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The study is devoted to a problem, already discussed in Bulgarian specialized literature: the semantics of the ritual preparation of wedding bread. The common basis between the previous analyses and the presented one here is the perception of bread kneading as an action, similar to the coitus and human conception, an action illustrating the fertility both in human society and in nature. This study remains in the scope of this most general idea, making an attempt of its own "identification" of the opposing elements in the common structure. First the simplest necessary scheme of bread kneading is examined: the one, represented by a sieve and a kneading trough. There are two groups of elements involved in the action: the first one includes the sieve, through which the flour passes and the kneading trough, where are put all the products, and where the kneading and the ripening of the bread takes place. All speculations allow to determine these elements as representing the feminine part notable for her statics and the possibilities to absorb. The second group of elements includes all products: flour, salt, water, leaven, representing the masculine part. Their correlations in Bulgarian folk culture are sought. Beside the masculine-feminine characteristics of the objects, the systems of the ritual characters, the actions, the space and time dimensions are also analysed. On the basis of all speculations in semantic perspective the supposition is made, that the sifting out of flour and the kneading of wedding bread duplicates the sexual intercourse of the young couple; the ready bread represents its result; the tearing to pieces of the bread - the birth of a child and in the same instance the beginning of a new cycle for the young family.
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In Memoriam of Maxim Mladenov
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The paper deals with the marriage pattern among Catholic Bulgarians from Baltaji the 20-ies of XX-th C. in the light of the complex approach, introduced by J. M. Halpern. According to it different social phenomena are studied in linear and cyclic time perspective and their quantitative and qualitative dimensions are outlined. The sources for this study include parochial book on baptisms, weddings and funerals in the village, family books, civil marriage certificates and specific field-work data. In the 20-ies both worldview systems in Baltaji - the customary and the religious ones, build ideal patterns of marriage systems of their own. The pattern, based on traditional notions, claims for early and total marriages, while the West Christian doctrine proposes the celibate as an alternative to the marriage. The current type comprises elements from both patterns. It is distinguished by early marriages for both sexes and wide-spread celibate among women. A small part of men delays the marriage as a consequence of the feminine celibate. Among women late marriages are rather an exception. The ideal marriage patterns and their real proections are in constant interrelation in linear and cyclic time dimensions.
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Changes affecting the facial part of the skull during the different stages of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria are subject to anthropological analysis in the present study. The facial dimensions especially the ones taking into account the profile bring about to the understanding of the tribute renered by the various ethnic entities to the formation of the Bulgarian nation. In 627 male crania from 26 necropoles 8 dimensions and 3 indices characterizing the zygomatic breadth, the upper face height, the breadth and the flatness of the nasal base, breadth of the nasal orifice, depth of fossa canina, orbital height, the horizontal profile of the face and the protrusion of the nasal bones were investigated. Intragroup and intergroup differences in the values of the studied features during four consecutive stages of the Medieval Epoch were traced. The early Middle Ages (8th-10th C) exposed on the background of late antiquity stand out by substantial alterations in the facial part of the skull. The upperiace neight and the nasal breadth become significantly higher together with the decrease of the nasal bone profile angle and the depth of fossa canina. The greatest intergroup variations - between the North-East Bulgarian populations and the ones from the extreme South-West territories of today's Bulgaria, have been recorded in this period. During the next periods, nasal and orbital sizes are the ones least subject to change. Certain variations are shown by the nasomallary and zygomaxillary angles. Significant differences are noted in the upperface height, the zygomatic breadth, dacrial and simotic indices and in the profile angle of the nose. The presence of mongoloid admixtures such as wide and flat nasal base, high and rounded orbits and weakening of the facial profile was registered. In none of the populations under study however, the fully shaped complex of the specific mongoloid features was observed. The analysis performed indicates to a diversity in the anthropological characteristics of the facial part of the skull during the entire Middle Ages especially pronounced in the 8th-10th C and 12th-14th C periods mainly under the influence of the enhanced migration processes.
