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Studies in the field of trade show that the main contingent of traders originated in urban communities and worked on urban and international markets. But as far as nine out of ten of the subjects of the sultan in Bulgarian lands were peasants, it is logical to assume that some of them earned their living in the field of trade. In this regard, it should be noted that the issue concerning the involvement of peasants as professional traders in the economic life of the Ottoman Empire has remained poorly investigated in the historiography on the subject. The study seeks to outline an approximate portrait of the itinerant and settled rural merchants who participated in the trade, both between a town and a village, and among different regions of the empire at the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Features of their family and property status have been reconstructed on the basis of individual case studies. Issues related to the legal regulation of their business activities are analyzed. The assortment and volumes of the goods sold by them are also investigated. The author examines the problems related to the commercial practices of association of rural traders and crediting such traders. Conclusions were drawn regarding the involvement of institutions in regulating business and relations between traders and their families, partners and creditors; the level of their literacy; the role of their journeys on the level of awareness of the communities in which they operate; the importance of their professional activity in the formation of the modern traders in the Bulgarian society from the pre-Tanzimat period. The study relies on unpublished Ottoman-Turkish documents – estate inventories of deceased merchants, litigations on associations and loans, sultan fermans, petitions and complaints, tax registrations, as well as promulgated laws, travelogues, and more.
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In the summer of 1907, the Inner Macedonian-Odrin Revolutionary Organization (IMORO) undertook a large-scale rebels’ action in Macedonia to expel Serbian and Greek troops from the area. The most significant manifestation of this action was the battle at Nozhot Peak, Prilep region, which ended with a heavy defeat for the Bulgarian bands. The main focus of the article is the fact that the rebels’ action was carried out thanks to the funds of the Bulgarian government, which provided IMORO with an impressive amount of weapons and ammunition. The failure was due both to faults in the overall strategic plan and to the vigorous resistance of Serbia, which coordinated its activities with the Ottoman Empire at various levels. After the defeat at Nozhot Peak, the IMORO campaign weakened significantly, but the continued dispatch of bands and weapons aided the Bulgarian population in Macedonia in its fight against foreign armed propaganda.
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Anniversaries have always been a good occasion to look back in time and take stock of what we have done, and what is left unfinished. However, when the Jubilee has ninety years of life experience behind him, of which more than sixty have been devoted to historical science, with dozens of books and hundreds of articles and studies published, the balance is truly full-blooded and the anniversary worthy of note. Prof. Nikolay Zhechev, who is referred to in this article, is undoubtedly a deserving, dignified but humble scientist who does not like when people make a lot of noise about his name and thus place him in the spotlights. However, his numerous historiographical works and his significant contributions in various fields of the history of the Bulgarian National Revival oblige us to briefly dwell on what he has done. The article chronologically traces the key moments in his life, his scientific career, and the major thematic circles in which he works. It also draws attention to Zhechev‘s major contributions to the research of the history of the settlement of Bulgarians north of the Danube River and their cultural and political activities. The article also notes his writings on the literary, spiritual and educational activities of Bulgarians from the period of our National Revival, as well as on their revolutionary-political deeds for national liberation.
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Prof. ScD Vitka Toshkova is one of the most prominent contemporary Bulgarian historians. Her scientific interests are related to the political and diplomatic history of Bulgaria and the country’s place in the system of international relations, and in particular in the politics of Germany, the USA and the USSR / Russia in the 20th century. Prof. Toshkova’s 80th anniversary, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of her scientific activity, is a great occasion to recall the life path she has traveled so far, as well as to highlight the contributions of her research, with a focus on her recent publications.
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The paper focuses on the poetic works of Teodor Trayanov in parallel with Bulgarian and West European symbolism. This study is a part of the first and, for the time being, only Doctoral thesis on the work of that unjustly forgotten poet. Some perfectly new ideas are suggested on the uniqueness of Trayanov's symbolism. Of greatest significance among these is the suggestion that Trayanov had better be labelled a Neo-Romantic than a straightforward symbolist, having in mind the coherence of that tradition in Austria.
