Българските традиционни планински селища в системата на поземлените отношения
The Traditional Mountain Settlements in the System of Agrarian

Summary/Abstract: The author has turned her attention to a problem which has not, as yet, been sufficiently studied from an ethnographic aspect. The research was carried out on the basis of written sources of the end of the 19 th century, and terrain material, sought out among the population of the Central and Western sections of the Rhodope ethnographic region of the Bulgarian ethnic territory. The author's conclusions are that the settlements in this region came into being in the process of acquiring land by cultivating it without leave. Regardless of its contradiction with official law, this practice is in harmony with the norms of the traditional Bulgarian customary law. The organization of their agricultural territory influenced the formation of the settlements, and so did the forms of ownership and the social relations on which production was based. Particular attention has been paid to elucidating the question of the mingling of related and unrelated families within the boundaries of the individual settlement and their localization in its territory. The direct effect of farming and stockbreeding on the structure and the development of the mountain villages is studied in the concluding pages of the article.

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