Papers of bas eng bobi by Maria Diamandieva

Papers of BAS No 1, 2014

CONTENTS

HISTORY 1. Cyrillo-Methodian legal heritage and political ideology in the mediaeval Slavic states – Dessislava Naydenova ARCHITECTURE 2. Architecture as communication – Maria Diamandieva 3. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall in the way they could be – Georgi Kafelov ETHNOMUSICOLOGY 4. Identities in Motion – 50 Years Bulgarian Dances within Different Political Contexts – Gergana Panova-Tekath PHILOSOPHY Franz Brentano about continuum as generated by intuition – Vesselin Petrov SOCIOLOGY 6. Basic methodological problems of social survey research – Svetlana Saykova 7. Sociology Defend Societies? – Douhomir Minev 8. Holistic approach to social survey research on the “shadow economy” – Emilia Chengelova 9. Influence of organizational culture on conflicts in Bulgarian firms – a comparative analysis – Mayana Mitevska-Encheva

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

HISTORY

CYRILLO-METHODIAN LEGAL HERITAGE AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY IN THE MEDIAEVAL SLAVIC STATES Dessislava Naydenova Abstract: The aim of the article is to underline the important role of the CyrilloMethodian juridical heritage in the transformation of the Slavonic states from paganism to Christianity. The main result from the Conversion was a change in the spiritual sphere, culture and political model. This, of course, didn’t root in inventing something new in principle, but rather in copying something already existing in the Eastern Roman Empire. In this regard it is worth mentioning here that the Byzantine political theory played the main role in constructing the Bulgarian ideological doctrine. The following legal texts are taken under consideration: Nomocanon of John the Scholastic, Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, Anonymous Homily in Codex Clozianus, Nomocanon of 14 Titles and the Ecloga. The article focuses on two main suggestions: 1. Legal texts should be considered mainly as literary sources and as a result of a given political ideology rather than a part of a state legislation. 2. The juridical texts associated with so-called Corpus Methodiana Juridica and those that have been translated in mediaeval Bulgaria in 10th century were of great importance with regard to the adoption of Byzantine political theory in Orthodox Slavic States, creation of a new Christian identity, building of a new state and political concepts and also transformation of the culture of the Orthodox Slavs into a part of Byzantine Commonwealth. Key words: Byzantine Empire, Nomocanon, Cyrillo-Methodian, Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, legal texts, First Bulgarian Kingdom.

The affiliation of the mediaeval Slavic states to the “Byzantine Commonwealth” is attested, among other cultural, political and social changes, by intensive efforts for translation of both canon law and secular law texts [Naydenova, 2005]. Such translations were made during the mission of St. St. Cyrill and Methodius in Great Moravia when the Slavonic version of the Nomocanon of John the Scholastic1 emerged and the so-called Law for Judging the People (Zakon

Ed.: [Havlík, Lubomír, 1971: 243–363]. See on this most recently [Gallagher, 2002].

Sudnyj Ljudem)2 (a revision of the Title 17 of the Byzantine Ecloga) was compiled. The process continued in Preslav with the translation of the Nomocanon of 14th Titles3, and Ecloga4. The interest in Byzantine law was due to the need for compilation of canon law to support the Church, Christian discipline and behaviour, and due to the highest prestige of the Byzantine legal tradition. Bulgaria was about to become an Orthodox Kingdom or Empire with its special structures, institutions and practices [Bilyarski, 2002]. This, of course, was not a building of a new state system in principle, but rather copying, borrowing a system already existing in the Eastern Roman Empire. In this regard it is worth mentioning here that the main role in constructing the Bulgarian political doctrine – and especially the imperial idea of King Simeon (893-927) – was played by the peculiarities of the Byzantine political theory and ruler’s propaganda of Emperor Basil I (867–886). The most common examples given in this respect are: the greeting of the ruler as “new David” and “new Moses”, the creation of fictitious genealogies which represent the ruling dynasty as a direct descendant of the ancient royal families, the epithets used in the official titles, the new tendencies towards the formation of the ideal emperor’s portrait [Nikolov, 2006: 83–95]. In respect to the issue under consideration here it is important to underline that the Macedonian dynasty was related to the Old Testament paradigms and that there was a direction back to the models of the Justinian’s time in which justice and the establishments of laws were among the main virtues of the ruler [Èièurov, 1985]. It is probable that during the reign of King Simeon were spread various juridical texts through which his care for justice crystallized in a clear shape, which was to strengthen his self-identifying with Moses [Shepard, 2003]. In the present article I will focus on legislative texts as instruments of carrying out certain ideology and legitimacy, as this was most probably the main function of their Slavonic translations. Such a point of view is supported by several arguments. 1. First of all, the research on sources and composition of the canon law collections attest for almost literary translations and scarcity of corrections. This situation does not support the hypothesis that the Byzantine legal tradition was consciously and consistently adapted to the lifestyle of the Slavic people. Although an absolute coincidence cannot be postulated, Slavonic collections of law texts are dependent on their Byzantine originals. In most cases, the texts included are borrowed from a concrete Greek manuscript. 2. It is worth mentioning also the lack of glosses appended to the text that explain or adapt the interpretation of the foreign norms, as well as the numerous translation errors indicating that the translators were not acquainted with the norms.

Editions: [Тихомиров & Милов 1961; Havlík, Lubomír, 1971: 178–198]. See on this most recently: [Максимович, 2004]. 3 Ed.: [Бенешевич, 1974a; Щапова, 1987]. On its Greek original and its Slavonic translation see [Бенешевич, 1974; Щапов 1978]. 4 Ed. [Schapow & Burgmann, 2011]. 2

3. Zhivov’s thorough study [Zhivov, 1988] on the legal terminology used in both translations of Byzantine legal texts and Russian original works, offers convincing evidence for the co-existence of two parallel judicial norms. Lexemes attested in translations and in original works are opposite to one another, mutually exclusive; they form a set of correlative pairs. Unlike the language of the translations, the Russian originals show specific linguistic variability. Zhivov argues that bilingualism in legal terminology proves the Russian bookmen considered these terms sacral5. 4. Another argument, supporting the hypothesis for the primary ideological function of the legal monuments, is the absence of secondary Slavonic legal compilations. Even the only exception, the Russian miscellany Merilo Pravednoe [Tihomirov, 1961] has a composition that confirms the abovementioned observation. It is a collection of edificatory and legal texts organized into 30 chapters. The edificatory texts have moral character and are aimed at an unjust judge (or ruler). To depict the same idea, a miniature found at the beginning of the oldest copy represents a judging person sitting on a throne with scales in his hands. The didactic (and not practical) character of this collection is reflected by the fact that an abridged translation of the Ecloga is included immediately after its full text. 5. There are very few Slavonic copies of secular-law texts. They are all without exception found in larger legal compilations and do not have independent manuscript tradition. This is yet another proof that legal texts should be considered mainly as a result of a given political ideology rather than a part of a state legislation. After these preliminary remarks, let’s go back to the peculiarities of the law texts themselves. Below, I”ll discuss in more detail the features of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, Nomocanon of 14 Titles, and Ecloga. Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem. In search for an explanation of the incompleteness of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, some Czech scholars (such as Prochђzka [Prochђzka, 1967] and Zђstěrová [Zђstěrová, 1978])6 argue that this work is more of a literary monument than a legislative collection. This observation could be supported also by the fact that the compiler of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem associated the collection with the legislative efforts of the first Christian emperor Constantine the Great7. The relation to Constantine is emphasized even more strongly in some

5 Zhivov points out at an interesting observation – the political term is translated in the legal texts as Christians – a choice which is not attested in other translations and original works [Тъпкова-Заимова, 1987; Biliarsky 1999; Николов 2007]. 6 Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem does not include not only texts about crimes that were considered irrelevant for the Slavic society such as falsification of coins and heresies such as manichaeism and montanism but also topics of abortion, homosexuality, sodomy, pimping of a wife, kidnapping of a nun or a laywoman, amulet creation, sorcery and magic, priest beating, conspiracy against the ruler, theft, murder, robbery. 7 „Тэмьже с(в)тыи Костнтинъ въ пьрвыи законъ въписавъ преди тако г(лаго)ля...“ [Havlík, 1971: 178]. The hypothesis of Vašica (Vašica 1951) that author of this part was Constantine Cyrill himself, was refuted [Ганев, 1959: 161–164; Андреев, 1968; Papastathis 1995; Максимович, 2004: 21–22].

of the witnesses dated ca. the second half of the 15th c.8 It is also worth noting that the longer redaction of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem was attributed to Constantine himself. The role of Constantine the Great into the development of the political programme of Byzantium has been greatly discussed9; here I will only remind that his name became a symbol of legitimacy and power, an emblem of the resurrection of kingdom for both the Byzantine Empire and the Slavic states. In the context of the ideological value of the legal monuments, it cannot go unnoticed that the articles in Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem involve motifs traditional for didactic writings, for example an intention to impose moral principles to the matrimonial and family law (Art. 4–13, Art. 30a) [Havlík, 1971: 181–186, 197] and the postulate that a good and just ruler must observe Orthodoxy in order to lead his flock to salvation (Art. 1) [Havlík, 1971: 178] as well as to be a fair judge (Art. 2, 7a, 30) [Havlík, 1971: 178, 184, 196]. Another feature, with respect to ideological relevance of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, is that in almost all copies it is preceded by the so-called Law of Moses – a compilation containing parts of the Pentateuch10. This compilation has long been associated with the political programme of the Empire where after the endorsement of Christianity as official religion, Byzantium is considered as the New Israel that would embark upon the assignment to spread the Christian faith across the world. The connection between Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem and the Law of Moses is also confirmed by some copies of the longer redaction of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem where Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem is merged with Russkaya Pravda and is again preceded by the Law of Moses [Тихомиров, 1961а: 14–16]. Such a sequence is hardly accidental. In different periods, almost all barbarous people claimed the status of the “chosen people”. The concept of the “chosen people” was transformed into an ideology of the legitimacy of the governing class to motivate political changes or territorial expansions. Although the texts never mention the New Israel or the “chosen people”, the ideological pattern is evident in the use of the New and Old Testament in interpretations of the past and in the references to

8 In the Novgorod Kormchaya, the following note is added to the title (in handwriting different from the one of the main body) „прави(л) ц(а)рКо(н)ст(н)ти(нъ)“ [Тихомиров, Милов, 1961: 35, 58]. In the Karamzinov group of copies of the Russian Pravda Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem has a special title „С№д свтого цар костнтина закон с№дныи людем“. The relation to Constantine the Great is emphasized even stronger in one of the witnesses (dating back to the second half of the 14th c.) where at the end of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem is added: по си мэста с№дебникъ царгреческаго констнтина [Греков, 1940: 39]. The long redaction of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem has the following title: Сyдебникъ свтаго правовэрнаго великаго Самодержца ЦарКостнтина, Гречьскаго закона [Тихомиров 1961:42]. 9 On the cult of Constantine the Great in Byzantium cf. [Kazhdan, 1987; Magdalino, 1994]. On the cult of Constantine the Great in Slavic texts cf. [Avenarius, 1985; Simeonova, 1998: 89–104; Hurbanič, 2002; Билярски, 2004: 17–42]. 10 Edition of the Greek text: [Burgmann & Troianos, 1979]. Scholars explain the steady presence of this text (based only on the Old Testament norms) in the Byzantine corpus of legal texts with the political ideology of the Empire where, after the endorsement of Christianity as official religion, Byzantium became the state of the Christians, of the New Israel. The Empire took the particularly important role of propagator of the new faith throughout the world, which was part of the mission of the Salvation of the mankind [Troianos, 1987].

the Old Testament law [Kottje, 1964; M. Garrison, 2000; Meens, 2000]. In this respect, the inclusion of Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem as a sort of continuation of the Law of Moses can be interpreted as an effort to justify the claims to legitimacy and to the reception of the newly baptized people into the ranks of the people of the New Testament11. By the way, one may find an interesting analogy in respect of using Old Testament as context for such ideological purposes in the manuscript tradition of Nominalia of the Bulgarian Khans – all the copies, known so far, are included in a chronographic compilation as a sort of continuation of the Slavonic translation of Book of Kings [Горина, 1995; Каймакамова, 1997; Горина, 2002; Николов, 2004; Билярски, 2005; Каймакамова, 2006]. Canon law miscellanies. The Nomocanon that contains the laws of the Empire and the canons of the Church, became one of the main texts reflecting the idea of a symphony of secular and religious power [Dvornik, 1956; Щапов, 1989; Hussey, 1990: 304–309; Canning, 1996: 13–15]. Through its Slavonic translation the Byzantine political philosophy was adopted by the mediaeval Slavic states as a system. The Empire did not have a Constitution of its own and special regulations about the relations between the Emperor and the Law, and the Emperor and the Church. Byzantium was regarded a successor and keeper of the Roman law meaning that partial re-interpretation was occasionally needed along with an incorporation of the church law into the state law. The relationship between State and Church is vastly reflected into the Novels of Justinian. One of the most important texts is the preamble to the Sixth Novel that discusses the common harmonic cooperation of the two powers and defends the idea that the Church and the Empire are gifts from God and each has to be associated with divine and human domains, respectively [Бенешевич, 1974а: 739–740]. Thus, the Church and the Empire were situated in the same legal framework, within the same legal regulations. The Empire is a reflection of the Heavenly Realm in the visible world, something created to its image, i.e. with a hierarchical organization following this of the Heavens, as well with similar rules and principles. The same cannot be stated about the Church, even if only for the reason that according to the Orthodox conception the Church is the Body of Christ. The Emperor, which is an image of the One in the Heavens, is responsible for the secular affairs of the Church, for its administration, its unity, for the integrity of the dogma and for its orthodox character [Biliarsky, 2006]. This is why the preamble to the 137th Novel argues that the secular power must take care of observing not only the state laws, but also the religious canons [Бенешевич, 1974а: 796]. Albeit formally, the principle of “symphony” gives

The Slavic translation of the Law of Moses has not been an object of special linguistic and textual study. Most Russian scholars accept by default that the texts had emerged in Russia in connection with the distribution of the so-called Serbian redaction of the Kormchaya. The research of A. Schminck on the Greek tradition of this work, its later dating and relation to the activity of Patriarch Photius and the Christian missions organized by him [Schminck, 2005], as well as the connection between the Law of Moses and Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem, indicate the need for a more extensive study of the Law of Moses and suggest an earlier dating of its Slavic translation, probably during the First Bulgarian Kingdom. 11

freedom to both institutions with respect to jurisdiction. Thus, the 84th Canon of the Holy Apostles provides punishment for a priest or excommunication for layman if he or she falsely accuses the ruler [Бенешевич, 1974а: 80]. This text forbids clergy from accusing the prince, while Article 7 of 123rd Novel does not allow rulers to call bishops and priests as witnesses in court and to force them to testify [Бенешевич, 1974а: 770–771]. The role of the Emperor in the ecclesiastic life was limited to the juridical and the administrative spheres and these rights were only one juridical, and accepted by the Church, possibilities for the ruler to interfere in its affairs. According to the canon law, the Ecumenical Councils have the highest judicial authority but it was the Emperors who convoked and presided the Ecumenical councils. In the Nomocanon of 14 Titles before the canons of the Second Ecumenical Council The address on behalf of the Church Fathers to Theodosius I the Great (379–395) was included. It states that the Emperor ratifies the decisions of the Synod and confirms that the Emperor’s power was given by God and he has the obligation to keep the peace in Church and maintain the purity of faith [Бенешевич 1974а: 94–95]. The Emperor was a master of the Universe and representative of Christ on Earth and his main duty was to observe the divine order. The Emperor and the Patriarch had to ensure compliance with the canons. The Emperor had no right to create, abolish and interpret the canons and could not act as a mediator and judge on Church affairs (Chalcedon 9; Antioch 11, 12; Sardica 7–9; Carthage 73, 119) [Бенешевич, 1974а: 116, 257–258, 286–287, 374, 423–424] but it was with an edict of the Emperor that the acts of the Ecumenical councils were promulgated in the legal sphere. This was the only way for them to obtain any juridical significance. Another important function of the basileus in the ecclesiastic life was the right to choose the next Ecumenical Patriarch among three candidates proposed by the Council (Chalcedon 12; Trullo 38; Novell. Just. 123.8.) [Бенешевич, 1974а: 118, 169–170, 812]. The emperors had the right also to legislate in the sphere of the Church law, sometimes concerning questions of purely canonical matters. In the 83rd Novel, the Emperor confirms the exclusive right of the clergy to be judged by their bishops, while the 131st Novel states that the Canons of the first Ecumenical Councils have the status and enforcing power of a law, thus should be respected in the same way as the Holy Scripture. The Emperor had to take care of the Orthodoxy, to imitate God in His justice and forbid confession of various heresies while, at the same time, striving, as a true shepherd, to return heretics and sinners into the bosom of the Church (Novell. Just. 3, 77, 123, 132, 133, 137) [Бенешевич 1974а: 741, 790, 812, 826–832]. As far as the Byzantine legislation is considered a model of Christian justice and the Nomocanon is viewed as expressing a political concept, the reference to this canonical collection in the Russian sources for example occurs whenever the prince and the bishop must appear as righteous Christians in their judicial or administrative work. In addition, they often referred to this collection in various disputes. In such cases, the Nomocanon is considered an ontological standard of the righteous legislator, in a fashion similar to the one aimed by the comparisons with Constantine the Great and Justinian I. Therefore, the Nomokanon gained great importance as a symbol of ideological significance, legiti-

macy and religious autonomy [Павлов, 1885: 35; Dvornik, 1959; Живов, 1988; Петровић, 2002]. The variable composition, incorporating various additional articles taken from moral, didactic, polemic and other writings, suggests that canonical collections of this type served rather to reflect prestige of bringing together the most authoritative translated and original legal monuments [Stolte, 2001]12. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that despite the considerable volume and variety of content, the Nomocanon did not become books of mainstream use. The so-called “small nomocanons” or books of penance, were used for this purpose, as evidenced not only by their multiple copies, but also by the great variety of these compilations [Найденова, 2008]. The Ecloga. In regard to ideological content of the translations of Byzantine legal texts, the preamble to the Ecloga requires special attention. It not only highlights the legislative power of the Emperor and the fact that his power originates from God, but also offers a formal and clear definition of a judicial and political programme [Simon, 1994]. At first glance, the text does not say anything new and follows a well-known pattern: God rewards the Emperor with the power – he is a pastor and a leader of the flock of Christ and needs a law to fulfill this obligation. The main difference as compared with other legal texts is that here, for the first time, Leo III (717–741) provided an ethical legal system aimed at social and economic relations. Unlike the legislation of Justinian which addresses the issues of Church, faith, canons, state, administration, the Ecloga is focused on social and economic topics. Leo III made an attempt at covering and organizing all the important periods and aspects of the man’s life [Burgmann, 1983: 160–167; Simon, 1994]. In regard to the issues discussed here, it is worth noting that the preamble to the Ecloga is found also as an independent text in the Slavonic manuscript tradition [Павлов, 1885: 41–42] . Law and Identity. Last but not least, legal texts are important witnesses to reflect identity [Biliarsky, 2011: 183–203]. Christianity is not only a religion but ideological and political doctrine, and a corpus of obligatory moral and ethical rules regulating the behaviour of people in their family and in the community. Conversion to Christianity led to the obligation of observing the Christian law, i.e. the Christian lifestyle norms. In the 9th-century written monuments, the term “good law” is used not only in its legal sense but often refers to Christian faith [Naydenova, 20052006]. A similar understanding of the synonymity between faith and law is reflected in the Life of Constantine Cyril (Vita Constantini). Prince Rostislav of Great Moravia (846-870) asked the Byzantine Emperor to send him a bishop and a teacher because § ваTЎ бw на въсе страны добрь законь исходить [Ангелов, Кодов, 1973: 104]13. The so-called Italian Legend also mentions the “good law” in the meaning of Christian faith [Геров, 1960: 294–302]. In Responsa Nicolai

