Keywords: Protestant missions; Modernization; Balkans;
Women in the protestant missions and modernisation in the Balkans.
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Keywords: Catholic Church; Ustaša regime
The author has set a goal to examine all the aspects of the relationships between the Catholic Church and the Ustaša regime.
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Keywords: Autobiography; Gr. S. Parlitcheff;
Autobiography of Gr. S. Parlitcheff (1830 – 1892).
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Content of the main Bulgarian scientific journals for the current year in linguistics, literature, history, folklore, ethnography, archeology and art studies
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Content of the main Bulgarian scientific journals for the current year in linguistics, literature, history, folklore, ethnography, archeology and art studies
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Content of the main Bulgarian scientific journals for the current year in linguistics, literature, history, folklore, ethnography, archaeology and art studies
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Keywords: Eastern Orthodox Church; Desecularisation; Modernity; Bulgaria; Schism;
The Bulgarian schism from 1872 is considered the focal point in the synthesis between secularization and nationalization of the religious life of the Orthodox Christians in the modernizing 19th century Balkans. The Bulgarian separation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople was not a precedent in the context of the epoch. Quite similar were the administrative church disunions, common for most of the emerging nationalistic movements in Eastern Europe. But it was only the Bulgarian case in which a whole nation was proclaimed schismatic and excommunicated from the Orthodox ecumene. What is more, it was for the promulgation of the autocephaly of the Bulgarian Exarchate that the nationalism within the Church (ethnophyletism) was declared heresy. That exclusiveness of the Bulgarian case makes it a rather convenient resource for historical, theological and sociological arguments in the ongoing scientific debates, concerning the modern relationships between church, state and society and especially for the explanation of some conflict crossroads within the modern Orthodox world. Apart from the academic discourse, in the past two decades the Bulgarian schism from 1872 is actively being used, both by local and foreign thinkers, as a ground for predefinition of the popular grand narratives in the Bulgarian history. To the intensity and the reasons for that rethinking of the historical discourse, which could be quite radical in some cases, is devoted the following research.
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Keywords: Gagauzs; Eastern Thrace; folklore; identity; bilingualism
The article is dedicated to the folklore singing of the Gagauzs in Eastern Thrace. The authors analyze primarily archival and published material from the early twentieth century war period and the following displacement of large groups of populations, which raises the question of their cultural traditions and specifics. The songs are used as a source allowing the outlining of a number of specific characteristics of the ethnic and cultural identity of the Gagauzs. Special attention is paid to bilingualism in some records and its ritual functions. The article is reminiscent of Adela Peeva’s film “ Whose is this song?”. Undoubtedly it will again show the development and the fate of the spiritual heritage from the Ottoman period bequeathed to the later national societies and countries in the Balkans, where the heritage (which was previously common) is “assigne” and began to be felt “our” and “native” or, in other cases, is strongly rejected. The aim of the article, however, is to show that this initial space was not always so common and open and that the relationships in it (respectively in the culture in general) depended on local developments, different situations and participants. At least in terms of knowledge about the various cultures and traditions on the Balkans, together with the question “Whose is this song?” goes the question “Whose song is the best?”. That is, except the origin of the songs, which in many cases is common, it is also important to understand it, to know how it is valorized and constantly acknowledged.
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Keywords: Bible; reception; translation; Bulgarian National Revival;
This paper is focused on the difficulties that Bulgarian reception of the Bible encountered in nineteenth century – the lack of older canonical translations and the opposition of the Ecumenical Patriarchate against new translations, which were associated with Protestantism. Some instances that illustrate the ideas of the Bulgarians from that period are presented. One of them is from Two Brothers (Dvama bratya; 1888–1889) by Iliya Blaskov – a semi-documental novel dealing with the fates of the author’s family. The author concludes that the image of the Holy Scripture that even pious teachers had at that time was vague and closer to folk-lore than to modern biblical notions.
