Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-8 July
Highlights from our coverage region: commemorations for Srebrenica; Chechen exiles antsy after killing; curfew protests in Belgrade; alleged MP kidnapping in Moldova; plague in Mongolia.
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Highlights from our coverage region: commemorations for Srebrenica; Chechen exiles antsy after killing; curfew protests in Belgrade; alleged MP kidnapping in Moldova; plague in Mongolia.
More...
Drawing from a large number of sources I have been able to identify 196 industrialists with relatively complete biographical data. The following bioindicators have been collected: the years (and, when possible, the dates) of birth and death, family origin (father's profession and assessment of his property), education, position in the factory, previous or parallel economic activity, participation in the revolutionary movement (in including IMRO), membership in cultural, educational or professional organizations, party membership, high administrative positions and family ties. The generalized factory sociology is presented in tabular and narrative form and along with the general picture a focus is given on the first founding fathers from the classical Grunder period between 1880 and 1899.
More...
For the most part of the 19th century Karlovo region experienced a sharp rise in its socio-economic and demographic spheres, to end the century, after the Liberation in 1878, with a significant decline in its economic potential, and hence the demographic situation of the region. In the first half of the 19th century, the sub-Balkan settlements, led by the regional capital Karlovo, formed a popular center of proto-industrial development of the textile industry in the European part of the Ottoman Empire through a number of crafts, but mostly through braiding. For example, in the third quarter of the 19th century, there were about 2,000 braid machines in Karlovo, producing more than 339,730 kg of braid per year. Together with the neighboring villages of Sopot and Kalofer, where approx. 1700 additional braiding machines were located, the region occupied the leading position in the production of braid products in the Ottoman Empire during the 1860s and 1870s. The end of the Russo-Turkish Liberation War found the region of Karlovo in a difficult socio-economic situation. The war and the atrocities of the bashibozouks resulted in destruction and mass emigration in the main craft centers of Karlovo, Kalofer, and Sopot. The new socio-economic and geopolitical reality offered a brand new way of production and marketing of products in completely new markets, where the ordinary Bulgarian craftsman and trader had to compete with the experienced competitors and industrialists from Central and Western Europe. The newly introduced tariffs significantly increased the product’s export price, and thus the urban population in Rumelia gradually began preferring cheaper imported goods and raw materials. As a result, the main livelihood of sub-Balkan urban town centers remained the declining crafts, most notably braid production, but the local and the central government failed to help and slow the economic collapse. The other significant subsistence industry in those towns was the rose gardens and rose production, which was also widespread in the region. Apart from the few towns, the rest of over 40 villages in the region subsisted mainly on agriculture, horticulture, and cattle breeding in the years after the Liberation. In conclusion, it could be said that the transition from proto-industrial to factory production proved unsuccessful in the first decades after the Liberation, despite a few successful initiatives and productions. One of the factors for this, especially in the region of Karlovo is, among other things, also the demographic factor.
More...
This work presents the consecutive fourth part of gathered primary material on the topic of the natural trade and service payments in Bulgarian lands through the second half of 19th and the first decades of 20th centuries. I hope that the represented materials can serve for a good basis about further researches as the distant goal is to reveal the system of paying in kind in Bulgarian lands and to reconstruct the economic models from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
More...
Review of: FICERI, Ondrej. Potrianonské Košice. Premeny etnických identít obyvateľov Košíc v medzivojnovom Československu [Košice Post-Trianon. Ethnic Identity Changes of Inhabitants of Košice in Interwar Czechoslovakia]. Bratislava: VEDA, Vydavateľstvo SAV, 2019, 336 pp. ISBN 978-80-224-1737-2
More...
