This dissertation examines representations of the Bulgarian peasant in order to explore how nationalist, agrarian and ultimately communist governments attempted to negotiate the meaning of "modernity" in predominantly rural Bulgaria. This work is not intended as a survey of displays of folk culture in the 20th century, but instead focuses each chapter on an important person, movement or organization which best seems to articulate Bulgaria's evolving sense of itself and its place on the edge of Europe. Beginning with a background chapter on the 1878-1917 period, I trace the foundation and development of ethnographic display, representations of peasants in the interwar educational press, campaigns to improve village hygiene and culture, alpine tourism, and the ever-changing image of peasants in propaganda from the years of agrarian rule in the 1920s through the early decades of communism. My dissertation explores the contested meanings of peasant images in Bulgaria's changing political and social milieu. Bulgaria's acceptance into first Europe and later the Soviet sphere of influence was for many nation-builders predicated upon her ability to attain European and later Soviet-style modernity. However, these modernities were based upon ideas of industrialization and urbanization. In the middle of the 20th century, however, Bulgaria's economy was still overwhelmingly agricultural. This represented a problem for Bulgaria's nation builders. Confronted with these seeming contradictions, different regimes attempted to incorporate the rural population into their visions of a modern Bulgaria. The changing nature of this imagined Bulgaria can be best elucidated through images of the Bulgarian peasantry. At one moment incorporated and at another excluded, modern and backward, embraced and reviled, the imagined peasantry reveals the anxieties and aspirations of Bulgarian state builders in the 20th century. / text

Die Geschichte der Mozart-Rezeption in Bulgarien ist untrennbar mit dem Entstehen einer professionellen Musikkultur europäischer Prägung verbunden. Dabei muß man sich vergegenwärtigen, daß Bulgarien bis 1878 unter türkischer Herrschaft wirtschaftlich und politisch auf feudalem Niveau existierte. Es lohnt sich, den Versuch zu unternehmen, ein Bild der damaligen gesellschaftspolitischen und kulturellen Prozesse zu entwerfen, um zu verstehen, wie die \"Europäisierung\" der Musizierpraxis in Bulgarien vonstatten ging.

This thesis focuses on energy governance in the EU. It examines the role of intermediaries in governing conflicts that emerge from changes in material energy landscapes (infrastructures, technologies, resources) and the policy landscapes associated with decarbonisation. The thesis assesses the impact that intermediaries have on the goals of low-carbon transition through case studies of energy governance in Bulgaria and the UK. Intermediaries here refer to organizations, individuals, networks or institutions operating in-between other actor groups. The argument made by this thesis is that their strategic position allows intermediaries to play a key role in shaping energy infrastructure and the context of low-carbon transitions in the EU to their advantage. By using a conceptual framework which brings together 5 bodies of literature - on governance, infrastructure networks, low-carbon transitions, power and intermediaries - the thesis examines several strategic energy sectors in Bulgaria (wind and solar power, natural gas and energy efficiency) and the United Kingdom (offshore wind). The research methods include extensive analysis of energy regulation and a range of official and unofficial secondary literature; 49 semi-structured interviews with energy elites and participant observation at 6 different events. The collected data were used to analyse the material landscapes of energy and a range of strategic institutions involved in regulating, producing, transmitting and distributing energy in Bulgaria and the UK. The key findings of the thesis are that intermediaries can translate, block or accelerate socio-technical change. Intermediaries can be tenacious barriers to change because of their physical integration within energy infrastructure networks. The thesis distinguishes between two types of intermediaries: those disabling and enabling to low-carbon energy objectives. Whether enabling or disabling, intermediaries have the ability to translate knowledge and interests between stakeholders by reordering and prioritising certain interests over others. By translating between stakeholders intermediaries amplify the impact of their own specific context, creating more local, regional and national differences in approaches within the EU. Through their integration within energy infrastructure and/or policy networks, intermediaries are capable of complementing hierarchical government, as well as competing with it in pursuing their own interests. However only intermediaries integrated within material energy infrastructure are able to reorder and change the priorities of the state, while intermediaries integrated within policy networks are limited in what they can translate and between whom.

