О сладком в языке и культуре болгар
ON SWEET IN THE BULGARIAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Summary/Abstract: In traditional Bulgarian culture, sweet things are good. Sweet foods, both raw and processed, are peculiar cultural signs containing archaic symbolic and mythological content. Hence their significant role in beliefs as well as family and social customs (cf. a strong link between honey and korovay, a kind of pie). Sweet food is a frequent attribute of ritualistic hosting. Sweet things serve as links with the world of ancestors, the term for sweet is used as a euphemism for demons (sladki medeni, blagi medeni, etc.). In healing magic, honey and sugar are used to diagnose and prevent illnesses, especially communicable diseases like chickenpox; sweet water is poured over impure places. In folk Bulgarian culture, sweet products of rich symbolic content exhibit specific geography: they are a distinctive feature of the Balkan culture in the south of the country. At the semiotic. level, sweet in Bulgarian culture is not only present in oppositions of the type „sweet : sour” or „sweet : salty”, but also in „pleasant : unpleasant” or even more generally „good : not good”, „good : bad”.

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