“The Black Sea” as the model of intercultural communication in the focus of contemporary Bulgarian ethnological research

Abstract

Regional ethno-cultural investigations, including those of the Black Sea coast, are among the priority tasks in the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum – BAS, that is caused in the first place by the problem of the ethno-cultural identity preservation under conditions of the transformational processes in contemporary Europe. The regional research carried out on the whole territory of the country, now has become the traditional for the Bulgarian ethnology. These investigations are bound up with the methodological broadening of the scientific analysis and with the Bulgarian experience in the practical activity in the sphere of intangible cultural heritage. The anthropological approach turned to be one of the important factors to promote the complex and interdisciplinary development of Bulgarian ethnology. Idea of anthropological analysis of the Black Sea coast countries emphasizes the urgency of the regional research as a “single whole”. In this model the “sea” means not the boundary, but the unit and the common environment for the contact, interchange, cooperation, cultural dialogue according to the European aspirations of the modern anthropological discourse. At the same time that is the concrete ethnological material of the local tradition that becomes the basis for the general conclusions concerning cultural identity in a whole. The international scientific conference “Littoral – Sea – Europe. Models of the Intercultural Communication” held in 2005, showed the continuity of the ethnic and cultural tradition of the region, observed its fast development and advanced a number of problems of the anthropological research both the Black Sea coast as a whole, and its towns separately – Pomorie, Varna, Nesebr, Sozopol and others. Owing to the Institute activity the local centre on preservation of the intangible cultural heritage was opened in the village of Bulgari (district Burgas). At the same time the ethno-cultural tradition of the town Pomorie, that is well-known by its cultural and historic monuments, became the topic of the interdisciplinary international scientific research project led by Prof. Mila Santova, D. Sc., corresponding member BAS. The results of this project, in which also participated the scientific workers from the M.T. Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, were presented in a number of many-typed investigations on the problems of interethnic ties and cultural connections, urban practice and everyday life of the community, that has its specific beliefs, symbols and traditional notions, i.e. those cultural-identify peculiarities that mark the typology of the inter-cultural communication of the region.