12 According to Olteanu this canon law miscellany were considered as a Constitution in mediaeval Slavic state [Олтяну, 1991]. 13 Законъ as synonym of faith was used also in some late South- Slavonic texts [Ðarkiè, 1994: 123–124].

ad consulta Bulgarorum was said that the Bulgarian Knyaz (Prince) Boris I – Michael (852–889; † 907) asked the Pope for a Christian law: “Thus, it is excellent and commendable that you firstly stated in your questions that your Prince wanted a Christian law. However, if we attempt at explaining it in detail, we have to write countless books; (but if you want me) to briefly show you what the Christian law consists of, you should know that it relies on faith and good deeds ...” [Detschew, 1939: 25]. The First Chapter of the Responsa contains thorough evidence that the concepts of lex Christiana and lex Christianorum refer to the Christian doctrine [Благоев, 1916; Vlasto, 1970: 160–161; Zђstěrová, 1978]. For the Byzantine writers the world was divided into Romans and barbarians, into Christians and non-Christians. This point of view determined the specific perspectives on everyday life and worldview towards the people living outside the boundaries of the Empire [Ангелов, 1999: 83–97; Панова, 2001: 113–118]. The confrontation between the Romans (Christians) and barbarians (heretics) reflects another aspect of the understanding of the conceptual unity of faith and law, which is rooted in the interpretation of a special and unique relationship between Christianity and Rome, the Church and the Empire. After Constantine the Great converted his Empire and people to Christianity, geographical boundaries of both Roman law and Christian faith were functional became one and the same. According the Byzantine political view, pious life and observation of the canons had to be an integral part of the Civil law subordinated to the laws of the Empire. All higher moral values known to Christians were observed within the boundaries of the one and only Empire. The world beyond these boundaries is considered only as barbaric, infidel and sinful14. Therefore, in the hierarchy of communities postulated in some “ethnographic” texts, the communities governed by the Law (i.e., Christian communities), were placed on a higher position and valued better than the barbaric communities based on constant internal conflicts. Thus, according to Procopius of Caesarea the Slavic people were ignorant, naive and impure barbarians. They knew nothing about faith, and sacrificed to many deities. They had neither “law”, nor “customs”, and lacked the organization of the Romans, so they were barbarians [Бешевлиев, 1960:126]. In the Pseudo-Mauricius” Strategicon, the Slavs are described as naive, good-natured and freedom loving people. They “live in sin” and “hate each other” [Бешевлиев, 1960: 283]. Martyrdom of the Fifteen Martyrs of Tiberiopolis describes the Bulgarians settled on the Balkans as “the most lawless and ferocious of people” [Божилов, 1994: 61–62]. Byzantine authors traditionally use archaic ethnonyms to describe “other” people for a more direct influence on the reader. Huns and Scythians were among the people with whom Bulgarians were most often compared or identified. They symbolized lawlessness, godlessness, deceit, greed, cruelty, animal-like lifestyle and way of

14 The meaning of the term ‘law’ as Holy Scripture and God’s Law, is also an element of the Byzantine political ideology where the organisation of society reflects the cosmic law which organises the Universe according to the God’s will. As the Law manages the Cosmos, justice and rule of law must prevail in secular world – without a law, there is no state [Pieler, 1978; Pieler, 1981; Simon, 1994; Nicol, 1991: 62].

communication [Ангелов, 1999: 90–92]. Conversion of the Bulgarian state to Christianity changed some of these images. The Byzantine writers started to include in their writings the motif of the transformative influence of Christianity on the mentality of Bulgarians and the ennobling mission of the Roman morality [Ангелов, 1999: 94–96]. Examples of the tension between the Christians abiding to the God’s Law and the barbarians living in sin can be found in other mediaeval works of nonByzantine origin. Kristian’s Legend contains a paragraph stating that prior to Christianization the Czechs had been living as “wild horses, without a law, without a prince or a ruler, without towns, wandering around like wild beasts”. This evidence is reiterated in the Chronicle of Cosmas of Prague where one reads that after the Christianization the Czech kings “with the help of the law ... tamed that wild tribe and calmed down the unbridled people“ [Санчук, 1962: 45]. In his Sermon Against the Bogomils, Presbyter Cosmas makes a distinction between the monks who abused food, made noise and regularly changed their behavior – first insulting, then befriending each other and not following the law – thus violating the God’s law and order, and the monks who lived abiding to the law (the true Christians) [Бегунов, 1973: 328–332; Грашева, 1982: 61–66]. It is worth mentioning that in the story about the Christianization of Kievan Rus’ in Russian Primary Chronicle (Povest’ Vremyan’nykh Let’), the term законъ “law” refers not only to Christianity. In 985, Knyaz (Prince) Vladimir undertook a military campaign against the Volga Bulgarians which the Russians won. After Vladimir returned in Kiev, he was visited by envoys of Bulgarians who offered to convert him into Islam: „Придоша болъгары вэры бохъмичэ, глzще, яко: ты кнзь еси мyдръ и смысленъ, не вэси закона; но вэрyи в законъ нашь и поклонисБохъмитy“ [Лихачев, 1950: 59, 257]. Here, законъ refers to Qur’an. For the Bulgarian envoys who confessed Islam, Vladimir did not know the law in the meaning of their Holy Scripture (Qur’an). In Islam, legal contractual relationships could be established only with people following the Book – Jews and Christians, while heretics had to be converted to the true faith15. In the manuscript tradition, barbarous laws are notably surrounded by historical texts. The preface to the first written law of the Langobards, issued by King Rothari (636-652), is written in the form of a short chronicle, listing all the rulers reigning before him with indication of their tribal affiliation. The preamble to the Salic Law emphasizes the relationship between the kings of the Franks and the Old Testament kings David, Moses, and Solomon, a line that was aimed at relating the Franks to the people of Israel. Thus, the legislative process was transformed into an instrument of collective social memory, as the history and the law have the same attitude towards the past. This fact can be explained by the syncretism of the mediaeval way of thinking where ethnic, political and religious patterns were not separate but merged into one syncretic worldview. Hence, the development and preservation of identity require not only historical, but also legal texts to provide meaning and content of the political conception

See also a comment about this paragraph in Petruhin [Петрухин, 2002: 70–72].

and the common past [Bertelli, 2001: 35–38; Schmidt-Weigand, 1991; Pohl, 2002; McKitterick, 2002]16. In the context of this interpretation of the legal monuments as bearing affirmation of identity, the evidence about the rebellion against the Conversion found in the Responsa Nicolai ad consulta Bulgarorum with the claim that the rebelling nobles had accused Khan Boris in giving them a “bad law” may be seen in new light [Detschew, 1939: 49]. The conversion to Christianity was a sudden and shocking change that confused and distracted people and they rebelled in an attempt to protect their own identity [Божилов, 1995] and react against the violation of their honor, dignity, and rights. REFERENCES Ангелов, Боню, Кодов, Христо. 1973. Климент Охридски. Събрани съчинения. Т. 3. Пространни жития на Кирил и Методий. Подготвили за печат Б. Ст. Ангелов, Хр. Кодов. София: БАН. Ангелов, Петър. 1999. България и българите в представите на византийците (VІІ– ХІV в.). София: Парадигма. Андреев, Михаил. 1968. ЗСЛ – ценен паметник на българската средновековна култура. – Език и литература, ХХІІІ/3: 1–18. Бегунов, Юрий. 1973. Козма Пресвитер в славянских литературах. София: БАН. Бенешевич, Владимир. 1974. Канонический сборник ХІV титулов со второй четверти VІІ в. до 883 г. К древнейшей истории источников права греко-восточной церкви. Санкт Петербург 1905 (= Subsidia Byzantina. Lucis opera litetrata. Vol. II a. Leipzig: Druckwerke Zwickau). Бенешевич, Владимир. 1974a. Древнеславянская кормчая ХІV титулов без толкований. Т. 1. Санкт Петербург 1906 [= Subsidia Byzantina. Lucis opera litetrata. Vol. II b. Leipzig: Druckwerke Zwickau]. Бешевлиев, Веселин (Отг. pед.). 1960. Гръцки извори за българската история. Т. 2. София: БАН. Билярски, Иван. 2002. Средновековна България – царство и народ. – В: Илиев, И. (Ред.). ÐÏËÕ×ÑÏÍÉÁ (Така ли е правилно ??). Сборник в чест на проф. Иван Божилов, 25–40. София: Анубис. Билярски, Иван. 2004. Покровители на царството. Св. Цар Петър и св. ПараскеваПетка. София: Вулкан-4. Билярски, Иван. 2005. От мифа к истории или от степи к Израилю. –Зборник радова Византолошког института, 42: 7–22. Благоев, Никола. 1916. Responsa Nikolai papae I ad consulta Bulgarorum. Извор за историята на българското право. – In: Сборник на Българската академия на науките, VІ, № 4: 1–117. Божилов, Иван (Отг. ред.). 1994. Теофилакт Охридски. Мъченичество на 15-те Тивериуполски мъченици. Подг. И. Илиев. Гръцки извори за българската история, Т. ІХ, ч. 2. София: БАН.

16 Bertelli offers an interesting interpretation of this issue. As the prince was an embodiment of all people and the law, a dynastic change prompted re-arranging of the cosmic order which had been disturbed by the death of the previous monarch. The arrival of a new emperor may be symbolically interpreted as renewal of the law [Bertelli, 2001: 35–38].

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Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE AS COMMUNICATION Maria Diamandieva Abstract: The conclusions of this report are based on the initial perception of architecture as a system of communication, aiming at interpolation of similar rules for efficiency and harmony, suggesting universal screening criteria of value of the artistic product. The proposed model – matrix of communication in architecture could serve as a starting form in design approaches and analytical searches within the pluralistic boundless field of modern architectural projects, offering possible equivalent options in the absence of valid criteria for artistic quality. The report argues that such an analytical perspective provides one of the few possibilities of reconciliation of the eternal opposition form/content, conceptualizing them as the two complementary sides of the same communicative indivisible whole. Key words: architecture, communication, function, meaning, aesthetic value.

The core of the conceptual disposition of this paper is the assumption that architecture could be analytically approached as a system of communication – a versatile research tool applicable to virtually all areas of human activity. My main concern as a practicing designer for many years now has been focused on questions like: Why some buildings are deemed beautiful and others are not? Some last forever as intellectually meaningful, while others drop out of the erratic public attention like the fading shine of a tarnished gem. Why sometimes architecture is able to excite social consciousness for centuries, and sometimes remains hopelessly unnoticeablе. Also – are there rules to guide the path of searching for optimal architectural solution so that the final result is generally perceived as successful? Such concerns are constantly topical in the profession but today they become especially important, when all the traditional evaluation criteria have been questioned and the matters of quality and value are quite controversial in the huge pluralistic field of contemporary art production. I believe that this choice of an analytical position – to equalize architecture to a process of communication could be a possible bridge that reveals to the theoretical and practical fields the prospects of locating the problems within the realm of general humanities, where the universal truths of knowledge are 2

Fig. 1. Studio Pei Zhu, Digital Beijing, 2008 (photo the author)

synthesized. The preference of this particular scientific standpoint is not occasional. It is a logical result not only of the essence of architecture itself but also of the spirit of our time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the communication era. The idea is an intentional conceptualization of the matter of communication from an architectural point of view, followed by the examination of effective palpable operative communication predispositions of architecture itself. The aim of such an adventure is the excerption of eventual identical conditions of equilibrium of the architectural system, avoiding the bias of adhering to the radical scholastic compaction of the architectural phenomena in strictly mathematical and other analytical frameworks. Through this specific filter of the analogy of architecture and communication, we would try to derive a betterfocused picture of the incredible variety within the boundaries of the contemporary architectural production, looking for the codes of the imminent logic that defines it. Moreover that architecture of the last decades extended its traditional perimeter of competence to the extreme and unambiguously positioned itself as a hybrid entity in the light of the systems of communication, eventually converting into an Urban Integrated Technological Inter-media of its own right. The contemporary production of the architectural vanguard owns its character not only to the reincarnations engendered by the invasion of the electronic media in the sphere of traditional art but to the fact that architectural reality (a media reality of itself communicating through the dissemination of meaning), is undergoing a radical inherent transformation of representations, provoked by its own communicative nature (Fig. 1). And externally catalyzed by the logic of the technological progress. All the transformation trends which affected the essence of architecture so deeply were triggered by the massive accession of the modern media into the structure of the city (Fig. 2). Advertising luminous displays conquered the

Fig. 2. Venice, 2010 (photo: information Studio Pei Zhu)

facades and practically invalidated their meaning and the strictly architectural veto over the visual character of the habitable environment. And trying to withstand and mitigate the consequences of this aggressive invasion and its own displacement, architecture mutated into a new monumental media hybrid. The buildings tend to convert into blended structures of mixtures of programs, advertising, technology and construction, into a kind of constructed situations. Events of ecstatic experience. We live in a world dominated by communication. It has saturated our lives and colonized culture. Mass media, a main means of communication, became a dominant form of omnipresence in reality, transforming the very essence of knowledge into aesthetic diffusive forms of expressiveness. It soundly established itself as most efficient instrument of the culture industry. The balance of the ratio image/reality has been changed rapidly and drastically, which has in fact been prophesized as early as the turn of the 20th century with the erosion of the borders between real and artistic, introduced by modernist abstraction. Besides a strict unchanging demarcating line between the spheres of fictional and non fictional is not easily discernable anyway. Every communication process could engender at a certain stage aesthetic and artistic qualities. The mode of communication has changed – civilization is bombarded by images, produced and perceived in the matrix of new visual models in a new communicative situation of art consumption (Fig. 2). Global space becomes an endless extended to infinity environment of flows – �� compressed virtual reality of energy flows. Today the very space perception acquires new energy influenced by the raging abilities of the digital communica-

tions. No wonder the realm of the city became a place for events, constantly morphing in the materialization of its electronic contents (Figs 3, 4). The city exists entangled within a network in an ever ongoing spatial continuity. It is not even a city anymore in the traditional sense, it is a megapolis – a global web entity with specific local representations. Architecture cannot remain indifferent to the tendency. The buildings acquired electronic nervous system of their own, enabling them to react to the changes of the environment, getting closer to the definition of William Mitchell – “robots with foundations”, containing and distributing information (Mitchell , 2008) (Fig. 5). The entire building is nearly self-sufficient with solar panels on the roof, sun filters Fig. 3. NOX, D-tower, Interactive and various smart sensors to increase energy Public Artwork, 1999-2004 efficiency. Sendai Mediateque information, material structural flows are correlated and emphasized as vertical sheafs – acting simultaneously as a support and a means of spatial communication (Fig. 6). Even the notion of�� “home” �� was conceptualized as a short pause in the digital information exchange. The inmost citadel of the architecture has been pen-

Fig. 4. MAD architects, Beijing 2050 project

Fig. 5. CLOUD, Media-Tech building, Barcelona, 2011

Fig. 6. T. Ito, Sendai Media-TEC, 2000

etrated unobstructedly by this mighty communication immaterial wire drift – the understanding of the correlation public/private is quite shaky today with the omnipresent Global Web in our homes. They became also containers and distributors of information, as Toyo Ito said in an interview. So architecture was compelled, in fact I do not think it had any other choice but to participate in the complex hybrid project of the total influence. ARCHITECTURE TELLS STORIES and is MEDIA Concerning Communication – the notion is first of all conceptualized as exchange of information, telling and listening to stories and architecture is a universal story teller. The scientific scope of scholarship, concerning architecture as a message – the meaning in architecture and the architectural ability to express and influence, is quite extensive. Forms and volumes arranged in space tell stories and induce emotions. Juxtaposed, architectural objects also combine and convert into a time/space narrative – large scale monumental events, simultaneously denotative and connotative sign systems. They are subordinated to the conventions of visual representation of the current cultural situation, concerning the overall valid character and methods of the signification. Building like masks, screens to hide behind, but today they tend to mask themselves, stepping in the role of monumental interfaces or QR codes (Figs 7, 8). Because contemporary media and architecture are deployed and implemented in parallel, they are equally exposed to the invasion of contemporary technologies in their fields of activities. This circumstance additionally enhances

Fig. 7. L. B. Alberty, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1448-1470; Behind the main facade

process of consolidating the New Media as a dominant communication power, polarizing the entire field of culture. But architecture is ready to much more complicated behavior than just imitating external cultural dynamics, it does not only receive, convert and utilize the universal communication mechanisms, influencing the current visual culture and perceived according to the conventions of the concrete civilizational cycle. It alters its intrinsic representational mode provoked by its own innate communicative nature and mutates into a complex technological mediatic multiformity. Today the architectural image could be reduced to, e.g., prints on glass walls. MVRDV ofFig. 8. Beijing Greenprix Media Wall, fered an option of converting architecture 2008, 21st century analogy into printed matter, a media image of itself. (In Fig. 9 – this is not a brick wall, but images of bricks, windows, etc on glass screens.) Architecture pronouncedly interacts with media but a necessary precondition of interaction is the existence of a property of compatibility and in the case of architecture its innate ties of kinship with media wire the process of osmosis. A hundred and eighty years ago in the legendary Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo announced his visionary prophecy: “This will kill that”, (“Ceci tuera

Fig. 9. MVRDV, the Glass Farm, Schijndrel, the Nethetlands, 2013, image @MVRDV, inhabitat.com)

Fig. 10. Notre Damme de Paris; photo: the author

cela”) says his character comparing a book on the table and the silhouette of the Gothic cathedral through the window (Юго, 1987: 178) (Fig. 10). The book is to destroy the edifice. The history of mankind has been inscribed in buildings for centuries, the church worked as a Bible of stone, architecture was the generic medium, the carrier of information and main story-teller for the illegible medieval citizen. And the lines of the archdeacon Claude Frollo only meant that one until recently valid social media was going to be substituted by a new one. Architecture as a main instrument of communication, threatened to lose its social validity as a factor of human intellectual history. So literature has sagaciously labelled architecture a mass medium of communication a century and half ago. MIXING REALITIES What happens today is that we are witnessing the result of a cause – turning to philosophy of Hegel we will find an universal explanation there – every human reality must pass mediating environment of visualization and representation, and only through this medium it penetrates the soul and impacts the will. This is how art works – it substitutes reality with its creations; architecture creates artificial inhabitable realities parallel to nature. Mass media, on its own right, have ample opportunities for recreation, and a doubling of reality, that is to say, its images can be easily converted into images that do not require to be perceived as images of reality itself, and for images that have independently primarily artistic importance. On this basis, the new media can easily achieve transformation in a world parallel to the real world (Стефанов, 1987). And on the other hand – this is the intrinsic vocation of architecture – the organization of artificial worlds. On the level at which it “writes the libretto of habitation”, avails of the right to frame the living world and to control the rela-

