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Developmental tendencies in the history of kinship have so far received little attention in historical family research. The present study wants to fill this gap. It departs from the tendencies of change in the kinship terminology which, at an earlier or later point in time, occurred in most European languages, namely: the parallelisation of relatives from the father’s and the mother’s side, of blood relatives and in-laws as well as of blood relatives and “spiritual relatives”. In this process of transformation, the Balkan languages (with the exception of Greek and Romanian) occupy a special place. The same must also be assumed for the social foundations of this transformation process. In southeast Europe, patrilinear structures of kinship have persevered in a particularly strong way, and they continue to affect the structures of family life until today.
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In socialist Bulgaria, the supply of consumer goods was organised by means of a supply system that was very hierarchical and functioned in a limited way. In the villages, the shops of the local consumer cooperatives, as the last links in the chain, were responsible for the sale of consumer goods. The goods, however, were usually available neither in the desired quantity nor quality. The function of local retail trade, fulfilled by the cooperatives, was to provide goods that were 'outside’ the pure subsistance needs of the villagers that were provided by their (small) private plots. In addition, people always had the possiblity to barter for certain needed goods. Thus, in contrast to the urban situation, shopping in the village had lesser significiance – depending, of course, on the kinds of consumer goods required – and was always supplementary to other economic activities. The general problem for the population, to obtain “deficitni stoki”, scarce consumer goods, which the wholesale trader or the retailer were unable to supply, never disappeared during the socialist period. The historical development of the cooperative in the Bulgarian mountain village of Raduil provides an example of the activities and problems faced by a village institution that was totally dependent on superior organizations of planning and distribution. The demands of the local population were evident, directly or indirectly, in the annual cooperative reports during the entire socialist period. Such reports documented deficits, complaints, conflicts, and accusations, and the attempts of the responsible functionaires to deal with them. They reveal problems not only of supply but also the value orientations of the consumers, and the strategies that consumers adopted to reach their goals. The actions and reactions of the villagers as functionaires, employees, and workers of the cooperative on the one hand, and as customers, clients, and consumers of goods and services of the cooperative trade and gastronomy on the other hand, provide an important insight into “real socialist” everyday life which continues to have its effect today. The article is based on comprehensive field data gained in 1993–98 and on archival materials from the local institutions.
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After the conversion to Islam of the Bulgarian Pomaks between the 16th and the 18th cent. they adopted the most important dogmas and behaviours of their new religion. At the same time, however, the religion was affected by the contact with Pomak culture. The world view of the Pomaks, who live rather isolated in the Rhodope mountains, reflects a unique cultural wealth. Their religious practices became a melting pot of popular, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic customs. In the article, the following complexes of religious ideas and practices are dealt with as indicative of the syncretistic nature of Pomak folk Islam: (1) forms of piety which manifest themselves in saints' worship; (2) the belief in supernatural beings and in the magic powers of nature; (3) magic actions which protect against the evil powers in nature, in fertility rites, and as part of folk healing; (4) customs and beliefs which have to be understood as relics of Christianity. Finally the article deals with the present religio-cultural reality in which the Pomaks find themselves after the political changes in Bulgaria of 1989. It is a situation in which religious and cultural freedom is restituted, but at the same time one can observe a new politico-religious schism in the group: conservatism versus modernism in Islam.
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The article deals with the two basic categories “work” and “time” and their interrelation as an integral part of the everyday life in a Bulgarian village in the socialist period. “Working time” is used here as a term comprising different kinds of work, i.e., the official and paid-for working time at the work place and the time spent on work outside the work place. In order to elucidate the question of how the socialist transformation of the village changed the work rhythm of the people (since 1950) and what value orientations concerning the use of time eventually prevailed in the everyday life and work of the socialist villagers, I analyse a few structures of working time in the daily and yearly cycle. In addition, the attitude of the workers towards their work and their working time in the “socialist” and in the “private” sector is described, focusing on the main job and on secondary jobs. The examples cover all relevant time periods (1950–1989) and all relevant economic sectors (agriculture, forestry, small industries, crafts, services, and the private household economy). The sources (archival materials and interviews) present ample evidence that the inhabitants of the investigated village adopted, only partially, regular structures for their working time. Instead, one can discern a permanent flow of working time between the official work place and other sectors; fluctuations between the main job and secondary jobs, between paid and unpaid work, between voluntary and obligatory or even forced work, between work and leisure time. The working time in socialist everyday life can be best described as fluid time, with overlaps both between the various sectors and between the various time structures and work rhythms. The incompatibility of the various temporal rhythms resulted in permanent rearrangements of working time and above all in numerous conflicts. Contrary to the explicit goals of the Communist Party, the “socialist transformation” of the village never really changed the cyclical structure of work rhythms and never led the villagers to the rational and disciplined use of time or to the linear concept of time which are prerequisites for modern industrialised societies.
