In Defence of Utopia. Józef Tischner’s Thinking about the Social Ethos

Author(s): Krzysztof T. Wieczorek / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2022

An important trend in Tischner’s philosophical output was the observation of the phenomena that would occur in the current social life of Poles. The trend gained particular significance at the turn of the 1970s and the 1980s, when the processes that finally led to the systemic transformation began. During this period, Tischner made a successful attempt to reconstruct the Polish social ethos. It turned out that its integral element is the presence of utopian projects to rebuild the social order in the country. Tischner stated in his analyses that these utopias play a constructive role in the social life because they motivate people to engage in the political struggle for deep system reforms. The article presents the content of Tischner’s reconstruction of Polish utopias from the 1970s and the 1980s and the correlation between social ethics, ideological discussions, and political practice of the declining period of the Polish People’s Republic.

Советская ментальность: маркеры социально исторической идентичности

Author(s): V. A. Somov,Elena S. Volkova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 41/2022

Modern historiography of Soviet society is at the stage of forming an impartial assessment of its place in the history of Russian civilization. The most famous articles on the history of the USSR are often a documented expression of the author’s research position, which does not always strive for impartiality. Such studies evoke the feeling of an ongoing “civil war” — now on the “fronts” of science and journalism. Moreover, a number of authors concentrate on studying, mainly, the negative features of the “Soviet project”, transferring these characteristics to the entire Soviet society. Following in line with the noumenal approach to the study of Soviet society, the authors call on the scientific community to move from a detailed factual description of the Soviet era to identifying its basic characteristics, while abandoning politicized assessments. The purpose of the study is to determine the main components of the Soviet mentality based on an analysis of its key manifestations in different periods of the history of the Soviet state. To achieve this goal, markers of the socio-historical identity of the Soviet person are introduced, such as “revolution”, “idea”, “atheism”, “war”, “doublethink”, etc. It was established that the set of mental characteristics was not constant, they were updated in depending on the specific historical situation. The noumenal characteristics of a Soviet person were historically formed as a result of the dialectical interaction of the ideal type of a “non-party Bolshevik” — a socially oriented collectivist with a heightened sense of duty and his antipode — the notorious “Sovok” — an irresponsible careerist and social opportunist. In conclusion, it is noted, that the Soviet mentality can be defined more as a vector of promising targeted development than as a stable socio-psychological type.

Book Review

Author(s): Tianli Zhou / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

THE KURDS

Author(s): Ciprian Vasile Rus / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 24/2021

The text presents some references to the Kurds. In the first chapter are presented characteristics of the Kurds as they were caught by the travelers of the centuries XIX and XX. The second chapter presents, in short, the history of the provisions concerning the Kurds in the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne. Chapter three presents some important aspects of the Kurdish struggle for national identity, including in the form of asymmetric violence. Chapter four presents some conclusions of the research.

What did the Portuguese laugh at 200 years ago?

Author(s): João Pedro Rosa Ferreira / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

This article aims to identify the existence of a laughter community in Portugal in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Based on research into the beginnings of humour in periodicals published in Portugal, a corpus consisting of newspapers published between 1797 and 1835 was analysed, from the first in which humour was used systematically as a resource (Almocreve de Petas) until the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy. With the concept of laughter community in mind, evidence was sought that it was present in the period that covers the political, social and economic transition from the Ancien Régime to modern society, having as main players writers, editors, printers, readers and listeners, in a process of production, reception, circulation and appropriation of ideas and meanings. This process, which developed in the public sphere, also played a part in forming incipient public opinion. To detect evidence of this community, clichés, jocular expressions and comic stories conveyed by the periodicals were identified. Very often they were found to have kept the same meaning they had at the time, while some expressions have survived with slight changes, and others simply no longer make people laugh.

V edycja konferencji naukowej z serii „Bezpieczna Młodzież”– „Młodzież wobec współczesnych zagrożeń. Prawda i fałsz w cyberprzestrzeni”. Wrocław, 13 czerwca 2023 r.

