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90 years ago a group of enthusiasts form an opera ensemble, as it occurs in many other localities. And if after one or two titles everything finishes mainly because of lack of funding, exactly in that consists the heroism of citizens of Stara Zagora: the only amateur ensemble which exists 21 years long, and after that it is nationalized in 1946. The nationalization is a kind of recognition but this leads to shocks. In 1967 lays the beginnings of the annually organized Festival of the Opera and Ballet Arts – a mirror of the achievements in the area of music and performing arts. Because of a conflagration end of 1991 the ensemble left homeless. In 2015 the State Operа Stara Zagora celebrates its 90th anniversary, and on the 1st of April 2016 it is 70 years since its nationalization.
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The works of Vladimir Dimitrov – The Master are emblematic and undoubtedly distinguishable due to the artist’s purposeful and long-lasting efforts to create an art that was national in spirit and form. The Master dedicated his art to the recreation of virtues and moral purity of the people into tints and shapes. The artist turned to key moments in the life of Bulgarians and applies to them an iconic scale, aiming to achieve visually the emanation of the Bulgarian spirit. Highly impressive and memorable are his numerous figure compositions with singing women harvesters, maidens with fruit and flowers, wedding guests, mothers with children, male harvesters, etc., which still impress the diverse public and are perceived as a symbol of the Bulgarian mentality. Distinctive for The Master is the search for the most effective impression by developing cycles of a given motif.The Wedding cycle is chosen in view of the high importance of this festive occasion for the patriarchal morality of Bulgaria and the Balkans. The Bride Kisses Hand motif attracted the painter with its symbolism. The artist has created various sketches and paintings focusing on the search for the most characteristic moment, image, gesture and their rendition to an iconic message. In this direction of search and work idealisation is the artist’s deliberate tool to awaken nostalgia for the soul’s purity in the minds of his contemporaries and to leave to the generations a memory about what was and what would be in order to preserve the true identity of Bulgarians, as well as the soul’s demand for purity, respect, hierarchy and harmonious community.The artistic task that the painter has taken upon himself is comparable to the research of historians called to study and preserve Bulgarian generic memory and moral values, without which the future is unthinkable.
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The objective of the present article is to analyse the Turkish holiday system introduced after the proclamation of the Republic and supplemented over the decades with new occasions for national celebrations. Four of Turkey’s “great holidays” introduced under Mustafa Kemal are discussed as events targeted at creating certain emotional states serving to support the Kemalist regime and to create a sense of national belonging in the minds of the Turks. The changes introduced in the national holiday system after the military coup of 1980 are also brought into focus. That was the time when the then Turkish statesmen began to pursue a policy of “Turko-Islamic synthesis” that restored the Islamic festivities – prohibited during the early years of the Republic and traditionally celebrated by left-wing political forces – back into the national calendar. Last but not least, the national holiday known as Democracy and National Unity Day, born of the attempted military coup in 1916, is also presented.
More...Notes after the Completion of the Conservation Works
L’église de Saint George, un édifice en croix inscrite avec coupole, de type complexe à quatre colonnes, est située au pied de l’acropole de l’ancienne Acraephia. À l’époque de l’occupation franque, le village portait lenom de Karditsa et faisait partie du duché d’Athènes. La recherche s’est longtemps accordée sur l’idée que la constructionde l’église devait être attribuée à Antoine le Flamenc, un chevalier français mentionné par l’inscriptionvotive. Le donateur aurait fait bâtir l’église en l’honneur de saint George, saint militaire auquel il devait sa surviependant la bataille de Halmyros (1311), lorsque les Catalans anéantirent l’armée franque. Les récents travaux deconservation, financés par le programme opérationnel régional Thessalie-Grèce continentale-Épire 2007-2013, ontcependant révélé que l’évolution architecturale de l’édifice est bien différente: le chevalier franc n’aurait fait querénover une église qui existait déjà. Le présent article propose donc une nouvelle lecture de l’inscription, recentréesur une analyse des transcriptions précédentes faites par J. A. Buchon et W. Miller, et montre que les anciennesinterprétations du texte étaient sans doute erronées. Bien qu’il soit actuellement impossible de déterminer laséquence précise des événements mentionnés par l’inscription, il est certain qu’ils se sont produits avant et après 1311 (date de la bataille et également date de l’inscription). Des observations détaillées, associées aux phases deconstruction du monument et aux couches ultérieures de sa décoration murale, viennent confirmer ces idées.
