![Международна научна конференция „Героично изкуство и социалистически реализъм. Памет и репрезентации на социалистическото минало в България“](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2016_28297.jpg)
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In October 1985, several members of the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro during its Mediterranean cruise. After the surrender of the terrorists, it came to light that a disabled passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed by one of the kidnappers. The news of the attack was all the more disturbing that Klinghoffer belonged to the Jewish community. The case of abduction of Achille Lauro has been one of the most important topics in the field of international politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a long time. The idea of creating an opera based on those events came from one of the most distinctive directors of our time, Peter Sellars (1957–), who invited composer John Adams (1947–) to cooperation. Libretto was created by Alice Goodman (1958–). Stage presentation of the fate of the passengers of Achille Lauro was to be a musical background for the wider topic: Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main aim of the authors of The Death of Klinghoffer, what they repeatedly stressed in interviews, was to present both sides: Jewish and Muslim; not only the design of the libretto and musical development, but also the right direction. Despite these assumptions, since the premiere in 1991 at the Brussels Théâtre Royale de La Monnaie, this opera is consequently dividing the audience into its hot enthusiasts and declared opponents. Demonstrations and protests, accusations of anti-Semitic content, presentation and justification of terrorism have led not only to a change in the score, but today they are almost inseparable elements of issue. This article focuses on the opinions on the opera by critics and music journalists. After presenting the context of creation, examples of the reception, analytical and creative works are shown, such as the opinions found in the reviews of the printed sources, as well as the online ones.
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Our study demonstrates that the analysis of culture should be embedded into the history of capitalism. Through this understanding of culture's materiality, we highlight that culture is not only a spiritual but also a materially embedded phenomenon. We argue that this analysis is also essential to outline culture's role in a post-capitalist world.Our study offers four perspectives to analyze the diverse, often indirect, relationship between culture and capitalism. We show how the diversity of culture is more than heterogeneity but rather part of class conflicts and struggles. By examining the cultural institutions, our paper points out that they play a crucial role in the reproduction of the laborforce. It also points out that global and nation-state-led cultural production are not contradictory but entangled phenomena. Finally, our paper emphasizes that the relationship between culture and capitalism cannot be understood as abstract laws but must also always consider the social trajectories of professional cultural producers, who are a central but often invisible dark matter.
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This research aimed to analyze the Albanian parliamentary elections held in 2013, 2017, and 2021 in order to evaluate the process of development of representative democracy in Albania, one of the post-communist countries of the Western Balkans. The analysis was based on assessing the dynamics of the Electoral Integrity Index (PEI) as a quantitative indicator that reflects the level of fulfillment of international standards for democratic elections. The PEI was evaluated using the average perception values for 11 indicators reflecting the election process. Based on the value of the PEI2013 (54.1 scores), PEI2017 (53.3 scores), and PEI2021 (57.7 scores), the parliamentary elections in Albania were considered as processes that do not exceed the ‘moderate’ level. The non-significant difference between 2013, 2017, and 2021 PEI (p>0.05) demonstrated low progress in developing democratic performances in Albanian society.
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The article studies the winter masquerade custom of Turka, as the central object of investigation is its variant from the Romanian village of Cuciulata in Transylvania. In the course of more than a century, the outlook of this mask has remained almost unchanged. The author offers analyses on the altering functions of the mask as an artefact playing the roles of a ritual object and a museum exponent.
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This article explores the changing approaches to the preservation and socialization of cultural heritage. The analysis of the normative documents of the leading international organizations in the field of cultural heritage – from the 50s of the twentieth century to the present day – shows a slow transition to the integration of people and communities in the processes of its preservation. This transition has three main phases: from separation of people and communities from the heritage, through awareness and access to it, and finally, to inclusion in the decision-making process concerning cultural heritage protection. The article also examines where Bulgaria is in this process and how these changes in cultural policies affect the mechanisms of protection of our cultural heritage.
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The article offers observations and preliminary notes from the study of cultural heritages with a focus on sensory images and their perception, expression, and communication. Sensory and visual anthropology are applied as research tools in the context of their complementarity and adequacy in regards with specific spheres of study. The author presents some results of her fieldwork in the form of visual archives and short anthropological films, which give further knowledge of the senses and their instrumentalisation for the generation of meanings and values.
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The aim of the article is to outline and analyse the relationship between fashion and cultural heritage as a source of inspiration for fashion designers. Several examples of French fashion houses are considered, and fashion as art is discussed. In the highly competitive context of modern global fashion and luxury industry, creative practices and processes can be viewed in direct connection with cultural heritage. The interaction between cultural heritage and the creative process is strategic. It works at all levels and includes all components of the production chain, integrating the creation, design, production, and communication. Fashion designers, along with their aesthetic canons, rediscover archetypes, values and imagination, but rethink them in an appropriate, concrete and creative way. The designers offer new visions and meanings, as they experience original processes and approaches. Furthermore, they introduce social, political and cultural issues into the design philosophy, apply new craft skills in the design process or even utilize music and youth culture into the heritage of brands. In this way, cultural heritage is rediscovered as a modern and contemporary design.