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Every national mythology highlights the origin and defines the own and its relations with the others by building narrations presenting the ethno-genesis and the past, both glorious and traumatic. Synchronically, defining the own goes mainly through the regales of the matrimonial norm and so called ‘economy of women’ – relations with representatives of the other sex that are members of other ethnic and/or religious group, and especially the process of adoption of women in communities, different from the own. The article is an attempt to present the main plots of Bulgarian national mythology, existing in the folk-lore and literature from the 19th century as a system. It is focused at the narratives about the abducted treasury – the kernel of Bulgarian national mythology. This abducted treasury could be a woman, books, faith, etc. The victim in the main variation is woman who could be abducted or seduced. Other popular plot has to do with the unhappy effects of the marriage of a Bulgarian man with a foreign woman. The ancient sources are traced and also the meaning that modern nationalism puts in these plots.
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Before the emigration to Israel in 1947–1948, in larger Bulgarian towns there lived over 50,000 Jews, predominately Sephardic. They sang their ancients urban folk songs, whose melodies were often sung by the Bulgarians. Some towns were also populated by Ashkenazi. In the 1930s century the Jewish comedians brought over form Rumania the tunes in the Jewish-Rumanian style, which became smash hit in Bulgaria. In the period between 1944 and 1992 the several thousands Bulgarians who stayed, almost forgot their Jewish songs. After 1992, following the celebrations of 500 years of the Jewish expulsion from Spain, the Bulgarian composers of Jewish origin started creating chorals, most often adaptation of Sephardic or Ashkenazi folk songs. The author of the present article is one of them.
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U posljednje se vrijeme sve češće raspravlja o prazniku s kojim naši preci nisu upoznati, a koji prodire ne samo u Hrvatsku, nego i u ostale europske zemlje. Budući da se svekolika javnost zadovoljava formom, ne ispitujući sadržaj, predmet je rada Halloween (Noć vještica) u tradicijskoj kulturi. Cilj je rada - objasniti termin Halloweena i kontekstualizirati ga, tj. promotriti u vremenu i prostoru. Imajući na umu zadani cilj istraživanja, neophodna je korelacija te svečanosti s poganstvom, ali i kršćanstvom. Naglasak je istraživanja na povijesti i značenju praznika, demonološkim bićima, posebice vješticama, starim Keltima i njihovu svećenstvu, druidima, te relaciji sadržaja praznika s učenjima Biblije i značenjima blagdana štovanih u Hrvatskoj i u svijetu, Svima svetima i Dušnim danom, a s kojima je njegovo značenje u proturječju.
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Na jednostavno pitanje - Je li ganga tuga ili veselje?, odgovori pjevača, slušača ili lokalnih ljubitelja toga pjevanja, jako variraju. Neki kažu da nije ni jedno niti drugo i da ne inducira nikakve emocije. Drugi kažu da je ganga veselje, a neki će opet reći - ganga je oboje! Neki će reći - nešto treće! - ovisno o tomu što riječi pjesme kažu... Ako su mišljenja različita i mnogobrojna, je li to zato što su emotivne reakcije jako individualizirane? Ili zato što sugovornici ne gledaju na gangu iz istoga kuta? Ovise li odgovori o profilu slušača (povremeni slušač, zaljubljenik u gangu, veliki znalac, pjevač...)? Ovisi li to o osobnom dojmu, kontekstu, interpretaciji pjevača, o svojstvenom glazbenom karakteru gange ili ima još drugih čimbenika?
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Scala naturae: Festschrift in Honour of Arvo Krikmann. Compiled and edited by Anneli Baran, Liisi Laineste, Piret Voolaid. Tartu: ELM Scholarly Press, 2014. 442 pp. Antropologicheskii Forum (Anthropological Forum) No. 21, 2014. 392 pp. In Russian. Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, Vol. 31, 2014. 532 pp.
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Perspectivism as a cosmology, according to which all beings perceive themselves as humans, has been discussed mainly in connection with the Amazonian region, for the term perspectivism stems from Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, who applied it to the indigenous worldview of that particular region. To a lesser extent, it has also been studied in North Asia and some other hunter-gatherer societies. In this article I wish to demonstrate that perspectivism may be more widespread than previously thought, and its occurrence is not necessarily limited to hunter-gatherer cultures. Perspectivism can also be found in pre-modern China, which can be seen from such well-known texts as Zhuangzi (4th–3rd century BCE) and Journey to the West (16th century). The connecting link that makes the occurrence of perspectivism possible both in South America and East Asia is probably shamanism, which is present in both of these regions. It is characteristic of Chinese perspectivism that the multiple perspectives are not equal, but there is one proper perspective that is at the same time also the moral perspective. Chinese cosmology can contribute to the understanding of American perspectivism with its concept of cosmological relations, which fits the model of perspectivism.
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The article deals with the medieval and early modern Bulgarian verbal charms and their textual contexts. More specifically, the focus is on the manuscripts in which these charms can be found. Both the charms and the manuscripts are discussed as cultural phenomena, which were part of complex cultural contexts, including processes like compilation, usage, adaptation and transmission. The article traces the organising principles of the miscellanies containing verbal magic, and also the actors and factors that influence these manuscripts and their content. Then, the article discusses the specifics and the role of variation and practicality, and the complex interrelation between the written and the oral. Finally, the article points out some specific patterns and relations between the apotropaic and curative functions of the charms, the processes of written and oral transmission, and the broader textual content of the manuscripts. The main goal of the paper is to urge a discussion on medieval and early modern Bulgarian verbal charms in the light of their immediate textual and broader cultural environment.
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