Ролята на болника в българския фолклор
The Role of the Sick Man in Bulgarian Folklore

Summary/Abstract: An attempt is made in the article to trace out the role of the sick man through content analysis of folklore works depicting the phenomenon of illness. The basic principle of the „content analysis” method is adopted in its application to mythological plots in folkloristics and literary science: „the role of the personage as a total of his functions” (V. Ja. Propp). The reconstruction of the role of the sick man is carried out on the basis of the sociological classification about the three major requirements for the role of a person in society: the need for labour activity, knowledge and communication. The analysis of the forms of activity of the sick man in Bulgarian folklore reveals his role as a subject to the unfavourable mystic influences and the demons of illness (the role of „patiens” – a victim, or a help receiver). His activity as a whole pursues the strategic aim of turning his ill-wishers into well-wishers in order to retain his position and role as a „patiens” in its variety of „help receiver”. The need for knowledge of the sick man’s personal state is satisfied in a very peculiar way. In total conformity with the line in the development of primitive thinking, „the interest towards one’s own self” (the making of the complaints of discomfort meaningful as symptoms of a beginning disease), appears later on as compared to the interest in the secret forces that cause illness whose presence is signalled by the omens. The need for communication becomes to the sick man a need for benevolent dependence, or for being cared after. The care – manifest or just desired – is the sign to authorize the state of „illness” in society and the self-consciousness of the sick man. The outlined peculiarities in the transformation of the social needs for activity, knowledge and communication in a status of illness are essentially important for learning the processes of social disadaptation and readaptation of sick people under the conditions of any culture.

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