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The main emphasis of this text above is economic reconstruction of the Balkan countries that followed hardships and horrors of World War One. Being part of the European continent, the Balkan countries face serious difficulties in overcoming the effects of the global conflict and cannot be separated from political and social crises devastating the continent by the mid-1920s. Those aspects are quite well, though not enough, covered. Far less attention is paid to the economic efforts to overcome post-war difficulties. It is precisely this aspect that is the focus of this research, with the main purpose of empirically testing the working hypothesis of the identical behavior of the Balkan states in a situation of global political and economic crisis, such as Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in the years after the First World War. The choice of the two countries is justified by a methodological point of view, since it makes it possible to find similarities and to distinguish differences in the economic recovery policies of the two countries that fall into the camp of the defeated and the victorious ones, respectively, which at first sight is a condition of a different type of problems, policies and results. Setting them against the backdrop of pan-European and global trends, in turn, guarantees a better look at the “uniqueness” of specific post-world-war-one Balkan conditions.
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The article examines the Peace Corps programs in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War, based on archive documents. After developing volunteer programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America for 30 years, in the early 1990s, the Peace Corps received a historic chance to expand its activities in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc and help strengthen American influence in the region. The historical reconstruction of the organization’s activities in the different countries makes it possible to outline the main goals of the Peace Corps and to determine its effectiveness as a “tool” of American “soft power”.
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“Crossense” is an innovative gaming technique that can successfully find its place in history and civilization classes in Bulgarian schools. It is best suited to keep students’ previous knowledge up-to-date as well as to motivate the new topic, but it is also applicable in other components of the lesson. This way a students’ creative and critical thinking has been formed through “Crossense”.
More...Атанас Шопов (2015). Панагюрци в Цариград през Възраждането. Справочник. 2-ро преработ. изд., Панагюрище, 127 стр.
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The article highlights issues related to the problems of studying the history of Eastern Europe, the definition of Slavic identity and the construction of national Slavic historical memory, which were discussed by domestic and foreign researchers in the framework of the First international St. Petersburg historical forum (October 29–November 3, 2019).
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The articles gathered in this issue of MemoScapes, titled Frames of Reference in Central Europe, and the Black Sea Region, in the Last Two Centuries, assess the importance of nationhood in constructing the social imaginary in the above mentioned regions. Furthermore, they emphasize the national myths, the building processes of national, local, and regional identities in the post-communist/post-soviet world as well as the role played by scholars and politicians, by mass-media and social media in forging new narratives on the past, present, and future. The role of minorities and diasporic communities in the national building processes in the region are also highlighted by a number of papers.
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The paper explores the general issue of how ancient and medieval peoples considered not to be ‘ancestors’ of modern nations are dealt with in academic and popular narratives created in different ideological environments in the 20th century. The case of the modern Romanian conceptual approaches to the ancient Greek inhabitants of the western shore of the Black Sea, particularly to those living in the city of Histria, is examined. These approaches are identified both in the academic works of the archaeologists who have directed excavations at the site since 1914, and in works for larger audiences, such as touristic guidebooks and school textbooks. The picture that emerges from this preliminary research of a rather limited amount of sources is that the West Pontic Greeks were generally perceived as foreigners in contact with the autochthonous Getae, ‘ancestors’ of the Romanians, according to the core of national ideology. Their status was ambiguous because, apart their foreignness, they were bearers of the highly appreciated Classical culture. Consequently, ideological approaches ranged from negative views that portrayed them as perilous exploiters of the locals to positive views that either emphasized their benign influence over the Getae or nationalistically appropriated their cultural achievements. Neutral academic approaches and quasi-complete popular ignorance in favor of the Getae and the Romans are also documented.
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