Bulgarian Family Research Articles

Is There a Presumption in Art. 32(2) of the Bulgarian Family Code?

Is There a Presumption in Art. 32(2) of the Bulgarian Family Code?

Attitudes Towards Domestic Violence in the Bulgarian Family: A Comparative Analysis Between Different Age Groups

Attitudes Towards Domestic Violence in the Bulgarian Family: A Comparative Analysis Between Different Age Groups

Prevalence and Manifestations of Doctor-Diagnosed Allergies in Bulgarian Families with Atopy

Abstract Introduction Food allergy and atopic dermatitis are significant pediatric health problems in many developed countries. The prevalence of these conditions has been increasing over the past two decades in Western societies. However, there is a lack of epidemiological data for Bulgaria. Purpose To study the frequency of different manifestations of doctor-diagnosed allergies among families with atopy in Bulgaria. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,408 families with mothers of childbearing age hospitalized between 2017 and 2019 in the Maternity Ward of St. Anna hospital - Varna, Bulgaria. A direct individual questionnaire was applied to obtain information on social-demographic characteristics and manifestations of various forms of allergies. Data was analyzed with SPSS v. 21.0. Results The relative proportion of families with evidence of allergy on the side of the mother, father, or child was 11.63% (n = 280). The incidence of allergic diseases among mothers was 60.5% (n = 127), among fathers 38.6% (n = 8), and among children 57.8% (n = 63). Rhinconjunctivitis was the leading allergic manifestation in mothers (29.5%; n = 62) and fathers (24.8%; n = 52), and atopic dermatitis was the most common manifestation of allergy in their child (30.3%; n = 33). A significant relationship was established between atopic dermatitis in the family and the overall incidence of allergies in the child. Conclusions The data resulting from our study may serve as a basis for further research so the mechanisms of atopy to be investigated better. Prevention strategies need to be developed to address the march of allergy, characterized by the initial manifestation of allergy in childhood with atopic dermatitis and moving to food and respiratory manifestations. Key messages • The incidence of allergies has been increasing in recent years both in the world and in Bulgaria. • Тhe development of preventive measures to reduce the risk of allergic diseases could be of great importance for public health.

Gender-Role Stereotypes in the Bulgarian Family: Cross-Generational Transmission of Gender Attitudes

This article reports a representative quantitative and qualitative study covering the entire territory of Bulgaria, related to the analysis of stereotypes regarding male and female roles in the family and in the society. The results of the study indicate that the factor “age” is significant in relation to attitudes towards the social roles of men and women in the modern family, including in relation to domestic violence. The interpretation of the results enabled the formulation of justified conclusions related to changes in attitudes towards the roles of men and women in a dynamic way. The hypothesis was proven that the tensions between them can be more easily overcome through appropriate differentiated measures tailored to the different age groups.

The Feast of Lăzărel - an Example of Preservation through Adaptation of the Ethnocultural identity of the Greeks of Izvoarele Village in Tulcea County

Izvoarele village is the only compact rural settlement in Romania whose members identify as Greeks. Oral history pinpoints the genesis of this community in 1830, when a few Greek and Bulgarian families, having crossed Dobruja, settled at the foot of Consul hill. Even though these ethnic groups went through a process of ethnic synthesis throughout history, it is visible that the Greek community of Izvoarele has preserved certain valuable heritage elements serving as an identity trademark to be found in the architecture of dwellings, garments, traditions, and in their main occupation, namely agriculture and sheep rearing. The present work deals with the musical repertoire performed on the occasion of Buianciu, a custom usually practiced on Lazarus Saturday (before Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem). The protagonists of Buianciu, or Lăzăriţa by its Romanian name, are girls aged 10 to 14, who sing ritual songs in Romanian, Bulgarian, and Greek. The enacting of this custom contributes
 to the consolidation of group relations to this day, as the entire community acknowledges the framework pattern of the celebration.

Problems and Challenges to the Modern Bulgarian Family with Children

The main purpose of the article is to present some of the problems and challenges modern Bulgarian families with children are facing, revealed empirically, and to make suggestions for their regulation and overcoming. To achieve the goal, answers to the following questions are being sought: what changes have occurred in modern Bulgarian families over the previous three decades, what challenges lie ahead of the families, how do they affect children, and how to be regulated and overcome?

