Puķu, koku un krūmu stādījumi Kurzemes zemnieku sētās 19. gadsimta beigās un 20. gadsimta sākumā: teicēju atmiņas

Author(s): Daina Roze / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 45/2022

Since the beginning of the formation of the Latvian nation, the garden has been an integral part of the national cultural space. For a Latvian, a garden is a special asset as it has always been associated with independence, self-assurance and a sense of worth, including wealth. It is present on a daily basis and during the holidays, reflecting the social and economic characteristics of the time and the concept of a beautiful and tidy environment. Thus, the study of narrators’ memories of plantations of flowers, trees and shrubs in peasant farmsteads provides an opportunity to enrich the understanding of the formation of Latvian identity and to contribute to the interdisciplinary research in environmental humanities. In the study the materials of the Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air Museum archive – 24 memory stories obtained in the fieldwork in the vicinity of Skrunda, Liepāja and Kuldīga in 1955 and 1956 have been used. The narrators, in most cases, were servants or their children, mainly aged 70–80. The narrators focused on personal experience revealing the location of the flower, tree and shrub plantations in the farmyard space and the features of its formation. The attention was paid to the cultivation and use of medicinal plants. The plant names mentioned in the narrators stories and the plant names given by three narrators in the vicinity of Liepaja in 1972–1974 were summarized and accompanied by the scientific name of the respective plant.

Българите в чужбина, или за топологията на българското присъствие

Author(s): Vladimir Penchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2016

The text formulates a researcher paradigm in the scientific interest towards the system of topoi that signalize and emblematize Bulgarian presence in a foreign ethnic environment as a topology. After reviewing and introducing terminology for the main concepts, we arrive at the system of the main topoi of Bulgarian presence in institutional spaces, spaces of communal memorie, social spaces and personal spaces of the migrants.

Aнализ на комуникативния дискурс на българско-говорещите в чешка езикова среда

Author(s): Vesela Dabova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2016

The purpose of this article is a research of the dialogical speech in the discourse of Bulgarian immigrants living in a foreign language environment – Czech Republic. It aims to show: 1) the impact (in the form of interference and code switching) of a foreign language (L2) – Czech into the mother tongue – Bulgarian (L1), occurring during the speech act, led in L1; 2) the possible causes of these phenomena in the speech of bilinguals in Czech language environment 3) the ways the speaker is coping with the interfered elements, i.e. it is necessary to follow the management of the speech act. This will be the basis for an analysis of the communicative discourse of bilingual Bulgarian immigrants communicating in foreign linguistic environment.

ZIMMIS (NON-MUSLIMS) OF RUSÇUK AND THEIR NEIGHBOURHOODS IN THE RIDDLE OF A MID-18th-CENTURY. DETAILED AVARIZ TAX REGISTER AND BEYOND

Author(s): Mariya Shusharova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

The aim of this paper is to cast more light on the spatial and demographic development of the mid-18th century town of Rusçuk (mod. Ruse) – a center of an Ottoman district (kaza) on the Lower Danube. The basic source for the study is a rare mid-18th century detailed avariz register. However, this “ready overall account” of the local population posed two general problems: 1) the acute confessional disproportions, with the extremely low numbers of the local non-Muslim communities (comprising about 10 % of the town’s population); 2) the ‘flexibility’ of the Christian neighbourhoods. This predetermined the particular focus on the zimmis (non-Muslims) as the first part of the study elaborates the demographic dynamics, town neighbourhoods network formation, religious institutions, local parish and monasteries networks in a long term perspective (16th – 18th centuries) examining different types of state tax-registers (tapu tahrir, avariz, detailed post-1690’ cizye registrations). Beside the registers, the collection of the kadı court records (sicils) of the local sharia judges of Rusçuk are particularly valuable source approached here for a more thorough interpretation of the level of inclusiveness of the mid-18th-century macro-framework and of outlining some of its major “demographic” gaps. The sicils spotlight the relevant processes and contextualize the application of the taxation policy in situ, tracing both continuity and serious transformations of the town tissue. The shifts were more tangible in the mahalles of the non-Muslim as well as in the process of the town askeri çiftliks’ proliferation. The latter in particular spotted one of the major demographic “gaps” of the mid-18th-century register as it generally surveyed the dwellers of the town neighbourhoods omitting the reaya of the town askeri çiftliks (mostly Christians). Thus, this study points at the robust functioning of the local Christian institutions within the framework of much more optimistic demographic parameters of the community than those attested in the mid-18th century avariz register proper.Another micro-focus of the study is the family story of the only priest registered in the town in this mid-18th-century avariz defter – here corroborating the information from the marginal notes left by his ancestors, and thus presenting a more vivid image of those who guided the parishioners in the 18th-century Rusçuk.

