За характера на българската народна традиционна материална култура
On the Character of the Traditional Bulgarian Folk Material Culture

Summary/Abstract: This article shows how the material folk culture functioned under the conditions of the Bulgarian patriarchal way of life, and which were its characteristic features as a traditional culture. The Bulgarian folk material culture is analysed in the two spheres of its existence: that of the daily utilitarian way of life and in the system of customs and ritual. In both spheres its general leanings to artistic modeling are outlined as its distinctive traditional feature, a modeling expressed in ornamentation and plastics. In the everyday-utilitarian stratum of articles this ornamentation also functions as a social sign. In the sphere of ritual, artistic modeling is still more widespread, and includes almost every ritual article. There, the artistic image, incrusted in the article, bears the idea of the ritual. That is why the making of artistic ritual articles is a ritual activity. On the other hand, the traditional material culture is considered as two production streams of articles, respectively created by men and women. Л comparison of them shows the greater normative commitment in the women's material creative work, manifested in the sphere of the way of life and still more in the ritual. The brings the woman to the fore as a leading personality, safeguarding the traditional relations in the patriarchal way of life, while the articles created by her are seen as really bearing the essential features of the traditional material culture. The outstanding artistic character of the traditional material culture is conditioned by the particular method of the material activity of patriarchal man, by the originality of the reflective capacity of his consciousness, and the specific social tasks which folk culture had to deal with in the patriarchal way of life. Without its artistic features material culture could hardly have implemented these social tasks. That is why its artistic character is a typical feature determining it, and ensues from its existence as a traditional culture.

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