Author(s): Iwona Ładysz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

Book review

Author(s): Kristina Stankevičiūtė / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

КАФЕДРА ХОРЕОГРАФІЇ КИЇВСЬКОГО ДЕРЖАВНОГО ІНСТИТУТУ КУЛЬТУРИ У СВІТЛІ ВІТЧИЗНЯНОГО НАУКОВОГО ДИСКУРСУ

Author(s): Nataliia Myroniuk / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 1/2023

The purpose of research is to reveal the peculiarities of the national scientific discourse on the issue of the formation and development of the Department of Choreography at the Kyiv State Institute of Culture. Research methodology. The methods of analysis, comparison, systematisation, and generalisation were used for the research. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the degree of development of the problem of forming and developing of the artpedagogical school of the choreography department at the Kyiv State Institute of Culture in modern national scientific discourse was revealed. Conclusions. In recent years, the researchers have paid much attention to socio-cultural, artistic, scientific-methodical, organisational aspects of the problem of formation and the first steps of the art and pedagogical school of the department of choreography at the Kyiv State Institute of Culture. Most of the publications introduce new materials into scientific circulation, which is important for the reproduction of a reliable panorama of the development of both the department and choreographic culture as a whole. Currently, it is possible to state the existence of a lively scientific discourse, which shows tendencies towards expansion and deepening. Quite conventionally, scientific works that deal with various aspects of the artistic, pedagogical, and scientific activities of the Department of Choreography of KDIK can be divided into three groups. The first group includes the studies that comprehensively consider the activity of the department as a holistic phenomenon against the background of socio-cultural development (I. Hutnyk, N. MyronIuk, A. Pidlypska). The second group is represented by the publications specially devoted to the pedagogical and artistic activities of individual lecturers of the department (I. Hutnyk, O. Zhirov, L. Tsvetkova, T. Churpita). The third group consists of the works that describe the functioning of the department fragmentarily in the context of multi-faceted research (T. Blahova and others). Modern scientific view of considering the activity of the department as an art-pedagogical school is used in a limited way, but it is promising for the comprehensive disclosure of the role of the department in the development of choreographic culture of Ukraine.

Bulgarian-Romanian Military – Political Relations Over the Years

Author(s): Todor Dotchev / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Българската трудова мобилност в Коми. Характеристика на най-големия социалистически проект за работа в чужбина

Author(s): Elena Vodinchar,Marina Petrovna Klyaus / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

The text attempts to analyze the Bulgarian cross-border labor mobility in Komi ASSR. In the period 1968 – 1993, dozens of Bulgarian citizens worked in the Bulgarian-Soviet logging enterprises in Komi. Men, women, and families with children became part of the largest project of the Bulgarian Communist Party for work in the Soviet Union, in the taiga of the Komi people. How are the main moments of this contract policy of the USSR and the NRB unfolding, what benefits is Bulgaria accumulating and what problems are faced by the loggers who formed a memory of the work in Komi – all questions to which this article seeks answers and points of view.

От Молдовския Кортен до Алтай и обратно в Тарутино, Украйна. „Голямата“ тема за съветските депортации в „малките“ истории на българите от Бесарабия. Част 2

Author(s): Galin Georgiev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

The first part of this research, published in the previous issue 3/2022 of the journal “BulgarianEthnology”, touched on the historiographical, theoretical-methodological and terminological aspects of the present study, dedicated to an increasingly discussed and developed topic in the post-Soviet space. This is the subject of the collective memory which covers the turbulent decades of the 1940s and 1950s., as well as the ongoing processes of collectivization of the property, the inherent repressions, the so-called dispossessing (dekulakization) and the deportation of whole families within the USSR, tearing them away from their places of birth,forcing them to settle down for a long time in the remote and vaguely known northern parts ofthe vast country. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly removed and coerced to live inisolation, to work and carry out the orders of the Stalinist regime until the very death of JosephStalin in 1953, in the extremely harsh climatically and poorly developed territories such asCentral Asia, Kazakhstan, the Urals, Altai and Siberia. Rehabilitated after that year, they wereallowed to return to their native lands, but a large number did not manage to restore their homesand property, while some could not settle closer than 40 km to the settlements they lived in priorto the deportation. Similar cases are not a rarity for the region of Bessarabia, which was brieflyunder Soviet rule in 1941 and from 1944 until 1991. As it is known, one of the largest and oldestBulgarian historical communities is located in this area, which after the collapse of the SovietUnion fell within the borders of the modern states of Ukraine and Moldova.The subject of the present study is precisely such a “small” case of dispossessed anddeported as a result of the so-called operation South Bulgarian families from the villageof Korten (or Kiryutnya) in the then Moldavian SSR, who for nearly a decade (from 1949roughly to 1959) resided in several settlements of the Bistroistotsky and Biysky districts ofthe Altai Krai, Russia. Since some of these 80 families were not allowed to return to theirnative Korten, they chose to settle in the town of Tarutino and in some of the surrounding settlements such as Podgornoe, Berezino, etc., located nowadays on Ukrainian territory, in the region of Odesa.