Fig. 11. Z. Hadid, Aliev Culture center, Baku, 2013

tions between private and public spaces, architecture of all arts is delegated the responsibility to rethink ordinary reality, and to display it in a desired foreshortening, transcending ordinariness, improved by the mythological enigma of artistry (Fig. 11). Architecture and communication are two similar rule-based language games, they similarly intermingle the idea of real and imaginative in an alloy of material and virtual expressions. I will avoid stepping into the clarification of architecture-as-a-language debate â&#x20AC;&#x201C; do we really communicate architecturally on a clearly linguistic basis and what is the nature of this communication. In any case they both â&#x20AC;&#x201C; architecture and communication, can be equalized to a system comparable to a living organism, responding to the evolving environment. The idea is illustrated in architectural articulation, e.g., in Boubourg in Paris, the high-tech landmark of French culture as an open uncovered architectural organism, skinless exhibitionistic demonstration of operational, also internal communication systems (Fig. 12). There are a number of possible communication theories that can shed light on the contemporary evolution of architecture basing on the essence of communication, notwithstanding the complex ambiguous nature of the former with all its metaphorical implications. It is reasonable to formulate what communication actually is although practically everybody is sure of his clear understanding of the notion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that it is something so familiar and obvious, which is the case with the attitude towards architecture too. Although the communication studies form a comparatively new theoretical area, the sport of defining communication was so widespread that about 1976 Dance and Larson, renowned communication theorists, reported over 126 definitions proposed by the relevant literature.(Miller, 2002:3). For the purposes of this paper a singular definition of communication is stating that:

Fig. 12. Piano, Rogers, Beabourg Center, Paris, 1971-1977)

Communication is a deliberate social interaction carried out through the exchange of symbols and signs in varying social contexts. This is an interactive process - symbolic interaction creates an opportunity through the exchange of information to coordinate with each other and as a consequence to influence the environmental balance (Petev, 2012: 15). Apart from this there is a substantial variety of communication models too. My choice for the sake of the analysis will be the scheme of the classical Shannon and Weaver Model of information of 1949 because of its popularity and universal instrumentality. Shannon and Weaver were two American researchers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a mathematician and an engineer. (It follows a simple process line â&#x20AC;&#x201C; starts with an initiator of a message of some kind, encoded and directed through a channel and then consequently decoded

Fig. 13. The Shannon and Weaver mathematical model â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1949, architecture analogue

and received at its final destination. This activity is as a rule accompanied by possible noise sources blurring the clarity of the information transferred.) The tenet of this model is basically that all communication is in principle analogous to a phone call, with the same factors of source, channel, message, noise, and it is a useful stylization of a protean process of converse, deprived of any deceitful complementary overlays. This is the model in its architectural embodiment; as part of this theoretical concept, we identify analogously related elements. This model successfully schematizes the process of architectural communication, and cultural communication in general, also as a reflection of the complex impact of communication l technologies in the field of humanities (Fig. 13). ELEMENTS of COMMUNICATION ADRESSER, ADRESSEE, CHANNEL, MESSAGE, NOISE EFFECTIVENESS THE FUNCTIONS of architectural communication also is a central factor in the communication models. As far as architecture is concerned we will concentrate and observe the matter within the context of its well known architectural ambiguity and reduce it to the problematic of two broadly outlined areas. Architecture combines mutually-exclusive and dialectically united characteristics such as material and spiritual, creativity and pragmatism, commodity and utopia, form and function if you will, in a delicate balance and endless disputes for superiority. The history of architecture in fact somehow could be looked upon as a space-time fluctuation between these two extremes, which from a communicational point of view are the two parts of one indivisible whole, by their nature – one and the same. The main agent in communication models is the notion FUNCTION of communication. The primary function of architectural communication is UTILITY Known and broadly shared is the claim that architectural objects are primarily designed to function, providing conditions for carrying out all sorts of activities, ensuring the survival of the human species. And as a secondary function – to communicate meaning. We are not going to argue the consistency in principle of this statement – yes, buildings should provide opportunities for safe and decent living. But our scientific standpoint here enables us to see the two sides of the oppositions so common as two parts of an equation. The inherent functionality of the architectural object is in fact a form of communication. Because even the most normative, modest and banal architectural fact, even without a hint of a claim for aesthetic value, starts to disseminate messages as an accomplished communication system the very moment it appears as a visible artifact in human space. A) First of all, the act of constitution in the space of a particular architectural volume compares it with existing environment and the object directly con-

Fig. 14. D. Libeskind, Dresden Museum of war history extention, 2011

nects, respect it or rejects it. It is already a form of Communication. It could be a good practice or not, successful achievement or an outright failure, but it inevitably establishes in the existing ambience as an integral, relatively long-term reality of some kind. The building begins to function in an ensemble, participates in hierarchies dominated or overwhelmed by their environment, tearing down or contributing to existing volumes, closes views and overshadows surfaces or frames and highlights certain accents. Not in vain some theorists account the general nature of the architecture in terms of space as a correlation process - a juxtaposition. There are numerous examples (Fig.14). The architect can also choose the artistic approach of conformism and contextualism, complete stylistic immersion of volumes in the outgoing nature of urbanized context in various ways, according to a range of circumstances and basically on the quality of his/her creative potential. This four-star hotel in Spain is solved as a definitely modern building with an almost De Stijl purity of the planes, avoiding the blatant imitation of the clutter of the vernacular Mediterranean style of the surroundings. While the scale of the constituent volumes, the amicable lopsided forms and their freedom in positioning, the range of colours on the facades naturally implants the new architecture into the existing traditional environment. This is a true intellectual nod to the philosophy and spirit of place (Genius Loci). So a contemporary building is cleanly introduced as a character in the medieval architectural style of this wine region in Spain, without violating or impersonating it, and yet different, avoiding the impotence of a literal copying (Fig. 15). B) Another consideration is that architectural space communicates with its users in an operative mode too. It should be able to successfully sign and advise ways for unobstructed utilization of the specific areas as a condition for the op-

Fig. 15. Designhouses, Viura hotel, Rioja Alavesa, Spain, 2010

timal functioning of the building, which practically means nothing other but effective architectural communication. Utilitarian function is communication of separate parts within an assembly. For example, the organization of the entrance area of high-rise buildings shall provide direct access to vertical communication. The requirement is essential to the functioning of the edifice as an operative system and simultaneously is its straightforward form of delivery of information (how the building functions vertically) or this is a true mode of visual communication. The fictional levels of communication are numerous; they include also the subconscious cultural predisposition of the communicating parties, which is an integral part of the communication patterns. “You see what you know”, as Ruskin says. Architectural object communicates not only as indicating; it unlocks functional experience – we know in advance that through the door we can go outside and get inside, we know what we can expect from a door. It represents the idea of transition – in space and time. “Going through the door requires a change in the level, an intermediate condition, middle life” (Rousseva, 2013: 9). Even the famous allegory of the door in the field – where it can always be circumvented, it still rings a bell of transition and access. The simple functional element “Becomes an architectural symbol and a sign of border, change and transformation.” “The function determining the form might be lost, but the form and symbolism remain serving communicative purposes” (Rousseva, 2013: 10,15). “Beauty in art is just “forgotten utility”(Angelov, 2004: 22) architectural objects are fully operational systems thanks to a rich set of communication history. C) And third – architectural objects are cast to their unlimited audience, to their mercy, according to Charles Jencks – the “showroom” of the art of architecture is significant in its size. Spiritualized by their stories and dialogue, buildings are presented with their mass and volumes in environments inhabited by people and they are engaged in an everlasting intercourse, influencing each other, communicating, even if the architectural artifact has not been conceptualized as a special object of observation. This is a social phenomenon – Built vol-

Fig. 16. The Milan Cathedral

Fig. 17. Frank Gehry, Walt Disney Hall, 1987-1997

umes in space emit information – they suggest better or worse (sometimes quite literally) stories about different human impulses: FUNCTION, HISTORY, USERS, DESIGNERS (Figs 16, 17). The conceptual issue�� –�� should the building communicate its function wholeheartedly in the exterior – still remains open. We remember the imperviousness and detachment, intellectual restraint, which was inherent to the philosophy of expressiveness of Early Modernism, the architecture of Adolf Loos for example. In this respect, Postmodernism as successor brought radical revisions in the rules of the blank face - the architectural image of abstract flatness fiddled

Fig. 18. Pandorf center, Vancouver

in carnival incarnations and the buildings were given the right to participate in a spatial masquerade in which the formal language, not just could possibly “shout”, or remain “silent”, it could directly “mislead”. Department stores were transformed into medieval rows of houses, and underground ventilation shafts into pocket size Palladian villas (Habermass, 1997: 227) (Fig. 18). So this so called UTILITARIAN FUNCTION is a form of communication of its own right. The success of its deployment is the prerequisite of the optimal functioning of the architectural object. For example, the ladder looks like a ladder and users know that it is means to overcome floors. It communicates visually its function and those who enjoy participating in this spatial dialogue, obey the designation of a specific form - for example, step height, width of shoulder, texture of the materials, handle height, etc. are arbitrary conditionalities which people have to take into consideration, to use the ladder according to the way it instructs them to and allows them to do. In this perspective, the architectural utilitarian aspect is effectively communicative. But as Roland Barthes writes, “use (utilitarian purpose – author’s note, R.B.) never does anything but shelter meaning” (Bartes, 1997: 166). Stipulating to percept the utilitarian function in architecture as communication, we are granted the chance to study and comprehend both fields – architecture and communication, better (Eco, 1989)�� . �� So the public object is related to socio-cultural demands through utility (Mill, 1973:�� 113)�� .�� But human needs are not limited to satisfying the primary utilitarian necessities only. Anthropologist George Mills („Anthropology and Art“) discerns two major operative aspects of art their „utilitarianism“ and „function“. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between them and how are these two facts related to each other. The first con-

cerns the direct utilitarian needs – for example, to shelter a symphony orchestra. This can be done in an comparatively appropriate space, even in a barn. But people aspire to something more, to the totality of the experience, and concert halls around the world, as you know, look differently. The term „function“ in this case is used in its sense of cultural functions of the building and a synthetic concept, with a different meaning from direct „use“ in the trivial sense. This is a quality that stands out and expects to be understood and appreciated – the magnet that accretes cultural value of the architectural work. “Utility is a matter of entering into action, while function is entering into awareness”. Contemplating, as Mill says. Aiming at this type of value, architecture is conceptualizing significance, identification of marks of uniqueness, and ensuring maximum impact on the audience of users and viewers or – it is conceptualizing optimal communication. The goals might be various – from a demonstration of power to the effect of propaganda of certain ideas or political doctrine or any kind of human impulses you can think of. In this respect the architecture of Nazism is an eloquent example and in general, the architecture of totalitarian regimes as a rule. Heavy unyielding severity of massive buildings with nationalist flavour exercise additional oppressive effect as timeless monoliths, repeating to infinity surfaces and volumes – as if a replica of the numerous faceless devoted to repressive state apparatus. Facades with myriad of uniform openings evoke associations of marching soldiers and unmistakably prompt the idea of total submission (Fig. 19).

Fig. 19. The Reichsbank, Berlin

The Nature of architectural communication and of art in general, is rationalized on prevalently spiritual, symbolic and in this sense, non-utilitarian grounds, assuming the hypothesis that archaic sacred festival for celebration of divine elements of nature is the prehistoric paradigm of art. All the known forms of expression of the spirituality of the ancient men must have been intertwined in an inseparable unity, rooted deeply into this kind of transcendental experience, this Dionysian ecstatic ritual according to Nietzsche (Leddy, 1999). And the holy festival required its sacred space. This sacred space, the space of the temple, communicating symbols, is the true proto-form of architectural space. It is the real eternal target of architecture, not so much the practicality of habitation. Not in vain in the millennial history of culture vestiges of temples are much more common than of residential buildings. Because there is where the emphasis had been placed and everything expensive and durable, the most technologically advanced, available to the ancient builders has been implemented. The space of communion, communication with God is transformed into a sign of God, sealed forever in generative civilizational memory as an expression of spirit. Although devoid of deliberate spiritualism and pursuit of sublime heights of spiritual conditions, most recent examples of architectural achievements are not inferior as influence capacity, dragging their audience into an endless narrative of experiences and intertextuality (Fig. 20). Repercussions of pure expression as a factor in architectural communication is an inexhaustible source of information â&#x20AC;&#x201C; man is amazingly sensitive to artistic suggestions, ready to perceive and accept their messages directly and unquestioned. In conclusion, accepting architecture as a form of communication predisposes the principle negation of the fundamental contradiction between form and function. On this predisposition, it becomes a synthesis of two general inseparable and indivisible meFig. 20. Fr. Gehry, DB Berlin, 2001 chanically facts of a two-face unity.

REFERENCES Ангелов, Валентин. 2004. Естетика на авангарда. София : Агато. Петев, Тодор. 2012. Комуникационната спирала. София: Аскони. Русева, Малвина. 2013. Методика за научно изследване на тракийската архитектура. София: ИИИ. Стефанов, Иван. 1988. Между сериозното и развлекателното в изкуството. София: Партиздат. Цветкова, Милена. 2012. Книгата като медия. София: Enthusiast. Юго, Виктор. 1987. Парижката Света Богородица. София: Отечество. Barthes, Roland. 1997. Semiology of the Urban. London: Routledge. Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jencks, Charles. 2005. The Iconic Buildings. NY: Rizzoli. Habermas, Jurgen. 1997. Modern and Postmodern Architecture. London: Routledge. Leddy, Thomas. 1999. Architecture as Art. – In: Michael Mitias, ed., Architecture and Civilization. Rodopi, the Netherlands. Miller, Katherine. 2002. Communication Theories. New York: McGraw. Mills, George. 1957. An Introduction to Qualitative Anthropology. – Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, New York, 16(I), 1-17.

Correspondence address: Maria Diamandieva –MA, Arch., PhD, Assistant Professor Institute of Art Studies Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 21, Krakra Str. 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: formaria@mail.bg

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

ARCHITECTURE

BULGARIA HOTEL AND CONCERT HALL IN THE WAY THEY COULD HAVE BEEN Georgi Kafelov Abstract: The article contributes to a topic disregarded for decades in the history of Bulgarian architecture – modernism/rationalism. It presents two unknown conceptual designs for the emblematical Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall which ranked first and third in a national architectural competition in 1931-1932. They are made by two famous architectural firms: Belkovski–Danchov and Vasilyov–Tsolov. This is the first article where these two conceptual projects are subjected to architectural analysis. The advantages of the third prize winner project of Vasilyov and Tsolov are proven. Another issue discussed in the article is the functional and aesthetic influence of the two projects upon Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall, which was erected later on in accordance with the remade winning project of Belkovski and Danchov. The consequences of selecting some ideas while casting aside other are pointed out in view of the good performance and splendour of the building from the time of its construction to the present day. Key words: Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall, architectural competition, modernism, rationalism

Historical background It all starts in the end of 1931 when the Architect Journal publishes an announcement of the Managing Board of the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company about “… an architectural competition for acquiring the most expedient concept for building up the sites and plots of the Company in Sofia.” [От Управителния Съвет – i.e. Managing Board. 1931]. The date of the announcement is December 1931. It explicitly requires that the architects should be Bulgarian nationals. This deprives the competition of the participation of international architectural community but in those times that was not an issue, since Bulgarian architects graduated from universities all over Europe. Thus, from educational background perspective, European architectural ideas indirectly took part in the competition. Everyone willing to participate could receive a free “competition programme and drawings of the building lots”. The text does not mention their location, however, based on publications that fol-

lowed, it can be inferred that the announcement refers to the location of the present day Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall in Sofia. The competition deadline was February 15, 1932. Some architects managed to keep the short deadline but others were dissatisfied. At that point the troubles began: “As you know our Society (of architects) with the consent of all our colleagues from Sofia, and also informing our colleagues nationwide, boycotted the competition.” [Редакционен комитет – i.e. Editorial Committee. 1931] Probably the representatives of the Bulgarian Architectural Society and those of the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company have had a discord. This was announced in a short article in the Architect Journal two issues later. It is not mentioned, however, what happened to the projects submitted which met the deadline. The article made it clear that such proposals existed, which was possible because not all architects were members of the Society of Architects, since the membership was not a mandatory condition to practice the profession. Apparently non-members did not boycott the competition. The outcome of the competition can be found in issue No 5-6, SeptemberOctober 1932. It announces the prize-winning projects of the following architectural offices: First prize was awarded to Belkovski–Danchov; second prize – to Yordano – S. Ovcharov; third prize – to Vasilyov–Tsolov; first bought off project was that of G. Apostolov – As. Mihailovski; other bought off projects were those of G. Fingov and D. Fingov and Zlatev and Koev. The conceptual designs envisage a multifunctional structure comprising new and old buildings. The new functions (hotel, café/restaurant and concert hall) are added to the administrative and commercial functions of the already existing corner building of the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company. The drawings in the article are standalone – no text is added, other than the ranking and the architects’ names. This nonverbal but highly visual presentation of the winning conceptual projects leaves the modern researcher with the unanswered question what could the jury’s motifs have been to rank the projects the way they did. On the other hand, having no rational arguments provided, the modern explorer is free to make his own subjective analysis of the drawings without being influenced by any positive or negative arguments. Aim The two conceptual designs for Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall discussed here have never been a subject of architectural analysis since the publication in 1932 of their drawings as images with no accompanying comments, hence the innovative character of this publication. The article aims at analyzing the merits and setbacks of these unfamiliar, yet classical examples of the 20th-century architectural design. The projects are presented in the historical context of the architectural competition which was the cause of their advent. Architectural analysis The selection of the author includes two conceptual designs: those of Belkovski–Danchov and Vasilyov–Tsolov. Each of the architectural firms has its own preferences, therefore, emphasizes different functions out of all those incorpo-

rated in the multifunctional building. Belkovski–Danchov’s project has been selected for the analysis because it evolved in the course of time – in the long run it was implemented with certain modifications. Vasilyov–Tsolov’s project has been selected because of a brilliant architectural idea which none of the other awarded projects offered – the design of an internal square in front of the concert hall providing excellent access to it. The lack of published terms of reference for the competition leave a lot of room for interpretation as to what the requirements might have been. Therefore, the analysis of different aspects of the selected conceptual designs shall be completely and only based on their architectural merits, as seen by the author of this article, without taking into consideration the terms of reference or the opinion of the architectural competition jury. The analysis should start from the perspective of modern times when the once astounding hotel lies under an ankle-high layer of dust, while the adjacent concert hall is still functioning being the largest one in Bulgaria, designed only and solely for concert performances. Both the hall and the hotel share the name of their country of location – Bulgaria. The residential part of the multifunctional building has its façade along Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd but is almost completely bare of inhabitants. The concert hall to a great extent is full of life and spirit but does it have a face? Up to the present day the most sustainable and most visited part of the multipurpose combination of functions – the concert hall – has not obtained its own façade that corresponds to its scale and importance – a face to clearly represent it to the world. It did not get one at the time of its construction during the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, neither did it get one in the next seventy years to follow, although such an idea had long been in existence: “It is a pity that the general conceptual design of the concert hall has not been completed with the initially planned/designed main approach from 9th September Square (Levski St.)” [Тангъров, 1962]. Nowadays it rather has a modest entrance – a small face – going out on the narrow pavement of the tiny Aksakov Street, parallel to Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd, which is extensively used as a parking lot. The situation can be considerably improved if parking in front and in the vicinity of the concert hall entrance is banned; if the pavement and the roadway are put on the same level and covered with stone, thus forming a small square which at concert time is only for pedestrian access. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall as envisaged by the architects Vasilyov and Tsolov Let us go back to the early 1930s when the problem with the missing façade (procrastinated for the future) originated with the first award-winning project of Belkovski–Danchov which was later altered and then implemented. This problem had its original solutions in one of the other projects – the third-award winner – the project of Vasilyov–Tsolov. How was their project different from those of the other competitors? (Fig. 1). Vasilyov and Tsolov were the only architects who correctly estimated the functional value of the would-be concert hall and ranked it second in importance after the residential/hotel part on the list of jointly working spaces of the larger ensemble. The rest of the architects, including the 1st award winners,

