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The objective of this paper is to present an interesting example from Bulgaria – the Rhodope Mountains, which abound in visible and invisible boundaries. The paper focuses on the cultural elements which are selected by the communities as identifiers to distinguish themselves from others. The three basic ethno-religious groups inhabiting the mountains (Turks, Muslim Bulgarians, and Christian Bulgarians) possess a complex of cultural characteristics including language, names, self-identification, marriage patterns, traditional and ritual systems, religious affiliation, clothing, and so on, which are instrumentalized with the objective of achieving closer relations or drawing dividing lines between different communities. The process of the eradication and establishment of new boundaries is especially dynamic with regard to Muslim Bulgarians. They perceive themselves as a boundary community, and in fact they are regarded as such by both Christian Bulgarians and Turks. In their attempts to overcome that border situation, the middle and younger generations of Muslim Bulgarians in the Middle and Eastern Rhodopes have started to express a Bulgarian identity more frequently. The elder Muslim Bulgarians in the regions of Gotse Delchev, Madan, and Rudozem, as well as the younger ones, place their Muslim belonging more frequently at the center of their personal and group identity, which finds expression in the drawing of cultural boundaries to distinguish themselves from members of the other groups.
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The focus of the article lies on the interpretations of folklore elements in the Bulgarian animated cinema as well as on the rationalization of main features of the Bulgarian national character in the period from the late 1940s to the present days. In the 1960s, the process which has begun with the ideological censorship of the Bulgarian folklore tradition quickly transformed into satirical film model directing its criticism on the national character of the Bulgarian. This model was also based on the nontraditional visual representation of the folklore through the modern black and white drawing and caricature, through the grotesque and the decorative drawing. The next stage of the transformation of fairy and mythological subjects was related to the radical neo-vanguard practices in our animated cinema which compared our tradition to foreign cultures and ideas on a global scale and in wide range – from the direct parallels in art to the psychoanalytical interpretations visualized in surrealistic stylistics. The last 25 years marked a peculiar identity crisis of the Bulgarian artists. The changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall created certain fear in the artists to turn to the rationalization of the national origin and character.
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This paper examines Corsican and Romanian traditions of mountainous shepherds in the context of the magic quest for milk. This quest is narrated in the tales and in the legends and it is embodied by the magic traditional characters as Corsican Salamone and Romanian Solomonar. Corsican Salamone would like to be the magic specialist of the brocciu’s creation and fabrication. But he can’t. Why? We will try to answer to this question. The brocciu is Corsican typical cheese. Solomonar is a Romanian weatherman who requests for the eggs and for the milk in his village. Why? We will try to answer to this second question. Finally, both characters Salamone and Solomonar are a re-appropriation of the famous mythical character in the Grimoires books, Solomon. This comparative research aims to understand his symbolical role in this ritual quest transformed in the popular narrative tradition.
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This article discusses the culture of shaming – a perspective that appears where modernizing discourses on Polish society are confronted with the cultural experiences of villagers. Rakowski explores several possible ways of going beyond this perspective, referring, in turn, to the world of rural social subjectivity as it emerges from artistic and ethnographic projects, the conditions of belonging and the possibilities of performing an ‘inward turn’ in situations of intersocial encounter, and the potential to construct an alternative understanding of society – a proto-sociology. Thus artistic projects are linked with what is ethnographic and current, and above all with the possibility of an alternative social history shaped by rural communities.
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The article examines the ambivalent attitude and reactions to technology as exemplified by the female robot in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and analyzes the functions and mechanisms of mythological reenactment of the witch figure in the culture of modernity. It discusses the movie’s symbolic representations of technological progress and its perils, as well as its ethics and gender politics.
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In this article, I analyzed the discourses devoted to the Macedonian national hero, Todor "Toše" Proeski. This twenty-six-year-old singer and star of the Macedonian pop scene with the day of his death became the greatest national good of the Macedonians. The social image of Proeski is constructed at every level of public discourse (from popular culture to high culture) and by almost all its participants, both those privileged (clerics, journalists, intellectuals and politicians), as well as "ordinary" citizens. In the methodological concept used by me, Proeska was treated as an example of the "emblem of nationality", in other words as „national form of representation". These "emblems" or "forms" allow individuals and groups to identify with the "imagined community" and legitimize the concept of the nation.