Руенски манастир

Author(s): Ines Slavkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Пещерата „Света Марина” в Странджа

Author(s): Yoana Djedjeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 20/2022

Рошавата страна

Author(s): Katerina Sedlakova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2016

The microstories follow the ordinary man in his confrontation with the life’s situations andsurroundings. The significant people, who consider themselves ordinary, show us theirmagnitude. The humanity in its daily situations – that is the fascinating Bulgaria, which I amdescribing.

Tautastērpa lietojuma divējādā daba Padomju Latvijā

Author(s): Anete Karlsone / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 39/2019

The origins of the Latvian national folk costume as special festive attire representing the cultural identity are related to the activities of “culture cultivation” that took place in the 19th century. The newly created tradition – making and wearing of the national costume – acquired a stable position in Latvian society as a manifestation of the national identity. During the years of the Soviet rule the use of the “ethnic” costume was imbued with international character – as an element symbolising the “fraternal family of the Soviet nations” in accordance with the ideology of the Communist Party. But along with the officially supported views there were also other situations and meanings of the folk costume. The purpose of the present article is to try to clarify the different meanings of the use of the Latvian folk costume under the Soviet occupation, when one and the same visual image could contain different conceptual content. The study was performed using the information that could be obtained from the written, audio and visual sources. The present article uses documents from the Latvian State Archive, as well as the published materials from the regional archives. Information on the use of the folk costume in the Soviet period can also be obtained from official publications, providing directions for celebrating festivities according to the ideology of the socialist state. Another source was the photographic images from the period, found in both the archives of scholarly institutions and private collections, as well as the ones available on the web, etc. Similarly, articles and reports in the printed media provide testimonies regarding the use of the folk costume. It is more difficult to establish the aspects of the private use of the folk costume, as those were usually not reflected in the public information space. Nevertheless, these aspects have been documented in the interviews carried out by the author of the present article, as well as in retrospective narratives published in contemporary media. Under the Soviet rule the folk costume was used as a means of the Soviet propaganda. The use of the folk costume was regulated. The official authorities controlled the management of funding, as well as the support for the private initiative. The officially organised events and the official point of view in relation to the use of the folk costume gained the dominant role in respect to the individual expressions. In the activities of the socialist festivities and customs the folk costume was used to reinforce the invented connection between the newly-established rituals and the cultural heritage of the nation. While the folk costume was turned into the means of the Soviet propaganda, its use as a symbol of the national identity was secretly preserved.

History of the Serbian nation in the mirror of the “Constantinople herald”

Author(s): Radomir J. Popović / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 3/2022

Confessio vs natio. Византийская богословская традиция как препона в формировании дискурсов этнонациональной идентичности средневековой Руси

Author(s): Mikhail Vladimirovich Dmitriev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1(31)/2022

This article attempts to verify some aspects of the research hypothesis which implies that normative orientations of the Byzanine orthodox theological thought (in ideologies, mentalities, discourses) contained traditions and constructions that were in odds with tendency to see communities of ethnic type in people whom we used to qualify as Russians and Ruthenians. In the East European Orthodox medieval Christian identity of groups included in the Church was thought of as a hindrance in forming discourses, which would claim that the Church community could be fragmented into ethnic and «national» groups (nationes). Old Russian texts, and texts of Muscovy, as well as writings of some Orthodox authors in Ruthenia (Ukraine and Belarus’) of the early 17th century have been taken in account. In these sources, very often, theological discourses were entering in conflict with tendency to transfer norms of ethnic (tribal) identity on the Christian communities. This generated a situation when «Russianness» was not perceived in ethnic terms, and in this respect relationships between Christian and «ethnic» were understood in a very different way, than in the theological culture of medieval West. Search for an explanation leads to the area of the Byzantine theological tradition, in which Christian and ethnic identities were regarded as two conflicting discourses. The Orthodox identity of emperor’s subjects was understood as «effacing» traces of tribal (ethnic) belonging. For subjects of Christian history (id est history of those, who got baptized) were regarded not the multiple nationes, but «new people» who became a united «nation of God». In medieval Rus, this discursive ligic was expressed by «Tale of the bygone years»; the same discursive «scenario» seems to be implemented in other texts of Russian Middle Ages, and this lead to Orthodox culture of Muscovy, which repelled the ethnic definition of «Russianness». It is very likely, that the same tendency was alive — disappearing and reappearing — in the worldview of literati and broader circles of the Orthodox population of Ruthenian lands.

