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The study is an attempt at a historical, typological and interpretative analysis of the musical culture of the Bulgarians in the Early Middle Ages. Historical documents are scarce and therefore the culturological method is used, based on past studies of the shaman culture of the Bulgarian ethos in the period around the adoption of Christianity, and on the traditional culture of those tilling the land (agricultoribus - according to Latin sources). The starting point is the three-functional structure, typical of the Indo-European peoples, the Bulgarians included, viz.: priests (shamans, and later Christian clergy), warriors and workers. The broad religious and cultural context, in which there is information about music, as well as the typological similarities and comparisons with the traditional culture of agricultura which have come down to us, make it possible to draw scientific inferences, going beyond the laconic specificity of the historical document. The documents used are the Answers of Pope Nicholas I to the Bulgarians, the Talk of Presbyter Kozma Against the Bogomils, the Syndic of Tsar Boril and some other documents. The author's main thesis is that under the existence of a three-functional social structure and of an enlightened literary elite, a reflection emerges of the educated culture of the "other", the traditional culture. Initially, the reflection has a neutral and searching nature (Knyaz Boris), but subsequently it becomes emotionally saturated with negativism and rejection (Presbyter Kozma). In this respect it is contrary to the strikingly positive evaluative reflection of folklore, engendered in the bosom of European romanticism, which was manifested during the National Revival Period in Bulgaria. Despite the historical distance of ten centuries and the internal differences between its two historical forms of manifestation (Early Medieval and Revival Period), it is claimed that what is meant is one and the same phenomenon - a reflection of the traditional culture on the part of the enlightened elite, taking an abstract and non-analytical approach to the culture of "the other" (in the first case rejecting it, in the second - idealising it). Both the differences and the similarities between the two historical types of reflection have been pointed out, whereby according to the author the second type predominates. This brings us to the conviction that what is at hand is a uniform, though historically discrete (interrupted in the temporal chronology) cultural and historical phenomenon.
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The paper deals with the political protests in Bulgarian in early 1997, analysing the forms and manifestations of these protests in view of their sign nature. Subjects to investigation are the political slogans, the carnival and theatrical forms of protest, the impact of the football mentality and the football means of expression. The author makes a comparison between the forms of political protest in 1989-1990 and those of 1997, bringing to the fore the emphatically national and unifying nature of the latter both in the visual symbols (lasting presence of the national flag, at the expense of the party flags) and in the music symbolism. The conclusion comes to the fore that as a whole the protests of January-February 1997 are characterised by a synthesis between archetype models and the dominant impact of the youth subculture.
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The appearance of the Arab, the guardian of a treasure, as a personage both in the fairy tale and in folklore fiction, which is not fairy tales, prompts the author to look, apart from the genre and poetic mechanisms (operating in the fairy tale), for other - ideational and contextual mechanisms, based on the world view. There is a number of common beliefs and practicated with the hiding underground, searching out, excavation and acquisition of treasures. Their analysing leads to the conclusion that the beliefs and ideas about the goblin-keeper of the treasure have changed and that goblin been transformed into a wonderful assistant and guardian in the fairy tale. Therefore the wonderful appearance of the Arab, the guardian of the treasure, far from being just a requirement of the genre is also a necessity, related to a whole set of beliefs.
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The article is devoted to the semantic and mythological meaning of the veiling and unveiling of the bride at the wedding. Separate elements of the rituals are followed: time, space, ritual personages and objects, etc. Special attention has been paid to the chromatic code of the wedding rites associated with the bride's head and hair. Numerous regional and local variants outline the ample possibilities provided by the ritual for the varied external layout, whereby the uniform meaning of the ritual actions is preserved. The veiling and unveiling are interpreted successively as bringing the bride and bridegroom together, their marital "demise" and the new return into the world of the living with the child of the marriage. The organic relationship has been followed of this range of actions with the fundamental structure of the wedding. Essentially, the veiling-unveiling chain is perceived to be a story using specific means of expressing and telling the same which the wedding, as a whole, tells.
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When studying ritual clothes, the author deals with the traditional wedding costume. The comparative analysis enables her to find that clothes of tanned or unprocessed sheep skin are mandatory in the wedding clothes of the Georgians as well as of the Bulgarians and the Eastern Slavs. The analysis of this mandatory wedding attribute prompts the idea that this tradition is associated with the concepts of the deity - dying and resurrecting - and can be traced back to ancient times.
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The article offers a comparative analysis of the "Danubian" songs of the Balkan Slavs, starting from the hypothesis that the denomination "Danube" is used in them not only as the name of a specific geographical space (the name of a river), but also as having the connotations of the mythical and symbolic topos "river", reaching even to cosmogonic implications. The outcome of the more precise and detailed division of this stock of songs is a classification and typology according to the plot and the motive, which lays the foundations of future more detailed studies.
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The main characteristics of traditional fishing in the two regions have been classified according to data in historical sources and in present-day ethnographic field studies: kinds of fish caught and major fishing sites; type variety of the fishing tackle according to design and principle of operation; kinds of fishing boats used; organisation of labour and social composition of those employed in fishing; the fishers' knowledge about the natural factors of fishing; beliefs, practices and customs, related to the work of a fisherman. The comparative review of different aspects of the traditional livelihood of fishing warrants its discussion as an overall complex of material forms, world view ideas and social and normative relations, as a sui generis cultural phenomenon.
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