Етнографската група — носител на общи и регионални културни белези
The Ethnographic Group, Possessor of Common and Regional Cultural Features

Summary/Abstract: This article is an attempt to show the cultural essence of an ethnographic group (EG). As an EG is, above all, characteristic of nationalities, the article is based on the national culture which is the basic cultural system of ethnic communities of this historical type. The specific historical conditions and the prolonged existence of the Bulgarian nationality give Bulgarian material a special value in the general elucidation of the problem of regional and local communities in Europe. The ethnographic group is studied precisely as a territorial community which is related to the ethnic one as a part is to a whole. Besides the cultural features common to the whole ethnos, an EG also has regional ones. The regional features are manifested in the composition and more rarely in the organization and developing tendencies of a national culture above all. They are also the real foundation of a consciousness of belonging to an EG which unites it internally and delimits it from the remaining EGs within the framework of a nationality. This self-awareness is not ethnic. It is a degree of the ethnic and can merge with it, in so far as every EG considers itself as part of its main body, without denying the affiliation of other groups. In the process of development regional features diminish, group self-awareness pales and in a developed nation the EG loses its real dimensions as a territorial community. This approach to the common problem of regional and local communities in Europe is connected with the national ethnographic tasks and their solution becomes the natural approach to its elucidation.

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