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The paper focuses on the question of the Thracian script and writing systems from the Chalcolithic period to the period of the Roman rule in Thrace. The widely accepted academic view is that the pre-Thracian and the Thracian population were illiterate. Recently this well established theory was challenged by some researchers and the discovery of artifacts with signs and symbols dating back to the Early Chalcolitic period. The author explores the possibilities that these proto-letters evolved and influenced later writing systems on the Balkans.
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National Exhibition „Blessed with the Wisdom“ is hosted by the National Library Sts. Cyrill and Methodius on occasion of 11 of May – feast day of the saints – in commemoration of the 1100th anniversary of St. Clement of Ochrid’s death.
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The aim of the article is to provide a possible interpretation of identity in one of the contested border regions on the Balkans well known for the competing politics and interests by the two bordering countries – Bulgaria and Serbia, for the past century. This region is known as „Western Outlands” in the social and political life. The communal memory of the Bulgarian minority in Bosilegrad, Serbia, leads the narration through different historical periods and their respective politics to uncover an identity which has become a survival strategy at the intricate periods. This will reveal a complex picture of the multiple identity levels where the individual and social identity are tightly related and are further shaped by the existing number of internal and external „others.“
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Nicolas Van Wijk (1880–1941) is a Dutch linguist and founder of Slavonic studies in the Netherlands. As Raymond Detrez (University of Gent, Belgium), who prepared the present publication in Bulgarian, says: “Van Wijk’s travelogue depicts a fascinating picture of the Bulgarian people in one of the most dramatic moments in its history” (shortly after the Balkan wars). “Looking into the future the author makes modern readers, to whom this future is already past, meditate on some important points of the national destiny.” The Bulgarian translation of Van Wijk’s travelogue preserves the author’s notes. Some explanatory notes of the interpreter have been added and some minor errors of the author have been corrected.
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The emigration from Thessaloniki and the consequences of the Second Balkan War for the separate members of the Bulgarian family Tapkov is in the focus of the paper. The study is based on unpublished family documents only, property of members of the aforementioned family. It is examined briefly the professional and social activities of the brothers Dragan and Kiril, posing the issue of the religious and national identity before and after emigration.
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What is the concept of “Great Bulgariaˮ? Another metaphor, which politicians and publicists handle; concept to mobilize public opinion on various political purposes, outside of the borrowed or at least prevalent in external model (Greater German Reich) or felicitous term, behind which a never expressed but possible geopolitical project hides? Let us try to reconstruct the story.
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When speaking about “The great human cause” the governing circles in Russia mean creation of a big Slavic state in front of the gates of Tsarigrad and the Adriatic sea, that will serve as a means of control over the Straits and the coast of the the Mediterranean Sea. After losing the war with Turkey (1876) Serbia begins to comply its politics with Austria-Hungary for the great disappointment of Russia. The Bulgarians become the only ally, interested in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Russia estimates the creation of a state in the ethnic Bulgarian borders as a keystone of the All-Slavic Building, from where the energy of the Slavic unity will spring out. This is a leading idea during the Russian-Turkish War 1877-1878, it draws the borders of the Bulgarian state in the Preliminary grounds for the end of the war, and is achieved in The San Stefano Peace Treaty.
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This paper presents a brief overview of the topic of relations and links between People’s Republic of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian diaspora in Western Europe during the Cold War. The policy of socialist Bulgaria to the Bulgarians abroad was based on political selection and was conducted through orchestrated contacts. In the context of the Cold War the migrants in the countries of the West were divided into “enemy” and “patriotic” (loyal) “emigration” in accordance with their attitude toward the communist regime. During the late socialism the regime in Sofia used more actively the “patriotic” arsenal to attract and use for its own purposes the so-called “Bulgarian colonies” in the “non-socialist countries”. But the ideological and political boundaries in the state policy were preserved. The topicis developed in view of the great importance of the issue of external migrations and relations with the diaspora for Bulgaria nowadays.
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The text presents the book “Everyday life in the Balkans” – ed. by David W. Montgomery. Indiana University Press, 2019 (401 pages.). It outlines the different parts of the collectanea – The (Historical) Context of Everyday Life, The Home(s) of Everyday Life, The Politics of Everyday Life, The Religion(s) of Everyday Life, The Art of Everyday Life. Every one of the included articles is shortly described. Commentary is made on the scientific approach, the choice of topics and authors, the general definition of “everyday life” and “Balkans”. A highly favourable evaluation is given to the presented scientific product.
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It is well known that Lyuben Karavelov was leader of the revolutionary party in Bulgarian national movement, Stoyan Chomakov – leader of the evolutionist one. The fact that the two men were relatives is much less familiar. And it had not been almost mentioned in the voluminous Bulgarian historiography that also, there were both shared ideas and attitudes between the two leaders. The text shows what was in common with Karavelov and Chomakov to conclude that the will of joint undertakings with both revolutionaries and evolutionists in Bulgarian revival was stronger than their contradictions.