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The paper addresses the question of the origin of the nation, its genesis and development. There are two alternative perspectives on the origin of the nation: а) the nation is somebody’s construct or б) the nation appears naturally. Thus, in general, the ethnologists are divided into a) „construc¬tivists“, who believe that the nations were created, constructed by some¬one, for example by the elites, and b) „primordialists“, who believe that the nations appeared by themselves if there are beneficial circumstances, such as the developed technological and public structures. According to the author of this paper, the nation is one of the stages of the life of the ethnos and the nation may be outlived by the ethnos, while the ethnos will continue its existence in a „postnational constellation“. The analysis 39 of the statistical data from the census of Bulgarian citizens from 1992, 2001 and 2011 show numerous groups that identify themselves as other from the main „ethnic groups“, but they were denied the provision of eth¬nic self-identification. According to data of the Director of the National Statistical Institute, 9% of the Bulgarian citizens did not answer volun¬tarily the question of self-determination on ethnicity. According to the census of 2011, these people were 102 695 or 1.46% and were therefore denied „ethnic self-identification“. Thus, at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the dominance of the constructivist theory leads to the destruction of the notion of „ethnos“ and its arbitrary and chaotic replacement with „nation“ takes place. This situation leads to terminological confusion and theoretical frustration. And accordingly, the complete bankruptcy of the doctrine of „ethnic self-identification“ is predetermined: it appears to be useless both for academic analysis and for the needs of the state government. In appendices I, II and III are presented three “primordialists’” concepts ofthe nation: by Joseph Stalin, Lev Gu-milev, and Todor I. Zhivkov.The paper addresses the question of the origin of the nation, its genesis and development. There are two alternative perspectives on the origin of the nation: а) the nation is somebody’s construct or б) the nation appears naturally. Thus, in general, the ethnologists are divided into a) „construc¬tivists“, who believe that the nations were created, constructed by some¬one, for example by the elites, and b) „primordialists“, who believe that the nations appeared by themselves if there are beneficial circumstances, such as the developed technological and public structures. According to the author of this paper, the nation is one of the stages of the life of the ethnos and the nation may be outlived by the ethnos, while the ethnos will continue its existence in a „postnational constellation“. The analysis of the statistical data from the census of Bulgarian citizens from 1992, 2001 and 2011 show numerous groups that identify themselves as other from the main „ethnic groups“, but they were denied the provision of ethnic self-identification. According to data of the Director of the National Statistical Institute, 9% of the Bulgarian citizens did not answer voluntarily the question of self-determination on ethnicity. According to the census of 2011, these people were 102 695 or 1.46% and were therefore denied „ethnic self-identification“. Thus, at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the dominance of the constructivist theory leads to the destruction of the notion of „ethnos“ and its arbitrary and chaotic replacement with „nation“ takes place. This situation leads to terminological confusion and theoretical frustration. And accordingly, the complete bankruptcy of the doctrine of „ethnic self-identification“ is predetermined: it appears to be useless both for academic analysis and for the needs of the state government. In appendices I, II and III are presented three “primordialists’” concepts ofthe nation: by Joseph Stalin, Lev Gumilev, and Todor I. Zhivkov.
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The text raises the important question about the authenticity of the folklore legends about Tsar Ivan Shishman in the Samokov region.
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The poem “Cyril and Methodius”, more commonly known as “Varvi, Narode Vazrodeni…” was written in 1892 by Stoyan Mihaylovsky in Ruse. Before starting work as an Associate Professor of Literature at Sofia University “St. Clement of Ohrid”, he used to teach at the high school in Ruse, which is exactly where, on 15 April he wrote the fourteen verses and sent them to Dr. Krastev. The latter then published them in book no. 9–10 of the “Misal” magazine. The text of the hymn may seem pretty familiar to us, and maybe exactly because of this, we do not pay enough attention to the cultural connotation of the images of St. Cyril and St. Methodius in it. And the connotation is rich and intentional. The current research aims at trying to decode it and find out why exactly the images of the two first teachers are always a support in Bulgarian mentality.
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In a critical situation the hero is in an arid mountain and wants to cut the head of his horse and drink its blood. The historical roots of the song represent fragments of the New Year‘s mythological complex associated with the rituals of killing a holy horse and initiation and marriage of the shaman-like priest. The calendric-astronomical basis of the motif is associated with two New Year‘s transitions – in the beginning of March (by the course of the Moon) and at the end of April and the beginning of May (by the course of the Pleiades).
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A variant of interpretation of the folklore biography of the place Zhelyovi kamani near the village of Orizari in the region of Tvarditsa is submitted with a view to the opinion about the folklore biography of the place as a main topos with centre-organizing functions in the settlement space and an active participant in the construction of the settlement biography. The affair in question is the attitude to this biography, motivated through myths, legends, traditional ritualism in the local knowledge. It is expressed in the active appreciation towards the inherited knowledge and its own interpretation of its aspects even “faking” of the contents through the view of a local resident.