Fig. 1. Bulgaria Hotel and Bulgaria Concert Hall – floor plans; Tsolov–Vasilyov Architects, 1932

ranked the catering area second and the concert hall – third in functional importance. Vasilyov and Tsolov’s floor plans make the hall autonomous from the rest of the functional members of the multipurpose building. They provide the most original solution to the problem of representing the concert hall as an important functional element and develop an adequate well-suited to the purpose façade. To that end the rectangular hall is situated in the inner part of the lot, the shorter side of the rectangle being parallel to the boulevard. Vasilyov and Tsolov’s design offers an original approach to the concert hall. It is developed directly along its axis of symmetry. The city enters the building in a natural way through a shopping gallery especially designed for the purpose and covered by the hotel section of the building. A closed courtyard follows which plays the part of an internal plaza for the multifunctional structure. Its design is a brilliant spatial solution because: • At the macro-level: From the perspective of town planning the city gets a small plaza in front of its only (at the time and to the present) concert hall. • At the mini-level: The neighbourhood gets a neat internal open space which was rare both then [Белковски, 1930] and now. • At the micro-level: This courtyard turns into a full of life piazzetta because alongside the main entrance of the concert hall, which opens into it, the place is framed by some of the gallery shops and the food court, snuggled away from the glances and the noise of the boulevard. The windows of the hotel section and those of the already existing administrative building of the Civil Serv-

Fig. 2. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall – bird’s eye view; Tsolov–Vasilyov Architects, 1932

ants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company also overlook the internal piazzetta which increases the quality of life in both buildings – the new and the old one. The fact that the internal courtyard of the old building is visually attached to the new piazzetta, although at a different level (See the Bird’s eye view in Fig. 2) provides additional space to the little square. Tsolov and Vasilyov present their project through a bird’s eye view (Fig. 2) in order to illustrate the logic of their multilayered and multifaceted architectural design in which there are no major and minor facades. By letting the public and the city access the core of the building, the two architects turn the structure into a complex volume bordered by equally treated and ground surfaces. This brings the design closer to the vanguard tendencies in modern architecture. So far as it can be gathered from the not so detailed architectural drawing, the connection of the new building with the existing administrative building of the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company is done through precise balancing of the size and shape of the new architectural volumes with the already existing ones, rather then through details. At the level of details the two buildings would have hardly had anything in common. The proposal of the Vasilyov–Tsolov Architectural Company has a modern look even today – 82 years later. In the architectural drawing the façades of the hotel and concert hall are segmented into identical rectangles which a contemporary observer could easily perceive as glass façade panels (curtain walls). Since no detailed elevations have been published in the Architect Journal and due to lack of other information sources, researchers may only surmise what the elaborated ideas of Vasilyov and Tsolov could have been. Yet, even a detail as small as the strip window of the café/restaurant is fully indicative of the architects’ looking into the bright future of architecture with the eyes of visionaries.

Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall as envisaged by the architects Belkovski and Danchov In architectural plans of Belkovski–Danchov (Fig. 3) the concert hall is situated in the same place, however, its space totally merges with the spaces of the other functional parts of the building. The approach to the hall is a long corridor which in no way provides an impression of spaciousness. It is quite interesting that the entrance of the café/restaurant, the space of the winter garden (that later on became emblematic), the vestibule in front of the concert hall and the hall itself lie in one straight line. The spaces merge into one another. There are gates only on the sides the vestibule. The concert hall forms the end of the axis. It seems much more natural and formal to access it through the café/restaurant, since the spans between the columns and the spaciousness of the zone make the especially dedicated access corridor to the music hall (on the right side) look like a maintenance area. The different functional spaces are in each others close vicinity and the spatial development of this project is probably aimed at making sure that the lovers of music in no case miss the culinary delights. This fact though brings the architectural solution dangerously close to designing a restaurant with a space for an orchestra, i.e. the concert hall is too intimately close to the catering area. Thus the music hall, although in the core of the multifunctional structure, is not the very heart of the building – a role it truly deserves. The hall is left without a face. The lighting courts/shafts, situated on both sides of the abovementioned axis are not accessible by the public but remain with their basic function – only providing light and air.

Fig. 3. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall floor plans; Belkovski–Danchov Architects, 1932

Fig. 4. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall – façade; Belkovski–Danchov, 1932

In Belkovski–Danchov’s conceptual design the concert hall is an inseparable part of the building, although it houses a function different enough for the designing architects to provide a separate entrance. However, the executive architectural drawings used for its construction have been changed – due to the fact that the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company [Белковски, 1939] purchased some adjacent plots, the concert hall [Белковски, 1943] was rotated at 90 degrees and obtained a main entrance from Aksakov Street. The façade designed by the architectural firm of Belkovski–Danchov (Fig. 4) seems to have been targeted at impressing the conservative architectural critics at the time and could be enjoyed by the eclectically-minded nostalgic individuals of today. The order of the façade of the new building is completely subordinated to the existing administrative building of the Civil Servants’ Cooperative Savings and Insurance Company on the left side. As a result the two buildings merge into one nearly symmetrical whole volume. And that is where the problem stems from: the right wing of the new building is flanked with a tower but that tower is at the border with the adjacent plot. Such an architectural solution could be adequate if the plot of the new building was at the corner of the block, but it is not. It is the next plot on the right that is located at the corner, and a building in it should complete the face of the block overlooking Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard. Regarding the details on the façades: the windows of the new one, although similar in size with those of the old building, are not so richly decorated. Both the windows and the proposed tower are strictly orthogonal – the arches of the old façade are absent. The conceptual design is eclectic with a tint of rationalism – the two large horizontal windows on ground floor. An interesting fact: the façade of Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall along Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd (Fig. 5), built in accordance with the later remade de-

Fig. 5. Bulgaria Hotel and Concert Hall – the remade design of Belkovski–Danchov Architects; Photo: Georgi Kafelov, 2013

sign of Belkovski–Danchov, obtained a lot less decorated look and the tower shrank to a size that reminded more of Vasilyov–Tsolov’s design of the same section of the façade. The huge glass windows of the café/restaurant were designed and made to slide down and disappear into the basement [Kafelov. 2013], thus opening the building to the boulevard. This compelling innovation shall remain unsurpassed in the history of architectural technological achievements of the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, in the history of the “People’s” Republic of Bulgaria, in the short of intellect, dreams and aspirations Republic of Bulgaria of today, and probably in the history of Bulgaria of the future. Conclusion The two projects analyzed here present original and significantly different architectural designs although they use the same building components: a concert hall, café, restaurant, hotel rooms. The strengths of both projects prevail over their weaknesses. The design of Belkovski–Danchov fascinates with its various elegantly and rationally designed interior spaces – part of the catering area. The particular strength of Vasilyov–Tsolov’s design lies in the inner square and the easy natural access to the concert hall. The two designs prove that a consonance of mutually complementary ideas is possible because the remade design of Belkovski–Danchov used for the actual construction of the building – which every citizen or visitor can see nowadays in Sofia – is influenced by the ideas of Vasilyov–Tsolov’s design. The hotel façade is very modernistic – striving to formulate national type of modernism, rather than to fully comply with the rules of the international one, which at that time was also still in search for its own image. The concert hall in Aksakov Street has its own, although rather a small façade. Regardless of its age it has not gone out of fashion, and in the present lack of genuine architectural competition it probably never will.

Белковски. 1930. Едно конгресно решение. – Архитектъ, 3 (9–10): 1–4. Белковски. 1932. Проекти от конкурса за доходно застрояване на местата на Чиновн. спест. застр. д-во – I премия Архитекти Белковски – Данчовъ. – Архитектъ, 5 (5–6): 113–114. Белковски. 1939. Новите сгради на Чиновническото коопер. спестовно застрахователно дружество – хотел „България“ и концертна зала „България“ в София“. – В: Годишник на Съюза на българските инженери и архитекти, год. VІ: 78–90. София: Печатарска кооперация „Едисон“. Белковски. 1943. Станчо Белковски. Архитектурна дейност 1922-1942. София: Книгоиздателство „Хр. Г. Дановъ“, 68–70. Васильов. 1932. Проекти от конкурса за доходно застрояване на местата на Чиновн. спест. застр. д-во – III премия Архитекти Васильовъ–Цоловъ. – Архитектъ, 5 (5-6): 116–117. От Управителния Съвет. 1931. Чиновническото кооп. сп. застр. д-во обявява между всички архитекти, български поданници, идеен конкурс. – Архитектъ, 4 (8): 24. Редакционен комитет. 1931. По конкурса на Чин. застр. д-во. Архитектъ, 4 (10), 25. Тангъров, Йордан, Стефан Драганов. 1962. Архитект Станчо Белковски. – Архитектура, бр. 3: 21–27. Kafelov, Georgi. 2013. Architectural Innovations from the Past Disregarded in the Present. Paper presented at ESI 2013: Third international scientific conference “Education, Science, Innovations 2013”. Pernik, Bulgaria.

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

IDENTITIES IN MOTION – 50 YEARS BULGARIAN DANCES WITHIN DIFFERENT POLITICAL CONTEXTS Gergana Panova-Tekath Abstract: The Report reviews interpretations of identical dance material in different historic and political contexts in Bulgaria, and in countries in the West (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and the USA). Besides, it reveals the role of North America for the establishment of a “chain” for the dissemination of the Bulgarian traditional dances in the last 50 years. On a macrolevel the interpretive spiral of the so called “Dancing the Bulgarian Way” originates in Socialist Bulgaria, reaches North America, from there spreads on to Western Europe, reenters democratic Bulgaria and again returns to the West with the new Bulgarian emigrants. The different models of dancing, defined in the paper, contribute for making the comparative study of Societies. At the same time, the ample empirical material serves for the situational analysis of the body’s potential for the unraveling of old meanings and the creation of new ones. Thus “dancing the Bulgarian way” has been transformed into an optical lens of modernity and an example of nonverbal intra- and inter-cultural communication. Key words: Dancing the Bulgarian Way, North America – German speaking countries – Bulgaria, Nonverbal Intercultural Communication, Politics of Identity, 1989, 2007.

The term “Dancing the Bulgarian way” Many people from the German speaking countries, who dance in their spare time folk dances from different parts and regions of Bulgaria, call this a hobby-pursuit “Bulgarisch Tanzen” – “Dancing the Bulgarian way”. Translating thе German phrase, I have come to realize that it generalizes the content, attributed to all variations of the phenomenon, which I am exploring in the different historic and political contexts. It imposes the perspectives of “from inside” and “from outside” on the hobby and professional form of this very interesting construct – “folk dance”. An old form with eternal importance We are used to and it is completely justified to associate the dance tradition in Bulgaria and its modern choreographic manifestations with the evolution of the Balkans, Russia, Eastern Europe, the East as such.

Until the end of the 19th Century Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire and the music-dance folklore was one of the few instruments for the preservation and propagation of the Bulgarian cultural identity. This image of the traditional dance is one of the Myths in the cultural heritage of the Bulgarians. It is vital, because it is being constantly reaffirmed in their communicative memory. It is very rarely that we can hear in any one of the Western European countries the assertion, repeated time and time again by the dancing and non-dancing informers from Bulgaria – “What would we be if it was not for our folk dances and songs? Nothing! No one!” What is the main form of the Bulgarian dances, which corresponds to and supports this myth? The Circle In the times when the people in Central and Western Europe have relegated the circular forms of dancing to the children’s dance repertoire and themselves dance in pairs, the Bulgarians elaborate new rhythms and steps, while continuing to dance as a group in age defined and patriarchic hierarchies, holding hands or hands on shoulders or clasping their neighbor’s belt. The “circles” are actually “semi-circles” i.e. there is always someone “leading” the so called circle. There are regions (for example in North Bulgaria) and dances where the performers are arranged by families (father, mother, children ...). But in most cases Bulgarians dance in male and female groups, where all the women position themselves in the middle of the semicircle, whereas the men – at the beginning and end. If there are several concentric semicircles (for example in Pirin) then the outermost is comprised of men only, who are the filter and defense from outside threats. The so called “circle form” of traditional dancing has been preserved in Bulgaria to this day and is in essence the reflection of human identity. Its name is similar to that used by some of the other Balkan peoples – horo, and has its origins in the words “people” and “peoples”. The national spirit tells its story, gives vent to its creativity, selects its leaders and delineates the boundaries (contours) of its societal structures by means of the “horo”. The dancing individual feels sheltered – being part of a larger moving entity, and orientated – the “circle” is the epitome of his own life circle. We could talk at length about the psychological and organizational aspects of the “horo”. The fact that the Bulgarian folklore dance is concomitant to the life and calendar cycle is nothing out of the ordinary. What is notable is the longstanding and enduring vitality of circular form and the old traditional dance style. It is at the root of the preservation to this day of the self-identification of the populace with the folk music and dance as a symbol of “national identity”. Let us now turn to the chain of propagation of “Dancing the Bulgarian way” in the course of the last 50 years. A. Socialist Bulgaria and the socialist viewpoint of the West Bulgaria was one of the countries in Eastern Block where considerable effort and resources were allocated for the preservation, popularization and professionalization of traditional singing, musical performance and dancing. In a country with a population of 8 million inhabitants there were 17 professional

Ensembles, numerous specialized schools and academies and a multitude of amateur groups for North children and grown-ups. After the Soviet model, America they were the object of concerted support on the part of the Socialist State at the time. With plenty Bulgaria of talent, knowledge and of course generous financing, the traditional “horo” was modeled, based on principles of stage art (principles of scenic art forms), into an incredibly attractive Art1. Western Directed “inward” it served as a source of amuseEurope ment and consolidation of the “working and agricultural laborers’ class”, where as “outwards” – the Fig. 1 West, it served as an attractive “business card” of Bulgaria and Socialism. The State sponsored Center for the so called “amateur art activities” (Център за Художествена Самодейност) involved not only the urban younger generation. To a lesser extent it took care of the preservation of, or rather the “vacuumization”, of the so defined “authentic” or “spring folklore”. As in other socialist countries – in Bulgaria the so called “people’s genius” and “people’s wisdom” were highly valued and appreciated. In relation to this numerous re-

Fig. 2. The beautiful business card of Bulgaria. State Ensemble “Thrakia”, Plovdiv, foto B. Kalcheva.

We could generalize in the context of all the East Bloc countries. Please view Anthony Shay’s research, 2002. 1

gional and national happenings have been supported and many more new folk art festivals were initiated, in the course of which village groups came together and experts city-dwellers judged the beauty and purity of their folk art. But let us not dwell solely on the negative aspects of the Socialist policies which intentionally proclaimed Bulgarian “folk” dances. Historically, this type of cultural policy has provided unique opportunities for scientists to collect and structurally analyze factual material, rural communities – to enhance their own self-esteem, young urbanites – the opportunity for self-expression and group identification as a whole. It created an entirely new genre – folk dancing on stage. It made the most of the folk�� Moreau�� and�� the�� spelore forms and thereby heightened the interest Fig. 3. Yves�� of the modern youngsters in the Bulgarian mu- cially produced and recorded „Red“ gramophone disk �� “�� Bulgarsical-dance traditions and the “Bulgarian” in ian folk dances”, foto G. Panovaparticular. From my own experience and based Tekath, 2013 on more than 60 interviews I have conducted, I can say that the young generation, which is involved with folk dancing have developed a new national identity and were as willing and enthusiastic as the performers of the Irish “River Dance“ and “Lord of the Dance“ to befittingly publicize their own country abroad. B. In North America In 1963 the “State Ensemble for folk music and dances” and its Director Philip Koutev visited North America. This was the time when the „Recreative Movement for international Dances” had taken hold. The pursuit within the framework of clubs, camps and performing groups of traditional dances in one’s leisure time perfectly matched the spirit of the “hippy culture” of the West, its motto – “back to nature” and one’s own roots, its avangardistic and free spirit, the natural curiosity for whatever lies beyond the Iron curtain, the intrinsic desire to be different and cosmopolitan. Philip Koutev’s tour fitted in very well with the emerging “Balkan Fascination” in the USA2. Some young people, motivated by their curiosity traveled to Bulgaria where they learned first-hand Bulgarian folk dances and music. One of these was the 17-year-old Canadian – Yves Moreau. In his desire to travel to Bulgaria and learn to dance Bulgarian folk dances he was assisted financially by the Bulgarian National Radio and the Agency for friendship and cultural ties of Bulgaria. Surprisingly for his Bulgarian hosts he refuses to enlist in one of the professional schools at the time, but

2007.

Please view how this theme has been expertly dealt with in the book of Mirjana Lauševič,

Fig. 4. The Dance Group „Lazarka“ from Munich, foto S. Fodor, 2003.

rather prefers to visit Traditional Folk happenings and Festivals for professional dance performers, while at the same time attending private lessons in the course of which he masters diverse variations of the folk “horo” and the specifics of the different regions in Bulgaria. On his return Yves Moreau becomes and still is the most acclaimed performer and lecturer of Bulgarian folk dances in North America, he is the driving force behind numerous Festivals of Bulgarian culture, he choreographs stage performances and is an active disseminator of Bulgarian folk dances worldwide. “Dancing the Bulgarian way” becomes his vocation and sole profession. C. In Western Europe The Balkan euphoria crosses from North America to Western Europe in the 70s and 80s of the last Century, a process stimulated by instructors like Yves Moreau and the cultural models in the USA. The hobby indulgence in international folklore still exists, but the boom years are over. “Dancing the Bulgarian way” in the German speaking countries in Western Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) has seriously impacted on my research3. The “American Model”4 of dancing of Bulgarian dances has undergone a minor transformation due to differences in the political context, historic past

3 Further information on the subject, empirical material and theoretic concepts are contained in my book “Tanz nach der Wende“, Vol. 1 and 2. 4 Yves Moreau uses this term in my interviews taken in 2013 and 2014.

and ethnic structure of the US society and the German speaking countries. In Germany and Austria the local folk dances are not only less “attractive” and stimulating, but are still burdened by their National-socialist interpretations. 15% of more than 300 informers of mine are still afraid not to be associated with the so called ‘right”, only because they dance German folk dances. In my opinion, it is both interesting and important for the analysis of the intercultural communication to follow the motivation of the hobby dancers in Western Europe and North America, who are not burdened with WWII heritage or other East European immigrants’ origins. Amongst these hobby dancers I have delineated three degrees or forms of approachment to the Bulgarian folk dance, which reflect different viewpoints of the “national”: 1) Representatives of the Global world who are interested in the sporting element in the act of dancing, who are oblivious of any “national” identification and view dancing Bulgarian folk dances as a challenge and physical exercise; 2) Those ones who are part of meditative and sacral groups, who denounce their German identity and want to be “Bulgarians” because of the well preserved roots of an more “profound”, “older” and “richer’ civilizational tradition in Bulgaria; 3) Those ones who are aware of the existence of national contours and want to communicate with a different culture without the need of a verbal language. All these motivational groups preeminently discover or re-discover themselves through the practice of dancing of Bulgarian folk dances. They come in contact with the different specific aspects of the “Bulgarian” that is why one cannot expect a seamless communication with all dancing Bulgarians. This is common for both the American and European models of “Dancing the Bulgarian Way”.

