Communism and Museums in Bulgaria

Despite the growing interest in Eastern European countries since the fall of the communist regimes in the late 1980s, they still remain obscure to Western Europeans. Media information on Eastern Europe focuses mainly on politics or the attractions of holiday resorts and, consequently, the history and local customs of the countries, their cultural affairs and different cultural institutions are little known. This paper describes the way Bulgarian museums developed during the governance of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1946–1989). It is hoped that revealing information on their operations within a broad historical and social context will lead to a better understanding of the country’s cultural affairs at a time when Bulgaria has become the latest member of the European Union. The findings are a result of PhD research.     

保加利亚火焰般的玫瑰谷

保加利亚的玫瑰城卡赞勒克市,是保加利亚种植产油玫瑰花最多的一个地区,著名的玫瑰谷就坐落在这里。每年6月的第一个星期日是保加利亚的玫瑰节,卡赞勒克市政府每年都会隆重举办这次庆典,透过文化活动展现保加利亚的民俗风情,促进经贸交流。     

Demographic transformation processes in Bulgaria

"The economic transformation [in Bulgaria] since 1989 led to severe economic and social problems. The population development under these conditions was marked by a falling birth rate. In 1990, for the first time, there was no increase in population. As a result of the long-term tendency towards a drop in the birth rate and an increase in mortality, Bulgaria suffered a loss in population of 3,000 people in 1990. Between 1989 and 1994 approximately 550,000 people left Bulgaria; approximately 78% of these were under the age of 45. The main reasons for this wave of emigration can be found in the high level of unemployment and in the social and economic instability of the country. The outmigration had considerable effects on the falling birth rate." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND RUS)     

The Macedonian Question in Bulgaria

Abstract. The Macedonian question has been at the core of Balkan politics since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Since the end of the nineteenth century, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece have all put forward competing claims to geographic Macedonia in whole or in part. Each of these states legitimised their policies by arguing that the territorial, ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural boundaries of Macedonia are congruent with their respective nation-states. All of these claims stirred vigorous debate among the people living in the geographical region of Macedonia, attracting support or opposition, depending on the political circumstances of the time. In Bulgaria, the Macedonian question has been understood largely as a result of the violation of national integrity, beginning with the revision of the San-Stefano Treaty of March 1878. Bulgaria to this day denies the existence of a separate Macedonian identity and argues that the establishment of the Macedonian nation undermines its national unity. The Bulgarian denouncement is based on the strong sense of loss of the territory, history and language which it shared with Macedonia in the past. After the collapse of the Federative Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia and the consequent independence of the Macedonian state in 1991, Bulgaria renewed the question of the legitimacy of Macedonian nationhood, yet at the same time recognised the Republic of Macedonia. The Bulgarian government of 1991-2 promoted this political compromise as a constructive way of living with the national questions rather than suppressing them. Yet none of the fundamental tensions over the Macedonian question have been fully resolved, and the issue remains an important and possibly explosive undercurrent in Sofia politics.     

Archaeomagnetic dating of archaeological sites from Switzerland and Bulgaria

Baked materials from three archaeological sites in Switzerland and one in Bulgaria have been examined and dated archaeomagnetically. The detailed rock-magnetic properties of the burnt clay collected have already been studied therefore and have been published elsewhere (Geophysical Journal International 153 (2003) 146). The main aim of this paper is to determine the terminus ante quem for the last firing of the clay collected from pottery kilns or burnt layers. The directional and intensity results of the ancient geomagnetic field corresponding to the time of the structure's last firing are given for each site. These geomagnetic parameters are then compared with reference curves to provide archaeomagnetic dates for the last use of the kilns. Application of archaeomagnetism as a dating tool is only possible for those regions that already have reference curves. Bulgaria is fortunate in having established reference curves covering almost the last 8000 years. Two Swiss sites were dated using only directional results on the basis of existing palaeodirectional results for Switzerland as well as the French directional reference curves. The archaeomagnetic dates of three of the sites were then compared to archaeological evidence and available radiocarbon dates. The palaeointensity data obtained from this study will enrich the existing archaeomagnetic database for western Europe.     

