ETHNOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE AND MUSEUM

  The Ethnographic Museum is founded in 1892 as a department of the Popular Museum (today's Archeological Museum). It became an independent museum in 1906 with the completion of the collection of works of traditional Bulgarian handcrafts, costumes, fabrics, carpets, embroideries, musical instruments, objects of the interior decoration as well as of farm tools. Its first director was Dimiter Marinov, a connoisseur and scholar of Bulgarian folk culture, whose scientific works are valued highly to date and provide the foundation of Bulgarian ethnography. Since 1949 the Ethnographic Museum became a part of the system of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences under the umbrella of the Ethnographic Institute. The museum collection today treasures more than 50 000 exhibits, which are samples of the Bulgarian traditional folk arts and crafts collected from all territories historically inhabited by Bulgarians over the period mid-17th - mid-20th centuries. On the basic of all this it was given the status of a National Ethnographic Museum (NEM) in 1969. The Museum is housed in the premises of the former Royal Palace, a remarkable building in the center of Sofia, of the end of the 19th century - a monument of culture. The Museum's mission is to collect, preserve and exhibit the ethno-cultural heritage of the Bulgarians and the other ethnoses, which inhabit the Bulgarian Lands. Over the past ten years the museum has shown, independently or jointly with other museums, more than 50 exhibitions at home and abroad. The most valuable of them are:
· From the treasure-store of the NEM;
· On the occasion of the NEM's centennial;
· The World of the Bulgarian woman, shown in Sofia and Tokyo ;
· Magic for Love - Sofia, Vienna;
· Gypsies from the past - Sofia, Budapest;
· Weekdays and Holidays of the Bulgarians in the Western border regions;
· Hope for Well-being (traditional agricultural rituals);
· Chiprovtsi carpets;
· From the life of the Banat Bulgarians, dedicated to the Bulgarian Catholics;
· The holy path (Bulgarian Jews through the centuries) - winner of a Soros subsidy;
· Beauty and Secrets (Structure of the traditional female costume);
· Between the Visible and the Invisible (traditional Bulgarian calendar holidays) , shown in Kittsee, Austria;
· Armenians in Bulgaria - subsidized by the PHARE program;
· Folk culture and Christianity;
· The Karakachans in Bulgaria .

The Museum's collections are organized under several items: clothes, goldsmithery, copper objects, agriculture, wood-carving, home furnishing, ceramics, fabrics and embroideries, carpets, ritual objects and foreign art. The museum staff includes five doctors of sciences, five curators, three restoration artists, one art designer painter and the Director - Dr. Nadejda Teneva. The National Ethnographic Museum is engaged in a current publishing activity - albums, brochures and post cards:
- Traditional Bulgarian Costumes and Folk Arts, Sofia, 1994;
- Ritual Arts, Sofia, 1996;
- Traditional Folk Costumes, Sofia, 2000;
- A Tale of Magic from Bulgaria (Bulgarian Folk Art), Sofia, 2000.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

The EIM research workers take part in collective and individual research projects, based on contracts with: Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest (Romania); Institutes for Southeuropean Studies in Munich (Germany) and Vienna (Austria); Council of Europe; Museum of the Costume- Tokyo. Many of the ethnographic exibitions were presented abroad: Czechoslovakia (1971-1972), Belgium (1974-1975), Canada (1978), United Kingdom (1979), Syria (1980), Japan (1981), German Democratic Republic(1981), France (1981), USSR (1982), Armenia (1982), Hungary (1982), France (1984), Australia, Brazil and Argentina ( 1985), United Kingdom (1989), Austria (1995), Japan (1996-1997).

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

The research scholars in EIM explore different aspects of Bulgarian traditional culture (calendar and family customs, mythology, folk medicine, house and architecture, traditional crafts, etc.); they work out the ethnological problems connected with the role and the specific features of the Bulgarian traditional and modern culture in Slavonic and Balkan perspective; some aspects of the ethnic development and ethnic relations between Bulgarians- Christians and Moslems and problems of the ethnic groups- Turks, Gypsies, Karakachans, Wallachians, Gagaouzes, etc. were studied as well; different sources for the Bulgarian ethnography are discovered and published; the urban culture, the relations in family, in village and in town are examined. A lot of ethnographic exibitions were prepared- some of them were invited by foreign museums. In the period after 1989 an active research of the versatile social, political and cultural processes in the country began (the mass protests and meetings, the strained ethnic relations etc. are studied from ethnological point of view); the traditional and modern culture of the Bulgarians living abroad is also examined.

TRAINING   OF     HIGHLY-SKILLED   SPECIALISTS

Young specialists are trained in EIM by means of different types of post-graduate programs. Some of the EIM research workers read lectures and conduct seminars in: Department of History of the Sofia University “St. Climent Ohridski”; Department of History of the Veliko Turnovo University “St. Cyril and Methodius”; New Bulgarian University; Pedagogical Institute “Neofit Rilski”- Blagoevgrad; National School for Ancient Languages and Cultures “St. Constantine- Cyril the Philosopher”.

CULTURE     HERITAGE

In the arts and crafts centre traditional objects are produced using ancient technologies (goldsmith’s trade, weaving, embroidery, etc.)

MAJOR   APPLIANCES   AND   EQUIPMENT

Periodical “Bulgarian Ethnography” (1975-1995 - "Bulgarian Ethnography"

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