Benchmarking in the Era of Nationalism. Bulgarians and Slovenes in Comparison

Author(s): Roumiana Preshlenova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

This article is an attempt at comparing some peculiarities of Bulgarians and Slovenes in the era of nationalism when they established their modern states through separation from the disintegrated Ottoman and Habsburg empires. In the process of nation building, they experienced mighty ideological influences from the West as well as from the East which shaped their development. Particular attention is paid to education as a core factor of their emancipation in general and a strategic investment in modernization. Impulses from Austrian educational centers, student migration as well as establishment of an “own” university are regarded as well.

Bulgaria and the Bulgarians through Slovene Eyes (1850 – 1914)

Author(s): Peter Vodopivec / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

During the time of socialist Yugoslavia Slovene historians devoted considerable attention to the Yugoslav movement before WWI, but their focus was on the Slovene relations with Croats and Serbs. It was only rarely mentioned that Slovene intellectuals and leaders until WWI considered the Bulgarians to be Yugoslavs as well and they looked with great sympathy to them. The author illustrates the Slovene interest for Bulgaria by Anton Bezenšek’s book Bulgaria and Serbia (1897) and presents the publications of the two major Slovene newspapers Slovenski narod and Slovenec on the Bulgarians and Bulgaria since 1870 until WW I. If the two newspapers in their assessments of Russian policy on the Balkans, Serbo-Bulgarian relations and inner situation in Bulgaria often disagreed, both gave a full support to Bulgarian struggle against Ottoman rule and national independence claiming that the Bulgarians belong to the same “great Yugoslav nation” as the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Anton Bezenšek and Bulgaria: the Slovenian Who Bridged Two Slavic Cultures

Author(s): Ivaylo Nachev / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The Slovenian stenographer and publicist Anton Bezenšek is a comparatively unknown figure to the wider public in Bulgaria, which became his second homeland a century ago. At the same time the person, who in fact introduced the shorthand writing in Bulgaria, remains a widely renowned figure among stenographers. The article outlines the major contributions he made not only as a professional stenographer, who became a pioneer in teaching people a completely new skill, but also as a public figure that left traces in various fields of Bulgarian public life during the first few decades after the Liberation. It also analyses his heritage as part of the dialogue between two close cultures such as the Bulgarian and the Slovenian one.

Slovenian Slavism in the 19th Century and the Issue of Comparison with Bulgarians

Author(s): Marko Zajc / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

In the first part of the article, the author presents the importance of the Slavic ideology for the 19th Century Slovenian nationalism. The “patriots” of the individual Slavic nations established the ideological foundations for the nationalisms as a combination of the perception of Slavism and awareness of the “local” particularities, seen as Slavic. In the second part of the text, the author analyses representations of South Slavs, Slavism, and Bulgarians in the time of the Great Eastern Crisis 1875 – 1878. In the third part of the article, the author deals with methodological issues regarding the comparison of the Slovenian and the Bulgarian Slavism. The author believes that we should not mechanically compare the Slovenian and the Bulgarian Slavism. He argues that a well based comparison between the Bulgarian and Slovenian Slavisms could be carried out with the help of two moments: transnational (or transregional) aspect and the aspect of the “other”.

The Slavic and Anti-Slavic Idea in the Context of the East-West Dilemma. Slovenians, Bulgarians, and Greeks in Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Author(s): Yura Konstantinova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The article examines the various dimensions of the Slavic idea in the Bulgarian and Slovenian societies. The antithesis of the Greek anti-Slavic idea emphasizes the ideological and political aspects of the issue. A comparative analysis of three different models of socio-political development in South-Eastern Europe allows us to identify and draw the attention to the distinctive traits on the national ideologies, and to link these to the specific political aims of the three peoples. The different perspectives which Slovenians, Bulgarians and Greeks have in approaching the Slavic idea, demonstrates how the interpretation of this idea was embedded in the political conjuncture.

