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The present paper deals with the concepts of GOOD and BAD as reflected in the Bulgarian lexical system from the standpoint of Cognitive Metaphor Theory, developed by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. The study is based on the view that the concepts of GOOD and BAD undoubtedly belong to the natural kind of human experience, but nevertheless require definition by means of metaphors as the concepts do not exist objectively in the physical world but emerge from human understanding. The linguistic data elucidate metaphors based on image schemata for ENERGY, FORCE, CONTROL, BALANCE and EQUILIBRIUM on which the conceptualization of the notions under scrutiny here is based in the minds of Bulgarians.
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Mythological symbols are depicted on wood-carved royal doors, originating from Revival Christian churches in Southwestern Bulgaria. The emphasis is on the images of dragons. The semantics of the symbols is analyzed. Their connection with the topics of fertility and the protection of the sacred space is studied.
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Folk Christianity and numerous folk beliefs, which are a part of the rich folk tradition, originate from primitive cults and nations. Christian holly holidays are often a transformation of traditional pagan holidays and festivals. They occurred as a result of cultural and religious assimilation, as the missionaries sent to spread Christianity in Europe, faced with live religions of the nations that lived at that time on the Old continent. The assimilated nations took with them also their memory of their “idols”, which could have not been accepted in Christianity that strictly forbid their worship. Impossibility of practicing the pagan rituals caused the “dying out” of their religion, which remained only a thought without foundation, reduced to old memories. The ancient memories that lived in the nation, found their way and were revived in its imagination, continue their life having taken root in the myth. The ancient pagan cults served as the inspiration to the new religion that was spreading through Europe. The old “idols“ were dressed in new clothes and became Christian saints protectors; the ancient customs were adjusted to the Christian God, and the polytheistic religions was replaced by a new one – monotheistic, as one religion cannot exist without rituals and rites.
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The report presents material from the speaking community about the blessings and good wishes, the Bulgarians of Shishtavec village (Republic of Albania). The collected material shows a well shaped and very rich category with blessings and good wishes to reveal important features of typological Shishtavec Bulgarians. They are loving, generous and positive emotional stressed. Wishes are associated with good wishes, good health for families, long and happy life, success and more.
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The purpose of the present article is to scrutinize some curious details concerning the Balkans to be found in the western travel notes during the 15th century. Our attention was primarily concentrated on the data provided by Roberto Sanseverino, Alessandro Ariosto, Santo Brasca, Bernard von Breidenbach, Konrad Grьnemberg, and Arnold von Harff. The travellers listed above provide rather intriguing information concerning specific customary practices, language, religion, manufacture, costume, agriculture, trade, wine production, etc. In this study we focus on data about the lands of Albania and their cities, on the texts describing actual political situation, there included the administration and taxation, the fear of the Ottoman omnipotence, the eventual military opportunities, coeval events or such of the recent past.
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The purposeof the article is to identify the types of interaction between the national mass culture of the 60–80s, represented by vocal and instrumental ensembles and folk music, and to determine the trends in its development during this period. The research methodology is based on the systematic analysis of domestic pop of the 1960-80's. The descriptive approach provides the disclosure of the most complete picture of Ukrainian pop, which allows different approaches to the problems of its evolution in the author's, performer's, educational, and entertainment context.Scientific novelty. The most complete systematisation of the music of national VIЕ in the context of interaction with folklore (by years of releasing albums, singles), for the first time a list of pop arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs by the most famous ensembles is presented. Besides, the general tendency of penetration of folk song and dance intonations into author's compositions is covered. The combined types, namely the use of author's music and folk poetry and vice versa in one work, are shown. It is proven that the regional factor is not localised in the music of certain ensembles, but is common to many, arrangements of songs of different regional origin are found in the music of ensembles from all regions of Ukraine. Conclusions. The period of the 60s and 80s in Ukrainian popular culture is significant in terms of new approaches to authorship and performance. It is then that it becomes mass. This is the time of the birth of professional pop education, the function of which was partially performed by Ukrainian ensembles, experience in ensembles provided professional skills of performers. Folk music culture has become an integral part of the repertoire of bands in the form of pop arrangements, genre stylisations. Orientation to folklore is demonstrated by all well-known ensembles of that period, the range of folk songs processed by pop musicians is significantly expanding. There is a total renewal of all means of expression associated with the development trends of European pop culture, to which the national fully belongs.