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Keywords: Serbian and Bulgarian drama translations; nineteenth-century editions; Abraham’s sacrifice;
The paper’s main aim is to present two South-Slavonic translations of the Renaissance Greek drama Abraham’s sacrifice (I Thysía toú Avraám) by Vincenzo Cornaro; the first one was made by the Serbian man of letters Vikentije Rakić (1750–1818) at the end of the eighteenth century, the second one – by Andrey Pop-Doynov Robovski (1801–1858), a Bulgarian priest, teacher and activist for autocephaly of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The different reception and spread of the two translation was probably due to their various cultural contexts and literary value. Rakić’s translation was widely disseminated in both printed editions and manuscript copies, two of which are described in detail in the present article.
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Greek-Bulgarian Relations in the Age of National Identity Formation. Hgg. Paschalis M. Kitromilides / Anna Tabaki. Athens: Institute of Neohellenic Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation 2010. 338 S., ISBN 978-960-9538-00-8, € 28,–
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Keywords: (Crimean) Tatars; Bulgarian national narrative
The article discusses the morphology of Otherness in the Bulgarian meta-narrative in regards to the empirical case connected to the concept of the Tatars in the minds of Bulgarians in the late 18th and in the 19th century. Тhe text analyses the Tatar topoi in the Bulgarian folk songs, in historiography and in 19th century Bulgarian literature. The Bulgarian national narrative enriches the morphology of Otherness by incorporating heterogeneous Tatar images as variants of stereotypical notions of the abductor. Some mythologems associated with archaic layers of human culture and forming a folklore-mythological matrix of understanding foreignness are recreated. According to the the data from the Bulgarian folk songs, there is no independent Tatar subject, the Tatar topoi are incorporated secondarily into the song motifs, connected with abduction. These are heterogeneous elements, whose primary objective is to maintain a “sense of history”. Such mythologized images were present in written texts in the late 18th and in 19th century thus supporting the Bulgarian “great narrative” that legitimized the preliminary design for the creation of the nation. Since the middle of the 19th century due to the empirical experience of direct communication Tatar emigrants have gradually been discovered in their natural human form while their activities have left durable traces in the local memory and heritage of the region.
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Keywords: Serbia; Bulgaria; Balkan railways; 19th century; economic thought;
Our article analyses different perspectives on railway construction on the Balkans among Serbian and Bulgarian intellectuals, politicians, economists, leaders of national liberation movements. Our main thesis is that different discourses on economic development and railway construction were largely determined by the different dynamics of social development in Serbia and among Bulgarians, and their process of national liberation and that various authors approached the issue of economic development, concept of free trade or protectionism and other issues through the prism of their own formal education and/or experience gained by the analysis of their community within the Ottoman Empire, faced with the rising pressure from foreign factors due to the slow incorporation of the Balkans into the modern capitalist world system.
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Keywords: St. Clement of Ohrid; Bulgarian literature; Macedonian literature; National Revival; Bulgarian studies; Macedonian studies
The paper raises the question of the functionalization of the figure of St. Clement of Ohrid in modern culture comparing his representation in the Bulgarian and Macedonian traditions. The focus is on various texts of the Bulgarian and Macedonian National Revivals (perceived as historiographical constructs). The points of reference are two “grand narratives” inscribed into the Bulgarian and Macedonian scientific discourses. The aim is to show the context for the modern creating of the “beginning of the nation”. The paper presents both the 19th century image of the most famous Cyrillo-Methodian disciple and a hermeneutic deconstruction of its usage.
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Content of the main Bulgarian scientific journals for the current year in linguistics, literature, history, folklore, ethnography, archaeology and art studies.
