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Feminine and masculine in Bulgarian music folklore find expression in specifically feminine and masculine performance, feminine and masculine vocal training, feminine and masculine participation in the ritual and custom musical tradition, feminine and masculine repertoire. Series of historical, religious, moral and ethical changes in the Bulgarian folk society seem to be stimulating the development and changes in this musical opposition. The dialect parameters of the opposition masculine-feminine are also interpreted in the inquiry. Modern aspects of relations and mutual infiltration of the masculine repertoire and masculine performance style and the feminine practices and vice versa have been outlined.
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The study by R. Katsarova Horos and Dances from the Region of Gotse Delchev is a regional research of the folk dance riches of one district in South-Western Bulgaria. She shares her observations, analysis and summaries concerning the preserved old folk dances, studied during the period from 1946 to 1958. The study contains historical information about the population of the region — local people and immigrants from the former southern outlying districts of Bulgaria as well as of Bulgarian Christians and Bulgarian Muslims. The author extensively characterizes the horos and dances in style and performance, in structure, rhythm, tempo, form and expression. She presents the elder clothing and the typical vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The article traces also the state of horos and dances connected to some ancient customs, preserved up to this day, such as Lazaruvane, St. George's Day, Enjovden (Midsummer Day), weddings etc.
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The brothers Vladimir and Mitko Mitev from Vladaya Village are a duet, performing authentic twovoice songs from the Shopluk region. This circumstance throws new light upon the research of many specialists in folklore who have found up to this moment that in the Shopluk region the two-voice song is performed only by women. On the other hand, the Mitev Brothers are firm in their position that this type of singing has always existed and is the result of preserved family traditions. Mitko Mitev sings first voice and according to the local terms is called "okach", meaning "the one who calls". Vladimir Mitev is second voice and he is the so called "vlachach", or "helper". The repertoire of the Mitev Brothers is extremely rich and includes different Shops' customs, labor songs, table songs, horo songs and others. They add sometimes their own created songs, which have the style and the typical sounding of the Shops' song. It is characteristic that the Mitev Brothers sing with the same love and devotion for one person as for a. big audience, which makes the contact with them unique — as they themselves are.
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The article discusses the relation between music players and the dancers of the ring chain dance ("horo") in traditional culture through the eyes and experience of the folk musicians. The information collected in field interviews about the music playing for the "horo" outlines diverse means of communication, defined by the social normative requirements for the specific communicative situation on the part of the community as well as according to the fine mechanisms of "happening" of the communicative act during shared participation in the horo as a creative proceeding event. The article elaborates the social necessity to have a music player at the horo, the principles of mutual exchange of skills and values for the benefit both of the individual position of the music player of the horo and the dancers, who lay their conditions as a cultural commission. A next stage of extending the relationship is the correlation between the language of music and movement in the process of immediate communication in the horo. Comprising and structuring the instrumental horo music challenges the players and gives them freedom to sophisticate the language of the dance. On the other hand, the morphology of the horo melody depends on the mood of the dancers. The mutual commitment seems to be a result of accumulation of united dancing-and-musical energy. Within the minds of the participants in the dance event the instrumental music and the rhythmicand- movement activity are inseparable. The musician and the horo-dancers are two parties with equal participation in a wholesome process. The relation between them manifests in two types of behavior at different levels — in social perspective and as "musical" proceeding of the music-and-dancing act.
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The text presents some aspects of the "life" of Bulgarian ethno music in the Austrian capital — places and situations in which it "happens" and musicians who in one or another way take part in this musical life. The interest in ethno-jazz music in Bulgaria during the recent years is emphasized, but this interest presumes other interpretations, when this music has been "exported" beyond the borders of the country. There it sounds and is perceived in a slightly different way. Different are the emphases especially in signifying it as ethno-music played by musicians of different nationality. The Bulgarian ethno-jazz in Vienna has its brilliant musical manifestation. Being part of a Balkan 'wave", it magnificently incorporates in the polyphonic sound mosaic of the Austrian capital. But with its life as an outlined phenomenon with local color within the globalizing musical dimensions, this music is a "device" to construe the national identity of the Bulgarian musicians who play it.
