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The article summarizes the motives for lifestyle migration from the city to the village of back-to-the-land migrants in Bulgaria. Among these motives are the search for and the achievement of self-realization through the initiatives initiated and the pursuit of a better and quality life. The survey shows that in the majority of respondents there is a contradiction between the notions of life in rural areas and its actual implementation. Achieving economic sustainability through the activities undertaken a major challenge, and the migrants develop different strategies to deal with it.The existence of their initiatives in the unstable context of the culture of capitalism is important for their development. Despite the difficulties, the various models that the representatives of the back-to-the-land movement are developing can serve as an example of the implementation of positive transformations in rural areas.
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The choice of where to live is also a choice of how to live (Hoey 2006: 366). The change of one’s place of residence appears to be crucial as the new place upbrings and guarantees the longed-for change in one’s lifestyle. Examples taken from the Slovak ecovillage of Zajezova and the Bulgarian village of Zhelen verify this. Migrants from civic environments who settled in thosetwo villages take care of their authentic selves, being conscious of and purposefully living in harmony with their values. They believe that the individual should delimit himself of the social expectations to find out what is authentic. They make this true they begin to live alternatively to the commonly adopted civic lifestyle. Being alternative is shown through the following key aspects: close relation to nature, conscious consumption, and production. Activities and attitudes related to these three aspects appear to be a toolkit for forming alternative identities and for becoming part of a community with similar values. How are these identities characterized and how do they manifest themselves in everyday practice? To answer this research question the article draws on the production and consumption practice of lifestyle migrants in Zhelen and Zajezova.
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The study presents a specific case of a family that moves to the countryside after retirement. Following the development of the narrative of the interlocutors, the author’s interpretations, in the first place, focus on the way in which the selected village (Pchelarovo) is positioned in the local context, in a network of relevant settlements. At the next stage, the specific situation is placed and made meaningful in the context of the life stories of my interlocutors, who build an argumentative line explaining their choice to move to the countryside. The meanings of the village and rural life derived from these contextualizations then unfold against the background of the everyday life of my interlocutors in the village. The aim of the author’s interpretations is to stay close to their sources, as the case unfolds through the narratives of the interlocutors, who are called to construct memories, set meaning and help to establish identity.
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The aim of the article is to present within the context of urban-rural migration the role of mobility between the village and the city in structuring the everyday life of the household members in the implementation of different activities related to work, education, leisure, social contacts and consumer practices. Therefore, various examples of mobility patterns of individuals and families in active age – some commuting daily and others visiting the city several times a month, some travelling short distances and others visiting more remote locations – are presented. From a theoretical point of view, in the article, migration is not perceived as a“movement from one place to another” (according to the classical migration definition)but as socio-spatial lifestyle strategies and practices of multi-place connectedness based on variable engagements with rural and urban activities.
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In the last some ten years, the tendencies in the internal migrations in Bulgaria have been reversed, as the number of migrants from the city to the village is higher than that in the opposite direction. The topic of the revival of the Bulgarian village is once again gaining a positive character in the public space. These processes precisely attract research interest and are the focus of this study. It considers migration from urban to rural areas as a form of lifestyle migration. The aim is to present the new lifestyle that rural migrants are striving for and their daily experience after migration, to determine the extent to which the act of migration puts an end to the search for a better way of life and the place of the city in the new lifestyle of migrants. To achieve this goal, several main aspects of the new lifestyle will be analysed: motivation for migration and choice of destination, work, home, garden, food, children and social life.
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With Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union (and before that), hundreds of ofGermans considered and realized their settlement in Bulgaria, travelling from Germany to Bulgaria by air or land. Many of them live today in Bulgarian villages located near or far from regional cities. In the new rural environment, they continue their daily practices acquired before emigration but also introduce new activities. For some of them, travelling between routine and new destinations in Bulgaria is an integral part of their lives. The aim of the article is to enrich research on contemporary immigration in Bulgaria, presenting observations on the life of Germans in the country but also on their attitudes towards migration within the country, to other countries or black to Germany.
