Johann Carl Zinner

Author(s): Peter Winkler / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2015

The study presents a brief biography of university teacher, scientist and intellectual Carl Johannes Zinner († around 1810). His activities are connected in a special way with Košice, he worked at the Royal Academy. Interest in the modern history of the United States led him to make contact with Benjamin Franklin. In consideration of this he obtained a special position in the history of Hungary and belonged to the important persons of history at the late 18th century. The study maps Zinner's life, work as well as scientific and political thoughts of Zinner to the recent or past events.

Faik Konitza, The Modernizer of the Albanian Language and Nation

Author(s): Artan Puto / Language(s): English

Faik bej Konitza was an important figure of the Albanian National Movement. During the communist regime in Albania he was labelled a „reactionary,“ and therefore no studies could be undertaken on him. His main sin was to have served as minister in Washington, for King Zog I (1928–1939). With the end of isolationism and fall of the communist regime in 1990, the road for thousands of Albanians to leave the country and for Konitza to come back home, once and forever , was opened. His remnants were brought to Albania in 1995. His simple tomb in the park of the capital Tirana has thus fulfilled his last wish, to be interred in his „fatherland’s soil.“ I present him here as the subject of a case study for three main reasons. Firstly, he was one of the main figures of the second phase of the Albanian National Movement (1878–1912). This allows for some comparative approaches in relation to the „fathers,“ or the first generation of Albanian nationalist intellectuals, one of the most important among them being Shemseddin Sami Frashëri (1850–1904). Secondly, considering the discursive articulation and political instrumentalization of the concepts of folk, people, nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it should be noted that Konitza, more than anyone else among Albanian nationalist intellectuals of his time, stressed the importance of an Albanian literary language in forging an Albanian nation.

Българските общности в Украйна в началото на новото хилядолетие – променящите се погледи

Author(s): Petko Hristov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Семейството в житейските разкази на бесарабските българи

Author(s): Zhenja Pimpireva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

The article is devoted to the role of life stories in the study of the family of theBessarabian Bulgarians. The eyewitnesses’ stories (or the stories of their loved ones)contain various appreciations, experiences, feelings, values, and meanings whichallow the reconstruction of their world. The study is based on the life stories collectedduring field ethnographic expeditions conducted in 2009-2010 in villages witha predominant or significant Bulgarian population in the Republic of Moldova andUkraine.The life stories are an invaluable source for the study of the Bessarabian familyin traditional and contemporary perspective. Sharing them requires a climate of trustbetween the respondents and the researcher. The life stories represent a collection ofselected facts and episodes, in which many hidden, suppressed and forgotten thingsremain beyond the narrative. Because of their subjective character, the family is representedin an estimative and emotional way enabling the identification of the trendsin its development and the judgement of its values and morals.

Цветан Тодоров (1939–2017) – апостолът на хуманизма, мечтателят за свобода

Author(s): Valentina Sharlanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Дни на културното наследство в ИЕФЕМ – 2016 г.

Author(s): Petko Hristov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Изложба „Д-р Евдокия Петева-Филова – завръщане в Двореца“

Author(s): Anita Komitska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Brunnbauer, Ulf. Globalizing Southeastern Europe. Emigrants, America, and the State since the Late Nineteenth Century. New York, 2016

Author(s): Valentina Sharlanova,Petia Bankova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Пътят на ромската литература в Източна Европа

Author(s): Sofia Zahova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The article makes a brief historical review of the development of Roma publicationsin the countries in Eastern Europe by emphasizing the processes in each country andthe interrelations between their policies regarding the Roma culture and the Roma literary production. The aim of the article is to show that the development of Roma literature is related to the political, social and cultural context in the country or region of its creation. The comparative historical approach is the most appropriate for the purpose since the tendencies in the development of the Roma literature are related to the policies of identity (in general or directed to the Roma population) in different historical periods and regions.

Мила Маева. Българските емигранти в Англия – минало и съвременност. София, 2017

Author(s): Anelia Kassabova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

Отношенията между държава и религиозни институции: българският случай

Author(s): Maya Grekova,Iva Kyurkchieva,Maya Kosseva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2017

The objective of this article is to outline the basic tensions in contemporary Bulgarian society concerning the intertwining of religion and secularism through the prism of relations between national state and different religious organizations and individuals.The general goal is to combine the presentation of national historical context, existing legislation and the current social debate based on anthropological fieldwork.

На бойното поле на символите: безследно изчезналите в Косово между паметта и историята (Част 1)

Author(s): Dimitar Atanasov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

The paper is the first part of a research, dedicated to the problem of how national identity of Kosovo is forged. It is analysed from the point of view of a particular case study – the missing persons and how their character is represented in the public discourses of Prishtina, Belgrad, and how the international community is involved.The problem of national identity building is considered in its complexity, taking into account numerous rival projects. The museum exhibition, dedicated to missing persons and cultural heritage artifacts could be regarded as case study.All the actors on the terrain apply their own ideological strategies, which could be identified in the concept of the “Missing” exhibition: how the personal memory is being domesticated and turned into history of the nation, how the transition from text to action was carried out, how memory, oblivion and history were (ab-)used as social building ideological toolkits. Particular attention was paid to the problem of the conceptualization of the recent past: how it was interpreted and attributed signs of prestige by the social actors involved in accordance to the interests of each of them.The ethnic conflict paradigm as a key concept widely used in contemporary humanities for explaining the Kosovo case as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia is put under question. The history of the Museum of Kosovo is also involved, the debate between Belgrade and Prishtina for returning 1247 initially taken artifacts transported to Gračanica monastery and then to Belgrade in 1998 along with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav administration of the region is traced in its history and ideology, establishing references to the Kosovo myth, based on the folklore epics which were first published by Vik Karadžić in the 1820s and later became a canonized version of late medieval Serbian history.