Fig. 5. Clubs for folk dances at the „Horo se vie izviva“ in Sofia, 2012, foto J. Dimitrov. 4

It is noteworthy to mention that the contact between Western Europe and the not so distant geographically Bulgaria in the beginning was only through its “horo”, introduced by Americans – without the active input of Bulgarian instructors or the active involvement of Bulgaria emigrants. After 1989 the opportunities to travel, to live abroad and freely communicate have greatly expanded, but till 2005 it was still a rarity to find Bulgarians in Western clubs and dance groups. Nowadays Bulgarian dance instructors have perfectly adapted themselves to the Western tastes and travel worldwide. D. Modern day Bulgaria After “Perestroika” in 1989 the State cultural policy has undergone profound changes and has practically suspended its involvement in supporting folk dances and music. The Amateur and Professional folk dance ensembles suffered serious financial and ideological constraints5. Local self-awareness focused on the Balkans and the East, and the country gradually acquired the characteristics of “Chalgaria” as termed by most Western ethno-musicologists6. The people associated with the traditional Bulgarian folk genre did not have the opportunity to react in mass to the political transformations.7 In their midst there were choreographers, who like many musicians and composers did, turned to the roots (the “wild berries”) of Bulgarian tradition and modernity in their creations. The new Dance image of democratic Bulgaria first emerged amongst the private dance groups (such as Neshka Robeva’s), and later, though laboriously was adopted by the more traditional ensembles (such as the “Philip Koutev” Enssemble). The problem, though, persisted in the day-to-day dance practice and the Bulgarian audience, which refused to identify itself with the “Chalgaria”, but was equally afraid of losing its identy while adopting foreign dance styles. Gradually, without the financing and directions from “above”, many former dancers and choreographers from the former State Ensembles have come to challenge the spread of the “Chalga” and “Latino” culture. One of my informers – Eva Delinesheva, who at the time organized one of the first Folk dance clubs in Sofia and later on the first Festival of folk clubs, has been threatened by „the prospect that if nothing is done soon enough we will have to look for our folklore in the West”. According to me, it is very important to note that Western Europe plays a two pronged role: on the one hand, it is associated with the possible threat of assimilation, smelting, domination within the European Union, and, on the other, Western Europe and indirectly the USA and Canada have revived the penchant of town dwellers in Bulgarians for the villagers’ “horo” and have provided the model for the dance club form.

5 6

2002.

View Ivanova-Nyberg 2011. View the text of the leading ethno-musicolog and expert on Bulgaria Timothy Rice

7 Please consult Donna A. Buchanan 2006. On the subject of the capabilities of Bulgarian musicians and Music.

Thus, Bulgaria’s accession to the EU in 2007 has marked the emergence of a new era in the way traditional dancing is perceived. My informers very rarely acknowledge the link with this political step, but it is a matter of fact that in Bulgaria in the course of the last seven years we are witnessing a real boom in the area of “Dancing the Bulgarian way” and the revival of national self-consciousness. Thousands of young Bulgarians are members of Bulgarian folk dance Clubs, they take part in festivals and folk dance competitions. In the beginning not all were motivated by patriotic feelings in the choice of a hobby. Three of my informants even said that they have joined a Bulgarian folk dance club to reduce weight! Later on, though – as the manager of one of the most popular Clubs “Gaitani” claimed – “everyone get to the point when they are driven by a common desire to revive and preserve the very best of the Bulgarian tradition – its folk dances”. Obviously the transition of every dancing individual through an interpretive spiral and its inherent degrees of simple sensitivity, action and thought. November of 2011, the first “horotheque” (instead of discotheque) opened doors in the underground passage of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Similar dance places were set up in all large cities of Bulgaria. The DJs in those places play only traditional dance music – “horos”. The logbooks and my interviews with the DJs demonstrate a high level of appreciation of the emanating energy while dancing in a circle and an upsurge of national self-identification. Understandably there is much more to say to adequately analyze the phenomenon of modern “Dancing the Bulgarian way” in urban areas. We have to speak both of the potential, as well as the risks of ethnocentrism. For the time being manifestations of ethnocentrism of all involved with Bulgarian folk dancing are limited to an acceptable level of existential ethnocentrism. With Bulgarian emigrants back into the Western World Let us first revisit North America in order to realize that the Bulgarian traditional dance is going through an interpretive spiral in the course of the last 50 years. In the USA and Canada the boom of recreational folk dancing has seemingly abated. As two of the doyens of this movement – Yves Moreau (Canada) and prof. Carol Silverman (USA), have shared with me: if there is any interest on the part of Americans in Bulgarian folklore, it is in the first place an interest in the music and its performance and only then in the act of dancing of Bulgarian dances.8 On the other hand, after 2001 all of a sudden the so called “folk dances” have emerged as a focal point for the coming together of the “Other Bulgaria” – the Bulgaria of emigrants. This movement was initiated by the new Bulgarian younger generation emigrants, who are far more liberated and who are imbued with considerable professional and national self-esteem compared to the older generation emigrants. “This is the only way to survive: by demonstrating our dance heritage to the world at large”, confides the founder of the “Bulgari” Ensemble in Montreal, Monika Vuleva, who has never ever danced Bulgarian folk dances while living in her native land. “Formerly we had no real

About the interest in Bulgarian music see in [Pejcheva, Lozanka 2008: 509-545].

feeling for folk dances, whereas now we cannot live without them! We have even produced our own folk costumes!”, says the manager of one of the numerous Bulgarian folk groups in California, Valentin Kunev. Some of the emigrants are professional dancers, or are products of the so called “amateur art” movement in Socialist Bulgaria, still others learn Bulgarian folk dances from youtube, and thirds attend classes… The common denominator of almost all Bulgarian groups in North America is their desire to “perform” on stage. This naturally forces them to rely on the “stage” style forms of dances. And lo and behold, dancing of Bulgarian “folk dances” is once again used as the business card of Bulgarians abroad. The difference is that this is a grassroots movement and is not instilled from “above” or as a State policy as it was years ago. It does not belong to a totalitarian regime, but is part of the Myth of a cultural tradition of the Bulgarians. The dancing of the younger Bulgarian diaspora more often focuses on the very brilliant choreographies and forms of expression of the former “Socialist” ensembles, where as their counterparts in Bulgaria are more receptive to the Western club form and actively espouse the older style circle dance forms. Both groups interestingly enough combine the “vival” and reflective characteristics and associate the heritage (the past) with their day-to-day life style.9 Everywhere – while speaking to representatives of the younger generation both in Bulgaria and abroad and observing the proliferation of Festivals (such as the “Horo winds and writhes” in Sofia and the Bulgarian festival of “Vereya” in Chicago), one can boldly claim a state of resurgence of traditional dancing. Interrelationship of dancing of Bulgarian dances abroad as a foreign or one’s own tradition I have been studying with intense interest the existing local groups abroad, specialized in the teaching and presentation of Bulgarian dances as a foreign tradition and the groups for folk dances of the imbued with new awareness Bulgarian ethnic diaspora.Тhe chain of continuity is no longer solely generational: through the local transmission dancing transgresses in an entirely new way the dividing lines between foreigners and Bulgarians. For example Yves Moreau’s Canadian dance group donated in 2012 to the “Bulgari” Ensemble its 64 Bulgarian folk costumes in commemoration of its tenth anniversary in Montreal. The evolution of the phenomenon of transmission in Western Europe is not that much different from the one in North America. In many of the European towns the old local amateur performing groups for Bulgarian dances are giving way to the new Bulgarian emigrants’ dance groups. This is the case in Budapest, Vienna, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, London. Certain Groups for Bulgarian dances “pass (relay) the baton”(it is thus in Montreal), while redirecting their emphasis on dances other than Bulgarian, or through rediscovering their own dance heritage or terminating their activities due to aging of their members. Other

9 I have adopted the terms “Vival” and “Reflective dance” from the cross-cultural аpproach to the Ukrainian dances by Andrij Nahachewsky 2012. As Nahachewsky admits, the meaning of these terms corresponds entirely with my differentiation and theory of dancing Bulgarian dances in Europe, expounded in „Tanz nach der Wende“.

groups, set up by foreigners are literally being taken over by the burgeoning numbers of new members from Bulgaria (for example the “Lazarka” group Munich). Still others continue their existence in parallel with the newly emerging Bulgarian groups as in the case in the town of Bern. Very often I encounter in the newly established Bulgarian groups one or two non-Bulgarian dancers, who remember the aforementioned recreational folk dance movement in the Western World. I don’t have the space here to describe the attitude of the Bulgarian ‘émigrés’ (French – emigrants, editor’s note) towards them. Dance obviously draws together and unites individuals and the transition to a “harder” and more “authentic”10 Bulgarian dance presence is gradual and peaceful – as if totally “natural”. Thus in the course of the well-established over the years Bulgarian happening “St. Lazare” in Montreal, which was started by Yves Moreau, all the food provided in the course of the happening and its actual continuation in the last 3 years is entirely in the hands of Monika Vuleva and her Dance group “Bulgari”. It would be difficult to pick out amongst its members Robert – the “pure Canadian” as he styles himself. The situation in Dusseldorf is identical. Оn the occasion of the Days of Europe in 2012, 2013 and 2014 Bulgaria was represented by a Bulgarian dance group, rather than a German as on previous occasions. Two of the performers were one German and one Swiss, whereas the group was led by a former dancer from the State Ensemble “Philip Koutev”, named after its founder and longtime director – Philip Koutev. Conslusion The Phenomenon of “Dancing the Bulgarian way” lays bare the specifics in the evolution of the aforementioned societies and the differences in their corresponding policies of individual or collective identicity. It provides an excellent means for the analysis of the potential of the human body in its quest of the “else’s” and the creation of “one’s own” meanings, because it traverses interpretive spirals both on the microlevel (thematizing the individual’s reflexion), as well as on the macrolevel (connecting different countries and cultures). The bottom line is that “Dancing the Bulgarian way” offers us a very interesting and valuable model of nonverbal intercultural communication in today’s polyvalent World. This World is hard to differentiate between East and West, but if we simplify and limit the number of players in the act of communication (to oversimplify somewhat) to two sides, we could say that in the process of “Dancing the Bulgarian Way“, Bulgaria has offered the World a multitude of attractive choreographies and an opportunity for the experiencing, sharing and sheltering of the individual in a “social” and creative circle. North America not only provided an audience for the Bulgarian dances, but was the originator of the dance Clubs, which has proven very successful, for all involved countries, organizational form for Bulgarian dances. The so called amateur groups – presenters of foreign folk dances also emerged in the West as missionaries of the multicultural tolerance and pursuit of the understanding of the “other” through one’s own body. 10

This is a term used by my Bulgarian informers living abroad.

Thus “Dancing the Bulgarian way” received worldwide recognition and continues to bolster the self-confidence of many a man and woman – of Bulgarians, who are gaining an intimate knowledge of their cultural heritage and of foreigners, who are rediscovering their own selves. My research to date shows not only the tenacity of “Dancing the Bulgarian way” in different political contexts, but its ability to create new communities and to connect different worlds: Capitalist and Socialist, American and European, modern and traditional, postmodern and post-traditional. All of this is the guarantee for the survival and future evolution of the Bulgarian dance. REFERENCES Димов, Венцислав. 2001. Етнопопбумът. София: Българско музикознание. Изследвания. Иванова-Найберг, Даниела. 2011. Съставът за народни танци като културно явлениe в България. София: Марс 09. Пейчева, Лозанка. 2008. Между селото и вселената: Старата фолклорна музика от България в новите времена. София: Акад. издателство „Проф. Марин Дринов“. Стателова, Розмари. 2005. Седемте гряха на чалгата. София: Просвета. Buchanan, Donna A. 2006. Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lauševič, Mirjana. 2007. Balkan Fascination. Creating an Alternative Music Culture in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Nahachewsky, Andriy. 2012. Ukrainian Dance. A Cross-Culture Approach. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company. Panova-Tekath, Gergana. 2010. Der Körper als symbolische Form. Tanz nach der Wende. Band 1. (The body as a form of symbolism. Dance after the transition, Vol. 1), Essen: Klartext. Panova-Tekath, Gergana. 2011. Die „Volks“-Choreographie als symbolische Kommunikation. Tanz nach der Wende. Band 2. (“Folk” choreography – symbolic communication. Dance after the transition, Vol. 2), Essen, Klartext. Rice, Timothy. 2002. Bulgaria or Chalgaria: The Attenuation of Bulgarian Nationalism in a Mass-Mediated Popular Music. – In: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. XXXIV, 25-46, Danvers: ICTM and The University of California. Shay, Anthony. 2002. Choreographic Politics. State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

Correspondence address: Gergana Panova-Tekath – Assoc. Prof. DSc Institute for Art Studies Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Phone: 0888 941 426; 0049 1782 184 423 e-mail: gpanova@yahoo.com

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

PHILOSOPHY

FRANZ BRENTANO ABOUT CONTINUUM AS GENERATED BY INTUITION Vesselin Petrov Abstract: The paper considers insufficiently investigated historical and philosophical aspects of the argumentation against the idea of building up of continuum from the perspective of discreteness, and especially Franz Brentano’s conception of continuum, in the centrum of which is his view that continuum is generated by intuition. The aim of the investigation is to analyze the mature original Brentano’s conception of continuum and to trace out the connection of his views with the views of other philosophical doctrines. The meaning of the theme is in the fact that Brentano is a predecessor of the contemporary phenomenology and analytic philosophy and that he has influenced the philosophical views of some mathematicians-philosophers such as Poincaré. That is why his views are a key for the understanding of contemporary ideas of continuum in these philosophical trends. Key words: Brentano’s philosophy, continuum, intuition, phenomenology, analytic philosophy.

1. Introduction The theme of continuum and its philosophical dimensions has been repeatedly discussed in philosophical literature. Nevertheless, there are aspects that are not enough investigated and analyzed. One of them is the investigation of the origins of argumentation against the idea of substantiation of continuum from the perspective of discreteness. Some of the first mathematicians that object to the idea are Poincaré, Brouwer and Weyl, and some of the first philosophers – Franz Brentano and Charles Peirce. The topic of the present paper are the views of Brentano about continuum and especially his view that continuum is generated by intuition. The aim of the paper is to throw new light on the above pointed omission in the investigations, and to clarify the influence of Brentano on other contemporary thinkers and actual philosophical trends. It determines the tasks of, first, elucidating of those aspects of Brentano’s philosophical views that are important for the understanding of his theory of continuum, second, analyzing in detail Brentano’s theory of continuum as generated by intuition,

and third, tracing out the connection of Brentano’s conception of continuum with the views of continuum in other philosophical trends. The structure of the paper is subordinated and corresponds namely to these tasks. The actuality of the aims and the tasks is conditioned by the fact that Brentano’s ideas, on the one hand, precede some of the most important contemporary philosophical trends as phenomenology and analytic philosophy, and on the other hand, have influenced to some extent the philosophical views off mathematicians with inclination to philosophy such as Poincaré (who was inclined to some extent to phenomenology [Zahar, 2001]) that have investigated the problem of continuum, though he criticizes him for some of his other views. 2. Characteristic aspects of Brentano’s philosophical views In the epoch of Brentano (1838-1917) there is, on the one hand, a renaissance of Kant’s philosophy in different forms of neo-Kantianism. However, neo-Kantians reject some important aspects of Kantian thought, and more especially, they are skeptical toward the doctrine of forms of intuition as pure forms (space and time). At the same time alternatives forms of geometry have appeared – first of all non-Euclidean geometry. On the other hand, that time is characterized also with a renaissance of Aristotelianism, and the basis has been laid to the modern investigation of Aristotle and together with this a renaissance of metaphysical investigations. These tendencies have influenced the molding of Brentano’s views and he begins to be one of their ardent exponents in that epoch. The historians of philosophy usually consider Brentano as exponent of the Aristotelian renaissance at the end of 19th century and as a predecessor of Husserl’s phenomenology. Therefore, on the one hand, Brentano is a philosopher and metaphysician with a strong classical adjustment, and on the other hand, he is a descriptive philosopher and one of the predecessors of Gestalt psychology [Albertazzi, 2005: 1]. In his works Brentano combines Aristotelianism with scientific psychology. In many respects he analyses even problems that are at present in the focus of cognitive science and artificial intelligence: from the problem of reference to the problem of representation and from the problem of categoreal classification to ontology and cognitive analysis of the natural language [Albertazzi, 2008: 372]. I shall outline several points that are important for the understanding of Brentano’s doctrine of continuum. First of all it is Brentano’s reism. The term itself is coined later and the essence of classical reism is that only things exist. The existence of any non-realities such as universals, categories, relations, etc. is rejected. Only substances, aggregates of substances, and parts of substances are accepted as existing. The last claim gives importance to mereology and in his last works Brentano differentiates three types of whole: the whole in collective sense, the whole as qualified substance, and the whole as continuum. For Brentano, however, not only bodies, but thoughts are also things. Another peculiarity of Brentano’s views is the thesis that ontological suppositions are modelled onto linguistic ones, so the language is the source of the fallacies. Language operates with fictions and considers pseudo-objects as if they are objects. The most obvi-

ous example of language which uses fictions is mathematics. Here Brentano is a predecessor of the theories of the language of mathematics developed later in the frameworks of phenomenology by Poincaré and others [Libardi, 2005: 67-68]. Another important point for the understanding of Brentano’s conception of continuum is that Brentano does not consider space and time as relations, but subordinates them to his category of absolute accidents. Let us remind that stressing the traditional difference between substance and accident, Brentano divides further accidents into absolute accidents and relations, and to the first ones belong inherence, movement and place [Brentano, 1975: 98-115] Concerning space he says: “The theory of space is the theory of bodies as existing in space, i.e. as localized and as extended. There are, without doubt, real determinations; for after all, what is not real does not exist in the proper sense. Another question is whether they are substantial determinations. Views are in this respect divided. Descartes saw in spatial extension the essence of corporeal substance. (…) Others have, unlike Descartes, denied that extension is a substantial determination…” [Brentano, 1988: 150]. To understand Brentano’s theory of time, it is necessary to approach to it from the perspective of two of his most basic doctrines: the first is his reism, i.e. the doctrine that the only existing things in the proper sense of the word ‘exist’ are the individual things or concreta. The second is his doctrine that the only existing things are things that exist in the present time, i.e. that exist now. On the basis of the first doctrine we cannot say that in addition to the separate individual things there exists also time or space in which these individual things are. On the basis of the second doctrine we cannot say that things are extended in time in the sense in which we can say that they are extended in space. Because “now” is not extended in time, but exists only as a boundary between the past and the future [Körner et al., 1988: xx]. Brentano says “What is time? There is no other name that is more familiar to us, and none that is at the same time so obscure” [Brentano, 1988: 49]. And he continues a little bit further: “To believe that the Aristotelian definition gives us insight into the nature of time would be just as ridiculous as if someone were to say that the essence of warmth consists in the thermometer in so far as this provides the measure for the more and less of temperature” [Brentano, 1988: 50]. The so outlined main aspects of Brentano’s philosophical views make it possible to understand his specific and original conception of continuum. 3. Franz Brentano’s conception of continuum 3.1. Phenomenological description of continuum and directions of development Brentano’s metaphysics is closely connected with the elaboration of a new theory of continuum that in many respects paves a new way. The analysis of the concepts space and time and of the more general concept continuum occupies the bigger part of his life – from his early attempts to interpret Aristotle to the last years of his life. The investigator of Brentano’s work John Bell is not right saying that Brentano begins to study the nature of continuity only in the last