Завръщане на монархическия дискурс. Посткомунистическо разколебаване на суверенитета

Author(s): Ivaylo Znepolski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2002

София и чудовищата

Author(s): Jean-Luc Nancy / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2002

TERRITORY AND REAL ESTATE IN KARDZHALI AND ITS DISTRICT IN THE 1920S AND 1930S

Author(s): Maria Markova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2023

This publication traces the markers and the dynamics of the anthropological borders of the territory and the real estate during the 1920s in a specific region of Bulgaria. It encompasses Kardzhali (in Tukish Kırcaali) and its district, which have been annexed to the state in 1912 and were mainly populated by Turks up until the end of World War One. The subjective dimensions of the historical processes are enlightened through the memories and the stories of a part of the participants in the events – the Bulgarian refugees, who settled in the region. During the 1920s Kardzhali and its district radically changed. The Bulgarians and the Turks were the ones that were most often separated. The space, inhabited by the old Turkish population, shrank and Bulgarian-populated neighborhoods appeared, as well as mixed zones. Furthermore, places, which have been previously empty, became populated. In practice, the Bulgarians managed to wedge themselves in between the Turks of Kardzhali and its district and to change their traditional look. In the Bulgarian zones appeared buildings, connected to the Bulgarian national institutions – ecclesiastical and scholastic, as well as ones that marked the beginning of the modernization.

Оздравителният детски лагер в България в периода на социализма

Author(s): Radina Ilieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The child health care system during the Socialist period is the subject of a number of recent in-depth studies by Bulgarian historians, sociologists and anthropologists. Based on extensive research and knowledge of the variety of children/student/pioneer camps during the second half of the 20th century, this article aims to draw attention to the health camp. Situated as an organisation and normative basis between “public health care” and “communist education”, the convalescent camp with its history and functions reveals unexplored ethnological fields related to the individual–society–Totalitarian State relationship. The systematized and analyzed archival documentation provides grounds to look for parallels, both between the different political regimes in Bulgaria and in the value-normative order.

Създаване и функциониране на първата институция за грижи за възрастни хора в Албания

Author(s): Inxhi Brisku / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This article analyses the efforts for establishing and operating the first elders’ care institutionsin Albania during the monarchical regime of Ahmet Zogu and the fascist occupation. Based on archival documents, a detailed description is given of the Albanian authorities' efforts to found a care institution for the elderly, of the taxes collected for this purpose, of the negotiations between the central and the local institutions during the process, of the justifications encouraging the payments of those taxes made by the state representatives. In addition, a comparative analysis is offered of the main dimensions of social care with the social care conceptualized and provided by the Albanian state. The concept of social care is broader than that only for the elderly, but in this article, only social care for the elderly is considered. The basic concept of the Albanian state is that the main provider of elders’ social care is the family. Only a few individuals, who do not have families or stable incomes, should be taken care of by the state institutions and their care would be paid through special taxes.

От молдовския Кортен до Алтай и обратно в Тарутино, Украйна. „Голямата“ тема за съветските депортации в „малките“ истории на българите от Бесарабия. Част 3

Author(s): Galin Georgiev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The present text, the first parts of which are published in the previous two issues of “BulgarianEthnology” journal, presents the last, concluding part of an ethnological study conducted within the framework of an IEFSEM – BAS project and dedicated to an important and current problem in the post-Soviet space. It is about the ‘big all-Union’ topic of repressions and deportations in the former USSR, illuminated on the basis of the ‘small’, private example of a Bulgarian settlement in the Bessarabia region. The purpose and tasks of the study are aimed at revealing the main aspects of the collective memory of those deported in 1949 as a result of the collectivization in the then Moldavian SSR of 80 Bulgarian families from the village ofKorten (or Kiryutnia) and of their residence for about ten years in the Altai region of today’sRussia. The research is the result of the field ethnographic expedition conducted in the summer of 2021 in the town of Tarutino, Odesa region of Ukraine, where after the death of Y. V. Stalin and their subsequent rehabilitation, some of those people settled down to live, returning from the far northern lands in Bessarabia. However, those declared by the authorities as kulaks are not allowed to settle closer than 40 km from their native village and they choose as their newport the former German colony – well-known for them before the so-called lifting, i.e. before deportation, a market and business centre with the old name Chokrak.The main object of study in the first two and in the present last part of this text are the trajectories of memory about deportation, about forced migration and about the return from exile, i.e. for the return journey from Altai again to Bessarabia. The analysis text, built almost entirely from the author’s own field materials, aims to reflect the main points of reference, the accents in the memories, through which our interlocutors nowadays present and empathize with the events that took place in their childhood and youth years.