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The article refers to interesting and not discussed problems — the lack of functional attachment of the Rhodopa songs as well as ornaments as a specific code in rituals. Referring to the first problem — there may be found a different cause for the dissociation of functionality in the song cycles from the Rhodopa Mountain in comparison to the same process observed in other folk regions. The reason for dropping out of the function is dissociation of the folk system, caused by change in the social existence of Bulgarians. This dropping out of the function has occurred much earlier in the Rhodopa Mountain in comparison to other regions because of the adoption of Islam among the population. This changed the social existence both of the Bulgarian Mohammedans and the Bulgarian Christians. The article refers also to another interesting phenomenon — marking of rituals with a specific musical code — ornaments. It becomes clear from the analysis that the ritual songs have specific structure, characterized with the limited immanent development of the music components, including ornaments. The reason to apply means of expression in such "ascetic" manner is due I think to the strong syncretism, which on the one hand unites the elements in a syncretic whole, but on the other hand hinders the specific development of each element — music, dance and word.
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The paper presents the composer T. Popov in the light of the personal meeting with him and the author's acquaintance with him. The creative work of T Popov in song adaptations is analyzed in different aspects — types of songs, which the composer remakes, his creative style in adaptation of the song material, melodic and harmonic devices etc. Special attention has been paid to the remakes by T. Popov of Bulgarian folk songs from different regions, where the ambition to keep the regional melodic and rhythmic specifics of the song is clearly outlined. A brief summery has been made to the creative work of T Popov in the field of solo song (mainly accompanied by a piano). The text emphasizes the significance of the creative work of a composer who should not be forgotten.
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Men’s lifestyle magazines are quite a new subgenre of popular magazines aimed at young, single, well-off and pleasure-oriented male readers. Editors of those magazines aspire to ‘reveal’ a sizable gap between their journals and up-market women’s magazines. However, the attributed differences are superficial or even illusory. Being assured that editors possess the secret of hegemonic masculinity, the reader believes that they want to share it with him. Nevertheless, at the deeper level of this media category there are latent processes of male reader feminization. The readers of those magazines are not only asked to succumb to insatiable material consumption but also get encouraged to focus on their body beautification. Moreover, men’s lifestyle magazines articulate keen resistance to feminist movement as well as a negative attitude toward gays and lesbians. The readers are asked to believe that the social world is still under the control of men as it used to be in the past. A reader who lacks self-confidence and a sense of security may want to be deceived in that way even at the price of becoming feminized.
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Review Essay: Svetla Koleva: Sociologiata kato proekt. Nauchna identichnost i socialni izpitania v Balgaria 1945-1989 godina. Sofia: Pensoft Publishing House 2005.
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The article presents a case study of a call center in the context of Erving Goffman’s theory. The call center is a stage where actors-consultants play their roles. Their prescribed roles constitute a script to be duly observed. Role performance is constantly supervised and meticulously monitored with the aid of invisible mechanisms. Almost every sphere of performance is controlled, including qualitative and quantitative efficiency, working time, interruptions and the usage of technical equipment (e.g. computers) in order to eliminate discordance with the prescribed role. Does strict control of the occupant roles transform a call center into a total institution? Although the identity of consultants is regulated by the employer, the work is not obligatory. Goffman’s theoretical categories are adequate for the analysis of a call center, but the reference to a total institution in the exact sense of this term would not be correct.
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The article deals with the issue of structural and cohesion funding by the European Union in Poland. Although all funds earmarked for the first programming period 2004-2006 were allocated, the process posed certain problems. Therefore, in our paper we point to the weaknesses of the system and some of the hindrances to efficient fund allocation: faulty institutional and legal framework, bureaucracy, corruption and personnel deficits. We base our findings on a research incorporating 150 in-depth interviews carried out in four regions of Poland. Referring to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems, we present a sketch of an unevenly differentiated political system, in which administration and politics prevail over the underprivileged public, incapable of counteracting trends of politicization and bureaucratization. By showing the evolution and reproduction of the system, we relate to its deficits and their impact on the future use of the EU funds inflow. The article deals with the issue of structural and cohesion funding by the European Union in Poland. Although all funds earmarked for the first programming period 2004-2006 were allocated, the process posed certain problems. Therefore, in our paper we point to the weaknesses of the system and some of the hindrances to efficient fund allocation: faulty institutional and legal framework, bureaucracy, corruption and personnel deficits. We base our findings on a research incorporating 150 in-depth interviews carried out in four regions of Poland. Referring to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems, we present a sketch of an unevenly differentiated political system, in which administration and politics prevail over the underprivileged public, incapable of counteracting trends of politicization and bureaucratization. By showing the evolution and reproduction of the system, we relate to its deficits and their impact on the future use of the EU funds inflow.
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The key-word based dictionary (A-K) introduces Estoanian wedding customs and participants. With the custom, the distribution area of the name and custom have been given with the accuracy of one parish.