Religious Conversion in Early Post-Ottoman Bulgaria: A Case Study of Ruse

Under Ottoman rule, conversion to Islam took place in the Balkans in various forms often described as forced, voluntary or “conversion for convenience.” Islamic law, however, strictly forbade apostasy for Muslims, who risked the death penalty. Although the Ottoman reform of 1844 banned the execution of apostates from Islam and that of 1856 declared freedom of religion, Muslim conversion was carried out discreetly. In 1878, the establishment of the Bulgarian nation-state paved the way for potential conversion from Islam to Christianity. This study examines the conversion of Muslims, Catholics, and to a lesser extent, Jews, to Bulgarian Orthodoxy and Protestantism in the city of Ruse. It shows that apostasy was a result of a complex interplay of loyalties, political dynamics, and self-interests rather than purely religious principles. Specifically, it argues that Muslims and, to a lesser extent, Jews, perceived conversion as a way of developing a Bulgarian identity, whereas Catholic conversion to Orthodoxy was mostly marriage-based and did not necessarily entail an intention to achieve a Bulgarian national identity. Moreover, the way that the Bulgarian Church processed the petitions shows a continuity from the practices that the Ottomans used when Christians and Jews converted to Islam during the Tanzimat Era.     

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.     

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars,Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.     

Occipitalization of the Atlas in Two Female Skeletons from Apollonia Pontica,Bulgaria

Occipitalization of the atlas was observed in two adult female skeletons from the Greek colonial site of Apollonia Pontica (5^th to 3^rd centuries BC), located on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Representing a rare congenital anomaly of the atlanto‐occipital junction, this condition has been documented in very few skeletal remains from Classical antiquity. Postmortem damage to one of the specimens prevented an evaluation of its clinical significance. The dimensions of the second specimen, however, suggest that the affected individual may have experienced some neurological symptoms associated with her condition. The burial of the two females in close proximity to one another raises the possibility that they may have been biologically related. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Expanding the Dimensions of Early Agricultural Tells: The Podgoritsa Archaeological Project,Bulgaria

Abstract

A single season of field work was carried out in 1995 at the Podgoritsa Tell, an Eneolithic (5th millennium B.C.) settlement mound located between the villages of Dralfa and Podgoritsa in the Turgovishte region of NE Bulgaria. Results provide significant new data about the physical and social dimensions of early agricultural settlement tells in SE Europe. Most important is the first discovery of architectural structures and activity areas located outside of the topographic circumference of an Eneolithic tell. Additional, and equally unprecedented, information from geophysical and soil coring investigations proves that the land around the Podgoritsa site went through cycles of use and disuse. These cycles were determined by variations in the level of the local water table. Evidence of a bank and ditch structure on the western edge of the tell raises the possibility that the site's inhabitants may have been actively managing local water supplies. The firm evidence for off-tell activity (which explodes the myth that the modern visible topographic limits of a tell represent the limits of activity) and the possibility of 5th millennium hydrological engineering have important consequences not only for our understanding of the SE European Copper Age but also or future strategies of tell excavation across SE Europe and western Asia.     

Tells,Invasion Theories and Warfare in Fifth Millennium B.C. North-Eastern Bulgaria

Abstract

Violence and warfare have generally played a peripheral role in studies of fifth millennium B.C. farming communities of the Lower Danube. This paper aims to reconsider the archaeological evidence of violent conflict in chalcolithic north-eastern Bulgaria with the notion that inter-group conflict was an essential part of prehistoric social life. The focus here is on the role of warfare within the context of small permanent settlements, essentially settlement mounds, from their establishment around 5000 B.C. to their alleged violent end at the transition between the fifth and fourth millennia B.C.