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The article discusses notions referring to the ruler and his body according to the pagan views of the Bulgarians in the epoch before Christianity was adopted in the Bulgarian lands. Drawing on written sources and material evidence, an attempt is made to interpret ideas, signs and objects which form the system of the ruler’s ideology. Typological similarities are pointed out between the ruler’s ideology of the Bulgarians and that of the peoples of the Eurasian Steppes, Central Asia, and with other peoples from the Migration period.
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The article is the result of a field study in 2020 in the village of Varvara, Septemvri municipality, on the current state of women’s folk two-part singing. The ethnomusicological interpretation is made on the basis of a comparative analysis between theoretical studies on performance practices, an audio archive of the women’s vocal group at the National Culture Center “Peasant Awakening – 1927”, made in the early 1990s, and the most modern field materials from 2020. Passing through certain periods, the musical model becomes a village cultural value bequeathed from the past, which is preserved and safeguarded through certain forms of stage activity. Today, it is part of the intangible cultural heritage and ‘lives’ mainly through the community center and the practice of a certain generation.
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The subject of this text is the study of the ritual practice associated with summoning of demonic beings – Queen of Spades and Bloody Mary. The purpose of the text is to characterize the specific process of summoning ghosts, as well as to look for the prototypes of the considered female figures. The different conditions under which the sessions take place, their socio-historical context and the characters anchoring in popular culture, being its product, are compared. Attention is also paid to the social function of such practices, with an emphasis on their psychological interpretation. Queen of Spades and Bloody Mary are perceived as manifestations of fear, but at the same time, they are its antipodes, and the roots of this statement are sought in the initiation practices among adolescents associated with the transition to adulthood.
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The paper sheds light on the way in which the categories of time and space in demonological-mythological legends constitute a specific chronotope, reflecting the disturbing atmosphere of encounter with the paranormal. The author seeks to expose the poetics of the demonological-mythological legends, with special empha- sis on their temporal and spatial determinants. In the demonological-mythological legends space and time are deeply related. The paper considers the genre determina- tion of the chronotope in demonological-mythological legends and points out that the construction of the narrative world through temporal and spatial categories must proceed in accordance with certain genre laws, so the audience can recognize the story as demonological-mythological legend. This work is based on the folklore material which was gathered from 2018 to 2019 in the Rasina District. Interviews were conducted with two interlocutors from the village of Ribare.
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This review aims to bring together two private museums whose theme is largely similar: life in a communist country. The exhibition of the Museum of Memories from Communism in Brașov responded to the shortcomings in Romanian state-owned museums to cover a timeframe from recent history. To put the exhibition into perspective, after I present it and consider its museological features, I briefly bring into discussion the DDR Museum from Berlin. I focus not only on the visible part of the two – that is, the exhibition, but I also go backstage after connecting with those responsible for these two private museological endeavors, in order to discern the collecting undertakings and their role in the wider frame of museums landscape in a former communist country. Finally, after my visiting experience with both exhibitions and an unwilling / unfortunate entanglement with communist practices that are still up and running (the almost-failure of having a form stamped), I reflect on the role of a museum in providing deeper understanding of socio-cultural practices that affect our (not only institutional) lives up to our days.
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„M. H. Maxy: from avant-garde to socialism”, opened on the 28th of December 2023 at the Romanian National Museum of Art, uses a chronological line of events to bring up to date the image of Max Herman Maxy (1895 – 1971), seen as a leading artist with a significant role in the Romanian Avant-garde, but also as the first director of the Romanian National Museum of Art. Subsequently, his contribution to the development of the national art scene can’t be denied in art history. Furthermore, the opening was carefully chosen to mark a symbolic anniversary of 145 years since the first Romanian Jew obtained his citizenship, therefore enhancing the role that the Jew community had in the bloom and spread of the Avant-garde in Europe. The exhibition has a tacit dialogue to the main artistic events which celebrate Timișoara as The Cultural Capital of Europe 2023, the retrospectives dedicated to Victor Brauner and Constantin Brâncuși, suggesting the main artistic pillars in the dawn of Modern Romania.
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The 2003 Convention and Its Implementation in Bulgaria
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Folklore is regarded as one of the sources of Shota Rustaveli’s worldview. The folk wisdom was reflected in the Knight in the Panther’s Skin as emanation of the national consciousness and being and, at the same time, general cultural paradigms that occur in the literature of various nations. In Rustaveli’s narrative the folk wisdom is frequently accompanied formula “it is said” that emphasizes old age of the idea, its oral widespread nature and anonymity. Many Rustaveli’s aphorisms are very close to the folk proverbs with their ideas though they are formulated with Rustaveli’s eloquence. The semantic and stylistic closeness of Rustavelian aphorisms and folk proverbs evidences that along with the brilliant education of his time, Rustaveli had deep folk wisdom. It is due to this reason that the source of some aphorisms is folk sayings. At the same time, a number of Rustaveli‘s aphorisms became the basis of folk saying.
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