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Village-based intergenerational residencies in Bulgaria offer young, urban people a chance to experience village lifeways and connect with elderly village residents. The presence of such residencies appears not just to signify interest in villages as offering an alternative lifestyle, but interest in the cultural significance and sense of loss tied to village life. This article analyzes three such residencies, Granny Residence, AcceptMe in the Village, and Borrowed Village. These experimental, aspirational forms of revitalization allow participants to “play village”, adding a fascinating dimension to the larger wave of urbanites who see potential in rural spaces. Drawing on participant observation and subject-centred interviews, I compare the features of these projects and suggest that attention to residencies as forms of interaction that provide symbolic connections to rural places and people allows for a deeper understanding of what is at stake in revitalization work.
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The main goal of this study is to establish the nature and specifics of craftsmanship carried out in Kyustendil and its surroundings during the period of the Bulgarian National Revival. The analysis of the available source materials shows that during that period, in the development of craftsmanship in the region significant changes occur, which become the basis for the establishment of more progressive production relations in this area of the regional economy. However, the implementation of these changes is accompanied by a number of opposing factors that determine the slow pace of their implementation. This is the main reason why the establishment of these relations could not take place during the historical epoch under study.
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Between 2006 and 2015, the Buenos Aires Post Office Palace was transformed into the President Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner Cultural Center. The designation of the Cultural Center, an institution dedicated to art and culture, with the name of the deceased former president generated great controversy in Argentina. The Government, the opposition and the media enunciated and recognized the Cultural Center as a metaphor of political power. The metaphorical uses of cultural heritage were sustained in the discourse of the main political and social actors. This case study describes one of the uses of cultural and art heritage in contemporary societies and the tense link between the media field and cultural management.
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The article recalls lesser-known facts from the relations between the Croatian bishop Josip Strossmayer and the brothers Konstantin and Dimitar Miladinovi in the period around the publication of the collection of folk songs from 1860. The bishop is among the main supporters of the idea of Bulgarian liberation a collection with the conviction that it helps the spiritual uplift of a glorious people in the past. The work of Bishop Strossmayer is an example of political courage and cultural foresight, and he emerged as a recognized leader of Slavic unity in the long service of his spiritual fast.
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“We walk on a land soaked in martyr’s blood, in the footsteps of saints we know little about ...” As an ancient Christian people, we Bulgarians honor saints, monks and martyrs in their universal integrity. This spiritual pantheon includes ancient prophets, apostles and fathers, bright and familiar to all sacred names of the rank of Archdeacon Stephen, George the Victorious, Dimitar of Thessaloniki, Nicholas of Myra and hundreds of notable figures in human Christian history. The moment when Bulgaria joined the large family of Orthodox countries is indisputable but in fact, it was long before the christening of the Bulgarians by St. Prince Boris that many Bulgarian Orthodox saints shone in people’s memory and gratitude. For this good reason, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has established a separate holiday – “Sunday of All Bulgarian Saints”, celebrated on the second Sunday after Pentecost. Unfortunately, the pantheon of our saints is still lacking a number of names, some of which were present centuries ago. Notably, there can be no doubt that this topic has not only “purely” ecclesiastical, but also its cultural and social dimensions.
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The object of the present study is an unusual iconographic composition from the German Monastery, exhibited today in the exposition of the Sofia Museum, combining the figures of our famous saints warriors St. George and St. Mina, presented at first glance in his role as savior of a girl (princess), to which St. Mina hands over keys, and two wolf dogs are tied to the stirrup of his left leg. This is a very rare theme in the iconography of the holy martyr, brought by the folk cult of St. Mina, known among all Balkan nations for his mythical rule over wolves, and the icon was commissioned because of the prayed miracle St. Mina performed for the shepherds.
