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Forgotten Issues of Romanian Literary History: War Poetry. Having as a starting point a general reflection on the belonging of Romanian literature to a cultural geography constantly conditioned by history, this study aims to question the reasons why Romanian poetry of the Great War represents for over a century a taboo subject of Romanian literary history, contrary to tendencies in international literary history.
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Goethe and his Followers: Weltliteratur and its Afterlives. Goethe´s Weltliteratur, which recalls cosmopolitan ideas of the 18th century, drew attention to literature´s multicultural role in the international exchange and networks. His ideas were developed by subsequent scholars who reflected upon the importance of translations, literatures belonging to small nations, and putting in contact local and global aspects in their discussions about literary studies. Hugo Meltzl emphasized multilingualism for development of literary studies; Georg Brandes drew attention to the importance of small literatures; and Fritz Strich proclaimed that world literature should challenge the Eurocentric notion of literary studies.
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From Close to Distant Reading of 100 Romanian Novels from 1850 to 1920. In Romania, among the academic personalities, Solomon Marcus (b. the 1st of March 1925, Bacău – d. the 17th of March 2016, Bucharest) was perhaps the only one who happily combined linguistics and mathematics, being known in the Romanian philological environment especially for Lingvistica matematică [Mathematical Linguistic], Modele matematice în lingvistică [Mathematical Models in Linguistics], 1963, 1966, and Poetica matematică [Mathematical Poetics], in 1970, and in the international scientific field for numerous translation and also for numerous papers published in prestigious publishing houses in Paris, New York and Bologna. Grounded in the Distant reading paradigm (i.e. using digital humanities in analyzing large collection of literary texts) the paper, From close and to distant reading of Romanian novels from 1850 to 1920 provides a historical classification of texts in order to be included in a multilingual European Literary text Collection (ELTeC), permitting to test methods and compare results across national traditions and consider the consequences of such resources and methods for rethinking fundamental concepts in literary history. The paper is following main ideas in relation with the consequences of an absent research field in Romanian academic studies, digital humanities: Close and distant reading in digital humanities: Romanian literature case from 1850 to 1920; Romanian literary history and ways of transnational knowledge through Distant Reading of literary facts: 100 Romanian novels from 1850 to 1920; Transnational redefinition of periods in national history through a literary species: the novel; The problem of "translation / export" of national literary histories.
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Beyond the History of a Literary Genre: The Encyclopedia of Romanian Memory Writing. The paper presents the theoretical frame of the research project The Encyclopedia of Romanian Memory Writing, currently being developed at the “A. Philippide” Institute for Romanian Philology. This encyclopedia joins other recent projects, such as literary dictionaries, in an effort to construct an alternative approach to the (national) literary history by subverting the (legitimizing) causal narration. It will include canonical texts, memoirists, various categories of title-articles, but also a set of operative concepts that allow for a definition of memoir-writing starting from the psychological, philosophical and anthropological implications of memory. By indexing literary phenomena in an encyclopedic manner, the textual corpora of Romanian literature may be described and analyzed in a transnational, comparative and interdisciplinary manner.
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Looking for the Denegation. Possibilities of Reading the Social Reality in Literature. Despite a disciplinary history filled with embarrassing determinisms, the sociology of literature still tries to overcome al methodological obstacles, by proposing a mediate reading between the literary work and its socio-historical conditions. The present paper examines two recent examples of this mediate reading: Pierre Bourdieu’s homological model between the author’s position in the literary field and its literary production, respectively Jacques Rancière’s argument for an internal literary structure capable of self-explaining. Irreconcilably different, these two readings present nonetheless a common effort: both of them look for the categories of denegation – unintentional textual structures and silent style choices caused by the author’s habitus and by the social practices and constraints.
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Folklore archives – witnesses of the history of ethnological studies. This study proposes a rereading of the documents kept in a folklore archive from Romania, with a focus on the methods used by those who drafted and archived these documents. The research demonstrates that, in the absence of testimonies regarding the manner in which fieldwork was conducted, the documents of the archive can provide valuable information on the field research and the vision on folklore of several generations of researchers. Thus, archives of folklore are seen as witnesses of the history of ethnology.