Comparative Banking Performance in Eastern Europe in the Interwar Period

Author(s): Žarko Lazarević / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The article is focused on the comparative banking performance in Eastern Europe in the interwar period. Business performance was measured in the mid‑1920s, at the peak of the business cycle in the interwar period (1929 or 1930), in the years of the Great Depression (1932 and 1935), and on the eve of World War II. The following indicators were used for measurement of banking performance: return on assets (ROA); return on equity (ROE); as well as indicator of capital ratio and partly also cost effectiveness. Included are the banking sectors in Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, in accordance with the currently available information. The categories analyzed attest to significant differences between the individual countries as well as to the extraordinary position of the Czechoslovak state and its banking as the economically and socially most developed in the region. In other countries, especially in South‑eastern Europe, the uncompetitive environment with great demand and highly fragmented supply of loans allowed for a high profitability of capital. On the other hand, it hindered the swifter economic development. The excessive transfer of funds from debtors to creditors had obvious consequences for the social and economic development in the Eastern European region.

Slovenian Outlook on Bulgaria between 1918 and 1941 and Aleksandăr Stamboliyski

Author(s): Jurij Perovšek / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

In the 1920s, the Slovenian political attitude to Bulgaria was most often related to the formation of autonomist‑federalist national programmes. Already in 1922 – 1923 the Slovenian autonomist‑federal political ideology argued for the federal union of Slovenians, Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians. Stamboliyski’s rule, his efforts to improve the Yugoslav‑Bulgarian relations and the coup d’état on 9 June 1923 were widely reflected and discussed. During the 1930s, the active Slovenian interest in Bulgaria was also apparent in other fields. In 1934, Yugoslav‑Bulgarian League Societies for cultural familiarization were established in Ljubljana, Celje, and Maribor. The Slovenian newspapers focused on the Yugoslav‑Bulgarian relations. When the friendship agreement between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria was signed in 1937, the newspaper Slovenec published a special Bulgarian supplement Šumi Marica where representatives of the Bulgarian political, economic, cultural, scientific and ecclesiastical life presented the historical and contemporaneous Bulgaria. The reports published in Slovenec in 1877 about the Bulgarian uprising preceding the Russian‑Turkish War were also reprinted.

The First Lecturer of Bulgarian Language at the University of Ljubljana

Author(s): Aleš Gabrič / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

The paper deals with an episode in Slovenian-Bulgarian relations which was so short that the literature written to date barely mentions anything apart from the fact that it took place. On October 1948, Simeon Hesapchiev was selected for a first lecturer of the Bulgarian language at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. In the curriculum, Hesapchiev made an overview of Bulgarian culture, geography, history and literature. During the months he spent in Ljubljana, Hesapchiev did not only carry out his obligations at the Ljubljana University, but also got involved in the wider cultural developments focusing on the strengthening of the Bulgarian‑Slovenian cultural cooperation. With the worsening of the Yugoslav‑Bulgarian relations after the Cominform dispute between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union with its satellite states, the plans for the cultural cooperation between Slovenians and other Slavic nations fell through as well and Simeon Hesapchiev left his place of work in Ljubljana.

Todor Pavlov’s Membership of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts: Membership in a Foreign Scientific Institution at a Crossroads

Author(s): Željko Oset / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

After World War II and up to the Informbiro clash, the Yugoslav academies appointed many Eastern European scientists as their members, following the example of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. This was performed on the initiative of the Yugoslav authorities, whose aim was to demonstrate the friendship and mutuality of the Slavic nations. On the occasion of the first attempt of this kind, in April 1947, upon the elections of the members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, an incident occurred. Most of the candidates were appointed as members, with the exception of Todor Pavlov and Vladimir Nazor. In November 1947, on the occasion of celebrating the October Revolution, the Slovenian Academy of Sciences followed the Serbian Academy of Sciences by appointing the presidents of the Slavic academies as its members, including Todor Pavlov, who became a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences in March 1948. Pavlov’s membership in the Slovenian and the Serbian Academy of Sciences was cancelled at a certain point between 1950 and 1951, devoid of any formal decision.