ИГРОВО-ПОЗНАВАТЕЛНИ СИТУАЦИИ ЗА СТИМУЛИРАНЕ НА ПРОСОЦИАЛНО ПОВЕДЕНИЕ

The process of development in preschool and primary school age implies the expansion of contacts with the social environment and, accordingly, the opportunities for full and diverse communication. There are new real and virtual models, in addition to parents, for imitation and identification, the process of social learning is developing in terms of attempts to model social relationships. The game-cognitive situations for stimulating prosocial behavior (behavior aimed at external observance of social norms) presented and tested in the educational process in the kindergarten are a consequence of a study of the life values and educational orientations of the modern Bulgarian family, as well as the notions of 5–7-year-old children about the needs and claims between children, teachers and parents, their ideas of good and evil, likes and dislikes of peers. They can also be realized in the system of the primary level of primary education in the classroom.

Novel Mutation in the COL11A1 Gene Causing Marshall-Stickler Syndrome in Three Generations of a Bulgarian Family.

Here we report the first familial case spread through at least three generations, genetically verified cases of Marshall-Stickler syndrome in Bulgaria. The proband, a 2-year-old girl, has craniofacial dysplasia, ocular hypertelorism, small saddle nose with a flat bridge and midface hypoplasia. The pedigree of the proband’s family showed that her father has the same clinical manifestations of the disease. In addition, her father presented with a tall, thin stature and mild hearing loss, manifested with aging. The same dysmorphological symptoms were presented by the paternal grandfather. Both patients, the 2-year-old girl and her father, have been diagnosed to carry Marshall-Stickler syndrome. The COL2A1 gene tested negative in the family. Based on the higher percentage of mutations in the COL2A1 gene, we analyzed this gene as the first target in the family. The COL2A1 gene tested negative, and we sequenced the gene further. A novel splice site mutation c.3474+1G>A was found in intron 44. This variant is related to the clinical presentation in the patient and her father. The c.3474+1G>A mutation results in altered splicing affects at the donor splice site of intron 44, which most probably gives a nonfunctional protein. The variant affects the major triple-helical domain that represents a mutation hot-spot for the gene.

КОНЦЕПЦИЯ ЗА ЛЕКСИКОН НА СЕМАНТИЧНО СЪОТНОСИМИ И СТРУКТУРНО СЪПРИНАДЛЕЖНИ ФАМИЛНИ ИМЕНА / A CONCEPT FOR A LEXICON OF SEMANTICS- AND STRUCTURE-RELATED SURNAMES

The article presents a project dealing with surnames in Bulgarian. The aim is to compile a lexicon encoding the existing semantic and structural relations among names. Family names are presented in nests based on certain semantic and structural criteria, in particular semantic identity, associative reference and thematic or typological relation-ship. The attested word-formative paradigm is supplied for each name, including short forms, diminutives and derivatives. The lexicon will offer an opportunity for further semantic, etymological, stylistic and word-formation research into Bulgarian family names.

Болярството в българските земи под византийска власт (XI–XII в.)

During the Byzantine rule (11th – 12th c.) Bulgarian boyars retained a certain role in the rule of their native country. They had their own military detachments and felt full fledged masters in their own lands. Among the boyars there are representatives of the noble Bulgarian families – for example the family of the Kavkhans.

MYH7-related disorders in two Bulgarian families: Novel variants in the same region associated with different clinical manifestation and disease penetrance

Pathogenic variants in MYH7 cause a wide range of cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases with childhood or adult onset. These include dilated and/or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy, congenital myopathies with multi-minicores and myofiber type disproportion, myosin storage myopathy, Laing distal myopathy and others (scapulo-peroneal or limb-girdle muscle forms). Here we report the results from molecular genetic analyses (NGS and Sanger sequencing) of 4 patients in two families with variable neuromuscular phenotypes with or without cardiac involvement. Interestingly, variants in MYH7 gene appeared to be the cause in all the cases. A novel nonsense variant c.5746C>T, p.(Gln1916Ter) was found in the patient in Family 1 who deceased at the age of 2 years 4 months with the clinical diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy, whose father died before the age of 40 years, due to cardiac failure with clinical diagnosis of suspected limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. A splice acceptor variant c.5560–2A>C in MYH7 was detected in the second proband and her sister, with late onset distal myopathy without cardiac involvement. These different phenotypes (muscular involvement with severe cardiomyopathy and pure late onset neuromuscular phenotype without heart involvement) may result from novel MYH7 variants, which most probably impact the LMM (light meromyosin) domain's function of the mature protein.