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Settlement studies have an interdisciplinary character and affect a number of areas of scientific knowledge: history, geography, ethnology, archeology, Bulgarian language and of course, onomastics. The municipality of Nedelino is interesting for its cultural and historical heritage and unique Nedelino two-voice, which is not found elsewhere in Bulgaria. Here you can feel the Rhodopean lifestyle and culture and get to know the spirituality of the Rhodopean people.
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In the book Symbolism of the Summer Solstice: Comparative Readings, Iosefina Blazsani-Batto approaches, through a comparative perspective, a theme with wide resonances in Romanian folkloric mythology, but also in the universal one, taken up by many historians of religions, exegetes and, last but not least, writers. The wide area of research reflects the author's desire to document as well as possible the scholarly approach to the theme and to give secondary importance to field sources, as well as to imaginative elaborations of them. The research, especially through its various hermeneutic possibilities, is a meritorious achievement which, complemented by the author's constant preoccupation with this field, offers a textually illustrated field of analysis of the subject, both in terms of theory (ethnography) and folklore and literature.
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At the turn of the 20th century, exotic shows as a form of displaying otherness gained wide popularity among various kinds of mass entertainment in Europe and the United States. Promoted professionally, the shows attracted public interest, combining the acquisition of knowledge with leisure. The freaks and people of non-European descent exhibited in different public spaces – zoos, parks, circus – not only demonstrated ‘nature’s errors’ and the diversity of human beings, but also the development of the human body and society within the framework of racial and evolutionary theories. The socio-economic and cultural context of each host country added that country’s own meaning to the messages of the shows. Exotic shows staged in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire inhabited by Latvians created a situation in which entertainment invented by modern colonialism took place in a territory directly affected by colonialism. Providing an insight into these shows, emphasizing exotic otherness mainly in Riga, the article seeks answers to the questions of who the audience was for these shows, and what kind of power relations, if any, between “living specimens” and spectators, and among spectators, one can deduce from the performance venue.
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The folk geographical terms derived from the body part term ‘face’ in the Bulgarian and Romanian languages are examined in this paper: Bulgarian лице ‘face’, ‘southern or south-eastern slope’, ‘place with southern exposure’; Romanian faþã ‘face’, ‘southern slope’, ‘forest on a southern slope’, ‘place exposed to the sun (the moon, the wind, the fire)’, ‘prominent part of an eminence’. In both languages, those metaphorical terms have similar meanings and distribution and express the same conceptual metaphors – THE MOUNTAIN IS A PERSON, THE EMINENCE IS A PERSON, THE EARTH IS A PERSON. Two of the meanings of the Romanian word faþã ‘face’ are considered to be metaphtonymies – ‘forest on a southern slope’ and ‘prominent part of an eminence’.
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The socio-political system of the tribal so-called age-set stratification embraces a refine mytho-ritual complex, including a specific ritual dietary manner, which namely is the object of study in the article. This ritual dietary manner or more precisely – a dietary manner during the initiatory period as well as during the initiatory rituality – formed in the ancient mytho-epic tradition the mythical image of peoples, which were presented as inhabiting the mythical limits, having a wild existence and consuming food typical for them. The data elucidating these two phenomena – the specific diets and the peoples following these diets – are presented in the article by some typical examples. The information of two authors belonging to the mytho-epic tradition of the Abioi of Homer – Homer himself and Aeschylus – is analyzed in greater detail. The author is of the opinion that it is Aeschylus who has recorded more precisely the name of this mythical people – Gabioi. The Thracian “roots” of the image of this mythical people are evidenced by this fact among others that the data of both Homer and Aeschylus describe not a nomadic style of existence but an initiatory way of life, mostly through the information about their specific dietary manner.
