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The article investigates the socio-cultural projections of the beatification of Evgeni Bossilkov, Bishop of Nikopol, which took place on March 15, 1998 in Rome. The controversial situation is mostly focused on the question of the West-European and American vision about Bulgaria, perceived from the point of view of the coverage of that beatification by the foreign information agencies. The source base of the investigation includes information from the foreign information agencies ANSA, ADNKRONOS, AFP, Reuter, AP, VPI, KNA, EFE of the February-March 1998 period, 1998 Bulgarian periodicals and ethnographic field material from centres of population inhabited by Bulgarian Catholics. The set of tools used includes, most generally, the methodology of the ethnographic field study and of comparative analysis.
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The article touches upon and analyses the degrees of preservation of the traditional culture and the trends, related to the socio-cultural change. Object of study is the village house in the Sakar. It is a living social organism invariably rating high in the hierarchy of values. Within the chronological frameworks of the 20th century, an attempt has been made to follow the "capsulising" and changes in the culture during the periods of transition. On the basis of field research material, the relationship between tradition and modernity has been followed within the context of harmony and conflict, of the lasting preservation or values or the possible contradictions, typical of the processes of transition.
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The article is the first one to make observations and describe some of the entertainment offered in the streets and on the beach with the purpose of making business and providing attraction during the 1994-1999 summertime tourist seasons. The author has classified a few groups: "A Photo for Remembrance", "Pleasure for the Teeth and the Tummy" and "Souvenirs and Tatoos". The first one presents improvised photo studios for the taking of retro-style photos providing the necessary clothing and accessories of the 1930s, and the work of street artists, who offer cartoon and caricature or authentic portraits. The second group includes the snacks and foods designed to be eaten on the beach (grilled sunflower seed, boiled maize, ice-cream and pretzels) or in the street (crisps, candies and sea food delicacies). And the third concerns the fashionable infatuation with black and colour tatoos, made in the street; the souvenirs and ornaments of sea mussel shells, snails and stones offered, and to the street performances: of puppeteers, dancers or musical improvisation. Obviously, the hard economic conditions of late, which have engendered unemployment and the impoverishment of the Bulgarians, push them towards offering new and most varied attractions at the seaside, some of which demand higher intellectual standards.
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The strong Greek identity of the inhabitants of Melnik until the Balkan wars and their high capacity of cultural assimilation of the Bulgarian element is an issue to which number of historiographic essays are devoted. Yet Bulgarian ethnography have almost no paid attention to this "switching" of cultural and ethnic identity. The article addresses this issue in replacing the questions asked by historians in a socio/anthropological perspective. The solution is seen in the intereference of three approaches: (1) the theory of ecotypes applied to the pre-industrial rural societies in Europe and more particularly, the identification of vine-growing as a separate eco-type, with specific features of the family organisation of labour, the forms of household and the inheritance system; (2) the increasing importance of economy in the construction of ethnic identity within a socio-political system undergoing modernisation; (3) the function of marriage in the process of change of one's ethno-cultural identity, with reference to a broader theoretical framework - the impact of symbolic capital in traditional and modern societies. Backed by modern concepts about the economic patterning of the family structure, the analysis highlights the importance of social networks based on kinship as powerful mechanism for coping with changes in the individual and collective lifestyles, and of those based on marriage - as a possible way, as far as Melnik is concerned - to influence the "switching" of cultural and, subsequently, of ethnic identity.
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Compared to other data, the name Sarakaz of a shrine near the present Bulgarian vil¬lage of Botevo, the region of Yambol, shows that it has permanently functioned as a holy place for Turks professing Heterodox Islam (Alevis, Alians). In the 19th century (and even earlier) Turks and Bulgarians lived together in the village. Despite the two mass exiles – of Bulgarians in 1829 and Turks in the end of the 19th century – the cult at this place is preserved and continues its existence. The article examines the mechanisms of formation and functioning of mixed shrines.
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The religious landscape is one of the important issues whose study contributes to the development of the current researches on religiousness. The article directs the attention to a particular example of local sacred geography in the town of Petrich, Southwest Bulgaria, and at the same time outlines processes typical not only to this case but to the local religiousness in Bulgaria after 1989 in general. The study focuses on the development and the contemporary mechanisms for transformation of the holy places and the cults related to them. The text presents the main changes which come in the religious landscape of the region of Petrich in historical aspect after 1989.
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The article aims to explore the cultural memory in a very diverse and challenging border region, the tripoint between the current republics of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as to examine its development and sustainability under the pressure of the new political systems and agendas, taking place in the three countries. The issues will be studied in the light of a legend which was distributed throughout this once culturally uniform territory – the legend about the brotherhood between St. Joachim of Osogovo, St. Gabriel of Lesnovo, St. John of Rila and St. Prohor of Pchin. All four of them are currently part of the narrative of the respective countries, being subject of strategies for cultural and political domination and having their implications on the border regions. But when and why does this change started and does the legend still function within the respective societies, under what circumstances and what does it represent? Contextualised by the patron saint’s day of the monastery named after St. Joachim of Osogovo, the legend could be still found in a latent and somehow rudimental form. United by the experience of the pilgrimage and by the holiday itself people would create communal experience, despite the political differences, and would re-negotiate the historical and political status on the very border.
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MUSEUMS / The Birth of an Exhibition. “The Birth of the Third Bulgarian State. Sofia and the Region on the Border between the 19th and the 20th Century. Metropolitans“
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SCIENCE LIFE / Scientific Conference “Bulgarians Abroad, Foreigners in Bulgaria. Institutions, Organizations, Community Life“, September 2930, 2014, IEFSEMBAS, Sofia
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REVIEWS AND COMMENTS / Aleksandar Anatolievich Prigarin. Russian Old Believers on the Danube River (Formation of EthnoConfessional Community at the End of the 18th and the First Half of the 19th Century). 2010, Odessa – Izmail – Moscow: SMIL – Arheodiksiya, pp. 528
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The text describes and problematizes examples of Bulgarian and foreign museums by trying to focus on the mechanisms of social inclusion. Examples are united by the anthropological discourse which gives the Bulgarian ethnographic museums the opportunity to expand the thematic areas of their presentations. Alternative ways for developing and using the museum as an instrument for social criticism – these are some of the quests of today’s ethnographic museums. At the same time, the author does not hide his bias towards the Ecomuseum format and searches for its ethnographic reading by the establishment of connection between the local communities and the museum which shares local identity with various audiences.
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The report is built on a “story“ for how an object made in the twenties of the XX century, besides being prepared for donation for the museum remained in its family because it was evaluated only as “mobile cultural heritage“. Some reasoning caused by this “incident“ is presented – how to change the recent definitions of museum and strategies for its vision and mission. It remains mostly a repository of evidence of people’s life in times gone by. But the work of an ethnographer-curator, besides accumulating fund, often arranges a picture of the world more clearly, because communicating with people, keeping things, pictures, skills, ideas ... bears equally valuable information as the artifacts themselves. Such “stories“ will become more and more reasonable in times of pulsating problems related to globalization, blurring identities, demand and the rediscovery of values in the modern world. Problems that ethnology could not overlook.
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