СЪДЪРЖАНИЕТО НА КН. 1 ЗА 2021 Г. НА СПИСАНИЕ „БЪЛГАРСКИ ЕЗИК“ / ISSUE 1/2021 OF BALGARSKI EZIK

Issue 1/2021 of Balgarski ezik features three papers dealing with research presented at the Scientific Forum on Research Approaches in Bulgarian Lan¬guage Teaching (2019) organised by the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the last five years. Katya Charalozova’s paper titled The Category of Verb Aspect. Metho-do¬logical Perspectives in Teaching Aspect in Bulgarian Schools Abroad discusses methodological aspects of teaching the category of aspect to students in Bul¬ga¬rian schools abroad from the standpoint of interpreting verb aspect as a semantic category. The author addresses the consistent representation of knowledge and the ways of introducing perfective and imperfective verbs and their forms in the different tenses. Luchia Antonova-Vasileva discusses The Need for Selection and Adaptation of Texts for People Studying Bulgarian Literature Abroad and presents success¬sful examples of adapted editions of works of literature for the purposes of lan¬guage teaching. The author proposes a model for text adaptation for the purpo¬ses of teaching Bulgarian language and literature to Bulgarians living abroad and illustrates it with an excerpt from Ivan Vazov’s novel Under the Yoke. The paper by Reni Manova and Elena Hadzhieva is dedicated to Intercul¬tural Communication and Equality between the Participants in the Dialogue in Bulgarian. On the basis of analysis of the peculiarities of intercultural commu¬nication as an exchange of culturally conditioned information between people from different cultures, the authors conclude that the significant stock of know¬ledge about the foreign culture and the skills to apply specific communicative behaviours adapted to the host culture are of crucial importance. Mariyana Tsibranska’s paper The World of Nuns according to Lexical Data compares data on female monasticism in two types of sources – hagiographic works and canon law – in order to bring monastic everyday life in the focus of cultural conceptology and the study of the diachronic linguistic picture of the world. Everyday life at the monastery is presented by means of specific ranges of concepts (mental constructs) and the respective linguistic nominations. The paper Is there a Pomak Dialect in Bulgaria? by Georgi Mitrinov pre¬sents a critical look at a study by Emel Balakchi titled The Rhodope Dialects. Their Richness and Magic. By adducing compelling linguistic arguments, the author disproves Balakchi’s attempt at representing the Rhodope dialects as Po¬mak dialects. Using numerous examples, Georgi Mitrinov demonstrates the lack of scientific competence and objectivity of the study under consideration in presenting the characteristic features of the Bulgarian Rhodope dialects. In her article The General Designations for a Female Relative in the Bulga¬rian Language Presented as Heteronymic Rows Tsvetelina Georgieva presents in a structured way the designations for female relatives excerpted from the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Bulgarian Family and Kinship Lexis. Using an onomasiological approach, the author argues convincingly that the names for female relatives in Bulgarian are heteronyms and not synonyms.

НАЗВАНИЯ НА ЖЕНАТА РОДНИНА В БЪЛГАРСКИЯ ЕЗИК, ПРЕДСТАВЕНИ В ХЕТЕРОНИМНИ РЕДОВЕ / THE GENERAL DESIGNATIONS FOR A FEMALE RELATIVE IN THE BULGARIAN LANGUAGE PRESENTED AS HETERONYMIC ROWS

The article presents in a structured way the general designations for female relatives in the Bulgarian language using an onomasiological approach. The author argues that these names are heteronyms (not synonyms) and proposes a definition of a heteronymic row. The names under study are themselves organized in heteronymic rows. The language material is borrowed from the encyclopaedic dictionary of Bulgarian Family and Kinship Lexis, where the lexical units are arranged alphabetically.

Away from Home Studying in Brazil: Bulgarian Children’s Experiences of Brazilian Education

<p style="text-align:justify">This paper presents findings from an extensive study conducted in Brazil. The main subjects of the study were Bulgarian children living and studying in Brazilian schools. The main goal was to indicate what kind of problems and obstacles they experience during the school time in Brazil and how the Brazilian government and people support these Bulgarian children. The data was collected by a Bulgarian research team that travelled to the remote regions of Brazil where many Bulgarian citizens live and work. The researchers took interviews with the Bulgarian children and their parents as well as school staff at the schools in Brazil with a high population of Bulgarian children. The analysis revealed many different problems that Bulgarian children and their parents highlighted, such as problems with the language of instructions, misunderstandings of school rules and general problems related to living in the remote areas of Brazil, such as weather and heat-related issues. Although many Bulgarian families reported some problems, they were still determined to continue their life and career in Brazil, and they want to continue to pursue their dreams.</p>