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When the shaman felt the spirit's arrival, he began to sing on its melody. A song consisted from the fragments of different length (from couple to several hundreds of lines), each started with words tamany, tamany - a sign that the shaman, who between the fragments spoke `his own words' for commenting the songs, will again perform the speech of his helping spirit. Tuobtusi repeated each line of the song. Nobody could not speak with the spirits on his own initiative, but had to wait till the spirit will ask him a question. After that the shaman stopped singing and - if necessary - explained the question. If the person whom the question was addressed did not understand or his answer did not satisfy the shaman/the helping spirit, the shaman began a new song fragment, in which he tried to phrase it in other words. The long fragments (119 lines at the first and 231 lines at the second séances) are distinctively monologuous, containing the lines referring to the inner reasoning of the shaman/helping spirit: at the beginning I thought to say, after that I thought to say, then I thought to say, thereafter I thought to say, on that day I thought to say, shortly I thought to say. The short fragments are dialogical, containing a guesswork about some matter related with an addressee and a prediction - what will happen, if the shaman is right. On the base of published materials I can assure that these sorts of guessing or divination were common to all Nganasan shaman séances. At the beginning of a rite the so-called quest for the right path had to convince a shaman and an audience that the shaman, together with his helping spirits, is moving towards the purpose of the séance by the right way, all of them powerful for acting. Nobody must lie to a shaman nor must one assure the wrong guesswork of a shaman. According to the belief, giving the false information amounts to misleading a shaman. The latter could be fatal to a shaman and his community. At the end of successful rite a shaman had been accustomed to foretell the future by request of a participant. The divination, which did not differ formally from seeking the right path, may have accompanied with casting lots by means of a drumstick. In addition to the function of foretelling, the short/dialogical fragments are kind of magic - each of them is an attempt to act on the life of an addressee. From the viewpoint of a shaman the principle of such magic will be following: if my words happen to be right then you are going strong. The long fragments are more poetic, and therefore less understandable than short ones. The shaman does not address them directly to anybody, though he may say the names of participants or relatives. At the first séance the words at the beginning I thought to say are followed by the characterisation of the situation.
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Folk beliefs and religious conceptions of birds are based on several things: the appearance of the bird (black, white), its song (reminding of crying), lifestyle (active in the night), eating habits (carnivore), etc. There is a lot common in the belief of birds begin connected with the land of the dead. In spring, at the time of the migrant birds' arrival, one had to eat early in the morning before going out to strengthen himself against the "power" flowing from the birds. At a bird's nest, in contrast, the transition of bad power or influence or energy from humans to birds had to be avoided. Bird types have been given in the alphabetical order: the jackdaw Corvus monedula, the hooded crow Corvus corone, the quartz Pica pica, the bittern Bottarius stellaris, the raven Corvus corax, the ringdove Columba palumbus, a small grey omen-bird called the death-bird or the bird of ruin.
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In psychological observations of jokes, it is not so much the text of the joke than the function and place it has in the person reading, telling, or listening to the joke that interest is taken in. The influence of the joke on him and what touches that individual is dealt with. In the psychoanalytical approach, jokes are viewed as an expression of the subconscious. This approach explains jokes from the viewpoint of the human soul. In his work Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten (Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious), Sigmund Freud pays attention mostly to the context of the material, coming to the conclusion that every narrative influences the human soul differently. In the latter, the difference of all humans lies in. Freud differentiates the technique and tendency of jokes. The joke can be obscene, aggressive (hostile), cynic (critical or blasphemous) or sceptical by its tendency (function) and emphasis. When talking about the three-link chain of interpreting jokes, the communicativity of jokes is emphasized. Freud writes about the impossibility of laughing at a joke created by one as what becomes evident there touches the creator much too deeply. At the same time the joke can not be kept only to one's own knowledge, because the urge to tell it is too big. A joke can exist only in a communicative process. One of the most significant representatives of the discipline, Gershon Legman, studies the favourite anecdotes of narrators in his book Rationale Of The Dirty Joke: An Analysis Of Sexual Humor. During an experiment, people are asked to tell their favourite anecdote or the joke they remember first. Then the jokes are analysed as this should throw light upon some of the hidden corners of the human psyche. Psychoanalysis could develop only in modern society. It has been called a phenomenon of the contemporary chaos and also an attempt to turn everything upside down. But can an anecdote, already by its nature based on denial, be explained by another upside-down-turner? If, through jokes, it is possible to draw conclusions on their creator and the psyche of their users, then can we make hypotheses about which anecdotes that person probably likes, basing only on their psyche? But the main task is still finding answers to the questions, what we are laughing at and why we laugh at the particular. When trying to characterise the surrealistic jokes of today, we should also think of Sigmund Freud and his work Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten.