Pomaks, a Bulgarian speaking community based on a religious identity emerged as a result of Islamization process which occurred among the local Slavic people in the regions of Loveč, the Rhodope Mountains, Western Thrace and Macedonia during the Ottoman period in the 15th–18th centuries. It is stated in the literature that the term Pomak was first used in Bulgarian sources in 1812, in British sources in 1833 and in French sources in 1840 to identify Bulgarian speaking Muslims living in the Loveč region. In this study, after examining the process of Islamization, the terms used to define Pomaks, and appearing of the term in the international literature, based on some new and unused Ottoman sources I will show that the term Pomak used by the Ottomans earlier than previously assumed. According to my findings, the Pomak term was first used in Ottoman sources in the 17th century regarding statesmen that were of Pomak origin. But as a separate community Pomaks emerged for the first time in Ottoman sources during the 1806–1812 Russo-Ottoman War. State Chronicler Şanizade Mehmed Ataullah Efendi recorded that around 10–14.000 soldiers were recruited from among the Loveč Pomaks and also described them as a military element, in 1809. Besides, Ottoman documents reveal that during this war, the Pomaks ambushed and defeated the Russian troops entering the Balkan Mountains and played an active role in defending the Loveč region in general. However, Ottoman documents also indicate that some apostate Pomaks together with volunteer Bulgarians joined the Russian army and attacked to Loveč in 1811 January. The earliest record defining the Bulgarian speaking Muslims in the Rhodope Mountains as Pomaks in Ottoman sources, was dated 1833. In addition, after looking at the views about the origin and identity of the Pomaks among the Bulgarian intellectuals and western circles in the 1860s–1870s, I will also be examining the etymology of the term Pomak in view of the Ottoman sources which support the thesis that term Pomak come from the Bulgarian word pomagači (helpers).
More...
The text describes the cemeteries and tombstones in the town of Oryahovo and the nearby village of Selanovtsi. The rich plastic decoration of the traditional type of monuments has the characteristics of the Christian ritual system. In more recent times simple forms are established – plates predominate, on which various details are applied – niches for candles, vases for flowers, religious or communist signs, inscriptions, photos. According to the form and content of the tombstones, there are four time periods. The oldest are stone tombstones, which belong to the stonemakers school of the town of Vratsa and were used until the middle of the twentieth century. Simultaneously with them appear models of urban type memorial, which consists of a pedestal and a main body, a parallelepiped, crowned with a cross. Limestone or granite, applications of porcelain photographs, the appearance of sculptural figures – these differences suggest social inequalities. After the middle of the twentieth century, this type of monument was lost, with the appearance of simple slabs, cast from cement, which included the style of the communist regime in Bulgaria at that time.
More...
The purpose of the following text is to show the local variant of after funeral custom “Fii marturia”, which was realized in the village of Harletz in the region of Vratza during the second half of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty first century. The accent is on the algorithm of the custom which was discussed in two directions – outside – the stories of the local Harletz citizens and inside – the childhood memories of the author. In this research, the geographical, culture and historical, lingual and demographic sides of this occurrence are well shown and discussed. Ethnological analysis of the Hurletz’s version of this custom can also be found in this work.
More...
In our modern reality, one of the constantly relevant topics that excites the researchers, the teachers and the general public, is the content of the textbooks especially those on social and humanitarian subjects. The present study focuses on the analysis of a textbook from the beginning of 20th century – “Pictures from the general geography” of the Croatian Ivan Hoic. This work is characterized by a humanistic approach to the issue of otherness and the other. Hoic’ s work presents areal presentation of a foreign culture as a mandatory element of educational process. The view of Bulgarians presented by Hoic creates conditions for our self-knowledge even in the reality of the 21st century.
More...
This article will present you with the foundation of the modern Piraeus city between 1833 and 1838 in the light of unpublished archives from the fund of the Greek Ministry of the Interior in King Otto I’s time kept at the General State Archives in Athens. This document shows how immigration to Piraeus was largely channeled by the administration through the establishment of settlements (synoikismoi). It also highlights an original founding of a port city in the Eastern Mediterranean literally out of nowhere. It shows the creation of a community of inhabitants with the essential role of the natives from Chios first, then from Hydra, who form the two main groups, both separated but reunited in the new town, since each group has its own neighborhood, parish and church.
More...