This thesis deals with the historical memory in the context of Bulgarian medieval history. Its main objective is to evaluate the role played by the historical memory of the first Bulgarian state in the period of Byzantine domination and the Second Bulgarian Empire. In the first part of this work the current view of the Bulgarian historiography on this topic is critically reviewed. A section, which focuses on historical memory during period of the Byzantine rule aims to assess how and in what form could the historical memory of the First Bulgarian state preserve. It tries to describe this memory as a dynamic process. It aims at the causes that led to the gradual disintegration of historical memory after the end of the First Bulgarian State, such as the decay of higher domestic political elites and loss center. It also analyzes the factors that helped to store memory about the state. In the third part of the thesis deals with the way how was the historical memory of the first Bulgarian state treated in the Second Bulgarian Empire. It examines the way in which historical memory has been used to legitimize the very existence of the Second Bulgarian State. It also describes on the basis of contemporary sources the scope and knowledge of the history of the First Bulgarian State in the Second Bulgarian...

The following research report will look at a series of domestic factors that posed a threat to Bulgaria’s integration into the European Union in January 2007. In this light, this research report will evaluate the efforts that Bulgarian political leaders have taken to meet those existing domestic political challenges and thus assess Bulgaria’s progress towards meeting the political and economic criteria towards EU membership. This research study will be explained by the theoretical tradition of the multi-level governance approach, which assumes the involvement of supranational, national and sub-national actors in the processes of European integration.

<p>The combination of the socio-political changes following 1989 and the current status ofEnglish as the language of international communication promoted dynamic transformations ofthe attitude and usages of English in Bulgaria. The purpose of this study is to investigate theforms, functions and symbolic value of English in the Bulgarian advertising and journalisticdiscourse. The emphasis is on non-established words as opposed to established borrowings.Two hypotheses encapsulating the possible relation between English usages in advertising andjournalistic discourses are in the centre of investigation:</p><p>Hypothesis 1 The use of the English language remains on the symbolic and visual level in theBulgarian advertising and journalistic discourses.</p><p>Hypothesis 2 The symbolic value of English usage in advertising discourse is the same as thatof journalistic discourse.</p><p>Prior to the analyses, the study introduces an overview of the Bulgarian linguistic situationand a summary of studies in the area of contact phenomena between English and Bulgarian.Special attention is paid to publications discussing advertising and journalistic discourse.On the base of two principles – genre and readership – six magazines have been selectedto provide the data for the study: Маниджър(Manager); Story, НашДом(Our Home),ЖенатаДнес(The Woman Today), ЖурналзаЖената(Women’s Journal), and Top GearБългария(Top Gear Bulgaria). Using a set of criteria the process of collecting data hasextracted the occurrences of English from all advertisements, section and column headings,article titles, and the featured article of each issue. English occurrences have been classifiedfirst according to their generic function and position in the textual unity, and then, accordingto symbolic value ascribed by English.The statistical data confirms that the use of English in advertising discourse is common;on average 66% of the advertisements contain English words. Cross-reference with the type offunction reveals, however, that only 17% of the English used in advertisements adds semanticvalue to the Bulgarian-English mixing. Therefore, in advertising discourse English remainsmainly a tool for adding symbolic value. As far as the journalistic discourse is concernedEnglish usages are not as frequent; nevertheless, great variations are exemplified. Suchvariation is observed in the heading data where one of the magazines contains no English inthe headings while another uses English in all but four of its headings. The findings of thestudy reject both of the hypotheses although variations are observed and have been describedin this study. The analyses demonstrate that advertising discourse uses English in order toexploit the value of English as the lingua franca of the world, while the journalistic discoursedraws on the symbolic associations of English as the language of popular culture.The results of this study provide a comparison between advertising and journalisticdiscourses. Furthermore, it offers a picture of the situation in Bulgaria twenty years after thepolitical changes and a good intermediate point in the process of spread of English, whichcontinues to modify the linguistic situation of the country.</p>

Since the late 1960s of the 20th century, Bulgaria experienced a great increase in organized crime. As a result, relations between the managers of state-owned enterprises, the state security service, party officials, and criminal actors grew and became stronger. Parts of the old network are still functioning. Through the support of governmental circles, organized crime became established and dominated essential parts of the economy, from the mid-1990s. Since 1996, however, governments tried to act against organized crime. The influence of the mafia is still an unsolved problem and a challenge to the transformation of the country.