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The theme of Macedonia occupies an important place in Bulgarian literature. Poems, short stories, novels, dramas, essays, travelogues are devoted to it. Suffice it to mention the names of writers such as Ivan Vazov, Peyo Yavorov, Anton Strashimirov or Dimitar Talev. Interest in the subject, especially in the lyrics, is strongly influenced by the particular historical situation (uprisings, wars, and other extreme events). At the same time, writers born in Macedonia such as Simeon Radev, Aleksandar Balabanov, Atanas Dalchev and others play a significant role in Bulgarian literature and literary criticism. The article presents these two aspects. It shows the specifics of reflecting the topic in particular historical periods. Emphasis is placed on literary facts from the period between 1878 and 1944, the time when the theme of Macedonia was most authentic.
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The article is about the memoir book by the Bulgarian poet Yavorov – Haidushki kopneniya (Haidouk Longings). It is placed in a broad cultural context – the struggle for Macedoniaʼs liberation and the resonance and journalistic activity around these events in Bulgaria. Yavorovʼs book is not a veritable memoir, because it has a powerful lyrical stream. On the other hand, the influence of the novel genre is quite strong in it. The article analyzes important compositional features of this text. They are interesting because when Yavorovʼs memoirs first appeared in the periodicals, they were of one kind, which changed after they were assembled and organized as parts of a single text (Haidushki kopneniya).
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The research topic is actually an episode of what we may call the “survival” of Byzantium in the political culture of the Romanian Principalities. The field of Law was one of the controversial aspects of this issue. My incursion into the characteristics of the imperial Byzantine ideology is meant to explain certain political behaviours of the reign in Moldavia, mainly in the legal practice in late 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century. The Byzantine political tradition present in the Romanian Principalities until the 18th century entailed a reprisal of the governing principles of the Empire. The princes of the country continued to get on the Moldavian throne “with God’s mercy”, a title preserved by those who occupied the princely see in the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century. The princely institution was affected severely by the Turkish-Phanariote regime of the 18th century but, at the level of the domestic princely policy, the institution per se did not undergo significant changes. In terms of legal practice, historical sources attest – as shown throughout my paper – that the princes preserved their right of jus gladii, namely of sentencing to death the persons guilty of several criminal acts. The princes would use this right, as always, as they saw fit (my italics). As we get to the 19th century, death sentences are ever rarer. Most penalties were limited to mine labour, preceded by mutilations and – quite often – by beatings. How can one explain the change in paradigm? On one hand, by the fact that – for criminal power – the loss of an asset or right as a punishment method became far more effective in terms of attaining punitive purpose. On the other hand, we must consider the consolidation of the princely institution, given that it imitated the ideological imperial Byzantine model, based on the image of a good and merciful prince. I believe that these explanations prove valid because legal practice attests fully the reprisal of the Byzantine ideological foundation of oikonomia in governing the country, with the two essential principles: philanthropy and leniency.
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On June 26–29, 2019, a large international conference was held in the Polish city of Gdansk — the 13th Baltic Research Conference in Europe. More than 150 reports were presented in 50 panels and round tables. The subjects were diverse, from the “History and Memory” section to “Politics and Society”, and even the problems of security in the Baltic region. Scientists from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, etc. took part in the historical sections. The next conference will be held in 2021 in Uppsala.
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Review of: „Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals.” Edited by Volodymyr Yermolenko. Publisher: Internews Ukraine / Ukraine World, Kyiv: 2019. Review by: Margarita Novikova
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The article examines the notions of old age in the Byzantine-Balkan Middle Ages. It attempts at defining when does old age come and which are its characteristics. The study searches for answers to the questions: what kind of care for the elderly people did the institutions and the family provide; what sort of food and medical care wereappropriate for them; what was the attitude of society towards the elderly people andwas there any difference between representatives of various social groups.