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Vitruvius was a Roman architect. However little is known about him, he became famous for his work On Architecture/De Architectura or Ten Books on Architecture/ De Architectura libri decem, which was probably devised in stages sometime after 27 BC. The original is lost and the surviving manuscripts of Vitruvius’ work derive from a medieval manuscript, the earliest extant version of De Architectura, Harley 2767 manuscript in the British Library. The paper traces Vitruvius’ iconization in sixteenth-century Italy and its reflections in Bulgaria of the 1980s. The necessities of the respective ages, the Renaissance and Communism, projected themselves on to a legend of the past, which has not been used as a historical resources, but rather for devising scenarios that would conveniently connect the ancient author with contemporary architectural occurrences to provide evidence of the latter’s eternity and truth for that’s how it has reportedly worked for two thousand years now, ever since the days of the legend.
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A review of the book ‚Monologue or dialogue? The controversial world in the lens of global television‘ by Maria Neikova, ‚St. Kliment Ohridski‘ University Press. This is an outstanding study, which is concerned with the topic of the still most popular media product, namely the television newscast. The book is a meeting point of state and media politics, cross-continental, cultural and religious differences, and views on international communication. The enormous literature review and original interpretations are valuable for researchers from various academic fields.
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The paper treats the war memorials in Plovdiv made by ethno-religious and social local communities for their members perished during the First World War. The comparison of the victims’ names written on the memorials and names in civil and military documents gives additional information in different directions. On the base of that analysis the author proposes statements on different problems such as specifying the still uncertain number of Plovdiv citizens perished in the war, the percentage of the victims to their own communities and to the total urban population, some anthroponomical characteristics as well as the main tasks of future researching.
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Thales of Miletus (c. 624– c. 546 BC), the father of philosophy and one of the Seven Sages of Greece defines three main reasons for his gratitude to fate: first, for being born a man and not a wild animal; second, for being born a man and not a woman; third, for being born a Greek and not a barbarian. “Man, male and Greek” define and at the same time construct the identity of the polis citizen.The paper examines the paradigm of the relation-interpretation of the ancient Thracian world and the Thracians applied by classical Old-Attic culture, and accordingly by the Old-Attic comedy in constructing the polis identity of the Athenian citizens.The Otherness is – in general – the result of a discursive process in which the dominant group (we) constructs one or more dominated groups (They, Other) by stigmatization of difference – real or imaginary, presented as a denial of identity, but also as a motive for potential discrimination.A conclusion is proposed that Ancient Thrace, transformed and reduced to dramaturgical and cultural topos, was interpolated in the Old-Attic comedy so as to materialise the system of otherness and to be modelled as a paradigm of otherness, but also as an effort to overcome it by constructing models of increasing closeness. Key words: the identity of the polis citizen, Otherness, Thracian word, Thracians, dramaturgical and cultural topos.
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Nadya Danova presents the prehistory and the distribution of the newspaper "Mirozrenie", published by Ivan Dobrovski in Braila in 1869. Her article entitled "To eat fat and sweet" or to edit the journal "Mirozrenie". The case Ivan Dobrovski." follows the obstacles the famous leader in the field of spiritual culture of the Bulgarian national revival comes against while trying to fund the publishing of the newspaper amongst the immigration colonies in Romania; The Bulgarians' reactions after the issue in the state and among the emigrants; the problems in distribution and the reasons for the short "life" of the publication. The analysis is based on letters and documents kept in Ivan Dobrovski's archive.
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One of the first projects of the Science Archive at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is the “Digital Archive Marin Drinov” (http://www.math.bas.bg/digi/drinov/archiv.html). It was realized in cooperation with the department of Applied Information Technologies in the Humanities at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The project began back in 2006 with the scanning of 24 archival units (176 facsimiles of manuscripts, 14 printings and 15 black and white photos) from fond № 104K of the Science Archive. It is worth mentioning that the digitalization of a personal archival fond is the first of its kind in Bulgaria with respect to the technological, methodological, and classification merits of the digitalized information. The future plans of the team that undertook this project are closely related to the systematic updating of published information, in terms of quantity and thematic content, with documents reflecting the life and work of M. Drinov which are kept in the fonds of the Science Archive. This project is still viable in 2014, a year marking the 145th anniversary of the Bulgarian Literary Society (now the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.)
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This paper analyzes the role and social status of persons who were marked as “good men” in Despot Stefan Lazarević’s Novo Brdo legal codes from 1412. This term does not have only one meaning in the whole source. In the introduction, Despot Stefan denoted with this term twenty-four mining experts, who composed Novo Brdo legal codes. The first part contains regulations about mining business. According to some articles, “good men” were impartial arbiters in litigations between two shafts. It is obvious that they had to be mining professionals. Most probably they were chosen for each lawsuit individually. Also, “good men” appear in the Township Law within Novo Brdo legal codes. Together with town’s authorities, they judged insignificant civil disputes. On the other hand, this term applied to four officials overseeing trade in the town. Finally, the Township Law determined that “good men” had to testify when citizens alienated patrimonial estates. They had a similar role as boni homines in other European cities. Persons designated this term belonged to the prominent and wealthy stratum of the population. Among them there were many priests, mining experts and merchants.
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Relations between Japan and India have been deepening significantly during the last decades. This motivates the researchers to analyze causes of Japan-India rapprochement. Most often change in Japan-India relationship has been related with Chinese influence in ATR. Whether China is the only factor for Japan-India partnership? Does the partnership contain anti-Chinese element? Whether India can help Japan to realize its own diplomatic aims in ATR? The study attempts to answer these questions.
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