Фолклорният разказ в динамиката на съвременността
The Folk Narrative in the Dynamics of the Present Day

Summary/Abstract: The article studies the life of a folk narrative – about the founding of “St. Nedelya” chapel near the village of Garmen, Gotse Delchev region, which was first recorded in the summer of 1998 in two versions: those of Sophia Raleva and of her husband Yordan Ralev. It was told as a part of the family history then. In the years the interest towards it increased – the Regional TV Center in Blagoevgrad made a film about it (1999), two separate analyses of it were included in a book of the author (2000), it was further audio and video documented by other researchers (2001) and at last became the source for a scenario for a musical performance of the amateur theatre group in the village (2003). Gradually the narrative and the chapel itself moved more and more in the center of the community’s interest and became one of the symbols of its identity. The increase of the narrative’s importance increased also the responsibility of the very narrator – Sophia Raleva, who after the death of her husband became the only source of the “real” story and who slightly changed her own version, including some details from Yordan’s version. Probably this was the way narratives changed in the past as well, only the process was rather slow and not so observable.

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