„Етничният синдром“ четвърт век по-късно – едно научно откровение за народа, паметта и историята

Author(s): Elya Tsaneva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2021

For almost three decades now, there is an ongoing, but also inconsistent search for a new conceptual framework for the study of ethnicities and identities. Against this background, the article offers an interpretation of a fundamental monographic text on this subject from the recent past, a contemporary evaluation of a book from the arsenal of ethnic/national dialectic theory. Written by an insightful connoisseur of culture and history, the book presented some innovative and provocative ideas about the relationship and the dynamic combination of the most important phenomena and characteristics of the ethnonational process. The author shares some thoughts about the ways in which these ideas can be interpreted from the point of view of today’s methodological explorations.

За дуалистичния характер на българския граждански празничен календар

Author(s): Grigor Har. Grigorov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

The paper puts forward the proposition that today’s Bulgarian civic festive calendar may be examined as a system composed not of individual holidays but of corresponding holiday pairs (3 March – 2 June, St. George’s Day – St. Michael the Archangel’s All Soul’s Day, 24 May – 1 November). The holiday pairs have been formed gradually, and in the course of time a ‘strong’ and a ‘weak’ holiday came to exist, the former – honouring a supreme community value, whereas the latter – paying respect to the memory of the heroes who devoted their lives to its achievement. The paper makes an attempt to substantiate the thesis that dualism is the leading trend in the development of the festive calendar, which might be observed in its past historical stages as well.

Гергьовден в Поморие – разделящ и споделян

Author(s): Lina Gergova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

The genesis of St. George’s Day as the day of Pomorie displays the mutual development of its modern historical political myth and the last three decades’ festivity. After the democratic changes in 1989, the patron holiday of the Anhialo monastery that continued to be observed even during socialism and the fair that accompanies it were developed and transformed into an official holiday, but invented rituals brought about a myth shift: from the established in the course of a century narrative about the fight for and the restoration of justice to a story of the offered fraternal hand and forgiveness. Based on the research of the myth–ritual interaction, the author searches for answers to the questions about the significance of St. George’s Day for the local community and about this holiday’s ability to serve both national and pluralistic tasks.

Категорията „смесен брак“ и държавната администрация в контекст на етническо прочистване: немците в България в края на Втората световна война

Author(s): Lyubomira Valcheva-Nundloll / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2022

The German population living in the Eastern European territories reached by the Red Army in 1944 was subjected to systematic cleansing. In Bulgaria, this process took place within an institutional framework and generated a substantial dialogue between the Soviet Control Commission, the Bulgarian State, and its German inhabitants. The study of this administrative dialogue reveals movements in the categorical repertoire created on institutional level in order to identify potential foreign enemies. Belonging of the so-called Germans to the national community was assessed through their religious, historical, social, or family affiliations. The heterogeneity of this population grouped from above reveals a strong social reality: the anti-German measures mainly affected individuals from mixed families, legally or ethnically related to the German world. This mixity appears to have been a problematic attribute for the ongoing administrative classification. The specificity of the category of intermarriage and its function multiplied the facets of this population and encompassed through the family institution the existing perceptions of what was an ‘enemy’ or a ‘friend’ of the new order. The classification of undesirable persons from mixed families generated unequal relations with the state, between locals and foreigners, between citizens and non-citizens, but also between women and men. By looking at the diversity of the studied group through the lens of identity representation analysis numerous questions related to the aspects of the complex social reality of the Bulgarian population at the end of World War II arise.

Лозанка Пейчева, Божидар Алексиев, Валентин Воскресенски, Елена Александрова, Лина Гергова, Мариянка Борисова, Николай Вуков, Стефан Дечев, Таня Матанова, Яна Гергова. Конструиране на българско национално културно наследство в чужбина.

Author(s): Valentina Ganeva-Raycheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

Book review

Чешката и словашката следа в България

Author(s): Ivana Srbková / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

Book review

Словесност – традиции – фолклор. Том 1. Съст. и научен ред. Николай Вуков. София: Издателство на БАН „Проф. Марин Дринов“, 2022

Author(s): Valentina Ganeva-Raycheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2023

Book review

Шедьовърът на Руставели – ренесансова поема или средновековен роман?

Author(s): Yordan Lyutskanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2023

The article introduces to the late medieval romance in verse Vepkhistq’aosani by Shota Rustaveli – the central artefact in Georgian cultural self-awareness and the top item of ‘high’ Georgian cultural export. It briefly presents its narrative content, indicating the correlation of two plot-lines (initially through enframing, after some point though horizontal interlacing). It briefly introduces to the main fluctuations and 20th-century tendency in translating the work’s title, interpreting the fluctuations as indicative of aesthetic differences, and the tendency as an indication of the ‘cultural market’ success of the Soviet-Georgian (in its ideological and aesthetical basis –a Stalinist and socialist-realist) image of Rustaveli’s masterpiece. It presents two influential to dominant claims of Georgian Rustvelology – that the work is a poema (and not a novel/romance) and that it displays, at least partially, Renaissance outlook and poetics, – considering these claims as tools (1) of Soviet “Culture Two” to allot a proper place to Georgian nation within the alternative modernity of the USSR and its premodern background-under-construction, and (2) of Soviet-Georgian cultural nationalism to define a usable past in post-Soviet conditions; and (3) as beliefs. It revitalises the option to contextualise the work of Rustaveli (and, indirectly, Georgian cultural identity) in non-Eurocentric terms, providing some factographic and theoretic clues from the field of macrohistory (J. Abu-Lughod et al.) and a methodological one from sociology of arts (P. Bourdieu).