'Мелнишкият гърцизъм': за брачните стратегии в конструирането на етнокултурната идентичност
"Melnikiote Greeks": Marital Strategies and the Construction of the Ethno-Cultural Identity

Summary/Abstract: The strong Greek identity of the inhabitants of Melnik until the Balkan wars and their high capacity of cultural assimilation of the Bulgarian element is an issue to which number of historiographic essays are devoted. Yet Bulgarian ethnography have almost no paid attention to this "switching" of cultural and ethnic identity. The article addresses this issue in replacing the questions asked by historians in a socio/anthropological perspective. The solution is seen in the intereference of three approaches: (1) the theory of ecotypes applied to the pre-industrial rural societies in Europe and more particularly, the identification of vine-growing as a separate eco-type, with specific features of the family organisation of labour, the forms of household and the inheritance system; (2) the increasing importance of economy in the construction of ethnic identity within a socio-political system undergoing modernisation; (3) the function of marriage in the process of change of one's ethno-cultural identity, with reference to a broader theoretical framework - the impact of symbolic capital in traditional and modern societies. Backed by modern concepts about the economic patterning of the family structure, the analysis highlights the importance of social networks based on kinship as powerful mechanism for coping with changes in the individual and collective lifestyles, and of those based on marriage - as a possible way, as far as Melnik is concerned - to influence the "switching" of cultural and, subsequently, of ethnic identity.

• Details
• Contents