Vesna Mušeta – Ašćerić: Uvod u historijsku nauku

Author(s): Omer Hamzić,Benjamina Londrc / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 41/2016

Ukraińcy grekokatolicy i Polacy mariawici wśród Polaków rzymskich katolików. Lokalne zróżnicowanie społeczne i mechanizmy jego utrzymywania w perspektywie porównawczej

Author(s): Aleksandra Herman / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2014

The aim of the analysis is to compare the local social differentiation in two culturally heterogeneous communi- ties: 1) two-denominational and 2) two-denominational and two-national. The study focused on local mecha- nisms of the maintenance of differentiation. Comparative approach allowed capture of contextual conditions. the study included the areas of life where the intersection of the private and public spheres occurs. it was found that local mechanisms maintaining the differentiation lead to the phenomenon of bestowing public signi cance to private choices or even to sanctioning them by the public opinion. for this reason, the analysis focuses on the following areas of local social life: the genesis of local divisions and its social memory, marriage selection, political power and schools. Among the conclusions it should be noted that the depth of social division is not determined by the multiplication of differences but rather by the origin of divisions and social memory. there is larger toleration of the “mixed” identity (of the nuclear family or even of individuals) in the community of two-dimensional social diversity but with the shared experience of uprooting (among minority and majority). the research has con rmed better political minority self-organization, which can then affect political mobilisa- tion of the majority. finally, a way of institutionalization of differentiation in local schools (different ways of segregation) plays a signi cant role in the socialization to the local dualism.

Nation building and political participation in Spain and Hungary in the Late Modern Age: a comparison

Author(s): García de Paso García Ignacio / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2013

Despite being two relatively distant countries and with a diverse recent History, if we compare grosso modo some aspects of the History of Hungary and Spain we can find numerous coincidences which able us to elaborate a common scheme for both. In this paper I will analyze the parallel development which the two countries experienced during the 18th and 19th century, specifically how, in Spain as in Hungary, the building of the concept of nation, the settlement of liberal systems, the political participation and their posterior crisis followed similar phases. This similitude is the demonstration of the fact that, despite the differences that at first seem decisive, similarities are more relevant, being both countries inserted in a bigger context at a European level during the Late Modern Ages.

ENTRE LE PARADIS ET L’ENFER : L’HISTOIRE, BALTCHIK ET LA DOBROUDJA MISES AU POINT

Author(s): Blagovest Nyagulov / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2016

Why and how the seaside town Balchik (Bulgarian until 1913 and after 1940, but Romanian in-between) converts in „the little paradise of Greater Romania“, whose reminiscences today attract many tourists and create a special research interest? The responses of the famous in Romania and abroad historian Lucian Boia in his eponymous book have occasion to go back to the Dobrudja topic in the Bulgarian- Romanian relations. The focus in this article is the author‘s and national specifics in the historiographical interpretations of the history of Balchik and the land between Danube and Black sea. After reviewing the Boia’s positions as historian and the reactions they evoked, in the article are presented sequentially his version about the real and imaginary Romanian Balchik, a critical look on the deficits in Dobrudja context of the book, the different accents on the same topic in Bulgarian bibliography. Unlike the mostly onedimensional “national” representation of Dobrudja history in the period 1878 – 1940, it actually took place, metaphorically speaking, mostly in the areas between heaven and hell. A professional duty of the historians in Romania and Bulgaria today remains overcoming the unipolar interpretations of the history of disputed region and thebilateral relations.

A comparison between the experiences of integration and European unity with the experience of integration and the Arab unity

Author(s): Szijár Abu-Hantash / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2007

The questions of the integration in Europe and in the Arab World. Why did the experience of integration and European unity has succeed, at least, till now in spite of the few factors? Why did the Arabs experience in integration failed in spite of the many factors of integration and unity?

TÜRKİYE’DE VE BULGARİSTAN’DA HALK KÜTÜPHANESİ HİZMETLERİ: NİCEL BİR KARŞILAŞTIRMA

Author(s): A. Yankova,Ahmet Altay / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 1/2016

Main aim of this research is to determine the current situations of public libraries in Turkey and Bulgaria; and, under the light of the data derived, to provide directive proposals to public libraries in Turkey and Bulgaria. Within this scope in this research, firstly public libraries in Turkey and Bulgaria have been tackled within a historical framework; public library systems and organizations of both countries have been outlined. Then, replies to “library information form” prepared both to compare public libraries in Turkey to regional public libraries in Bulgaria in terms of collection, user, human resources, service departments, building, locality, library services and use of information technology; and to pinpoint their current situations. Out of the data derived, results related to the current situations of the public libraries in both countries have been obtained and proposals have been developed.