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The article takes a view over the typological similarity of the play „Dragon's wedding“ (a work with highlighted decorative and secession elements) by the Bulgarian writer Petko J. Todorov and the dramatic fairy-tale „Forest Song“ (attributed to the works of neo-romanticism) by the Ukrainian writer Lessya Ukrainka for the first time. It doesn't analyze the direct dependence of the two works, but their typology – the parallel use by Todorov and Lessya Ukrainka of the chromatic code, natural topographies (mountain, landscape, lake, forest, cave), vegetative symbolism, kissing and simil., centered around the image of the Woman and the general concept of the authors for „aesthetics“ in the art.
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The problem of the reception of one literature within another is complex – it is linguistic, traditional-cultural, situational-cultural, political, aesthetic. Foreign literature is seldom reciprocated solely for aesthetic reasons, it is seldom reciprocated also for market reasons. Market niches are usually a chance for major cultures such as Russian, French, English, etc., which have strong advertising, languages used around the world, ie. they are cultural colonizers. Small languages and cultures need strong support from the original culture, which needs to develop special tools to promote and translate small literatures. This is usually done by funding transfers from foundations or programs of the country of origin. And since we are talking about Bulgarian literature, it has a different reception everywhere, because the cultural situations in which it fits are different.
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The text describes a peculiar situation in teaching: one teaches one's fellow countrymen their native literature abroad - an instruction that is in principle intended for foreigners. What is the result? What accents are set in the image of classical Bulgarian literature, what needs are to be considered in this strange teaching? How does the model of teaching change?
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This article uncovers the elements of the avant-garde that are present in “Crescendo” magazine (1922) by synthesizing some of the most common aspects of avant-garde magazines and literature that emerge in Europe in the beginning of the 20th century. The aim of the research is not to list and interpret particular texts or reproductions published in “Crescendo”, but to showcase and prove the importance and the essence of this short-lived magazine for Bulgarian culture, as well as for the history of the European avant-garde – a puzzle that still appears to be incomplete.
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The report examines poorly known testimonies of Dobrudzha and its ethnic characteristics, collected by the Hungarian ethnographer Györfi István (1916). They correspond to the trend in the then Hungarian science of exploring „related Turan peoples“. Today they can be considered as a beginning of a more targeted and systematic knowledge of Hungarian society about the Bulgarian province. These publications are a good basis for forming certain ideas about the Bulgarian territories and for enhancing their research interest.
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The article studies two novels of one of the cross-cultural writers Kazuo Ishiguro – A pale view of hills (1982) and The remains of the day (1989). Way before he received his Nobel prize in 2017, Ishiguro has already been acknowledged internationally and his novels have been translated in many languages all over the world, winning literary awards. His novel The remains of the day (1989) was adapted into an Oscar nominated film with a cast full of well-known stars. The movie was nominated in 8 categories. Important themes in Ishiguro’s works are the return to the past, the memory, the search for signs and personal identity, the discursive crossing of boundaries and cultural narratives. In this space, which is ‘somewhere inside and in-between two worlds’, values and structures are reassessed, the history of the past is restructured and all of this happens from the viewpoint of the alienated narrator. Ishiguro's novels represent a meta-text with respect to Western stereotypes of the East and „Japanese“, which have their roots in Japanese culture itself, but conceive of it ambivalently. Likewise, the novel The remains of the day is a metatext concerned with the phenomenon of „Englishness“ which exists on many levels in the work’s structure, but this recognition of the „English novel” is again in the zone of hybrid mentality.
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In October, 2019, the School Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (StudyBAS) announced a competition for creating small study-research communities (SSRC) within the framework of the program “Education and Science” financed by the Ministry of Education and Science and performed by BAS. The project made by the teacher of Bulgarian Language and Literature, Diyana Boeva from “Geo Milev” Foreign Languages High School – Dobrich, ”Creative laboratory “Georgi Markov as Text” – has been approved among over eighty project proposals from the entire country. This article showcases aspects of the concrete plan of the Laboratory, examines some challenging opportunities for the school students related to the development of their analytical skills so necessary for studying science. Thus, we overcome the stereotype that the literary field is an unattainable abstraction unrelated to science. Four students with their teacher prove that the name Georgi Markov is appropriate not only for a projection of a research community, but is also a way of legitimizing the humanities in times when purposefully or not the STEM education is being regarded in opposition to studia humanitatis.