The Bulgarian family in South Bessarabia during the first half of XIX century: a model of ethnodemographic development

Problems and sequential process of Bulgarian families’ adaptation to new conditions in South Bessarabia are considered in the research. During the resettlement, Bulgarian migrants brought their traditional relationship, elements of social organization and family’s structure to Bessarabia which were distinctive to the migrants’ original areas. The aim of the research is the ascertainment of main trends in evolution of Bulgarian families’ forms, structure and elements in daily life in South Bessarabia together with monitoring modifications which were inherent its intergenerational interaction and ancestral relations during the first half of XIX century. Methodological basis for the research is principles of historicism, systems and interdisciplinarity coupled with historically comparative and micro-historical methods. Scientific novelty of the research related to broad reconstruction of Bulgarian families’ qualitative and quantitative characteristics, and also to identification of specific historically-demographic and developing processes based on analysis of the massive historical sources from the moment the resettlement commenced till the middle of XIX century. While analyzing the data a 15-year period (1835–1850) in the first half of XIX century was established for family’s development and its rising size in South Bessarabia. This fact influenced on population growth in Bulgarian colonies up to 72,1 %. Possible forms of family relations are given together with possibly the most optimal complicated undivided family. Statistic data on quantity of men and women is also given in percentage terms, together with age difference between partners and low divorce rates. Bulgarian family appeared rather resistant social micro-structure under the circumstances of South Bessarabia. Conclusions: based on definite number of indicators, the author concluded that the Bulgarians brought inherent marriage traditions, demographic behavior and adaptive mechanisms to their family institution. Those exact mechanisms under the influence of legislative, administrative, socio-economic and natural factors led to the formation of a new model of demographic behavior.

Influence of children in real estate family purchase decision-making context

Purpose: Children play a significant role as active participants in different markets through their own spending power. They are also able to exert considerable influence – explicit or implicit - over other family members’ consumer behavior. The combination of various spatial, structural, financial and practical aspects place the purchase of a real estate among the most complex for the family. The objective of the present paper is to reveal the degree and form of children’s influence throughout family real estate purchase decision-making process. Methods: This paper represents the results of an empirical study focused on parental perceptions of children’s influence in a family real estate purchase. Data were gathered using a convenience sample of 286 respondents – 156 men and 130 women from different Bulgarian families. Frequency distributions, analysis of variance, paired samples and independent samples t-test were applied for the aims of the analysis. Results: Children are found to exert moderate indirect influence throughout the family real estate purchase. They are most influential in the final phase of the real estate purchase decision-making process. Although high influence scores are detected in some attributive decisions, children are found least influential over choices related to technical and financial aspects of the purchase.

LEARNING THE PALKEN LANGUAGE AS AN OFFICIAL DIALECT OF THE BANATIAN BULGARIANS

Banat Bulgarians are a special descendant of the centuries-old tree of the Bulgarian ethnic group. Descendants of the displaced from Nikopol and Svishtov after the rout of the Chuprov’s uprising in 1688, they have lived in Banat for 281 years and have preserved their language, traditions and Bulgarian consciousness. Despite their affiliation to Catholicism, they continue to be referred to as “palkene” as a remembrance of their Pavlikian past. After Bulgaria's liberation from Turkish slavery, some of the Banat Bulgarians returned to their homeland, again seeking subsistence and a better life, and founded the villages of Dragomirovo, Gostilya, Bardarski Geran, Bregare and Asenovo. Banat Bulgarians use their own language, which they call "Palken". His writing is based on the Croatian Latin version, and preserves many ancient forms of the language spoken in Bulgaria. The main principle in the Bulgarian Palken spelling is phonetic, ie. it is written as it is pronounced. In lexical terms, there are many borrowing from the Banat Bulgarians from German, Hungarian and Serbian, which is due to the close contacts of Banat Bulgarians with other people in the multi-ethnic Banat. Despite the foreign influence, the dialect form and the use of Latin instead of Cyrillic, the Banat Bulgarians emphasize the Bulgarian character in their language. The Bulgarian Palken language is used in literature, the press, the church and the media with minor differences due to the different dialects. In the period 1860-1896 it was the main language of teaching in the Bulgarian school in Banat, from 1896 to 1918 it was replaced by Hungarian, and then – by Romanian or Serbian. In Bulgaria, the Palken language was functional in the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Today the Banat Bulgarians have turned their dialect in a second Bulgarian literary language, publishing a large number of textbooks, calendars, books, prayer books, newspapers and magazines, through which the few who know and use the Palken language seek to influence others in their community and save it from destruction and oblivion. Nowadays, this language continues to be alive and real in the culture and everyday life of Bulgarian families who have migrated from Bulgaria due to historical circumstances more than two hundred years ago in Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian Banat. This report examines the specifics of the graphical system of the Bulgarian Palken language by comparing them with the modern Bulgarian language.