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Three musical adaptations of the myth of Phaedra, in which the wife of King Theseus of Athens desperately falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus, were composed in the second half of the twentieth century by three homosexual composers: the dramatic cantata Phaedra for mezzosoprano and small orchestra (1976) by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) after a text by the American poet Robert Lowell, the opera Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre (1980) by Sylvano Bussotti (1931-) after a libretto drafted by the composer himself and consisting of a prologue, three acts, and an intermezzo, and, last but not least, the two-act concert opera Phaedra (2007) by Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012) after a libretto by the German poet Christian Lehnert. The aim of this paper is to prove that the three homosexual composers chose a myth about an incestuous—and thus censored—love in order to represent homoerotic desire, labelled as deviant by the coeval heteronormative society and hence condemned by it. The study sheds light on the aspects of the most famous literary elaborations that affect gay sensibility, and on how the three composers experienced their homosexuality and gave utterance to it in their other works. The analysis of the three works at issue demonstrates that the discourse about gayness takes shape through the interplay of numerous aspects. The elaboration of the literary sources, the organization of the libretto, the characters’ definition, and the mise-en-scène, together with the music, put the myth into that perspective.
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The purpose of my paper is to reveal the main features of the mystery genre in the European musical culture of the 19th and the 20th century on the basis of the genre features established in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages.The mystery play genre, as we know, in essence means the firm unity of certain stable features. The complexity of those features consists of two specific elements—religion and social, and a general one—the model of the world for a certain epoch.If in the mysteries of Ancient civilizations and the Middle Ages, the aforementioned components operated as a firm unity of inseparable elements; later, in the period after the “new times”, especially at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, the stable elements were disintegrated from each other. This process is discussed on the examples of the following operas:• The common religion and ethical model—Wagner’s Parsifal;• The code of moral rules and principles in the social context—Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron;• The explication of Thomistic ideas in the modern world—Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise.What is outlined is the unity of necessary components of the genre of the mystery play: multidimensional sources of libretto; a mission of the main hero; the author’s interpretation of the mystery; the abundance of ritual scenes; the relationship between the internal and externaldramaturgical processes; synthesis of the different theatrical genres; static dramaturgy. All of these features suggest a specific type of musical main mystic spheres: divine, terrestrial and demonic. Consequently, the dramaturgy of opera staging has three levels of activity: superficial, inner and upon time.
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The article discusses the issue of Jewish musicians’ identity by the example of prewar Galician artists. It emphasizes the role of social and political divisions within Jewish community and the impact of assimilation, liberalism, socialism and Zionism on the musical life of Jews in Galicia. Then, it discusses their influence on individual musicians like: Bronisław Gimpel, Bronisław Huberman, Józef Koffler, Stanisław Lipski, Wilhelm Mantel, Paweł Anhalt, Stefan Schleichkorn, Henryk Guensberg, Józef Neger, Henryk Apte, Izaak Lust, Zofia Lissa, Mordechaj Gebirtig, Nachum Sternheim and musicians active on the stage of popular music. Its aim is to encourage musicologists to reconsider the issue of prewar Jewish musicians’ identity and to use findings of historians and sociologists in musicological literature. They indicate rather complexity, not unilaterality, of the self-identification of Jews in diaspora. Understanding of the Jewish musicians’ work conditions allows to discover the hidden meaning of their actions.
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The aim of this article is to interpret songs by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and a less-known composer—Irena Wieniawska (1879−1932), based on the same poems by Paul Verlaine. In the first part of this paper, the relationships between Wieniawska, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Verlaine are subsequently described. Then, the author makes a comparison between selected songs by French composers and Madame Poldowski, indicating main similarities and differences. The final part consists of some remarks related to the fact that Wieniawska fulfills features of the French mélodie very strictly. This is why her songs seem to be more traditional, not as allusive and sophisticated as Debussy’s or Ravel’s vocal works.
