” journal, presents the last, concluding part of an ethnological study conducted within the framework of an IEFSEM – BAS project and dedicated to an important and current problem in the post-Soviet space. It is about the ‘big all-Union’ topic of repressions and deportations in the former USSR, illuminated on the basis of the ‘small’, private example of a Bulgarian settlement in the Bessarabia region. The purpose and tasks of the study are aimed at revealing the main aspects of the collective memory of those deported in 1949 as a result of the collectivization in the then Moldavian SSR of 80 Bulgarian families from the village ofKorten (or Kiryutnia) and of their residence for about ten years in the Altai region of today’sRussia. The research is the result of the field ethnographic expedition conducted in the summer of 2021 in the town of Tarutino, Odesa region of Ukraine, where after the death of Y. V. Stalin and their subsequent rehabilitation, some of those people settled down to live, returning from the far northern lands in Bessarabia. However, those declared by the authorities as kulaks are not allowed to settle closer than 40 km from their native village and they choose as their newport the former German colony – well-known for them before the so-called lifting, i.e. before deportation, a market and business centre with the old name Chokrak.The main object of study in the first two and in the present last part of this text are the trajectories of memory about deportation, about forced migration and about the return from exile, i.e. for the return journey from Altai again to Bessarabia. The analysis text, built almost entirely from the author’s own field materials, aims to reflect the main points of reference, the accents in the memories, through which our interlocutors nowadays present and empathize with the events that took place in their childhood and youth years.
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The author tells about five of the most famous Samokov outlaws from the era of Ottoman slavery in the Bulgarian lands.
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Over the past century, the capital’s district Kniazhevo offers an opportunity to glimpse not only into the coexistence of the different ethnic groups of the young state of Bulgaria but also into the coexistence of the religions – the tomb of Bali Effendi and the church of St. Elijah. Here, struggles for supremacy take place in order to add value to the world and understanding.
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The research focuses on the sworn texts of secret organizations created in 1917–1929 to support the Bulgarian cause in Dobrudja that incorporate a Masonic formula for appealing for help.
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In the context of the history of poliomyelitis epidemics and the damage they have left behind, the article takes into consideration the development of the epidemiological situation in Bulgaria before and after the discovery of vaccines and the start of mass immunization. The main focus is placed on the institutions and the policies of the Bulgarian socialist health care system from the middle of the 20th century in regard to the control of the epidemic spread of the disease and the rehabilitation of the already disabled. The study is based on official documents from the state archives.
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„Crossroads images”, as Régine Robin called them, monuments are central to processes of appropriation or disavowal of the past, while preserving their status as symbols of identity for individuals, various groups, a city, and the nation. They are concrete images of the relation to the past of the community that builds and, sometimes, destroys them. They can also be vandalized when changes in society occur, especially during revolutions and coups d’état. After the fall of the communism, the fate of the monuments built during the old regime can be broken down into two contrasting categories: those illustrating communist ideological figures and symbols were dismantled; those representing national heroes, however, remained standing, becoming objects of new politics of memory. Furthermore, new personalities and symbols joined existing monuments as key individuals for post-communist national memory were commemorated: anticommunist fighters, members of the Romanian royal family, or interwar politicians. The accession to the European Union was also inscribed in Romania’s memorialization practices, as monuments dedicated to leading European figures have been erected.
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After the collapse of the Russian Empire at the end of the First World War and the accession of Bessarabia to the Kingdom of Romania, a large Bulgarian population found itself within the borders of this country. The census of the population in the Kingdom held on December 29, 1930 allows to trace certain aspects of the demographic development of the Bulgarians in Bessarabia. This article focuses on the quantitative growth of the Bulgarian population, the territorial distribution of Bulgarian communities and the level of urbanization of the Bulgarians.
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The article is dedicated to the resettlement of Bulgarians from Southern Bessarabia and Northwestern Bulgaria to Northern Azov (Northern Tavria) in 1861–1862 as an integral part of a broad multinational and multi-vector migration process in this region. The place of the Bulgarian element in the context of this complex migration process is outlined. A conclusion is made that as a result of this migration process a separate group of the Bulgarian Diaspora was formed – the so-called “Taurid Bulgarians”
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This text presents the women’s clothes of the Bulgarians in the settlements of Korten and Tvarditsa in Moldova in the period between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Two museum collections from the museums in the village of Korten and the town of Tvarditsa in Moldova are analyzed. In this study, the author seeks to answer the question of what did the Bulgarian women dress at that time and how did they do it. The reconstruction and interpretation of the data include the form, the structure and the terminology of clothing, as well as its constituent parts. The comparative-historical and systemic-structural analysis is applied, which allow to clearly reconstruct the idea of clothing of women from the Bulgarian settlements of Korten and Tvardica in Moldova on the boundary between the two centuries.Bulgarian women’s clothes in the settlements of Korten and Tvarditsa in Moldova
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In my previous announcements and publications, I have already paid attention to the expedition of the famous Bulgarian folklorist Rayna Katsarova in Dobrudza in the summer of 1944. The expedition is more deeply analysed in this article, the particular occasion being that after the finding of the file with the report by Rayna Katsarova about this travelling, I was happy to find her fieldwork records done in several living settings in Northeast Bulgaria: Balchik, Lyulyakovo, Dobrevo, etc. Their data is preserved in the Musical Folklore Archive of the Institute of Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. A specific focus of Rayna Katsarova’s expedition in Dobrudza is the Bulgarian newcomers from Tavria (region which at that time was situated in the Ukrainian SSR), who bear specific vernacular, traditions and folklore. Our big folklorist did not know at the time being that just in several months they would leave their metropolis. In about 2000 Tavrian Bulgarians were deported back to the USSR. In their turn, the Tavrian Bulgarians in Dobrudza did not know that the meetings with a scholar like Rayna Katsarova were a unique chance to leave to the next generation a record of a small part of their cultural memory, rites and musical folklore as a document for the development of their culture and ethnic identity in the conditions of the Second World War.
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The article examines the polemical anti-Latin writings “The Tale of how Rome fell away from the Orthodox Greek faith” (according to manuscript TSIAI 1161) and “Word of how Rome fell” (according to manuscript SANU 147) in the context of the theme of apocalyptic prophecies and the expectation of severe, but God’s just punishment for sins committed. A study of these short but message-laden late medieval texts reveals not only the perception of the conflict between East and West among ordinary people, but also the fear of catastrophic consequences for the world as a result of the violation of church tradition. The change of custom also implies an intervention in the plan of the Creator and changes in the physically visible and spiritual world.
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Results from an online research and observations of Bulgarian migrant communities’ organizations within and outside Europe due to Covid-19 pandemic. Main pillars are the 123 connections with the homeland, the hosting country, and with the local community, mechanisms for support, as well as forms of activities, festivity, and communal consolidation.
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