years of his life [Bell, 2005: 202]. The more precise investigators of his life point that Brentano analyses the problem of continuum many times. His first theory of continuum is elaborated still in his research work qualifying for an academic rang in 1866; the second one can be found in his lecture notes in Vienna in 1890-91. The last works on that topic are dated in the last years of his life (19161917) [Librandi, 2005: 61]. In the present paper I refer namely to these most mature Brentano’s views of continuum. The starting point of Brentano’s theory of continuum is intuition. His theory outlines what can be called “empirical geometry” of inner perception [Albertazzi, 2005: 234]. He says: “All our concepts are either taken immediately from an intuition or combined out of marks that are taken from intuition. It has lately been asserted that it is in this second way that we arrive at the concept of what is continuous” [Brentano, 1988: 1]. Next he adds: “Thus I affirm once more, and with still less contestability, that the concept of the continuous is acquired not through combinations of marks taken from different intuitions and experiences, but through abstraction from unitary intuitions. (…) I dare to assert and shall attempt to prove, it is much rather the case that every single one of our intuitions – both those of outer perception as also their accompaniments in inner perception, and therefore also those of memory – bring to appearance what is continuous” [Brentano, 1988: 6]. Brentano develops a phenomenological description of continuum from the perspective of experience, stemming from the Aristotelian explanation of continuum. For Brentano continuity is a phenomenon of perception and not mathematical construction; he even claims that mathematical and physical theories themselves are description of experience. The concept continuum is derivable through abstraction from any our intuition, because there is continuum both in inner and in outer perceptions. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the problem of continuum has been revived in the debate of the origins of geometry and the attempts for arithmetisation of continuum. At that time the problem attracts the attention of psychologists and philosophers, and Brentano is among them. The concept of dimension is interesting for thinkers combining geometry, physics of nature, experimental psychology and metaphysics; among them are the mathematicians Cantor, Riemann, Poincaré, Hilbert and the philosophers Lotze and Husserl. The theories of these listed thinkers do not always make a clear distinction between physical and percepted type of continuum and this is an ontological ambiguity that is characteristic of the discussions about continuum at that time. It is one of the problems in the centrum also of Brentano’s investigations. Brentano develops his theory of continuum in two directions: on the one hand, he reforms the Aristotelian theory, and on the other hand, he attempts to disprove the mathematical theories developed strictly at that time by Dedekind and Cantor. That is why for the correct understanding of Brentano’s theory it has to be compared both with Aristotle’s doctrine and with the classical mathematical theories of Cantor and Dedekind. We can say in respect to the first direction that Brentano’s conception of continuum is part of the neo-Aristotelian theory of physics developed in different forms by representatives mainly of German culture – Mach and Helmholtz

– that has generated phenomenological analysis and gestalt analysis of Husserl. All these authors substantiate continuum in the world of perception. Brentano’s theory of continuum is similar to Aristotle’s one in its approach: continuity is a phenomenon of perception, and is not a mathematical construction. Let me remind that according to Aristotle continuum cannot consist of points; any continuum can be infinitely divided into other continua, but not into discreteness (i.e. into parts that themselves cannot be further divided) [Körner et al., 1988: ix]. The main metaphysical difference between Brentano and Aristotle is that according to Aristotle the parts of a whole are only potential and not actual things. And the main psychological difference is in Brentano’s original theory of relations, in his view how to achieve the concept of continuum and in his conception of the relation between the continua and their boundaries. According to Aristotle, the whole is not actual, but only potential, while its parts are actual one. The whole has to be potential, so that its parts to be real [Aristotle, 2000, Book 7, 1039a 3-10]. According to Brentano, on the opposite, the whole can be real even if its parts are real. Brentano thinks that continuum consists of infinite sequence of continuous parts, but in contrast to Aristotle he thinks that the parts of a whole are real; thus the parts of continuum and its boundaries are themselves real. [Brentano, 1977: 45] As to the second direction of development, Brentano’s analysis of continuum focuses on its phenomenological and qualitative aspects which in their essence are irreducible to the discrete. That is why Brentano’s rejection of the attempts of mathematicians to build continuum in discrete terms is not a surprising one. Some mathematicians and philosophers raise objections against the idea of discretization or arithmetization of the linear continuum. Yet, a number of mathematicians use the idea of the discrete, so that to grasp continuum as an enough dense set of points, while Brentano rejects the idea that a true continuum can be entirely decomposed into an aggregate of discrete points independently on the fact how much they can be. Besides, one of the main Brentano’s criticisms of mathematical theories of continuum at that time is that they reduce the extension of perceptive phenomena to quantitative metric extension and aim at building geometry from algebra. Brentano fights with those mathematicians who want to reach to the concept of continuity not through abstraction of intuitions, but through induction. He points especially to Poincaré who follows the extreme empiricists in the field of sense psychology and that is why he does not believe that we have intuition of continuous space. Brentano’s reproach for example to Poincaré is that the last one does not admit the possibility to have intuitions of continuum and especially of continuous time. Brentano considers critically the method of Poincaré for obtaining of continuum and points with satisfaction to the confession that the attempt to receive true continuum in such way has failed [Brentano, 1988: 39]. Stemming from the contemporary perspective of mathematics, Brentano’s view of continuum also possesses deficiencies. For example, Brentano considers critically Poincaré’s views of continuum expressed in Science and Hypothesis, and especially the ideas of different powers in continuum [Brentano, 1988: 2-4]. He says: “The idea of continua of various degrees of completeness seems also to be incompatible with the true solution to the problem of constructing the con-

tinuum” [Brentano, 1988: 3]. Nevertheless, his main merit is in the emphasis that continuum is generated by intuition. Here are Brentano’s own words as a generalization of his analysis of mathematical constructions of continuum: “One sees that in this entire putative construction of the concept of what is continuous the goal has been entirely missed; for that which is above all else characteristic of a continuum, namely the idea of a boundary in the strict sense (to which belongs the possibility of a coincidence of boundaries), will be sought after entirely in vain. Thus also the attempt to have the concept of what is continuous spring forth out of the combination of individual marks distilled from intuition is to be rejected as entirely mistaken, and this implies further that what is continuous must be given to us in individual intuition and must therefore have been abstracted therefrom” [Brentano, 1988: 4-5] Brentano rejects the concepts of an infinite whole and actual infinity and the idea that such whole can be “bigger” than another one. Therefore he does not admit the difference between density (possessed also by rational numbers) and continuity, difference that hardly can be called a phenomenological one. The thought of ordering of the infinite sets according their power is entirely alien to the phenomenological (according to Chisholm) approach of Brentano. On the other hand, the classical mathematical theory does not give description of what is given in perception [Körner et al., 1988: xi, xiii]. However, Brentano is inclined to accept, similarly to Aristotle, the idea of potential infinity and notes: “One could say that something continuous was present where a whole was given that could be thought of as divided not, certainly, into infinitely many parts, but still in infinitum into parts. … Yet … being continuous and being divisible in infinitum are concepts that do not coincide in their content” [Brentano, 1988: 5-6]. In any case, Brentano’s theory of continuum is closer to Brouwer’s one than to that of other mathematicians. There are no evidences if Brentano was known with Brouwer’s intuitionistic conception of continuum, however, Brouwer’s conception is closer to Aristotle’s one that to that of Cantor and Dedekind, because as I have pointed in another place “the success of Dedekind’s approach is a triumph of one of the forms of atomism” [Petrov, 1999: 114]. That similarity is an evidence for the insight and perspectiveness of Brentano’s theory of continuum. Some of the investigators of Brentano such as John Bell think that Brentano accepts a vague attitude concerning the efforts of mathematicians to construct a continuum from numbers. His view varies from rejection of such attempts as non-adequate to ascribing them the status of fictions. It is not surprising in view of his Aristotelian inclination to consider mathematical and physical theories as true descriptions of empirical phenomena and not as idealizations [Bell, 2005: 206]. However, we shouldn’t forget the initial Brentano’s position – intuition. On the other hand, if Brentano is inclined to consider mathematical and physical theories as descriptions of experience and not as idealizations and if the theories are considered as descriptions, they could represent erroneously the empirical phenomena, as Brentano thinks in regard to Dedekind’s theory. According to Chisholm, if we accept the difference between mathematical and phenomenological conception of continuum, it will be clear that there is no conflict between the theories of descriptive psychology (in Brentano’s sense) and the theories of pure mathematics (in Dedekind’s sense) [Körner, 1988: xi-xii].

3.2. Essence and characteristics of Brentano’s theory of continuum Brentano thinks that the continuous is generated by the sense intuition in three phases: First, perception gives us objects with parts that coincide. Second, the concept of boundary is abstracted from such objects and then man grasps that these objects actually contain coincident boundaries. Finally, third, man understands that this is all necessary for the understanding the concept of continuum. The main features of Brentano’s continuum can be described in the following way: First, it is an intuitive concept; second, it relates to the appearances of the phenomenal world, i.e. to the contents of concrete actual presentations; third, it is characterize with direction, homogeneity and smoothness; and fourth, it is derived from experience or from characteristic notes drawn from perceptive experience and not from high-level mental operations that use abstract symbolizations. Let me explain especially Brentano’s view of direction. Visualizing his view at the example of a straight and curved line, Brentano points that “a double continuity can be distinguished. The one presents itself in the totality of the differences of place that are given in the line… The other resides in the direction of the line, and is either constant or alternating, and may vary continuously or now more strongly, now less. It is constant in the case of the straight line, changing in the case of the broken line, and continuously varying in every line that is more or less curved” [Brentano, 1988: 21-22]. This explanation is given in more detailed form further in the text [Brentano, 1988: 184-185]. The individual characteristics of Brentano’s continuum can be grouped as extension, plurality, boundary, plerosis, multiformity and teleiosis. I shall consider consecutively the essence of every one of these characteristics. The extension is a characteristic of the actual perceptible phenomena; it refers to the structure and forms of filling up of presentations of sense modalities such as color, sound, quality of the perception of contact (touch, taste). Brentano says: “That which is continuous can be classified from a number of points of view. One of the most important is that according to which it is partitioned into what exists as a whole and what exists only in a boundary. A continuum of the first class is for example a body as spatially extended. A continuum of the second class, however, is everything that proceeds in time as such. We wish to refer to the one as spatially, to the other as temporally continuous. Each thing, in so far as it endures and remains for a period of time entirely unchanged … appears as something temporally continuous” [Brentano, 1988: 78]. However, he adds: “It would, however, not be acceptable to designate time as fourth dimension of space – and already for this reason: that what is non-spatial, too, can be temporally determined” [Brentano, 1988: 187]. Further Brentano dwells on particularities of temporally continuous and on our presentation of it, as well as on the difference between spatial and temporal continuity: “That which is spatial and that which is assembled in a way comparable to spatial things, share in common with time and with that which is assembled in a way comparable to temporal things that they appear as continuous. In the former case, however, we have to do with continua that exist as whole, in the latter with continua that exist only in a boundary” [Brentano, 1988: 84]. In

another place of his work he also says: “That which is temporally continuous, in contrast, is never such as to exist except according to a mere boundary, although after what has been said earlier we must insist that even here the boundary according to which it exists does not itself exist in isolation from its continuum” [Brentano, 1988: 16]. Brentano classifies continua as primary and secondary. Primary continuum is that which changes independently on other continua and secondary continuum is that which changes on the basis of another continuum. In a sense time is primary continuum, as far as the perception of the area of space is present in time. Therefore, time is a continuous change. In occasion of the difference between primary and secondary continuum Brentano says: let us take something that exist in a long period of time. “Here there is to be distinguished the length of the time in which it exists and in virtue of which it appears as a primary continuum subject to a completely uniform change. (…) In regard to the change of place to which it is subject during this time it is also a continuum, but a secondary one, and here again on can distinguish a continuum in respect both of the variation in distance covered and of the variation in direction” [Brentano, 1988: 185]. For Brentano an essential feature of a continuum is its inherent capacity to generate boundaries and the fact that such boundaries can be grasped as coincident. In perception boundaries never exist isolated. In percepted reality there are no points, lines or surfaces as things in themselves isolated from the area and from the environment in which they are. The point is an inner boundary of a line; the line is an inner boundary of a surface; and the surface is an inner boundary of a solid body. Boundaries are non-independent parts or instances of continuum that contains only definite directions. For example, a straight line contains all points that in respect to a given point display a definite and constant direction and its opposite direction. If we reduce the extension of a given line, we receive point. Brentano says: “We can distinguish continua which exist only as boundary of some other continuous thing from those which belong as boundary to no other continuous thing. … Boundaries, and among them also continuous boundaries, can be distinguished also however as inner and outer (…) for a boundary to exist it is required to belong to something continuous whose boundary it is, and to be connected with other boundaries of the same continuum. But it can nevertheless be the case that this connection should be missing on one or more sides. It suffices that it is not missing on the remaining sides” [Brentano, 1988: 10-11]. Boundaries themselves possess a quality which Brentano calls plerosis.1 Plerosis is the measure of the number of directions in which a given boundary really bounds. For example, a boundary in temporal continuum can be a boundary

From Greek π λ ή ρ ω σ ι ς – filling up, fullness, contents. The concept plerosis has a connection with the mathematical concept of neighbour and it is one of the most important concepts of Brentano’s synechology (theory of continuum) – the term ‘synechology’ suggests the presence of connection with Peirce’s synechism in the sense that both of them emphasize on continuity, not on discreteness. 1

only in one direction. In a temporal continuum the last instance of a past episode or the initial instance of a future episode bound in the only direction, and the instance marking the end of one episode and the beginning of another can be said that bounds double. However, the boundary of a space continuum is not limited in that respect to the number of directions in which it can be a boundary. In the case of space continuum there are many additional possibilities: here a boundary can bound in all directions in which it is capable to bound, or it can bound only in some of these directions. In the first case we say about the boundary that it exists in full plerosis, and in the second case – in partial plerosis. Brentano thinks that the concept plerosis gives an opportunity to give a sense of the idea that a boundary possesses “parts”, even if the boundary has not at all dimensions as it is in the case of a point. So, though the present or “now” is according to Brentano temporally unextended and though it exists only as a boundary between the past and the future, yet it possesses two “parts” or aspects: it is at the same time the end of the past and the beginning of the future. Brentano claims that the existence in the strict sense means existence now; the existing things exist only as boundaries of that which has existed or which will existed or both. The direction (plerosis) plays a main role in the phenomenal continua. The percepted continua display the direction as a property of boundaries, which depends on the continuum which the boundary in question bounds. According to Brentano there can be plerosis of the direction or there can be no such direction in which a boundary refers to a continuum. Bigger or smaller direction means that there are more or less directions in which a boundary refers to a continuum. The direction of continua coincides with “the freedom of movement” or the levels of freedom (a concept of analytic mechanics). Further Brentano introduces a difference between continuously many in which the separation of one of its parts leaves the rest unchangeable, and continuously manifold whose parts does not have such autonomy. He says: “What is continuous can be sub-divided in yet another important respect into what is continuously many and what is continuously manifold” [Brentano, 1988: 32]. The first type refers to space, to extension, and the second one – to the inner time, it is indivisible and is composed of non-independent parts. Any inner perception of a sense object is a continuously manifold. An example of continuously manifold is that which appears from acts of presenting of perception: for example, two places that are not successive and are independent one on the other can be percepted together. An example for a temporal continuously many is a sequence of sounds in some succession, and an example of temporal continuously manifold is a melody or the simultaneous perception of this succession. Brentano points that even Aristotle did not clarified the difference between continuously many and continuously manifold [Brentano, 1988: 34]. Finally, the continua of perception possess also ‘teleiosis’2, which is the fullness of the velocity of qualitative change of the continua and influences their

From Greek τ ε λ ε ί ω σ ι ς – maturity, perfection.