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The history of the organs in the Cistercian Abbey in Kraków-Mogiła has not been studied so far. The article elaborates this topic based on the results of an archival query. Most of the sources are preserved in the Cistercian Archive in Mogiła. Examining them, the author discusses the history of instruments in the monastic church and in the former St Bartholomew church. On the basis of the sources, it was stated that at least in the 18th century the monastery church was equipped with two pipe organs. This fact has not been pointed out so far by researchers. The following article is supplemented by archival photographs.
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The Archive of St Joseph’s Convent in Kraków contains a collection of musical manuscripts, which have not been studied before. Among books of liturgical use, such as graduals and antiphonaries, there are also small cantionales, full of canto fratto repertoire. The majority of these sources originate from the Convent of Bernardine Nuns in Kraków; however, there are also at least two manuscripts from the Convent in Wilno. The aim of this paper is to present canto fratto repertoire of Benedicamus Domino found in the 18th and 19th century liturgical manuscripts from the Convent of Bernardine Nuns in Kraków. The author indicates sources of studied melodies based on the wide range of liturgical manuscripts from the 18th and 19th centuries—especially from convents of Bernardine Nuns in Poland, as well as from the Convent of Benedictine Friars in Staniątki—and compares it to the dispersal of canto fratto settings of ordinarium missae. Finally, the paper presents complete index of Benedicamus Domino melodies in the annex.
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Infant prodigies were a common phenomenon in the 19th century. They astonished the audience not only through their impressive abilities, but also the innocent beauty and the youthful grace. The perfect example of this is Apolinary Kątski (1826–1879), a violin virtuoso and a composer, known mainly as the founder of the Institute of Music in Warsaw, who, since he was three, was recognizable in concert halls all over Europe.According to the author, the early stage of the violinist’s activity requires more attention. The presented article sketches the path of young Apolinary’s life from the moment of his first performance in 1829 to May 1838, when he was granted with the famous recommendation of Niccolò Paganini. It introduced him to numerous concert halls of Europe and positively influenced his further artistic activity. The hereby presented paper makes an attempt to find out the date and place of birth of Kątski in the context of the rich musical activity of his family members. It also shows the first artistic tours of the young virtuoso against the background of his artistically talented siblings: a violinist Karol, pianists Stanisław and Antoni, and a singer Eugenia. The crucial moment are reflections on the stay of the family in Paris and their first performances in the musical centre of Europe as well as contacts of the young violinist with Niccolò Paganini.The studies on the correspondence of the father of the virtuoso, Grzegorz Kątski, and research on the foreign newspapers let the author reconstruct the life of Apolinary Kątski in the very first stage of his musical activity and place him in the context of infant prodigies of the 18th and 19th centuries.
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The main aim of this paper is to examine the discourse on Frédéric Chopin that took place in Poland in 1949, when the 100th anniversary of his birth coincided with the culmination of the socialist realist propaganda in the field of Polish culture. The discourse, initiated and moderated under effective surveillance of the Polish People’s Republic’s government, was filled with communist ideology. The authorities aimed at creating a sense of communion in the Polish nation, therefore they undertook numerous actions in the area of cultivating memory of Chopin and reception of his works. The composer was used as a banner under which the culture of socialist realism was to be consolidated. Chopin was presented by the narrators in the socialist realist context in various dimensions.“Deep humanism”, “truth”, “optimism”, “sincerity” and “democratic features” of Chopin’s music were the crucial notions used by them. Chopin was depicted, among others, as a revolutionist and a prophet of triumph of communism. The oeuvre of Chopin was said to bring together “fraternal countries and nations”, Polish People’s Republic and Soviet Union, while being simultaneously a crucial element of class conflict. The authorities had a tendency to overemphasize folk roots of his compositions, thus among musical genres composed by Chopin the importance of Mazurka was exaggerated. Other genres without such strong folk connotations, as sonatas, ballades and scherzos, were marginalized in the discourse.
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