Recently many academic researchers have become interested in the retailers as part of the distribution channel. Today retailers have grown so influential, that sometimes they take the functions of the wholesalers. The retailers constitute the road for manufacturers to the end market. Therefore, knowing retailers’ decision variables and assortment considerations is important for manufacturers when designing upon their marketing strategies. The study is conducted with focus on the Bulgarian office products retail industry. The purpose of the present research is to get a deeper understanding of retailers’ assortment criteria and analyze how the latter relates to market coverage strategy. Retailers’ assortment criteria concern decision variables such as profitability and sales, economic conditions, assortment considerations, consumer evaluation, marketing, supplier characteristics, competitive considerations, distributive factors, tactical considerations. The meaning underlying the assortment criteria is applied for arguing what market coverage strategy would best serve the Bulgarian retailers of office products. The research is performed employing qualitative method, in particular, in-depth semi- structured interviews providing the possibility for a broad discussion. The results of the study revealed some common patterns pertaining to four main inductive categories including product, brand positioning, promotion and distributor’s attributes. The patterns corresponding to the categories were further related to the market coverage strategy alternatives, namely, intensive, selective and exclusive coverage strategy. The results of the study showed that the nature of the product requires considerable effort from the distributors’ side to persuade the retailers to become customers who are aware of the products’ attributes. In other words, the nature of the office products calls for certain knowledge and skills that the retailers have to gain in order to be successful as traders to their own customers and that can be best achieved if selective coverage strategy is employed. Further, the results of the study reveal that manufacturers of office products that would like to position their brands on the high quality dimension should pursue highly selective distribution as this creates a superior product image. The results of the study also show that greater selectivity is suitable since it guarantees that the retailers’ requirements related to promotion are met. Last, the authors suggest that higher degrees of selectivity is the most appropriate way for a manufacturer to follow the performance of distributors and thus, to ensure that the desired by the retailers distributor’s attributes are present.

This thesis analyses ATAKA&rsquo / s rise as a prominent actor in Bulgarian politics and to what extent this success is sustainable. The first section seeks the roots of authoritarianism in Bulgaria. The following section focuses on the restructuring and transformation in Bulgaria following the end of the Communist Party rule. The last section examines the reproduction of authoritarianism Bulgaria which is manifested through the rise of ATAKA in the last few years. Main argument of the thesis is that while the party&rsquo / s success has been rather fast and unexpected in the beginning, it was a result of the recreation of authoritarianism that has been present in the Bulgarian history and manifested itself through ATAKA and its xenophobic-racist rhetoric since 2005. While the sustainability of ATAKA&rsquo / s success in the long-term is in question considering its decline in the 2009 parliamentary elections, there is always the possibility of the authoritarianism resurfacing through different mediums, if not through ATAKA.

This thesis aims to explore the role of social practice in the production of space within an anthropological perspective. In particular I drew my empirical data from my fieldwork in the site of Banyabashi Mosque. Banyabashi Mosque is the only active mosque which is located at the very representative, cultural and commercial center of Bulgaria&rsquo / s capital city, Sofia. The historical background of Bulgaria together with its current socio-political situation as the country having the largest historically indigenous Muslim population among the EU member states and its geopolitical location make it an intriguing geography to study the dynamism of Islam in the European context. In regard with this socio-political background this study seeks to understand the transformation of meaning through spatial practice within the perspective of the congregation of the only mosque in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is a cultural and political expression itself as Islam in Bulgaria in its broadest sense is represented as part of daily interactions of everyday urban life. Seeing the built environment as a system of conjoining parts, looking at the spatial practices and the established relations through the site of Banyabashi Mosque this study aspires to provide a perspective on having a better insight on the causal relationships between power, society and culture. In the pursuit to reveal the production and reproduction of power relations, difference, identities and their maintenance this thesis puts Banyabashi Mosque in the center of the study as a meeting point where all those relations manifest themselves through spatial practice and discourse.