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REVIEWS, CRITICISM, NEW BOOKS
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Who is the Roumanian Krachun? A forgotten deity, a mythical ancestor, a personification or only a name of a feast? This is the question which the presented paper seeks the answer to. Here are represented and analysed data on Krachun from different levels of folk Roumanian beliefs: specific folk notions; Christmas song tradition; legends; custom and ritual system. On all those levels a complex and multilayer character arises, comprising the unity of different and seemingly contradictory characteristics. Krachun has both chtonic and solar features. He is the absolute creator. He creates the sky and the earth, fertilizes the earth and gives life to plants and animals; he teaches people agriculture, gives them the laws of communial life, institutes the transition rites (esp. Christmas rites), and the feast of his own, i. e. heorganizes the human society. In his wholesome characteristics Krachun is similar to archaic cosmic deities of ancient religious systems of peoples, who had inhabited the cultural areal, part of which is Roumania and more precisely - the Thracian cultural koine. In the character of Krachun two different cosmogenetic notions coexist. Both of them parallel this process with his birth, maturity and aging. The difference is in the way this process takes place. According to the first version he is the son of the Great Mother Goddes, who had self-conceived and then given birth to him. Later the child deity became her husband - lover and fertlizes her. According to the second version Krachun is an androgene, who re-created the cosmogenesis by self-conception. The Christianisation of Roumanian people brought for the development of this character in two lines. First, in accordance with his narute of a cosmic deity with solarchtonic features and a son of the Great Mother Goddess, he is identified with Christian God and the God's son. And second, he opposes them and the Holy Mother and is hostile to the sacral birth-giving. He is transformed in the rich shepherd, the malicious man, the unbeliever who in the end of the story is reconciled with the Holy Mother and becomes a saint.
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In Memoriam of Maxim Mladenov
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REVIEWS, CRITICISM, NEW BOOKS
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The article presents seven apocryphal prayers in "Часослов" from 1497/1498, kept in the library of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchy in Jerusalem. Resides the prayers, the manuscript also features apocryphal compositions, including also 75 prescriptions for the treatment of different diseases. The prayers are against "nezhit" evil spells, snakes, nose bleeding, rabies, hold¬ing of water in the body and against "the Migrin worm", gnawing at the teeth and jaws of people. Sonic of them are quite short, but others have been composed as complete narrations with a plot, dramatic personae and dialogue. Prescrptions, mostly of a magic character, are applied in almost all of the cases for curing the sick person. Particularly interesting is the idea of the relationship of these prayers with an¬cient texts in the Akkadian languages from the New Babylonian Kingdom, which ex¬isted long years BC. It has been developed quite recently by L. Radenkovic regarding "nezhit". The author has now added yet another analogy in the prayer against the horrible "Migrin worm". In the Christian variant, Apostle Paul substitutes the ancient Shamash.
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BOOK REVIEWS AND COMMENTS
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ETHNOGRAPHIC MATERIALS
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BOOK REVIEWS AND COMMENTS Тракиецът и неговият свят. Материали от VIII-та Национална конференция на българските етнолози, Хасково'95. Изд. на Етнографски институт с музей - БАН, С, 1997, 313 с. с ил.
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BOOK REVIEWS AND COMMENTS Peter Dobrev's Studies About the Ancient Bulgarians and Bulgarian Ethnology (In connection with P. Dobrev's book "Bulgarian Hotbeds of Civilisation on the Map of Eurasia. Economy, Lifestyle and Culture оf the Early Bulgarians", 1998)
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The article presents the results of a study carried out and employing two basic research approaches: the one using the methodology "traditionally inherent" in an ethnographic/ethnological study, which features comparative historical analy¬sis (abstract logical and specifically situational) of elements of the traditional Bul¬garian culture and its manifestations in our present day. The second approach uses a method comparatively new to the researcher, which may be referred to (in the working variant of the concept) as inquiry probing, using the opportunities provided by the contemporary mass media. During a total of 70 broadcasts of the Horizont Programme of the Bulgarian National Radio, the author conducted an inquiry among listeners from all over Bulgaria who had called in on subjects, se¬lected in advance and dealing with traditional practices and customs (making up irrational and rational models of behaviour), associated with pregnancy, the rais¬ing and bringing up of children in a family milieu. The main conclusions drawn by the investigation at this stage are the following: i. The methodology selected en¬ables the researcher to successfully record ethnological data. 2. The family is the main agent in the two fundamental processes, i. e. the socialisation and the ethnic cultivation of the individual from an early age. Cultural models of behaviour, eth¬nically specific for the Bulgarian ethnic community, are shaped in the family mi¬lieu. They are manifested in the media environment and from there they have been subjected to ethnological analysis.
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