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(Paragraphs from the fieldwork-diary, extracts from the collected material) The EFA summer expedition of 1996 to the parishes of Martna and Kirbla was regarded with some prejudice and fears (the religious exorbitance in Läänemaa, the introversion of the local people, etc.), but all the more decisively. Soon it was clear that the locals were everything but introverted and religious movements were something I soon started to long for. Quite soon I also got the impression that although there had been several musicians and good singers in that region (now we only managed to collect the basic data and memories of them) and very many still had song notebooks, there was no superstition or any narratives of the kind. For example: My father didn't believe. He did always the opposite. There in a village, it was that: "No, today morning it is no use going out, the horse dung between the shafts." my father still went, just out of stubbornness. But then there were still some who knew both legends of place names (this time very many about Kalevipoeg and Kuradikivi - 'Devilstone') and narratives with a rich religious background. (It is common knowledge that when looking for the oldest and natural born locals, the collector may not notice some really interesting people - just as almost by accident I found a woman born in 1947 whose grandfather had been a musician, mother a singer, who herself told of a treasure-bearer seen by her grandmother, of omens connected with herself, the birth of her son and the death of her mother and of many other things.) It is interesting that quite some of the people who themselves had no other supernatural experiences had still just before the war either seen themselves some heavenly signs or had heard of them from someone close. In most cases the sky had been purple red in the east, but there were more concrete omens as well. The rich bee-traditions of Läänemaa which have been recorded in the EFA cardfiles in the `30s, have by now lost most of its religious background. From the earlier local witches, mostly those who dealt with healing plants or fixed sprained bones were mentioned. The of attitudes towards the sensitives and healers of today in Läänemaa varied from severe criticism to deep respect. This year, perhaps more material than usual was collected that could serve as a basis for the so-called background studies, that is, what people themselves talk of their life, conditions and how they feel about the way the world is, what they consider to be important, not only folkloristic material and remnants or signs of the primeval beginning of the things.
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A political anecdote is first all, a popular and not a scientific concept. It is a forbidden story told only to those you trusted, who thought like the speaker did. This phenomenon characterises primarily a society of repression where people have no opportunities to express their dissatisfaction in a legal way. Political subject is just as often found in conundrums as in anecdotes. For some subjects, it even seems that the conundrum expresses attitudes and opinions more colourfully and precisely than the anecdote. An old-fashioned anecdote, the longer style of delivery of which has been forgotten over time, may sometimes take on the form of a conundrum. The so-called introduction falls away and the colourful punch line of the anecdote is used in the new conundrum. Political background may occur in anecdotes about persons, ethinics or animals. Political anecdotes and conundrums can be divided into three groups: 1. Anecdotes and conundrums about statesmen. Typical subjects are a visit, competition or outdoing each other; 2. Anecdotes which poke fun at the socialist or communist system, but in which specific statesmen are not mentioned; 3. Anecdotes about life conditions, in which situations created by the crumbling system are described. Most of the information used in this article originates from the collections of the Estonian Folklore Archive, especially from the collection of materials handed in during the children's competition of school traditions in 1992. In the first part of the series of articles, an overview of political anecdotes at the time of the Estonian Republic (1920-1939).
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The basis of wider distribution of choral singing among the country people was established at school and in the church. At the beginning of the 1930s, the development of polyphonic choral singing started. The example of choral singing as a form of social activity was taken over from the Baltic Germans among whom a movement of choral societies cultivating polyphonic men- or mixed choruses was widespead on direct influence of German culture. In Germany it was one expression of the national need of Germans to become one nation. In Estonia, in Põlva already in 1855 and 1857 several choruses performed together on what was called a "song-holiday", but the first song-holiday of a county that had a wider response was organised by the local priest Martin Köber in 1863 in Anseküla, where 500 singers participated. In North-Estonia, the first song festival was held two years later in Jõhvi, and in June 1869 the first Estonian nationwide song festival was held in Tartu after two years of pursuing a permission from the authorities. It has been even claimed that Estonians sung themselves into a nation. Since then, song festivals have regularly been taking place. The song festival is a folk festival, being at the same time both a ritual and a spectacle. The song festival creates a situation where cultural identity and national unity can be demonstrated. The mechanism of this festival is social mobilisation, people come to the festival with their families and friends, more important than the choral experience is communicating with those from close and afar, the need to experience reblendation into the society in a wider sense, the sense of unity with the nation, its history and cultural heritage. Artistic organised performances taking place during the festival that are aimed at the audience demonstrate cultural devotions of the particular community, carrying at the same time three main purposes: the social function to organise the community; the psychological function to express personal and collective emotions; and thirdly, the function to expose, strengthen and create the particular culture (Turner-McArthur 1990, 86).
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