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Conversation between Dr. Anatoli Kanev and Prof. Dr. Miliyana Kaymakamova about Bulgarian history and role Politics played in different periods of it. There is one question to be answered and it is: How to make history "interesting" in suited in the modern society?
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Conversation between Dr. Anatoli Kanev and Prof. Ilia Todev about the role of historians and more specifically the history of Batak.
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This article presents the points of view from which interreligious relations in the Ottoman world have been approached in academic historiography, the frames of interpretation and concepts that have been used, and the critical reassessments and revisions that are currently underway. Conceptions about the position of the non-Muslims and the nature and forms of interreligious relations in the Ottoman Empire have changed perceptively over the last half century. The mosaic world of subjugated nations and self-governed religious communities (millets) that lived parallel and distinct lives gave its place, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, to the plural society of extensive interreligious interaction at individual or communal level. In tandem came the shift from an emphasis on the oppression of the non-Muslims to that on toleration. We are now in a new phase of revision which focuses on the forms, extent and limits of toleration and intercommunal interaction, and pays close attention to change over time.
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The present work is an attempt to broaden the biography of the autonomous individual. Contrary to the conception of the inborn sociality of a person that deprives him of his uniqueness and refuted by various manifestations of mental disorders, the idea of an individual way of life could explain some contradictions and paradoxes in his behavior. Being alone in nature and without physical contact with similar individuals, he had not only to develop and improve his sensitivity and the way of perceiving reality, but also to change the metabolism of his own organism. Losing instincts by changing connections with reality, he manages to turn objects into a source of information, providing him certain and safe means of survival. That information will became his personal environment unattainable for animals. An environment, which purpose is to function as an untouchable, invisible „territory“, i.e. as a consciousness.
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Under direct German influence, anti-Semitism and racism were imposed as a state ideology and policy in the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War, and thousands of Jews became victims of that. The lack of political opposition in the country turns the Catholic Church in the only opponent and corrective of the Holocaust. Since it could not protect all Jews whose destiny was decided in Berlin, not in Zagreb, the only realistic program of action of the Catholic Church was to at least champion for the Jews of mixed marriages, those who had adopted Catholicism, the children, the elderly people and others. As a result, many were taken to Dalmatia (in the Italian occupation zone) or outside the country.
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The article summarizes the factors that influence the emergence and development of American Studies in the United States and Western Europe. The author identifies key trends and themes that shape the character of the scientific discipline on both sides of the Atlantic in the second half of the 20th century, and outlines current trends and directions of its development at the beginning of the 21st century.
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There is one group of findings, discovered at the shrine of St. Atanas in village Spanchevo that includes anthropomorphic and zoomorphic repre¬sents made of mix of dirt (soil) and stones, known under the general term “figurines“.Such represents are characteristic of the Eneolithic period in Macedo¬nia and in the wider Balkan area. Alongside their aesthetic role, they also had a more practical and protective one; they protected the area, people, crops, fertility and good hunt, or to be more precise, they protected the core values from any kind of “evil“.Their undisputed cult affiliation is already accepted in science. How¬ever, we use basic comparative examples in the interpretation of their in¬sufficiently defined role, and we add the observations made on the choice of material and embossed decoration as an addition while trying to recon¬struct their ritual and magical meaning and the definition of the role they had in the community.In this presentation we will focus on the material, iconography and symbolism that is transferred by the figurines, using more sophisticated comparative examples preserved up till nowadays in the cultural group of the Shopi and the region they inhabit. We provide religious and ritual manifestations characteristic of the Shopluk region, in addition to previously confirmed magical-religious function of the figurines, despite the obvious temporal and cultural diversity. These similarities enable com¬parison of beliefs, symbols and images in cultures, which although differ in time, have geographical overlap.
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If examined in detail – by means of archaeological excavations plus objective dating techniques – аt least 20 Islamic burials (direct task of ethnology and archeology) they will create a database. A database can serve as an additional heuristic tool in the field studies (reverse task of ethnology and archeology) that aim to clarify the various ethno-confes¬sional processes occurred during the last seven centuries when the Islam attended the Balkans.
