Continuity and Change in Two Bulgarian Communities: A Sociological Profile

Abstract

The ways in which members of a community think, act, or believe are always changing. Sometimes the pace of change is imperceptibly slow; at other times it is so rapid that it can distinguish an era from its recent past. The rural communities of Bulgaria have experienced rapid change over the last three decades. It began on September 9, 1944, when the Bulgarian monarchy was overthrown and the Bulgarian Communist Party emerged to lead Bulgaria on a path of socialist development. The seizure of power was a revolutionary act but, more important, from a sociological point of view, it was an act that made revolutionary change possible. My purpose is to illustrate several ways in which Bulgarian rural communities have participated in the revolutionary transformation of community and family life in the 1970s.