L’Europe centrale 1945-1989: une région imaginaire?

Author(s): Catherine Horel / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2006

„Zaiste, nikt im losu zazdrościć nie może”. Robert Falcon Scott i Apsley Cherry-Garrard o swoich zwierzętach w drodze na biegun południowy

Author(s): Jacek Kurek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The article is devoted to the attitudes of Robert Falcon Scott and his expedition companions towards animals on the way to the South Pole – both the animals they brought with them on the ship “Terra Nova” and those they encountered in Antarctica. Scott took 34 dogs and 19 Manchu ponies on this arduous expedition. None of them survived. This aim is to draw attention to the human dimension of the expedition, but it becomes a contribution to the history of relationships between humans and animals in Europe just before the First World War. Analysis of the reports of Robert F. Scott and Apsley Cherry-Garrard (a member of the expedition) allows us to conclude that the explorers felt a great deal of affection for the animals. In the face of their tragic fate, they often reflected on their own guilt and mistakes. The suffering of animals was marked firmly in their minds, and the only kind of justification was their desire to enrich humanity with new knowledge.

STUDI ED EDIZIONI DI FONTI ITALIANE PER LA STORIA BULGARA IN BULGARIA BILANCIO DI DUE VENTENNI

Author(s): Penka Danova / Language(s): Italian Issue: 4/2016

The article provides an overview of the outcomes of research mission trips of Bulgarian scholars to Italian and other archive repositories in the 1970s and 1980s, whose main objective was to study, collect and promulgate the Italian sources from the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (14th – 18th century) containing evidence of the history of the Bulgarian nation and its neighbours. This review of the efforts over the twenty-year period which resulted in the collection of a substantial amount of Italian sources is followed by a narrative tracing the fate of the accumulated documentary material in the past two decades as well as the research of Bulgarian scholars associated with it.

A comparison between two migrations in the Byzantine Empire: the Goths and the Pechenegs

Author(s): Alexandru Madgearu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The study compares from several points of view two migratory movements across the Lower Danube: the Tervingi Goths in 376 and the Pechenegs in 1045-1047. In both cases the imperial authorities hoped they would gain supplementary military forces, but the events turned both migratory groups into internal enemies. There are some similarities in the causes of the aforementioned migrations, in the way the Danube was crossed, and as concerns the places granted for settlement, and the integration in the Roman /Byzantine army. In other respects, the movements differed, especially because of the nomadic type of life of the Pechenegs, the Goths being sedentary people who moved from a homeland to another. Both migrations had disastrous effects for the empire, because the emperors were not able to foresee or to prevent the rebellions of these warrior people received as refugees. Instead of more economic and military resources, both the Goths and the Pechenegs caused much trouble in the South-East European provinces.

PIESE DE HARNAŞAMENT DIN BRONZUL TÂRZIU. DESPRE DOUĂ PSALII DE CORN DIN MOLDOVA

Author(s): Vasile Diaconu,Adrian Adamescu,Daniela Calistru / Language(s): English,Romanian Issue: 1/2014

The present study focuses on two antler cheek-pieces recently discovered in the eastern part of Romania (Moldavia). The first piece was discovered in the village Hârtoape (Iasi County), and the second on the site at Negrilesti (Galaţi County) during the archaeological diggings. Both pieces are made of deer antler and present oval perforations that allow attachment to the bridle. The piece from Negrilesti presents, on the lower part, a simple, incised decoration. Although there are several typologies for this type of object we will refer to the latest, by N. Boroffka; according to this typology, the two pieces can be ascribed to the a and b2 versions of type II. Since the piece from Negrilesti was discovered in an archaeological level ascribed to the LBA and the specimen from Hârtoape comes from an area rich in similar archaeological finds, we consider the harness accessories as pieces belonging to the Noua culture; chronologically speaking they may belong to the 16th-12th centuries BC. The two pieces have close analogies in the north-western Pontic area, in contemporary archaeological cultures such as Sabatinovka and Coslogeni; horses played an important part in the economy of those communities, not only for consumption but also for traction and riding. In order to present a complete image of the frequency of the antler cheek-pieces in Moldavia during Late Bronze Age, a list of all the discoveries known so far was attached at the end of the article.