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If we observe classical art of Ancient Greece, we should know surely that for their creator is not art, including for those who contemplate it. For them all it is cosmogonic expression of ideas. The proposed text presents the opportunity to recover cosmogonic notions of traditional, non-literary communities through the plastic expression. In this sense, for traditional culture from antiquity to today’s it is better not to talk about art, but for the visual expression. By means of the plastic language may be bound the cosmogonic thinking with living antiquity and/or with the relict reality, and even with all substantial sources. The plastic expression gives opportunity for the expression of the cosmological structure stored in ethnical culture. Cosmological structure does not allow fully understand while attempting to do so. This kind of expression announce possible cosmogonic model, which also directly formed social interactions. In any sense, the Cosmogonic model is also mythological but the mythology is ideological system, and even we can feel some synonymity between mythology and ideology. Therefore, in principle it is necessary to have two main object for the study of the non-literally reality – the songs and customary-ritual com¬plexes, but only in their unity. This unity is embodied in ritual perfor-mances, whose elements are liable to analyzed. Through that rather analyze we can observe and the social interac¬tions.
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The paper analyzes the symbolic layers in the major commemorative ceremony in Bulgaria – the roll-call. It is divided in two parts. The first one (Bulgarian Ethnology,2018, no. 1) interprets the symbolic actions comprising the basic tools for producing ceremonial meaning: saluting and rendering military honors, ritual silence and lack of action, battle cry, ceremonial mise-en-scène (monument, guards of honor, etc.) – these are recognized as specific devices for removing symbolically the border between the living and the dead, between heroes and descendants. The second part examines the ceremonial scenario as a prospectively unfolding narrative – each symbolic action is interpreted as a successive move in the overall plot. This approach acknowledges that the ceremony is made up of three parts: preparatory, commemorative, and triumphal,whereas the scenario as a whole embraces the following logic: listing and honoring the heroes in the commemorative part is succeeded by their posthumous enwreathing and symbolic immortalization as stars in the night sky through the use of fireworks.
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Integration process in the region of East Asia is a relatively new phenomenon in comparison with Europe or America. The idea for deepening East-Asian regional cooperation emerged during 50s and 60s of XX century. Nevertheless, East Asian countries were not ready to take steps in that direction yet. Although a few South East Asian countries managed to establish in 1967 first successfully operating regional organization – ASEAN, real attempts for deepening regionalism and integration, including East Asian countries, appeared after the end of the Cold War. This study aims to outline Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul’s basic views on development of East Asian integration and to analyze similarities and differences between them. The study also attempts to explain what really prevents East Asian countries to achieve comprehensive and effective integration of the region.
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The author examines the South Slavic Boarding School in the town of Nikolaev under the direction of the Bulgarian Todor Minkov and reveals its contribution for the education and shaping of the Bulgarian national elite in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. From a statistical and historical perspective, he has collected and summarized valuable data on the biography, study and future professional realization of dozens of Bulgarians, many of which joint the intellectual and political elite of free Bulgaria.
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A major objective of this article is to reveal the essence of the concept of Bulgaria’s healthcare policy in the period from 1879 to 1912. It is based on a detailed study of the debates accompanying the preparation, discussion and adoption of all laws related to healthcare in post-liberation Bulgaria. Their analysis makes it possible to conclude that the formation of the basic concept of this kind of policy began already with the establishment of the first governing structures in the territories liberated by the Russian troops. At its core were the aspirations of the authorities to regulate all the necessary care that the state had to take to improve the health and to reduce the mortality among the population. It was of decisive importance for the realization of this process and for the gradual increase of the life expectancy of the population inhabiting the country.
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The present paper aims at research of relations between Assyria during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II and three Neo-Hittite kingdoms – Carchemish, Patina and Kummuhu, situated in North-western Syria and neighbouring parts of Turkey. The first part of the study is dedicated to the political events in the relations, marked by the campaigns of the Assyrian ruler in the first half of IX century BCE. The analysis here is based mainly on written sources – Assyrian royal inscriptions, which describe events in terms of campaigns, subjugation and tributes, received from Neo-Hittite kings. The second part of the study is dedicated to the cultural interaction between Assyria and the three kingdoms mentioned above, as result of their subjugation. Here the analysis is based on artifacts, mainly stone slabs with reliefs and some cylinder seals. Some new observations on the chronology of the monuments and their scenes are added, as also some new conclusions on the direction of influence in some artifacts and their elements. The question about the role of Assyria in the process of cultural interaction is especially discussed in the light of new observations. It is concluded, that the cultural interaction in this period is a bilateral process with long-term consequences in the art and politics.
