Един възможен прочит на демографски факти, записани в традиционната култура по българските земи
An Attempt at Reading into the Demographic Facts Encoded of Bulgarian Traditional Culture

Summary/Abstract: Through the methods of ethnological research, the author explores the information encoded of traditional culture and relevant to the demographic developments in Bulgarian preindustrial society. Her research is centered around the death rate of newborn babies and women who died at childbirth. The author argues that, in the absence of adequate statistical data of the demographic processes taking place in the preindustrial period, one needs to rely on oral information, folklore material and narrative sources of the history of preindustrial society. This type of research can only provide a general outline of the demographic processes that took place in Bulgarian preindustrial society. The analysis of the available information shows that the death rate among newborns and women in childbirth was very high among all ethnic and religious groups of the population. This fact is encoded, in various ways and by various means, of the cultural model of each group. Through its specific mechanisms of passing on information from one generation to the next, traditional culture has succeeded in preserving and further transmitting the knowledge relevant to the high mortality among newborns and their mothers. This, in turn, helped communities be prepared to adopt the necessary measures against the possible death of a woman and her baby. Because the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society took place not very long ago, between the late nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century, traditional culture in Bulgaria has preserved, almost intact, all the information concerning infant mortality as well as mortality among women in childbirth. More than that, among certain groups of the population, this knowledge is very much alive and becomes activated in times of crisis.

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