The article traces the regained popularity of a healing water source, promoted by the feigned healer and wonder-worker Angelush. The activities of Angelush are connected with the appearance of the Great Comet, observed in Europe in 1861. Many newspapers from this period reflect the miracles and the impressive crowds of people that visited the healing water source in Northeast Bulgaria, near the Danube River. The present-day ‘intervention’ in media background seems to result from the need of shedding light on the visible traces of the ‘heroic time, which are pertinent due to the proximity to the anniversary of the April 1876 uprising and to the exploit of Hristo Botev’s rebel band and the use of ‘Radetzki’ steamship in the same year. The text analyses a concrete case of inventing tradition, which appears necessary for present-day political and social purposes. The significance of the Well of Angelush as a sacred place is constructed entirely in media background, creating the myth that ‘Radetzki’steamship was built with the money earned from transporting visitors to the healing water source. In this case, the theme of the ‘heroic time’ and the immediate relation with the national narrative is used to testify the significance of a religious site, the belief in which should be a sufficient justification for its existence. Thus, in the 21st century, we witness how an increasing number of churches and monasteries in Bulgaria construct their past through the links they establish with nationally significant topics, characters and images. They do so by emphasizing not that much the spiritual and religious aspects – as connected with faith or with sacred scriptures, but rather – with the presence of traces of the heroic time, which inscribe the cult sites in the toponymic space of the nation.
More...
This article deals with a corpus of little known archival documents dating from 1888-1889, stored in the deposits of the Scientific Archives at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and concerning the population in the territory of present-day Bulgaria as well as the prevailing way of dressing of different groups towards the end of the 19th century. A number of photographs are included as illustrations in support of the textual descriptions. The author’s attention is focused on such archival units containing descriptions of women’s garb, attesting to the fact that during the period under review, part of the Gagauz women wore shalwar. The evidence presented shows that towards the late 19th century, this type of garment established a solid presence among the Gagauz community inhabiting the Black Sea coastal areas of Bulgaria. The styling, cut and manner of wearing of that garment comes as evidence that while originally the shalwar was worn exclusively by Muslim women, during the period of modernization of the Ottoman empire, they were ‘adopted’ by the Christian Orthodox Gagauz women.
More...Култура на пътуването в Европейския Югоизток. Съст. и ред. Антоанета Балчева. Редакционна колегия: Eлена Сюпюр, Хървойка Миханович-Салопек, Христина Марку. София: изд. на ИБЦТ, 2020, 536 стр., ISBN: 978-619-7179-13-2
More...Юра Константинова. Българите в османския Солун. София, Институт за балканистика с Център по тракология – Българска академия на науките, 2020. 440 стр.
Book review
More...
The Bulgarian presence in southern Transylvania, limited to four communities, was investigated accidentally, predominating the repertoire of facts – and is almost completely devoid of causal and comparative explanations. On the other hand, the two Bulgarian communities in the vicinity of Sibiu, Bungard and Rusciori, were never explained in relation to the historical era in which they were founded, neither concerning the guardian factor from Sibiu (political-administrative and religious), nor in their mutual relation. In these conditions, our research proposes: to identify and systematize, chronologically and logically, the relevant facts (from an ethnic, religious, administrative, linguistic point of view); to explain in a causal and comparative way the similar and divergent evolutions of the two communities; to discover and evaluate the external influences, which have determined decisive options regarding the adoption of the Lutheran or Orthodox confessions, as well as that of the Romanian or German languages; to explain the causes of the disappearance of the two Bulgarian communities, in terms of relations between external factors and internal decisions – adopted according to the group and individual interests. Specifically, we analyse the processes by which the Bulgarians from Bungard went from Orthodoxy to Lutheranism and then returned to Orthodoxy, while preserving the Romanian language. On the other hand, we point to a unique case in Transylvania, in which a community (Bulgarians from Rusciori), without acquiring the German language – and therefore without access to the founding cultural values of this nation – became a most active contributor to Nazi inspired German nationalism. The destiny of the Bulgarians from there merged (only after the compulsory education during the communist regime made the young Bulgarian-speaking Germans) with the fate of the German community in Romania, who emigrated en masse to “Vaterland”, where they are building their own futures.
More...