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The five petal flower is not a simple decoration. It's an important heraldry. Looking at the old seal of Câmpulung, which, together with the seals of the cities of Baia (14th century) and Roman (15th century), are the only ones with a legend in Latin, we draw attention to a repetition - the presence of two times of the star and the semilune. The star and the crescent also appear on the coat of arms of Moldova. Next to these flowers with five petals. In order to find the meaning of the symbol, there are presented old and new examples of rosettes or flowers with five petals, respectively ten petals, if they are double lobes. The study looks at elements of architecture, urbanism and landscaping in setting up the whole area of Campulung with the two towers on which these flowers appear in stone sculptures, that of Negru Voda, the highest medieval center in Wallachia and SfGheorghe church potters. The location of these towers, taking into account the distances and landslides, reveals advanced astronomy knowledge. This type of construction and the tectonic discharge of the system, using semisferic arches and domes, leaving ample, free-at-ground ground voids, forming the triumph arcs, shows the personality of the imported rulers who ordered them. In the 14th century Câmpulung was the capital of Wallachia where, in 1352, it passed to the eternal, the Great Basarab I the Founder.
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The article describes the establishing of the first circle of Kabbalists in Salonica by two scholars who later laid the foundations of The Golden Age of Safed: R. Joseph Karo, whose Shulchan Aruch became the authoritative codification of Jewish law; and his companion, kabbalist and poet R. Solomon Halevi Elkabetz. While performing a mystical ceremony on the nights of Shevuot (Pentecost) of 1533, a prophetic voice was heard through R. J. Karo’s throat and mouth. The voice urged the companions to ascend immediately to the Land of Israel in order to redeem the Assembly of Israel and be redeemed from exile.Special weight is given to the messianic enthusiasm of the circle, and to their interpretation of the triumphs of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent over the Christian coalition led by Emperor Charles V as an omen to the fall of the satanic realm of “Edom” and as an encouraging step towards redemption.
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As a cosmopolitan port city imbued with various cultures in the Levant, Salonica took its share from the modernization efforts triggered with Tanzimat Period. By mid-nineteenth century, Salonica’s embankment and customs facilities were limited and the transport of goods was problematic due to limited access. Meanwhile, burgeoning trade activities as a result of Ottoman treaties granting special privileges to foreign tradesmen necessitated a comprehensive reorganization of the harbour area.This paper aims to study the urban and architectural transformation of the commercial centre of the city, with a special focus on the re-organization of the sea shore supported with new findings from the Ottoman archives. After its completion in 1882, Salonica Quay became the most prestigious area of the city, lined with buildings which represented the transforming socio-economic life. The urban transformation emerging from the quay area also reflected on the traditional commercial centre concentrating around Frank Street, where new types of commercial buildings started to appear.
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Scholars have relied upon diverse methodologies and sources to produce a new corpus of studies about Salonica’s Jews that explores the impact of the end of the Ottoman Empire and the consolidation of the Greek nation-state. Much of the newer scholarship, however, reinforces the perception that Salonica’s Jews experienced a period of “decline” after the city’s incorporation into the Greek state (1912 – 1913) that culminated in their deportation to Auschwitz (1943). This study investigates why such a lachrymose and teleological interpretation of Salonican Jewish history persists today. By reference to new sources and a different interpretive lens, this article also challenges conventional wisdom concerning key turning points in the narrative of the city’s Jews: a major fire (1917), a compulsory Sunday closing law (1924), and the first major act of anti-Jewish violence (1931). The article thus offers a new approach to assessing the encounters between the multiplicities of Jews in Salonica and the Greek state.
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This article is dedicated to the modernization in the Republic of Turkey that took place from its establishment in 1923 until the end of the 20th century. It analyzes Mustafa Kemal’s approach to modernization, which has imposed a radical separation with traditional Islamic values and Ottoman tradition. Despite the quick enactment of a European legislation and the restructuring of the country to a European model, the change in Turkish people’s identity has not been without difficulty. Alongside the introduction of a multiparty political system, the traditional Islamic values have made their way into the political scene, and shortly thereafter the Turkish army begins to intervene directly in political life as a guardian of the secular nature of the state, but at the same time undermines its democratic foundations. The movement toward a liberal political life during T. Özal’s administration has irreversibly shifted the direction of Kemalist Turkey’s development. The necessity of the merging of Islamic cultural identity with European values has sparked a public debate, marked by an uneven advancement, testing the country’s worldly stature.
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The text refers to “memory non-sites” scattered around Poland: empty plots of land, its past known only to locals. These are former concentration camps, mass graves, or kirkuts. History becomes a hypostasis here where palimpsest seems insufficient to describe their complicated nature. Detritus is also not an accurate notion. Recent developments in history may allow to see them as geological structures. Plaszow concentration camp will be a case study example. The author offers a metaphor borrowed from geology to describe its singularity: a prism. With this term she tries to analyse the nature of non-memory places as “refuse dumps” of “tectonic” forces of nature, history, politics, etc.
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