VOYAGE ET MISSION. STANISLAS BELLANGER ET SON DEUXIÈME VOYAGE DANS LES PROVINCES DE L’EMPIRE OTTOMAN EN 1846 – 1847

Author(s): Nicu Diaconiuc / Language(s): French Issue: 4/2023

Mostly known for his travelogue entitled singularly Le Kéroutza, French author Stanislas Bellanger has left us a huge body of work of over a thousand pages dedicated to his travels and sojourns, mainly to and throughout the Romanian Principalities, but also collaterally throughout Bulgaria and to Constantinople. During his second journey to the Orient (1846 – 1847), sponsored by the French Ministry of Education, Bellanger wrote five reports to his patron, the count Salvandy, which are consistent with his ambition of becoming a historian of the East and producing a History of the Ottoman Empire. But while he ultimately failed to achieve all of that, Bellanger succeeded in outlining an image of the Oriental Other and sketching interesting landscapes from the provinces of the great empire, which he ends up appropriating and mapping in his own unique way.

LES COMMUNAUTÉS BULGARES DE MACÉDOINE ET LEURS RAPPORTS AVEC L’ÉGLISE CATHOLIQUE PENDANT LES ANNÉES 1873 – 1878

Author(s): Eleonora Naxidou / Language(s): French Issue: 4/2023

This article aims to contribute to the issue of the relations between the Orthodox populations of the Balkans and the Catholic Church during the Ottoman period focusing on the Bulgarians and their contacts with the Pope in the second half of the 19th century. More specifically two intertwined topics are discussed: on the one hand the attempts of the Bulgarians in Macedonia to establish a Uniate Church in the 1870’s; on the other how this incident was perceived and commented by the Greek Orthodox press of Constantinople. In this way significant conclusions are drawn with regard to the motives and aspirations of this Macedonian Bulgarian ecclesiastic separatist movement as well as the differing interpretations that the Greek newspapers of the Ottoman capital provided to this development.

Identity, otherness and commerce in times past Bucharest: „The Flea Market”

Author(s): Alexandra Rusu / Language(s): English Issue: 20/2022

“The flea market” was a place intended for the old furniture trade, but also other items that today we generically call second-hand goods, which appeared on the Bucharest trade map in the second half of the 19th century. It was erected in a disadvantaged area, densely populated, marked by the Jewish singularity. For more than half a century(1876-1930), the activity in the flea market, coordinated exclusively by Jewish merchants,had an undeniable role in the capital’s economy. Regarding its image, it was painted in the context of new socio-political realities in the Old Kingdom of Romania, such as the awakening of nationalistic feelings and xenophobia, especially antisemitism. In the last decades of the 19th century, the “Jewish Question” became an intellectual problem with an essential political stake, the emancipation of the Jews being in an irreconcilable position with Romanian nationalism. The anti-Semitic discourse used by the political, intellectual,and cultural elite presented the Jews as unassimilable, anti-national elements that could undermine the Romanian character. Examples from the periphery of life, including the Jewish merchants in Lazăr Street and the “Flea market”, constitute the extreme otherness and a potential danger to the nation’s body, thus emphasizing the opposing nature discourse and favoring an ideology of excluding Jews from Romanian culture and society.The research aims to capture the flea market atmosphere and the image of the Jewish community nearby, as reflected in the writings of some personalities (politicians, historians,prose writers, journalists) of times past Bucharest. The perspectives exhibit a wide range of observations, from objective ones, in contrast to the circulated stereotypes, to subjective ones, filtered through emotions, all pieces of the collective mind’s mosaic. Examples in the press oscillate between fin-de-siècle anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the early 20thcentury, infused with scientific claims, all using the flea market as a symbol of inadequacy for an entire ethnic community