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The instrumental Macedonian ethnopop music is particularly interesting phenomenon because of its development and prolonged existence in conditions with persistent internal influences of the social and economic environment, but also external influences from the neighboring and distant music cultures. These influences have determined the way of the creation of this music and its final musical products. Regarding the fact that the instrumental Macedonian ethnopop music had its peak especially in the 1980ties, the subject of interest in this paper will be the musical pieces from the mentioned period. Also, a special at¬tention will be dedicated to the creativity, in other words to the process of creation of the instrumental Macedonian ethnopop music and the reproductive process of this music. The conclusions will be based on the analysis of the music characteristics of the recorded material which forms the database of the sample of 100 music pieces.
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The folklore narratives for the water bull from Kyustendil region occupy an important place in the Bulgarian folklore faith. They represent a connection between historical Bulgarian communities on both sides of the Bulgarian-Serbian and Bulgarian-Macedonian state borders.
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In this paper you can examine and compare the lives of the two saints and the images of holiness in the texts; the historical context of the creation of the works, the influence that both lives have into their national cultures, and also how the two hagiographies correspond to each other.
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This paper examines current politics of space pursued in post-socialist countries, particularly reconfiguration of ‘city text’ which marks ideological topography of the city with two central elements being architexture and urban toponymy. City of Prishtina is taken as an example of total reconfiguration of the city text given that it has underwent two complete transformations of urban topography and memorial heritage in less than two decades period. Paper will try to partially highlight the character of national politics and policies which are deployed beyond city limits by stating several examples and discussing the ideological construction and intervention in memorial and toponymic heritage.
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The article discusses modern patterns of expressing wishes which are transformations of ancient pagan rituals. With the adoption of Christianity, these models and, above all, their form, such as wishes, undergo changes under the influence of biblical symbols. The main attention is paid to the relationship between the functions of non-verbal and verbal semiotics in the rituals of wishes in the mythological, religious-Christian and secularised worldviews. In addition, the point that the ritual is a set of consecutive ritual actions is supported. An attempt is also made to reveal the inner form of wishes through the prism of the theory of gift-exchange. The characteristics of external and internal pragmatics of the remnants of an ancient ritual is represented in wishes as cultural etiquette forms of gift-exchange or, as is customary to say in modern discourse studies, forms of politeness. The need for experimental studies of different ethnocultures aiming at the remains of ancient rituals in modern consciousness is substantiated.
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Na sklonku doby kamennej sa populácie sídliace v západnom vnútrokarpatskom priestore (zhruba územie dnešného Slovenska) dostali do kultúrneho kontaktu s východným eurázijským svetom. Štúdia analyzuje rozsah eurázijského kultúrneho prúdenia a jeho prejav na sledovanom území. Nositelia nových civilizačných ohlasov z východu sa prezentovali ako výnimočná inokrajinná kultúrna zložka, symbolizovaná svojským výzdobným dekórom (šnúrový ornament), aplikovaným na keramike miestnych kultúr od mladšej doby kamennej až po mladšiu dobu bronzovú. Šnúrová identita tak pretrvala v prehistorickom kultúrnom vývoji severozápadného vnútrokarpatského teritória takmer celé jedno tisícročie.
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Reviews of: 1. LADISLAV LENOVSKÝ: Naši vo svete – Slováci južne od hranice Slovenska I.–III. [Our People in the World – Slovaks South of Slovakia’s Border I–III] Vydavateľstvo – Editura Ivan Krasko, Nadlak (Rumunsko), 2016, 166 s.; 2017, 147 s. 2018, 201 s. Review by: MICHAL BABIAK; 2. JÁN BOTÍK: Slováci vo Vojvodine: premeny svojbytnosti enklávneho spoločenstva [Slovaks in Vojvodina: The Transformations of the Enclave Community’s Autonomy] Nový Sad: Ústav pre kultúru vojvodinských Slovákov, 2016, 272 s. Review by: NATÁLIA BLAHOVÁ; 3. ADÉLA SOURALOVÁ a kolektiv: Péče na prodej: Jak se práce z lásky stává placenou službou [Care for Sale: How Work out of Love Turns into Paid Service] Brno: Munipress, 2017, 249 s. Review by: ZUZANA SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ; 4. Nielen obete, aj páchatelia majú potomkov... (Úvaha inšpirovaná knihou Bolestivé mlčanie) Not Only Victims, Criminals Also Have Offspring... (An Essay Inspired by the Book Painful Silence) ALEXANDRA SENFFT: Bolestivé mlčanie [Painful Silence] Premedia, 2019, 272 s. Review by: PETER SALNER
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