BULGARIAN VILLAGE BETWEEN TRADITIONS AND FORCED MODERNIZATION

Abstract

In the mid-twentieth century Bulgarians suffered not only the consequences of World War II but also the incredible changes in the total transformation of society. Bulgarian peasants were facing the end of the conditions in which they had complete control of their social reproduction through inheritance of the family estate. The transition from the individual to the collective began with a strategy aimed at imposing a new construction of social reality in which private property and personal business initiative were denied. The Bulgarian village was doomed to collectivization - the largest of all the „events“ of the regime of that time. Changes were made possible by the divergence of ideas of sons and fathers, due to their different position in the social space. Women were also choosing a new social role, drawn by the change in their status, to equal rights and promises of professional realization. In order to achieve this goal agitational techniques were being used in the country with full scope, new patterns of behavior and imitation have being imposed, a new lifestyle, a new way of dressing. The old replaced the new with the price of huge deprivation. In the forcible social production of meanings, any connection with the traditional should and it was be broken. Centrally conducted were attempts to replace and depersonalize the traditional system of customs of the Bulgarians - calendar, work, birth, family holidays or customs and rituals. Traditional clothing has come to an end as a result of the depletion of its iconic significance to the community which was under continuous and effective pressure to transform and obliterate.