P.94Peripheral myelin protein 2 - a novel mutation causing Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy in a Bulgarian family

P.94Peripheral myelin protein 2 - a novel mutation causing Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy in a Bulgarian family

Peripheral myelin protein 2 \u2013 a novel cluster of mutations causing Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy

BackgroundCharcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is the most common inherited neuromuscular disorder characterized by wide clinical, genetic and pathomechanistic heterogeneity. Recently, the gene encoding peripheral myelin protein 2 (PMP2) was identified as a novel cause for CMT neuropathy with three mutations that structurally cluster together (p.Ile43Asn, p.Thr51Pro, p.Ile52Thr) reported in five families.ResultsUsing whole exome sequencing and cohort screening we identified two novel missense substitutions in PMP2 in Bulgarian (p.Met114Thr, c.341C > T) and German (p.Val115Ala, c.344 T > C) families. The mutations affect adjacent and highly conserved amino acid residues outside of the known mutation-rich region in the protein. Crystal structure analysis positions the affected residues within a cluster of highly conserved fatty acid coordinating residues implying their functional significance. The clinical, electrophysiological and imaging features in both families were consistent with a childhood onset polyneuropathy with variable patterns of demyelination, slow to very slow progression, and most severe involvement of the peroneal muscles.ConclusionsWe expand the genetic and phenotypic spectrum of PMP2-related peripheral neuropathy. Our findings reveal a second mutational cluster in the protein.

Bulgarian Family in South Bessarabia During the First Half of XIX Century in Scientific Field of Social History

Family is a fundamentally social institution that plays an important role in the historic and ethnic development of any nation. There have been mechanisms for the transfer of plenty of elements exactly within the family for ages. There they appear and are formed, take root and change their forms, meaning, and content with time. They eventually smooth out and disappear. The situation concerns both social roles and their age and gender clarity that connects the family with bigger and more complicated forms of human integration, such as community and society which are dynamically interlinked. A research subject is a family in a Bulgarian diaspora group defined as an object of social history. The subject of study is the evolution of forms, structure, and Bulgarian family’s everyday elements in South Bessarabia, moreover, it’s about intergenerational interaction and family relations. The subject of social history is complicated for most researchers who have taken on this distinctive activity. Associating himself with the statements about the faintest subject of social history, R.Zider gave the most “ technical” version of the definition:” Social history is the history of society, the overall relationship between people”. R.Zider considered a family as a complex system that “summarizes the influence of society’s macro system and tasks to reproduce workforce and society’s structure; to create gender’s behavioral stereotypes, norms and relations between parents and children together with adults and old people; to regulate sexual behavior in pre-marital and marital periods”. At the family level this researcher addressed the issue of interrelationships between social, economic and political aspects. After the Bulgarians’ mass resettlement to South Bessarabia at the beginning of the XIX century, the foundation of Bulgarian families was a nuclear family, in other words, a family that consisted of a married couple with or without children. But speaking about a nuclear family, the fact it’s the strongest and the longest one among small groups that can be connected with bigger family or clan formations should be kept in mind. So such a family should be different from just small families that are self-sufficient and disconnected with great patrimony groups. In societies with a strong system of kinship, a nuclear family doesn’t appear as an isolated and defined unit. Under the effect of modernization processes large systems of kinship smooth out, a nuclear family separates from big disintegrating patrimony groups and takes features of a small family. The author makes a conclusion about the studied social system of Bulgarian family in South Bessarabia during the first half of XIX century and based on a great number of demographic ready-made indicators states that during two first decades the population kept social and behavioral models peculiar to Bulgaria in XlX century. But they were gradually getting closer to the demographic model of the European part of the Russian empire. As a result, in the middle of the century own demographic behavior was creating which united both models. Keywords: Bulgarian family, Bessarabian Bulgarians, social history, multidisciplinary approach, demographic indicators, a nuclear family.