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Bulgaria or Chalgaria: The Attenuation of Bulgarian Nationalism in a Mass-Mediated Popular Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Timothy Rice
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Extract

If there were something like ethnomusicological laws for the thermodynamics of musical change, one would surely state that when cultural, social, political or economic systems change, then some aspects of musical practice and style will change as a consequence. Our ethnomusicological theories of change do not predict, however, whether in a particular instance old musical forms will diminish in importance, continue but with new cultural meanings assigned to them, change to meet new demands, or be abandoned altogether. Similarly they do not predict when none of the old forms will be adequate and new forms of music will be required to meet new needs. The postcommunist transition in Eastern Europe (after 1989) and the former Soviet Union (after 1991) provides an ideal natural laboratory for studying particular instances of the application of this law (see, for examples, Slobin 1996). This article, a case study of that hypothesis and its ramifications in Bulgaria, a country effectively under Communist-Party control from 1944 to 1989, also is concerned with the role of music in constructing notions of national identity.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 34 , 2002 , pp. 25 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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References

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