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The article focuses on the evaluation of erotic and expressive elements in Czech fairy tales and anecdotes. For historical reasons (late recording, self-censorship of the collectors, etc.) relatively few texts of this type have been preserved. Erotic motifs are present especially in jokes and humorous and novelistic tales, anecdotes and in a number of fairy tales. Eroticism is most often included in stories about infidelity, about courtship, in connection with the stupidity of the main character or villain. Based on the comments of some collectors as well as using comparative folklore studies, we are able to reconstruct the original form of some fairy tales with erotic elements. However, the possibilities of such a reconstructive method in research into verbal folklore are limited. A new dimension has been added to these methods by visual anthropology. The film trilogy by Pier Paolo Pasolini based on original folk tales can be regarded as an interesting way of artistic reconstruction of erotic folklore.
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The paper analyzes and compares four theoretical approaches to the notion of nationalism as well as the following cognate notions embraced under its umbrella: nation, ethnic, religion. These approaches differ mainly regarding their axiological foundations, regarding the values accepted as socially significant. The typology applied to the research methods of identity studies is used here as epistemological optics of the analysis: 1) the essentialist approach, relating it to the ontological substratum, and 2) the anthropological approach, understanding it as a psychological construct. The importance of the analysis for the methodological foundation and self-reflection of the concrete ethnologic studies is emphasized.
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The paper presents an individual and group reaction of the population in the town of Pernik during the earthquake of May 22, 2012, in the context of its local and national projection. The text analyzes the causes of the earthquake and the efficacy of the meas¬ures for prevention and overcoming the results of the disaster in the context of their official interpretation and on the level of everyday culture. The conclusions show the shaken trust of the Bulgarian in the political and economic stability of the state; the crisis of life, including as a result of a natural disaster, is comprehended as something permanent and inextricable. The opinion that over the last several years in Bulgaria the complete lack of security in national aspect should be measured on the Richter scale rather than the earthquakes settled permanently in the public space in the region.
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The functioning of informal practices as a part of the labour culture and entrepreneurship in two different economic and political regimes is discussed in view of the case of the Borovets Resort. This paper focuses attention on the participation of women in the tourist business in the resort and discusses the thesis that Bulgarian women working in the sphere of tourism are among the ‘winners’ in the transition, in contrast to men working in other fields of the economy. The ethnographic research carried out in the resort in the winter and summer of 2012 and the comparison with previous observations in the same field do not provide evidence to support such a thesis. Viewed in the broader socioeconomic context, the situation of women employed in the tourism sector does not differ considerably from the situation of women employed in other spheres. They live within and are a part of the same gender regime: a common gender ideology and culture. The problematic development of the formal economy, including the field of tourism (regarded as successful), compels men as well as women to search for additional income by working in the informal sector (e.g. the household farm, hourly labour without a contract, self-employment, and so on). Women retain high employment by combining work in the formal and informal economy; however, their situation could hardly be considered a ‘success’. Those working in hotels, the self-employed, and those employed in family businesses evaluate the situation as ‘coping’ or ‘surviving’ in a long-term and harsh economic situation. In order to overcome the unpredictability of this situation, they use all available resources – their cultural, social, and economic capital.Some of the informal practices which are known from the socialist period lose their meaning under the conditions of the new market economy and free access to goods, but others – such as party patronage, personal loyalty, and purchasing access to sources of income – gain new power and produce an exclusion (of those who are ‘not our people’) from the presumably free market and widely accessible formal procedures.
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This paper presents a study of the formation and transformation of subcultural group identity in postsocialist Bulgaria. A number of stylistic orientations are presented (punk, hardcore, skinhead, casual), along with related ideological dispositions (‘extreme left’, ‘extreme right’, apolitical). Both paint a real picture of the development of these youth movements as being bound to a distinct class background and to a specific form of opposing the dominant culture. The maintenance of subcultural identity is related to several compulsory prerequisites: clothes, music, presence in a defined real or virtual space, and the practising of specific activities (having tattoos, attending concerts and/or football games, and participating in street protests). The current field material is based on participant observation in the groups carried out in Plovdiv between January and October 2012. In addition, the author discusses some of the prejudices connected to the distinctiveness of these subgroups, whose access to work and education is dif¬ficult. The study is part of the project ‘Youth Subcultures in Postsocialist Bulgaria’, financed by the National Science Fund’s ‘Young Scholars – 2011’ competition.
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This article traces some of the changes that have occurred over the last two decades in the sphere of kinship relationships through the perspective of the new forms of assisted reproduction and the public debates that accompany their legislation and regulation. Taking as a launching point a specific realm in the anthropology of kinship since the end of the twentieth century, the article outlines the changes in the meaning and interpretation of kinship in the era of artificial conception, when the new tendencies of developing family as an institution parallel forms of assisted reproduction which challenge previous traditional notions and perceptions. The article presents an overview of major political, legislative, and ethical questions related to assisted reproduction and illustrates them with examples from the public debates on the introduction of such technologies in Bulgaria, and more specifically on the proposed law about surrogate motherhood submitted in 2011. The emphasis in the text falls not on the medical and technological aspects of the new forms of assisted reproduction, but rather on the role of the latter in rethinking the existing patterns of kinship relationships (mostly the category of parenthood), as well as on their contribution to various discussions about kinship in present-day societies.
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The article dedicated to the earliest film shows in Sofia studies the information on them in the periodicals as an evidence for the life in the capital city in the end of the 19th century. It reveals the richness of information on the style of living of the inhabitants of the capital of that time, on their customs and relations, on the level of their culture, the architecture of the city, its established traditions, even on the refinements of some crafts.
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The text discusses the nature and functions, the aesthetic and ethical vision of the comedy and its postmodern transformations; the social messages of the Bulgarian comedy film and the phenomenon of the movie script based on literary work. The article problematizes the relations between the commercial cinema product of high quality and the aesthetic value of the contemporary literary work which has turned into classic. The film of Dimitar Mitovski turned out to be a real competitor of the brilliant parody novel of Alek Popov. And the plot of „Mission London“ became a byword for the initially wrong model of the „Bulgarian transition period“. The ever¬lasting theme of We and the Others which has become a mental stereotype of every peripheral culture is presented in the spirit of our native traditions but also in an odd way, grotesquely realistically, sadly funny, put CKS OF A MOVIE.The text discusses the nature and functions, the aesthetic and ethical vision of the comedy and its postmodern transformations; the social messages of the Bulgarian comedy film and the phenomenon of the movie script based on literary work. The article problematizes the relations between the commercial cinema product of high quality and the aesthetic value of the contemporary literary work which has turned into classic. The film of Dimitar Mitovski turned out to be a real competitor of the brilliant parody novel of Alek Popov. And the plot of „Mission London“ became a byword for the initially wrong model of the „Bulgarian transition period“. The everlasting theme of We and the Others which has become a mental stereotype of every peripheral culture is presented in the spirit of our native traditions but also in an odd way, grotesquely realistically, sadly funny, publicistically carnival. The reader of the novel and the spectator of the movie ejaculate with one voice: this is impossible because it is...true! From Aleko (Konstantinov) to Alek (Popov) – it‘s all true...
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The paper brings up issues about the foreigners performing Bulgarian folk music at Koprivshtitsa National Folk Festival. Certain participants from different countries are highlighted along with their repertoire choices. Attention is paid to the time and spatial placing of the foreigners performing at this cultural event compared with the selected Bulgarian participants included in the official programmes. The issues of the motivations of foreign amateurs to perform Bulgarian folk music and the psychological dispositions and attitudes of Bulgarian audiences towards them are broached.
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