ASPECTE PRIVIND EVOLUȚIA ÎNVĂȚĂMÂNTULUI LA TURCII ȘI TĂTARII DIN ROMÂNIA: PROGRAMA UNIFICATĂ DIN 1935

Author(s): Metin Omer / Language(s): Romanian Issue: IV seria 3/2022

After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878 when Dobrudja became part of the Romanian state, Turkish language education continued to function in the traditional way remaining from the Ottoman period. Attempts to regulate the education of minorities existed in the interwar period when officials from the Kingdom of Romania adopted a series of measures in this regard. At the same time, there were initiatives from minorities, in the case of the Muslim community a sensitive aspect being that of the subjects that should be studied in schools. The first unified curriculum of Turkish primary schools in Dobrudja was prepared at the initiative of the "Association of Graduates of the Muslim Seminary in Dobrudja" and published in 1937 at the printing house of the "Emel" magazine. This article aims to analyze the content of the curriculum. Thus, an important contribution is made in terms of the code of conduct and the themes studied in the Turkish schools until the establishment of the communist regime. Given that the curriculum was published in Ottoman Turkish in 1937, long after the introduction of Kemalist reforms, that it proposes the use of the Ottoman alphabet, and that most of the program focuses on the study of religion, the paper tries to show whether it was an expression of opposition against the kemalist reforms or an attempt to improve the quality of education in Turkish schools in Dobrudja. To achieve this objective, beyond the analysis of the content of the program, the foundations of those who drafted it is also explained.

ÎNVĂȚĂMÂNTUL ÎN LIMBA MATERNĂ LA MINORITĂȚILE TURCĂ ȘI TĂTARĂ, ÎN PERIOADA POST 1990

Author(s): Adriana Cupcea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: IV seria 3/2022

My research aims to investigate the Turkish and Tatar language education in Romania from two perspectives: the reconstruction of the dominant educational paradigm and the outline of a history of Turkish and Tatar language education. At a first level, I reconstruct the educational paradigm which is dominant among the Turkish and Tatar elites by placing education in the general ethno-political program of minority elites, by identifying relevant policy actors concerning minority education and the main debates on this issue. At a second (history outline) level, I identify the major historical turning points of the Turkish and Tatar language education, by sketching a periodization of educational and institutional processes. Emphasizing the current institutional reality of Turkish and Tatar language education, the research will give a glimpse on how two minorities in Romania, with a similar historical and cultural background, are engaging in different forms of minority-language education. The research is based on qualitative methods: structured and semi-structured interviews with political actors, experts in education, members of the two minorities, on text analysis of political programs, journalistic texts and not last on the analysis of legislation.

Narratives of Hegemony and Marginalization: Deconstructing the History Legends of India

Author(s): Sabina Zacharias / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2022

Myths and legends as local sources of history reveal their implicit assumptions and demonstrate the way in which events are filtered through the interpretations of their authors. By examining a variety of these interpretations, we might piece together a refracted image of the past which will ultimately present a history of “what actually happened”. There is also an attempt to create a single narrative supported by various sources that claim to reveal the truth in political and social terms about what may have happened there. I have substantiated my arguments by drawing examples from the compilation of legends, Aithihyamala (Garland of Legends), a pioneering and exhaustive collection of 126 legends of Kerala (India), compiled and published between 1909 and 1934 by the Sanskrit-Malayalam scholar Kottarathil Sankunni. My contention in this paper is that there is a politics behind the subversion of “other histories” (local or subaltern) to establish a hegemonic history. One finds a "politics" behind the legend-making, a deliberate attempt at compiling an elitist record of legends and through it the homogenizing of the cultural past of a region.