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The toponyms “Marko’s knee”, “Marko’s footstep”/“Marko’s footsteps” contain the myth of the sacred marriage of the Holy mountain/rock = The Great Goddess Mother Earth and her son Marko, born from the rock. This conclusion comes from the phallic symbolism of men’s legs – the “knee” and the “footsteps” of the godlike adolescent-man Marko
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The Tolotang community has a traditional game called massempek. This paper aims to explain the procedures for the massempek game. The qualitative approach results showed that massempek is only conducted once a year when the ritual is carried out at the Perrinyameng. The ritual in Perrinyameng is to visit the ancestral graves of the Tolotang people. This massempek game is carried out as entertainment for the people in Perrinyameng. Massempek is a game that requires courage to kick the opponent and dodge the opponent’s kick. This game is only played by small children who are brave and not afraid. The children’s players are those from the Tolotang community. That is done to avoid conflicts with the surrounding community who are not from the Tolotang community. Massempek is included in agility games that require physical endurance. Folk games are part of the culture of society and as a characteristic of the identity of the wearer. The values of sacredness, caring, and familiarity are the unifying tools of the nation. Massempek folk games are part of the Tolotang people’s culture that should be preserved.
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In the Soviet period, the stories about Mikha Khelashvili’s hectic life and his poems were spread by word of mouth. Mikha Khelashvili’s poetry was particularly popular among the mountain peoples due to some reasons. First, the poems the poet composed mainly with Pshavi dialect were close to folklore and folk motifs. The topics and motives Mikha Khelashvili wrote about were a subject of interest and concern for people. Another reason for his popularity was that Mikha Khelashvili remained in the memory of the people as a hero who fought for the freedom of his homeland. Mikha Khelashvili, a prominent fighter of Kakutsa Cholokashvili’s Band of Sworn Men, lived and died in such a way, which are often the topics of big tragedies in the works by genius writers. The killers hired by the Bolsheviks betrayed 25-year-old Mikha Khelashvili and killed him. The betrayal was especially appalling as the young poet’s closest friends were its accomplices. Mikha Khelashvili’s poetic masterpiece "The poem to utter" has root parallels with one of the Chechen folk songs " The earth will dry upon my grave", which L. Tolstoy attributed to the number of "wonderful songs expressing revenge and strength". This old Chechen song was first included by I. Ipolitov in his publication "Ethnographic Essay of the Arghun District", published in 1868 in Tbilisi, in Russian "Collection of data about Caucasian mountains" (Сборник сведений о кавказских горцах). The report uses historical-comparative and structural methods to analyze the parallels between Mikha Khelashvili’s poem and the Chechen folk song.
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This research examines the îkâ‘ descriptions of the authors who wrote music risâla between the IX and XVI centuries. The definition of the concept of îkâ‘ in the music risâla of that period, which was written between the centuries mentioned above and played an essential role in the formation of today’s Turkish music theory, and to determine how this concept changed and developed within that period presents the significance of this research. Besides, the opportunity to compare the authors’ descriptions of this concept came out with the help of this research. It is descriptive research, and the relevant data were acquired using literature review and musical analysis methods. As a result of the research, it was determined that naqra and proportion elements, especially the time element, were used as the key elements in the îkâ‘ descriptions of the period mentioned above. It also came out that the îkâ‘ descriptions made by Fârâbî and Urmevî guided many authors in this regard.
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Fruits always have an important place in human life. In addition to being one of the food sources we need to sustain our lives, they also remind us of concepts such as joy, fertility, rebirth, and paradise. Fruit motifs are included in the plant motif groups used in our traditional arts. One of the most used fruit figures is grape. Grape, which is mentioned in the Qur'an and known as the fruit of paradise, is a fruit attributed to holiness in many religions. The grape, which has been known and used since the first people, is the fruit of the grape vine. In ornaments, it is generally reflected in the form of clusters and leaves. It was also observed that the vine flowers were not included in the decorations due to their small and unpretentious nature. In our research, the oldest examples of the grape motif in Turkish art are included. In different centuries, the development and use of motifs were investigated with examples from different branches of art such as architecture, weaving, miniature, mural painting and tile.
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The musical culture of Nakhchivan finds its historical, spiritual and artistic embodiment, first of all, in rich musical folklore. The musical folklore of this country has a wide genre composition, rich traditions, means of expression and performance characteristics. The regional uniqueness of Nakhchivan musical folklore is also reflected in its melody, moment, form, intonation, rhythm, and performance style. The recording of Yalli dances is still of theoretical and practical importance for researchers of musical folklore. Yalli is a syncretic culture, therefore, it contains many performance components - interpretation, style, melody, intonation, moment, rhythm, words, accompaniment - in an inseparable unity. All genres of folk music are covered in Nakhchivan musical folklore, which is an important part of Azerbaijani musical folklore. At the same time, musical examples specific to the Nakhchivan region have been created and are still alive today among the people and by professional music groups.
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