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After the end of the World War I, Bulgarian artists turned their attention to the folklore tradition and the Orthodox faith in order to culminate in a process that began about ten years earlier by authors such as Haralampi Tachev and Stefan Badzhov. At the forefront is the search for the native and its contemporary reading. This long journey in Bulgarian fine art began with the late Art Nouveau aesthetics and the rediscovery of medieval Bulgarian ornamentation from frescoes or handwritten illuminations and reached its most significant moment in the Bulgarian artist’s view of the folklore text, tradition, folk faith. The newly established in 1919 society “Rodno izkustvo (native art)” provides a haven for many different creative personalities, but all united 147 by the main motive for the search for the “native”. The main figure in the “Rodno izkustvo” movement is Nikola Kozhuharov (1892–1971), who soon returned from studying in Paris, taking an active part in the artistic life in Bulgaria. His early work is related to the aesthetics of symbolism – very late, but popular among Bulgarian artists. Gradually, Kozhuharov’s experiments with the universal symbolist narrative took on a characteristically Bulgarian appearance. The nymphs in his paintings turn into samodivi and zmeitsi, the women, unnamed by nationality and universal in aesthetic characteristics, wear Bulgarian folk costumes. Among his plots, there are titles such as: “Samodiva rides a grey deer”, “Zmeyove and zmeitsi are stealing Radka”, “Sun steals a beautiful Grozdanka” etc. The choice of titles for the author is not accidental. Upon closer examination, behind these names the outlines of specific folklore texts are clearly visible. Such a study of the text and its close connection with the pictorial image is most clearly observed in the work of Kozhuharov, which clearly speaks of his interest in folklore and the derivation of the image with the characteristics of the “native”. The modern of its time reading of the authentic Bulgarian folklore, although a topic of many art studies, poorly concretizes the role of the text, which is the basis for the creation of a visual image. In my article, I will try to textually read Kozhuharov’s paintings based on the texts of folk songs and legends, I will compare the characteristics of the textual and visual image and I will try to find the border between the creative imagination and the concreteness of the word.
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Only a fragment from the complex and vast Macedonian music folklore will be presented in this paper thru the example of the village of Istibanja, Vinica region in which very strong bond with the tradition and active performance of the customs during one year still exists. The focus of the paper will be on the customs of the spring cycle in which intermingling of the spiritual and profane segments shows unique example of amalgam between pagan, orthodox Christian and local traditional beliefs and customs. Special attention will be dedicated to the meaning of the music segment from the festivities and during the performance of the customs.
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Entering the global world of the XXI century, we are increasingly aware of the need to return to the roots, to our original nature, to not be left alone and being lost in the new global reality. In this report my aim is to identify and highlight the intangible heritage of Botevgrad, which is endangered and, what is nowadays a part of our way of life and our faith, and traditions came from grandmothers. The report is based on comparison and analysis, raises questions and is an attempt to preserve the rich intangible heritage of Botevgrad.Entering the global world of the XXI century, we are increasingly aware of the need to return to the roots, to our original nature, to not be left alone and being lost in the new global reality. In this report my aim is to identify and highlight the intangible heritage of Botevgrad, which is endangered and, what is nowadays a part of our way of life and our faith, and traditions came from grandmothers. The report is based on comparison and analysis, raises questions and is an attempt to preserve the rich intangible heritage of Botevgrad.
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The report shows the linguistic peculiarities of an early manuscript written by the Bulgarian Revival teacher and writer Stoyan Robovsky. It is a draft contract between Stoyan Robovsky and the chorbadzhii (rich members of the rural elite) in the village of Bebrovo. The manuscript is kept by Veliko Tarnovo State Archives. The report examines the graphic and spelling features of the text.
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Статията анализира личните имена на 1 417 българи от севернодобруджанското село Липница, както са вписани в опис-декларации от 1940 г. – по групи, честота на употреба и като източник на допълнителна информация за етно-демографските процеси в Добруджа и България.
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The desacralization of lexemes such as Бог, Господ ‘God, Lord’ in interjections and figurative meanings in Bulgarian and Russian is studied within the framework of the linguоcultural concept of linguistic picture of the world, or worldview. According to the Bulgarian spelling norms, in sacred texts Бог, Господ, Божията Майка ‘God, Lord, Mother of God’ are written with capital letters as a sign of their sacredness, and in figurative meanings, inserted and interjected phrases it is recommended to write with a small letter, probably as a sign of desacralization. There are similar prescriptions in the Russian language.
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Managed to be preserved for centuries, the iconic painting of Bulgaria intrigues and involves connoisseurs and researchers of Bulgarian art in reflections related to the work of the old masters. The technique of ancient images is studied with the help of ancient treatises and erimines, affecting all technological issues and methods used by artists, creators of Bulgarian art. The knowledge gained from them, together with modern research on authentic monuments, makes it possible to determine with great accuracy the nature of iconic works and the technology of their creation. Among the sources from the era of Christianity, which are the most complete and of the greatest interest to European researchers, today ranks the hermione of Hristo Yovevich stored in IM – Samokov.
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