Radicalizarea discursului românesc despre romi în spaţiul public: pandemia, alegerile sau AUR?

Author(s): Norina Herki / Language(s): Romanian Issue: LXI/2022

The commitment of EU to fight against racism, xenophobia and hate crime has been strengthened in 2013, with the adoption of the European Parliament of a resolution calling on “the role of national authorities responsible for fighting discrimination to be strengthened in order to facilitate accountability for the promotion of hate speech and incitement of hate crime”. However, hate speech against the Roma minority in the public space, especially on the internet, social media, still occurs and shows a need to prevent and combat negative stereotyping, stigmatization and ethnicizing crime and criminalizing the Roma. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, diversity governance and minority protection have been even more challenged and this papers aims at examining the public discourse and phenomenon of hate speech against Roma communities and individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania, through the lens of a few selected case studies which have featured prominently in the media. Special attention will be given to the political discourse on the Roma minority during this time, as the pandemic period coincides with the rise to power of the far-right populist party the Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR).

Erzurum’un Şenkaya İlçesine Bağlı Ormanlı Köyünde Bulunan Erken Dönem Türk Kültürüne Ait İnsan Biçimli Taş Heykeller ve Balballar

Author(s): Yavuz GÜNAŞDI,Ahmet Cüneydi HAS,Burak BİNGÖL / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 31/2022

The Eastern Anatolia Region has been the first stop for the tribes coming to Anatolia from Eurasia. The wide plateaus and water resources in the region, which is a mountainous geography, have made this region a center of attraction for equestrian nomadic cultures that live on sheep and goats since ancient times. Although the Caspian Sea was a natural obstacle for these tribes who wanted to enter Anatolia from Central Asia, these cultures entered Anatolia using the Caucasus in the north and the Zagros in the south. These cultures left behind many cultural elements such as kurgans-graves, stamps-heaps, runic writings, rock paintings, toponyms and stone statues-balbals. In the article, Şenkaya Stone statues and balbals, which are among these elements, were examined. Stone sculptures were depicted and their motifs were evaluated, and then they were dated by comparing them with the Anatolian and Eurasian stone sculpture tradition.

„ЖИВОТО“ И „МЪРТВОТО“ НЕМАТЕРИАЛНО НАСЛЕДСТВО НА БОТЕВГРАД

Author(s): Desislava Ivanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 21/2022

Entering the global world of the XXI century, we are increasingly aware of the need to return to the roots, to our original nature, to not be left alone and being lost in the new global reality. In this report my aim is to identify and highlight the intangible heritage of Botevgrad, which is endangered and, what is nowadays a part of our way of life and our faith, and traditions came from grandmothers. The report is based on comparison and analysis, raises questions and is an attempt to preserve the rich intangible heritage of Botevgrad.Entering the global world of the XXI century, we are increasingly aware of the need to return to the roots, to our original nature, to not be left alone and being lost in the new global reality. In this report my aim is to identify and highlight the intangible heritage of Botevgrad, which is endangered and, what is nowadays a part of our way of life and our faith, and traditions came from grandmothers. The report is based on comparison and analysis, raises questions and is an attempt to preserve the rich intangible heritage of Botevgrad.

ЕДИН ВАЖЕН ДОКУМЕНТ, КАСАЕЩ СЪЗДАВАНЕТО НА НАУЧНАТА ДИСЦИПЛИНА „ТРАКОЛОГИЯ“ И РАЗВИТИЕТО НА АРХЕОЛОГИЯТА В БЪЛГАРИЯ

Author(s): Dennis Isaev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 21/2022