form. Here the velocity expresses the change and variability of perceptive form. In general, the elements that move in the same way in perception express a tendency to be grouped together according to the law of the common “destiny”. For example, let us consider two concentric circles around a common fixed center. The curvature of the inner circle has less intermediate spatial loci to pass through than the curvature of the outer circle, i.e. it has bigger “velocity”. Finally, Brentano deals with the question if the continuum is contradictory. He points that if the intuition of continuum is accepted, then it is non-contradictory, because contradiction cannot be presented intuitively. In this way it is rejected the impossibility of continuum [Brentano, 1988: 42]. Brentano’s theory of continuum is the first step toward the construction of geometry of cognitive (perceptive) space. Subsequently, this theory has received a dynamic development by his pupils. For example, a number of investigators of Brentano’s school point that Husserl and Meinong consider the extension (extensity) of continuum as a product of a continuous sequence of growings in any phenomenal property of the continua themselves [Albertazzi, 2005: 266; Albertazzi et al., 2005b: 131-154, 175-200]. 4. Conclusion: the connection of Brentano’s conception of continuum with the views of continuum in other philosophical trends After consideration of Brentano’s conception of continuity the question naturally arises what is the connection between his view and the views of philosophers of other philosophical doctrines and to what extent his doctrine has influenced them or there is a similarity of theses that have been achieved independently. This is topic for separate investigation, here some main points only will be marked. If the question is aroused concerning the contemporary epoch of Brentano, it has inevitably to be mentioned the so called Brentano’s school that is not, however, a homogeneous philosophical trend. Brentano is considered as a predecessor both to phenomenology and to analytic philosophy, because he is the teacher of a number of founders of both opposing schools. It is an interesting fact that most of his eminent pupils have been originally either mathematicians (for example Husserl) or have at least been inclined to the exact or experimental sciences. Brentano himself had initially hesitated in the choice between mathematics and philosophy, combining analytic adjustment of thinking and philosophical style. It is frequently outlined in the philosophical literature devoted to Brentano’s philosophy that in many aspects Brentano belongs to the tradition of the Austrian liberalism among whose upholders are Mach and Boltzmann. Characteristic for that tradition is the effort to reform theory of knowledge and logic in particular. This tradition has been continued first by the Vienna circle that declares Brentano as one of its predecessors. Brentano has paved the way for a fundamental investigation of logic, mathematics and theory of knowledge. In the famous Manifesto of the Vienna circle it is said about him that “… Brentano … left aside Kant and the systematic idealist philosophers. The appreciation by Brentano and his pupils of the work of scholars like Bolzano and others who sought

to give a rigorous foundation to logic became more and more apparent” [Albertazzi, 2005: 313]. However, after that the criticism to Brentano has increased among the Vienna circle, mainly by Moritz Schlick on the basis of the growing hostility to metaphysics. Nowadays it is necessary to investigate the acceptance of Brentano’s thought by Polish and Anglo-American philosophers (first of all by Roderick Chisholm and some others) [Albertazzi, 2005: 314]. There are also philosophers who think that his method, especially in the study of the logic of language, which Brentano himself considers as a starting point in philosophy, has a remarkable similarity with the procedure of the present day empiricism and especially with the analytic philosophy in the Great Britten and the USA. Nowadays, after 1990 Brentano’s thought is spread beyond the Continental Europe toward the Great Britain and the USA due to its closeness with the British empiricism that is approved by Brentano to a great extent and is supported by his personal acquaintance with Spencer in 1872 and by its correspondence with John Stuart Mill. The acceptance of Brentano’s thought in the Great Britain is connected also with its intertwist partially with the British idealism, and partially with the roots of analytic philosophy. The dissemination of Brentano’s ideas in the Great Britain and of his style is a work of Russell and Moore. According to Albertazzi, the analytic and semantic interpretations of Brentano’s theory of intentionality have had through Russell an influence on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and after that, through these sources, have been canalized in the Austin’s philosophy of language. Brentano’s theory of intentionality has similarities with the logical aspects of the intentional propositions suggested by Roderick Chisholm. After the introduce of the theory of intentionality again in the philosophical debate in 1960s and 1970s by Chisholm and Quine, it is developed in connection with logic and formal semantics following according to the evaluation of other Brentano’s investigators what Quine has termed a progressive ‘semantic ascent’ [Albertazzi, 2005: 321-322]. The considerable renaissance of Brentano in the USA has begun in 1950s with the work of Chisholm that converts Brentano’s direct realism with its psychological and experimental basis into philosophy of mind with a significant linguistic consideration of the problem of intentional inference and a direct connection with the analytic interpretation that is given of Brentano in the Great Britain. This presentation of Brentano still continues in the USA especially among philosophers such as Daniel Dennett who is interested in the problem of spirit–body and in the theory of intentionality. This line of succession has its critics who think that the adherents of analytic philosophy did not understand the essence of Brentano’s programme [McAlister, 1976: 152]. Chisholm also did not understand the difference between reality and existence which is essential for Brentano’s metaphysics [Albertazzi, 2005: 324]. Finally, Brentano’s thinking has striking analogies with Whitehead’s process philosophy though there are no data of any influence between them. The metaphysics of both thinkers makes a connection between philosophy and cognitive processes. Brentano and Whitehead share anti-behaviorist and anti-mentalist position; both uphold the presence of different formats in the representation. In contrast to the classical idea of substance both thinkers 5

suggest metaphysics of events independently if the last ones are called ‘intentionale Beziehngen’, occasions or actual entities considered as inner interrelated. Stemming from analytic point of view, Brentano and Whitehead share the idea that science and metaphysics are founded on the basis of the immediate experience and thus that the meanings of the concepts essential for the physical science have to be understood in these terms. They consider the present not as instantiate one, but as spreading within a scope of time and embracing the edges of the present and the future. In fact, space and time are considered as characteristics of events and co-exist (or are co-present) as phases of inner connection between the events themselves [Whitehead, 1959: 185-186]. With these intuitions both Brentano and Whitehead have helped to lay the basis for the construction of the theory of continuum founded on principles that differ from the mathematical principles suggested by Dedekind and Cantor. The difference between them is that the originality of Brentano is in analyzing of the structures of representation from the point of view more of relation whole–parts and of the specific qualities and relations, while Whitehead is interested more in the “corporeal rootedness of the immediacy of perception based on feeling as the primary ontological category” [Albertazzi, 2008: 375]. REFERENCES Albertazzi, Liliana. 2005. Immanent Realism. An Introduction to Brentano. Berlin, New York: Springer. Albertazzi, Liliana. 2008. Franz Brentano (1838-1917). – In: Weber, Michel and Desmond, Will (Eds.). Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought. Vol. 2. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Aristotle. 2000. Metaphysics. (Translated into Bulgarian by N. Gochev and I. Hristov). Sofia: SONM. Bell, John L. 2005. The Continuous and the Infinitesimal in Mathematics and Philosophy. Milano: Polimetrica. Brentano, Franz. 1975. On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle: Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z, 1. (Translated by R. George). Berkeley: University of California Press. Brentano, Franz. 1977. Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung (ed. by R. Chisholm). Hamburg: Meiner. Brentano, Franz. 1988. Philosophical Investigations on Space, time and the Continuum. (Translated by Barry Smith). New York: Croom Helm. Körner, Stephan and Chisholm, Roderick. 1988. Editors’ Introduction to the English Edition. – In: Brentano, Franz. Philosophical Investigations on Space, time and the Continuum. (Translated by Barry Smith). New York: Croom Helm. Libardi, Massimo. 2005. Franz Brentano (1838-1917). – In: Albertazzi, L., Libardi, M., Poli, R. (Eds.). The School of Franz Brentano. Kluwer Academic Publishers. McAlister, L. (Ed.). 1976. The Philosophy of Franz Brentano. London: Duckworth. Petrov, Vesselin. 1999. First Steps towards the Mystery of Continuum. Sofia: ETO Publishing house. (In Bulgarian).

Whitehead, Alfred North. 1959. The Concept of Nature. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2nd printing. (First published by the Cambridge Univ. Press, 1920). Zahar, Elie. 2001. Poincaré’s Philosophy: From Conventionalism to Phenomenology. Chicago and La Zalle. Illinois: Open Court.

Correspondence address: Vesselin Petrov – Professor, DSc Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 13a, Moskovska Street 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria Phone: (+359) (0)886405773 e-mail: petrov.vesselin@gmail.com

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

SOCIOLOGY

CAN SOCIOLOGY DEFEND SOCIETIES? Douhomir Minev Abstract. The article discusses some aspects of the mutual influences of sociology and society. The first part of the article is devoted to the “mechanism” of sociological impact on social knowledge (sciences) and societies. The second part discussess the way the “mechanism” was built (social environment’s influences on sociology), and the third part presents basic aspects of the sociology’s impact on societies. Actual state of sociology is considered as a source of dangers (new risks) for societies and the urgent need of radical reconstruction of the science is emphasized. Key words: preventive social function (of sociology); standard model of scientific research; secrecy, ignorance; nonknowledge; intelligence; new risks.

A need to assess the social impact of sociology Probably it is difficult to find a more attractive idea in sociology than that science must defend societies. There are also specific proposals for ‘sociological protection’ of society (for instance, development of public sociology, sociology of happiness, etc.). But there is something disturbing – the first step towards the construction of such protection is an adequate assessment of the real impact that sociology has on societies. However, studies of the real impact of science on society are not sustainable and meaningful mainstream of sociological work, and one of their main conclusions is that one should not expect any direct social utility of sociology. Furthermore, the relationships between the state of sociology, the way this science is producing knowledge, the ‘quality’ of the ‘product’, the manner of its use and the effects of using remain some of the ‘darkest zones’ caused by failure to analyse (in the words of Foucault), inadequate research and knowledge deficit. It is a fact that sociology is not particularly sensitive to the risks that threaten societies. The science, for instance, ignored one of the earliest warnings of impending crisis (‘dark period’), despite the importance of the warning, and although it was made by a scientist with very high prestige [Wallerstein, 1998].

All this suggests that without assessment of the social impact of sociology (and the inverse impact of society on sociology), it is not possible to formulate adequate proposals for protection of societies. Mechanism for influencing societies Sociologists are aware that the mechanism through which their science influences society depends on the conflicting relations between the dynamics of social and scientific knowledge and the social environment (its central component – power). However, the sociology of knowledge has hardly turned these relations, and the consequences thereof (for sociology and society) into a subject of continuous and careful monitoring. And this conflicting relations have given rise to a strategy to control the creation of social knowledge (social sciences) aimed at adapting it to the requirements for stability of the social order. The implementation of the strategy can be illustrated both by longitudinal observations and through numerous individual episodes. One particularly striking example is offered by an episode from the history of risks-related studies: these studies were able to make a rapid progress and in a relatively short period of time offered socially significant and useful research results. But after a period of intensive and successful development, the progress of the studies ran into difficulties and slowed down. Trying to determine the cause of the difficulties hampering the progress of risk analysis, the Society for Risk Analysis set up a special committee which identified the cause (which, according to Kasperson, many people have guessed): “the definition of risk in its nature is a political act” [Kasperson, 1992: 155], i.e. the definition of risk is the monopoly of political decision-makers, and the advancement of knowledge about the risks could disrupt the monopoly. In other words, the monopoly on the social processing of risks can be protected from erosion by limiting the advancement of knowledge about risks and their social treatment. In the history of social sciences can be seen many facts that show that these sciences have long encountered the same problem – the advance of social analysis was confronted with the exercise of power (political monopoly on decision-making) and the advancement of science has been subjected to restriction in order to protect the political monopoly from erosion. In fact, the political monopoly covers not only the definition of risk, but also other interrelated phases of the social treatment of risks such as: creating a ‘picture’ of the social world (monopoly of the dominant ideology); identification of threats – risks contained in the ‘picture’ (a key political act in the process of social treatment); analysis of (identified) risks (the creation of knowledge about them) – defining actions for risk prevention or elimination of damages (strategies, policies, design of specialized (social) security systems). Because of the links between the different phases of the social processing of risks, the preservation of political monopoly on the definition of risk requires it to cover also the other phases. Hence, restrictions on the advancement of knowledge should also be extended to the other phases. For

example, in order to avoid erosion of the dominant ideology, knowledge that can erode it may not be created (mainly – general social theory); social sciences can only create knowledge concerning threats that have been politically identified (autonomous scientific identification of significant risks is intervention in the central political act); major, socially important proposals for the construction of systems for addressing risks should not be formulated independently – this can only be done within the framework already outlined by political monopoly (through the relevant strategies, policies), etc. Because of its importance, the system of restrictions on the creation of social knowledge and the technologies to implement restrictions inevitably become a strategic line to stabilize the political and, generally, the social order. And the emergence of such strategic line creates continuous extension of restrictions. The core of the strategy is to put ‘on hold’ the advancement of knowledge in social sciences and even the active maintenance of ignorance, especially in those key areas of the social realities and social treatment of risks that are exclusive political (power) monopoly. It is possible to trace the gradual maturing of the strategy (the ideas) that restricting the advancement of knowledge is a means of maintaining political control over societies – starting with the insights of Machiavelli (who clearly understood the close link between power and secrecy as a form of social differentiation of knowledge); through Boulainvilliers (who emphasizes the connection between control over knowledge and power)1, Nietzsche (who connects the “will to knowledge” with “will to power”) and M. Weber’s “domination of rational bureaucracy”; to the explicit statement of social scientists published in a scientific journal in the middle of the 20th century that “ignorance can be useful and potentially positive for maintenance of the social order” [Moore and Tumin, 1949]. Of course, along with the progress of these ideas, technologies for their practical implementation also moved forward. The direction in which the control over the creation of social knowledge was developing can be observed too – the extensive use of secrecy, ignorance and nonknowledge as ‘protective shells’ against erosion of the political monopoly (exercise of power). Sociology as a gate keeper Sociology is a field of particularly intensive implementation of the above ‘stabilizing restrictions’ due to a well-known reason – sociology is the most general social science. Therefore, sociology has a significant impact on the state of overall social knowledge, the direction of its progress (respectively – the restriction of progress) and, therefore, on the intervention of the social Boulainvilliers’s statement goes: “You will not regain power if you do not restore the status of knowledge that you have been deprived of – or rather that you have never tried to possess. Because you actually have always fought without being aware that from one point on the real battle, at least in society, is no longer fought with weapons but with knowledge” [Foucault, 2003: 179]. 1

sciences in the treatment of risks and their possible eroding influence on the political monopoly on the treatment. The ‘interventionist potential’ of social knowledge depends largely on its state and if social knowledge will be fragmented, contradictory, ‘politicized’, irrelevant to the political process of decision making or vice versa – integrated, consistent, meaningful and socially influential depends largely on sociology. If it is in an adequate state, sociology can integrate disciplinary (social and other) knowledge and use it to build notions (conceptualization, theorizing) of the social world and its central aspects. It can add a ‘social dimension’ (idea of social impact and utility) to the scientific validity of the knowledge generated in other sciences, etc. If it contributes to the integration of social sciences, sociology might have also an eroding effect on political acts through the scientific construction of ‘long causal chains’ that may restrict ‘political acts’ (by outlining fields of scientifically feasible solutions and associating the ‘acts’ with their consequences and motives). But sociology can achieve the opposite effect – by keeping social sciences and the creation of knowledge therein fragmented, disintegrated where the ‘threads’ brought by individual social sciences remain ‘incoherent’ and do not form an entire fabric of social knowledge (adequate social and scientific representation of the social world). Figuratively speaking, if sociology as a ‘last link’ in the complex of social sciences does not perform the last (finishing) operation in producing the final ‘product’ - social knowledge, the latter will not be produced. Then sociology would not develop ‘long causal chains’ and fields of scientifically feasible solutions and thus the erosion of political monopoly would be limited. Sociology and social sciences won’t become high-consensus, rapid-discovery science [Collins R. 2001]. The aforementioned history of risk analysis has other components that provide an example of the capacity of sociology to hold the progress of other sciences, if the knowledge they generate threatens the political monopoly on decision-making. The progress of risk analysis has not been terminated through a formal ban. Progress has been terminated due to the lack of a general risk theory and the general theory is missing because the social sciences (in particular – sociology) cannot develop it. Thus, namely sociology blocks the way for the advancement of research and prevents their ‘invasion’ in the field of political monopoly (acts). Risk researchers have noticed this ‘feature’ of social sciences (respectively – sociology) long ago: “The irony is that among risk researchers namely social scientists fail to reflect and incorporate in their analysis the very good inventions of other approaches to risk and to harness the full power of social sciences to enrich the studies of risk” [Kasperson, 1992: 156].

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT ON SOCIOLOGY The pressure on sociology Evidences that sociology performs the said ‘stabilizing function’ can be found in the science itself. First of all, in sociology is clearly noticeable a direct pressure to push the science on ‘safe distance’ from ‘political acts’. Interestingly, the pressure on sociology has no geographical, political, ideological and time limits – the same traces of it can be seen in the 20th century (the 50s) in China and in the early 21st century in the U.S. and Europe. In China, the political attack on sociology began with the accusation that through their orientation towards “social work” (!!!) the sociologists supported the Kuomintang government.2 Today, scientists in the U.S. and Europe also claim that scientific facts are regularly suppressed by those who exercize the power; social scientists are being persecuted for doing their jobs; politicians publicly expressed their views on “the sociological nabobs such as Comte, Durkheim, Weber” [Callinicos, 2007: 4]; scientific advisors say that “measures to reduce the number of scientists are very late”. The pressure gives the impression that “We live in times of extreme hostility to science demonstrated at all levels of American society” [Massey, 2006: 88]. In response to the unprecedented political pressure on science, Nobel laureates issued a joint statement in the United States, accusing the state administration of manipulating the process through which science enters the political decisions … by appointing professionally unqualified people or who have clear conflicts of interest to official positions in scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing scientific reports of their own government scientists; and simply refusing to seek independent scientific expertise. Of course the same problems are clearly visible in Europe, including the EU institutions. Naturally, scientific policies reflect the general political attitude towards sociology. Many European scientists believe that a major component of scientific policies is ‘holding of knowledge’ and ‘detachment’ of sociology (social sciences) of the political decision-making process mainly by determining the lines along which knowledge is created, but also by other means (systematic underfunding, reducing the number of scientists, etc.). Exactly the scientific policies turned sociology into ‘Cinderella’ in the family of Sciences. An important source of external impacts on sociology is the system for publication of research results. The famous experiment of Alan Sokal showed that “the selection of journal articles is highly dependent on political, social and cultural elements” [Bucchi, 2004: 95]. According to Sokal, his meaningless article was published because it met the ideological predispositions of the publishers. 2 Actually, the commitments of Chinese sociologists to “social work” consisted in research on: policies for preservation of minority groups; policies regarding the peasants; employment policy and social services policy [Yeo-Chi King, Tse-Sang, 1978: 42].

Furthermore, the Sokal experiment proves something else – publishing institutions can influence the work of scientists by subordinating the creation of knowledge to ‘ideological predispositions”. Recently, scientific policies used these opportunities to strengthen the control over social sciences by introducing a system for assessing the work of scientists that enhances the impact of publications by certain publishing institutions. The system covered a large number of countries and has a considerable potential to limit the influence of the scientific communities on the assessment of scientific results and to strengthen the impact of the ideological predispositions of publishing institutions. The expected consequences are obvious – a tendency to concentrate control over the production of knowledge; increasing the pressure to produce knowledge within certain ideological and political frameworks, etc. [Minev, 2013a] Apparently, there is a strong political interest in such changes because the system was introduced in many countries, despite the criticism and dissent of the majority of scientists and the risks that are likely to arise. Scientific policies probably would not be so ‘effective’ and would provoke more resistance if they were not assisted by researchers and networks of scientists in science itself. The activities of such scientists were noticed long ago and A. Gouldner called them “old people”, P. Bourdieu – “conservative ideologists”, St. Pinker – “nerds”, etc. But perhaps the most accurate description of their activities could be borrowed from the Polish sociologist Zibertowicz – “Anti-Development Interest Groups” because the main function of these groups (networks) of scientists is to constrain the development of science. These groups are well represented in many of the ‘scientific councils’ advising the scientific policies development or directly involved in the work of the policy-making centers. They also have a strong influence on the work of the scientific communities and organizations by transferring the external pressure within sociology, by demonstrating models of successful scientific careers or through direct debates on key issues (e.g. the distinction between social scientists and social workers – the unfading idea of Chinese communists from the 50s). For their part, ‘conservative ideologists’ receive a special ‘external’ (actually – political) support. A large part of the noticed by Merton “Matthew Effect” is probably due to such support for ‘conservative ideologists’. The pressure on sociology undoubtedly affects researchers. Sociologists are hardly protected from the change that N. Wiener noticed already in the 40s of the last century: “... degradation of the position of the scientist from independent thinker to a servant, who is employed in a factory of science and is morally irresponsible, has happened much faster and in far more devastating way than I expected. This subjugation of those who have to think to those who hold administrative power is destructive to the morale of the scientist” [Salomon, 1970: 308-309]. In sociology, the change indicated by Wiener is probably amplified by the evergreen “value neutrality principle” of science. At the end of the day, there is no reason to be surprised of the finding of Elias that sociologists feel a strong attachment to the existing social order.