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The aim of the text is to historically contextualize Decameron and to analyse the motives for certain behaviour of the characters in several of the novels. The author tries to outline some more general social values, which determine the personal behaviour. Decameron is referred to such events as the famine in 1346 – 1347; it fosters the plague in 1348, and to the changing socio-psychological situation from the end of the 1340-ies in Florence. An answer is sought to a question, topical for our contemporary society as well: what is the sense of security of the inhabitants in the town-republic in the 1340-ies and the beginning of the 1350-ies? The irresistible vitality in Decameron, most frequently expressed in intimacy of the bodies, is considered an effect of the sense of insecurity, which reigns both minds and hearts at the time of the plague pandemic. The value of life is enhanced and the experience of love makes this value tangible. A reference is made to the fabliau from the 13th c. and to The Romance of the Rose. In Decameron is present, although in an idealized form, the actual background of the republican government of Florence.
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This presentation offers a methodological solution for the development of communicative competence of students in 8-12. class in a vocational high school, related to the implementation of an interdisciplinary project involving interaction with institutions, companies, organizations and people outside the educational institution. Its potential for supporting the teaching of Bulgarian language (and other academic disciplines) is analyzed; for the development of the student's personality in psychological, behavioral and value plan; for its socialization; to improve communicative, social and linguistic competence. The conclusions are based on project-oriented activities conducted in natural conditions of authentic communication, and observations made in the process of its implementation.
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The object of research in this article is the phenomenon of sponsorship in Bulgarian book printing during the Revival, and more specifically in the bilingual phrasebooks. An overview of the printed phrasebooks during the Renaissance is presented, with a focus mainly on French-Bulgarian phrasebook by Ivan Naydenov of 1858, which established itself as a classic example of the genre. Data from a similar study highlights issues related to the Bulgarians' interest in learning foreign languages, their preferences for a particular language and the textbooks through which it is studied, their reception and sponsors.
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This article is devoted to the first translations of Yordan Yovkov's stories in Poland and some problems related to the reception of translated literature in a foreign cultural environment. The works of the Bulgarian writer in the mentioned period were published in Polish magazines with an orientation towards the so-called women's topics. Their literary supplements published novels and short stories by the world's most famous authors at the time and were intended for adherents of women's emancipation, with broad intellectual horizons and good literary taste. The choice of specific works by Yordan Yovkov makes it possible to assess the literary reception and the dominant aesthetic norms in the host culture and literature. The article also analyzes the issues of language and poetics of the text, as well as the attempts of several generations of Polish translators to "overcome" the difficulties of the style and poetics of Yovkov's work.
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This article aims to interpret the intertextual motive nests on the Society and Government topic – part of the curriculum in literature for 11th grade, combining texts from compulsory and specialized training, module Dialogic Readings. The artistic interactions between the literary texts included in the curriculum and those that are outside it are considered in order to highlight the dialogic nature of literature as a special type of cultural significance. Based on the specific interpretive commentary are highlighted the leading problem-thematic lines, which would become the basis for effective educational work.
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In the context of the topic of the Competence-Based Approach in teaching Bulgarian language and Bulgarian literature, the current text is based on the understanding of the development of literary competence as a leading goal in the teacher’s work and the need to provide consistent reflection on the essence of the genre of the studied texts as a basic characteristic of the literary field. Taking into account the specifics of the theory of the genre and the ambiguity of some definitions, as well as some fundamental methodological principles, the suggested approach sees the work with the category in literature classes as an opportunity to problematize and to encourage a dialogue, to form and enrich the reading competences of contemporary students. The last part of the text defines general parameters of a possible methodological project on the topic of genre conventions and their connection with certain models of understanding and experiencing nature as a major theme in the world of fiction.
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