On July 8, 1970, a meeting of the Council of Ministers was convened by Todor Zhivkov to discuss issues related to the discovery and preservation of valuable archaeological finds in Bulgaria. The center of discussion is the method of discovering the then discovered tombs in Pliska. At the beginning of the meeting, it was noted that the archeological excavations conducted in Bulgaria are at a very low scientific level. Lyudmila Zhivkova shares the opinion that the excavations should be carried out in a complex way and should involve scientists from different fields – historians, ethnographers, numismatists, anthropologists, physicists, chemists, epigraphists, art critics, architects and others. Several key and current proposals are being discussed: To make historical approach of the archeology; To appoint a historian who thinks and sees things historically as director of the Archaeological Institute; To create a complex commission to make a scientifically based plan for the excavations; To consult with foreign scientists who have more experience; To end the practice of standing excavated materials in drawers. Regarding speculation in archeology, it is said that after September 9, the thesis was accepted that everything should be related to the Slavs and Russia. In addition, from there another thesis is created that those 326 who dealt with the origin of Ancient Bulgaria were in the wrong position. Regarding antiquity, it is discussed that we are the only classical country in the world of Thracian culture. The problem, however, is that Thracian culture stands in the chests. According to this document, the Serbs want to prove that there was no culture in the Bulgarian lands in order to prove one day that they were and are a hegemon. On the other hand, there is a case in a Romanian museum, where Bulgarian pottery is defined as Byzantine. The issue of holding a congress on thracology with the center in Sofia was also discussed, as well as the establishment of an independent department at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” mainly for studying the history and material culture of the ancient population of the Bulgarian lands. The document clearly shows the need for systematic research. They are supported by an overall vision, a concept for the research, conservation, socialization and transformation of historical finds and phenomena into a cultural and creative process for modern society.

МУЗЕЈСКАТА ПОСТАВКА ВО МУЗЕЈ ТЕРАКОТА – ВИНИЦА

Author(s): Blagitsa Stojanova,Magdalena Manaskova / Language(s): Macedonian Issue: 21/2022

The Archaeological and Historical Museum Terracotta is a local museum institution opened to the public in 2006. In the modern culture, the term museum has more meanings, gradually surpassing its original experience as a kind of sanctuary and becoming part of a market industry that is defined as a post-museum. This is how the Terracotta Museum can be defined, as a post-museum with clearly defined agendas, a different approach to visitors and intensively involved in other areas of social living. The permanent museum exhibition presents over 300 important archeological objects from several archeological sites located on the territory of the municipality of Vinica. As the name of the museum suggests, the emphasis is on the presentation of the terracotta “icons” from the archeological site Vinićko Kale, but visitors have the opportunity in chronological order to get acquainted with the cultures and civilizations that left a mark on the territory of the municipality of Vinica in the time period of 5000 B.C., until the XII century. In addition, a small part of the permanent exhibition is singled out, as an illustration of the rich material culture presented at the museum.

L’Holocauste dans la mémoire des habitants et des autorités publiques de Vad, commune rurale dans le Nord-Ouest de Roumanie

Author(s): Gheorghe Ciascai / Language(s): French Issue: 15/2022

The small Jewish communities from the seven villages that make up nowadays the rural commune of Vad – Bogata de Jos, Bogata de Sus, Calna, Cetan, Curtuiușu Dejului, Vad, and Valea Groșilor – were brutally knocked out during the Holocaust, as were all the Jewish communities from North-Western Romania, that is. from Northern Transylvania. This author has already shown, in a study concerning the village of Bogata de Sus, published in 2020, that the atrocities of the Holocaust scarred the collective memory of one of the commune’s villages and the individual memories of the farmers from that village. The current research has carried on and enlarged that study by laying stress on how the Holocaust itself and its local victims are still present in the memory of the inhabitants of all the villages from the commune of Vad, as well as by analyzing the means by which the authorities and public institutions of postwar Vad, down to the present day, have become involved in actions meant to preserve and cultivate the memory of the local victims of the Holocaust.

Emigration of Russian Jews to Southern Dobruja at the Beginning of the 20th century

Author(s): Krzysztof Popek / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2022

At the beginning of the 20th century, the mass migrations of Jews from Russia were caused by anti-Semitic tensions and pogroms—most of them traveled to the USA and Great Britain, but some of them chose Bulgaria. From 1902 to 1904, 1,277 Jews moved from the Romanov Empire to Bulgaria with a plan to settle in Southern Dobruja; departures in this direction also occurred in the years to follow. Although the Bulgarian state policy towards the local Jewish minority was relatively tolerant, the attitude towards the Jews emigrating from abroad was vastly different and based on anti-Semitic motivations. The authorities in Sofia bent the law to prevent Jewish settlement in Dobruja, which was accompanied by protests from Russian diplomacy. This article is based on the original studies of the materials found in the State Archives in Varna, Bulgaria.