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Keywords: chitalishtas; local communities; folk culture; cultural heritage
The author studies the first years after the introduction of the chitalishte institution when these cultural centres appeared and established themselves in the dynamic sociocultural context of the local communities – first in some of the well-developed Bulgarian towns and later in many of the Bulgarian villages. Chitalishte is a cultural and educational institution and is thus studied in the context of the modernization, educational and nation building ideas pertinent in the 1860s and 1870s. At that time the institution developed its specific features (its local nature, complex functions, autonomous social form of governance). The article presents the decisive moments certifying for the institutional activity of the chitalishta with an accent on these issues which show close relations to the folk culture, which was as a need and as a type of communication dominant in the local culture.
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Keywords: museum narrative; visual history; history and memory; monument; ideological forging of the past; national identity; national heroic pantheon
The paper is the first part of a research, dedicated to the problem of how national identity of Kosovo is forged. It is analysed from the point of view of a particular case study – the missing persons and how their character is represented in the public discourses of Prishtina, Belgrad, and how the international community is involved.The problem of national identity building is considered in its complexity, taking into account numerous rival projects. The museum exhibition, dedicated to missing persons and cultural heritage artifacts could be regarded as case study.All the actors on the terrain apply their own ideological strategies, which could be identified in the concept of the “Missing” exhibition: how the personal memory is being domesticated and turned into history of the nation, how the transition from text to action was carried out, how memory, oblivion and history were (ab-)used as social building ideological toolkits. Particular attention was paid to the problem of the conceptualization of the recent past: how it was interpreted and attributed signs of prestige by the social actors involved in accordance to the interests of each of them.The ethnic conflict paradigm as a key concept widely used in contemporary humanities for explaining the Kosovo case as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia is put under question. The history of the Museum of Kosovo is also involved, the debate between Belgrade and Prishtina for returning 1247 initially taken artifacts transported to Gračanica monastery and then to Belgrade in 1998 along with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav administration of the region is traced in its history and ideology, establishing references to the Kosovo myth, based on the folklore epics which were first published by Vik Karadžić in the 1820s and later became a canonized version of late medieval Serbian history.
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Keywords: heroic anthropology;historical reenactments;heroic time;affective turn;performative turn;authenticity;
Historical reenactments gradually turned into a compulsory element in public ceremonies and rituals commemorating since late 19th c. the national liberation struggles in Bulgaria. Regarded usually as phenomena of popular culture or as expressions of the popular nationalism, these forms of public reenactment of the past are still insufficiently studied in Bulgaria. The current text attempts to outline a research program for an anthropological analysis of the historical reenactments of the “heroic time,” influenced by the inquiries of the performative and the affective turns in the social and human sciences. Taking grounds from the viewpoint of thereen actors, the outlined exploratory directions include: personal motivation, collective cause and emotions related to the experience; relationship with the audience;spectacular, theatrical and performative effects; scenography and dramaturgical aspects; considerations of authenticity and historical veracity. The analysis is based on commentaries in specialized online forums about historical reenactments.
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Keywords: heroic anthropology;national liberation struggle;heroes;weapons;museum artifacts;cultural memory
The article discusses the weapons that are preserved until today in Bulgarian museums of the revolutionaries who participated in the struggles for political independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1867–1878. On the basis of observations made within the project “Traces of the Heroic Time,“ as well as of the experience with exhibitions dedicated to this topic, the article makes an overview of the weapons in Bulgarian museums that had belonged to participants in the national liberation struggles – of Georgi Rakovski, Vassil Levski, of the voevods Hadzhi Dimitar Assenov and Stefan Karadza, of Panayot Volov, of Petrana Obretenova, Rayna Popgeorguieva, etc.Raising the issues about the identification of the revolutionaries’ weapons and the interpretation of the facts around them, the author points out that these important artifacts for the construction of historical memory are insufficiently studied in Bulgaria. The article argues that – as materialized history, these weapons facilitate the heroization of the nationally important personalities. Regardless if being truly authentic or not, weapons – similarly to myths, are an important resource for construing the heroism of the national consolidation processes and for the creation and maintenance of the “big historical narratives.“
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