Zombification of science In the 20th century, the strategy for control and holding of knowledge in sociology has given rise to a remarkable result – a specific ‘internal structure’ of sociology as a specialized and institutionalized system for production of knowledge. The main feature of the internal structure is that sociology does not possess basic attributes of science. Long ago was noticed the chaos that reigns in the ‘internal structure’ of sociology (which is defined [Cole, 2006] as a set of paradigms, theories and other accumulated knowledge, approaches, principles, disciplinary structure, rules of research work, including ways to evaluate the results and the work of scientists and therefore – the formation of the scientific careers of researchers, etc.). Sociology, for example, not only doesn’t have widely accepted general theory (central theoretical corpus, conceptual framework), but the history of this science is also marked by intensive struggles against theorizing and the need for theory (the statements that theory is useless or sociology is an ‘empirical science’ are quite popular among sociologists). Numerous warnings of the negative consequences of the lack of a central theoretical body (disintegration of science, opening the door to ideological influences, etc.) and many other good ideas are ignored. Attempts to introduce some order into the chaos encounter resistance and for more than a century there is no consensus in sociology on key elements of the internal structure. Actually, the chaos is functional – in sociology are fully applied the above requirements for restricting the intervention of science (knowledge) in the political process of decision making. Since sociology itself has no theoretical basis, this science cannot develop a general risk theory; ideological influences will not only be strong, but the entire process of knowledge creation will take place within the frame of dominant ideology; social knowledge will remain disintegrated and at a safe distance from power (how the knowledge generated in other social sciences can be integrated if sociology itself is disintegrated and there is a chaos). Control over the creation of knowledge through chaotic ‘internal structure’ of sociology is a technology that has been introduced for a long time, the work is done by part of the scientists themselves and is backed with arguments that make it difficult to be linked to the control over the production of knowledge and any criticism is immediately stigmatized through ideological and political labels. Standard research model Impacts on science and the state of its internal structure generate a ‘standard research model’, which reflects the conditions for restricting intervention in ‘political acts’. Although the study of ‘social issues’ (risks) is allowed, the pressure for detachment of science (knowledge) from the exercise of power directs research to the risks that have already passed political identification (restricts the autonomous scientific identification of risks); a-theoretical nature of science gives rise to primarily descriptive research,

analyses are superficial, any autonomous proposal of political measures to neutralize the risks (prescriptions) is considered unacceptable, etc. Turner notices the beginnings of this model already in the 20s of 20th century: a-theoricity, focus on narrow research issues, generation of descriptive data [Turner, 2006: 20]. But the most important feature of the model is the avoidance or ‘failure to analyse’ key segments of the social world that are particularly significant for the exercise of political monopoly on risk management. The model ‘holds back’ the production of knowledge in certain areas and directs it to others. Thus arises the effect that H. Simon has already noticed in the 50s – the production of irrelevant, unusable, unnecessary, useless knowledge [Simon, 1957: xxiv]. In summary, the model allows creation of knowledge by maintaining ignorance and nonknowledge about key aspects of the social reality. Besides restricting the intervention of knowledge in ‘political acts’ by creating ‘politicized knowledge’ and maintaining ignorance and nonknowledge about the way power is exercised, the model expands the area of free political decisions and actions, eliminating any restrictions on the decision making that might occur in free knowledge creation. By ‘tearing’ the links between political decisions and the negative effects thereof (social pathologies), the model creates a kind of ‘protective shell’ of political monopoly (power) against criticism. On this basis it becomes possible to maintain the legitimacy of power through the illusion of socially useful exercise of power. Briefly, through the standard model is realized the positive function of ignorance (and nonknowledge) that Moore and Tumin talk about – stabilization of the social order. Enforcing this function, sociology becomes one of the main pillars of the social order. Some authors long ago claimed that sociology had become a ‘maidservant of power’. THE IMPACT OF SOCIOLOGY ON SOCIETY Expansion of the Standard Research Model Because of the special position of sociology in the complex of social sciences, and perhaps for other reasons, the standard model of sociological research affects also other social sciences. St. Pinker noticed the dissemination of the Standard Model in social sciences and its massive influence on social studies: “Leading social researchers can say any absurdities as long as they comply with the Standard Model of social sciences. (...) it is hard to believe that the authors believe in what they say. Statements are made without regard to whether they are true. They are part of the catechism of our century. (...) Modern social comments remain based on archaic concepts...” [Pinker, 1997: 57]. Particularly noticeable (and dangerous) is the suppressing effect of sociology and its standard model on the economics since a significant part of the problem fields of economics (economic phenomena) cross the disciplinary boundaries between economics and sociology – either as cause or as effect of

the objects of economic observation (one of the presidents of the American Association of Economists argued that economists will become sociologists, if they are interested in the deepest causes of the phenomena that they observe). The suppressing effect of sociology has not changed radically with the development of economic sociology as a bridge between sociology and economics. Encountering the result of the suppressing effect, some economists (D. North, A. Sen, M. Olson, J. Hirshleifer, E. Ostrom and many others) are trying to overcome it by impressive attempts to bind the created knowledge with a wider range of social realities. However, economists still cannot do all the unfinished job of sociology, and the economic mainstream manages to ignore their attempts. For example, the economist Karl Gunnar Myrdal observed that a very useful and important exercise for scientists is to see clearly how the direction of their research efforts is determined by the society we live in, and especially by the political climate [Myrdal, 1977: 4]. And yet there is no branch in economics that addresses this issue; the branch where such study could be expected is sociology of knowledge. Similar example of the suppressing effect of sociology offer studies of inequalities. In 2005-2006 top economists conducted a large scale study of income distribution. Researchers noticed a rapid increase in inequality of incomes in some English speaking countries (20% of the population receive the bulk of the income and determine the savings, investments, the market and production). But researchers explicitly emphasized that inequality is not a problem of economic analysis and reached the conclusion that the concentration of income bears no risks to the financial sector. The financial crisis broke out 2 years later. It is not a coincidence that the causes of the financial crisis still remain unexplored and unknown â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the reasons go far beyond the traditional frameworks of financial and economic analyses. The suppressing effect of sociology in combination with other impacts on economics (mainly â&#x20AC;&#x201C; scientific policies) probably contributed to the distortion of the mainstream of economics. And one can hardly find a more striking example of holding (restriction and distortion) of the advancement of knowledge in order to prevent political acts (economic policies) from the intervention of knowledge. Therefore, economics students from 19 countries want courses to include analysis of the financial crash that so many economists failed to see coming. Students manifesto emphasizes the lack of intelectual diversity; restrained education and research and argues economics courses failing wider society by ignoring need to address 21st-century issues. It seems to me that this finding had to be made long ago and by leading sociologists. Of course, criticism of economics in the context of the crisis is not devoid of grounds, but a large part of the reason for this criticism is hidden in sociology, which managed to stay in the shade. The significant change will happen when students of sociology understand that they have reason to join their colleagues in economics â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the knowledge that sociology creates (and teaches) is also cut off from social realities. Sociology, for example, did not notice the crisis long after its political recognition. However, economists

will hardly be able to explore successfully the causes of the crisis, unless they become sociologists. The conclusion that follows is that the main social function of sociology is ‘preventive’ – limiting the conflicting interactions between power and social knowledge by adapting the creation of knowledge in social sciences to the requirements for “free” decision making and stability of the social order. Adaptation of the production of knowledge is expressed in its ‘politicizing’ by restriction, deformation and maintaining ignorance and nonknowledge about key aspects of social realities. Although the main components of the mechanism for the preventive function implementation are known, the mechanism and the function itself remain poorly studied. Hypertrophy of power The preventive function of sociology does not just limit the conflict between social knowledge and power, it not only protects the exercise of power through a shell of deformed knowledge. The preventive function forms vicious and dangerous to society relationship between knowledge and power; relationship that gives rise to an invisible process of hypertrophy of power. Holding back and distortion of social scientific knowledge tear the links between social realities and the scientific understanding thereof. The social world becomes increasingly unfamiliar, in other words – grows the perception of as chaos (unfamiliar order). Since the decline of social knowledge is related to the decline of authentic moral values, the result is that the two main resources to tackle uncertainty fall into crisis and become less and less effective. Occurs a process of increasing uncertainty or something like meta ignorance appears. This creates conditions (even demand) for hypertrophy of power, because its social significance increases as the main or even the only effective resource to tackle the fundamental (and growing) uncertainty in which societies are immersed. Furthermore, ‘freedom’ in carrying out ‘political acts’ (decision making) increases as social knowledge and moral values do not define ‘socially acceptable’ limits for decision making. The purposive rationality of power centers and groups that control societies remains the only, unconditional, unrestricted driver of the dynamics of societies. A hypertrophied version of Weber’s “domination of rational bureaucracy” is born – elitist ‘intelligent design’ of societies. But the driver of purposive group rationality is only the main goal of the ruling elites – stability of their power. Thus purposive rationality gives rise not only to actions of ‘restriction’ of social knowledge but also of accelerating the advancement of knowledge concerning nature, since the latter directly enhances power and catalyzes its expansion3.

3 A study in 2006-2007 found huge secret and uncontrolled funds in the U.S. used to fund secret scientific research aimed at creating a high-tech systems of warfare. “This is a huge industry, really huge industry. It is remarkable that such projects can be developed on an in-

The result is a tendency to hypertrophy of power (centralization, concentration, incredibly expanding fields of ‘free decisions and actions’ of power centers) and the effects of increased hypertrophy – deficit of democracy, concentration of income and wealth (increasing inequality) are consequences of all these changes. But there are also other effects – deep and growing gaps: between social realities and their social scientific representations (due to suppression and deformation of social scientific knowledge); deformation of the structure of general knowledge (due to ‘suppression’ of social scientific knowledge and rapid progress of knowledge in natural sciences) and growing ignorance; deterioration of the social functionality of moral values (due to structural changes in knowledge and the structure of moral values) etc. Changes in human intelligence All mentioned gaps (and many others not mentioned) can be summarized as reducing the capacity for social treatment of risks (capacity to solve problems – intelligence). Indeed, many notice strange changes where (as Ferruccio Rossi-Landi wrote) unnatural meanings begin to look like natural. Many of the “wilful blindness” cases presented by M. Heffernan are examples of the decline of intelligence at a group, institutional and state level. The reasons for this decline could be sought in the dynamics of fundamental social resources (components) of the capacity to solve problems – if those resources are experiencing crisis inevitably arises crisis of intelligence. Through the educational system the distorted structure of general knowledge (the lag behind of social knowledge) and the gap between social realities and social knowledge are transferred at individual and group levels, creating distortions in the intelligence of individuals and groups. Students of economics do not accidentally want a change of teaching in economics. But reducing the capacity to solve problems is much wider and more dangerous problem. At individual level, changes in intelligence particularly affect the social and emotional intelligence (social and emotional component of individual intelligence). L. Gallino, B. Barber and others write about infantilisation of the individuals aiming to prevent their transformation into citizens [Gallino, 2011: 56; Barber, 2007]. The ability of individuals to solve simple everyday life problems is also affected. There is also many empirical data for this process, but as the mechanism that gives rise to it is not well studied, the data remains somewhat obscure and does not provoke particular concern and appropriate action. By the way, in this respect also stands the question of the state of sociology and its links with other sciences (psychology, social psychology).

dustrial scale without anyone knowing what they actually are. This is an amazing achievement of social engineering.” [Broad, 2008, 4]. Several other sources also confirm the staggering scale of this type of “engineering”, for instance overwhelming secret projects that are developed by DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Project Agency).

Particularly important are the changes in intelligence of the groups that play a central role in the processing of risk. Infantilisation affects all. The intelligence of groups that control societies cannot avoid changes in knowledge and values, and the purpose which is a benchmark for group intelligence inevitably encourages exploitation of other “resources”: fraud, secrecy, ignorance, nonknowledge, amorality, etc. Therefore, the trajectory of social dynamics is formed by the purposive group rationality that shows signs of serious illness – a growing willful blindness. Decision makers are intentionally abusing the inadequacy of the created knowledge (the use of the wrong analysis for formulation and implementation of “austerity” policies is not the only case). Even formulation of adequate policies is becoming less possible because of changes in social knowledge – the “Manifesto of Appalled Economists” indicates that a number of economic concepts that serve as pillars of economic policies are just delusions. The growth of crime: individual, organized, corporate, institutional, governmental is the inevitable consequence of changes in intelligence of individuals, groups, institutions and societies. New risks “If there is such a thing as Durkheim’s collective consciousness on a global scale, it is probably best represented by the widely shared opinion that we are living in times of unprecedented danger. Although the odds of premature death or disability today are probably not bigger than ever before in human history, the dangers we face are unique in two aspects: they are mostly designed by humans and their impact threatens us collectively rather than individually”, writes St. Lyng [Lyng, 2008: 106]. Lyng has in mind the emergence of ‘new risks’ that have two important features – they threaten society as a whole, and are rather dangers than risks. The second feature reflects the deficit of knowledge that hinders social treatment of risks (timely identification, analysis, development of effective prevention or remedial systems). “New risks” cause more and more damage to communities and people and the low level of control over the risks stirs the perception of helplessness in the face unprecedented dangers. Researchers noticed that the risks are associated with a deficit of adequate knowledge but according to them the deficit of knowledge is due more to the “advancement of knowledge rather than its limitations” [Beck, 2001: 167; 1992: 34-35, Zinn, 2008: 184]. Therefore, they tend to seek a solution in ‘holding back’ the production of knowledge. This opinion ignores the gap between social science and natural science knowledge and is valid in terms of knowledge concerning nature, but is hardly valid for social knowledge. J. Ravetz points out the basic problem – if there is indeed a key issue in the debate on risk, it is the issue of power and more precisely – of knowledge, which merges with the power [Ravetz, 1971; 1990].

The merger of knowledge and power runs through that spectacular mechanism which is outlined in the previous points. And the effect of this mechanism is the process of reducing the intelligence on whose basis ‘political acts’ are effected. M. Heffernan has found a right expression: the mechanisms that make us blind to the world, put us in danger. We may think that our blindness makes us safer, but in fact it leaves us crippled, vulnerable and disempowered [Heffernan, 2012: 5]. Therefore, new risks are not just ‘new’ – the “revival” of old and long ago controlled risks is clearly noticed. The generator of new risks are distortions of knowledge (social and general) rather than its progress. The generator is a “projectoid” just in the sense of R. Dawkins – both intentional and unintentional phenomenon representing a social technology for fundamental control over social changes. The technology itself, however, remains unknown (as well as its consequences), because it is based on maintaining ignorance and nonknowledge. And that in itself gives rise to danger – dangers seem like the effect of ‘natural’, spontaneous changes (advancement of knowledge) but actually they are not. New risks are consequence of profound distortions of knowledge production and a sign of profound distortions in the trajectory of social dynamics. Some time ago, St. Hawking pointed dangers that are so great that it is better to seek conditions for life on another planet. In a lecture [Brussels, 2010] I. Wallerstein said that the most developed countries are entering a special period that will last until 2050 and may result in establishing a system of slavery without precedent in human history. L. Gallino believes that a civilization crisis is occurring [Gallino, 2011: 41-59]. Dangers originating from the gaps between social knowledge and knowledge in the field of natural sciences are growing. St. Hawking has many reasons to be afraid of the work on artificial intelligence. The combination of reduction of the human intellect with progress in the development of artificial intellect, creates not just risks but unexpected dangers. It is certain that at the present level of societal capacity to cope with risks the likelihood of useful exploitation of artificial intelligence is much less than the likelihood achievements to prove to be ‘new risk’ – a danger which is ‘democratic’ (damaging whole societies) and cannot be controlled. Empirical confirmations The above-described social (preventive) function of sociology can be tested empirically by case studies of social choices (choices of institutions). In particular, from the processes of ‘choice’ of a particular legal regulation, such as “Prohibition” in the United States and the rapid introduction of statutory prohibition of prostitution in many countries, the following scheme of failed social choices can be derived [di Mauro and Joffe, 2007; Epstein, 2006; Weitzer, 2007, 2010; Minev, 2013b]: 1. Premediated impacts of power centers (in this case – public institutions) on the creation of knowledge about the subject of social choice and the consequences of that choice. The target of impacts is sociological research.

Impacts stimulate the creation of certain – preferred – segments of knowledge and suppress the creation of knowledge that is judged undesirable. 2. Impacts on knowledge creation generate distortion of the created knowledge: low level of scientific validity; intentional ‘narrowness’ of scope; neglecting segments of social realities, etc. Thus central aspects of the subject of choice remain outside of the scope of established knowledge; the main outcomes of the social choice (the prohibition); the very fact of distortion of knowledge and the ways of distortion. 3. Knowledge distortions increase contradiction between research results (disputes between researchers intensify) as well as the uncertainty of the available knowledge and (stimulated) inconsistency and uncertainty of existing knowledge (‘politicizing’) enable the decision making centers to reject the knowledge that is not desirable, if created despite their intervention. Power centers have the opportunity to impose their preferred solutions. 4. Knowledge distortions simultaneously expand the use of moral based judgments and distort the results of these judgments. Thus exactly arises what some call “moral paroxysm”. 5. The combination of shortage of knowledge and compensational extensive use of judgments based on moral values is not unique to the cases examined – it occurs and has been observed in many other cases – for example, in formation of policies on stem cells, AIDS prevention and others [Buchanan et al., 2003]. In these cases, the debates and social choice (or the political process of decision making) are also not ‘nourished and steered (not directed and in this sense – not limited) by adequate knowledge and therefore – by adequate moral based judgments. But in the above-mentioned choices made by institutions (statutory prohibitions) ignorance is deliberately maintained, while in the latter cases the cause is ‘natural’ shortage of knowledge, due to the simple fact that the available knowledge at any given time is not sufficient (not advanced enough), but can be expected to be created or at least – there are no special and non-scientific obstacles to such knowledge to be created in the next period. The above observations actually outline the technology of control over social choices where some of the participants in the process choose inadequate institution without detecting they have been subjected to specific impact. These participants (at least some of them) believe that they had made a free and good choice. In fact, the power centers have led them to do something they would not have done if they had sufficient knowledge about the choice (its subject, its course and its consequences). Thus the “key issue” of Ravetz – the merger of knowledge and power stands out very clearly. The effect of the merger is a social choice that is not based on adequate knowledge and adequate moral judgment but is determined by the goal of a specific group rationality. Scientific policies also generate such effects, especially the impacts on sociology; they systematically distort the structure of the overall (general) scientific knowledge and observations of this effect rarely notice these distortions and also rarely care about the consequences of the distortions. 6

Sociology must be protected! If the willingness to provide ‘sociological protection’ of society is genuine, it is obvious that an agreement has to be reached on some issues. Firstly, the protection of society is to work for its release from the modern version of Weber’s “iron cage” of rational-bureaucratic over-control on them. Secondly, in order to perform such work sociology itself should be released from control and reject its ‘preventive’ social function. This means deep and profound changes – of the science itself (its internal structure); its relations with power (including the “useful exercise” recommended by Myrdal); permanent monitoring of the formation of scientific policies and their effects; decisive democratization and transition to post-academic (postnormal) science which has long been suggested by risk researchers [Funtowicz, Ravetz, 1990]; reconstruction of relations with other social sciences (‘opening’ as suggested by the Gulbenkian Commission) and possibly many more. If sociology does not take such action, the issue of ‘protecting the society’ will increasingly evolve into an issue of ‘saving the society’ and sociological opt out of saving will attain a nature of complicity in crimes against humanity. Sociology can influence in other ways, it can be useful to society and should try to achieve this. REFERENCES Barber, Benjamin. 2007. Consumed. How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Norton, New York. Beck, Ulrich. 2001. World Risk Society. Obsidian, Sofia. (In Bulgarian) Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Sage: London and Newbury Park, CA. Broad, William. 2008. Penetrating the code of secret military programs. – International Herald Tribune, 2 April. Bucchi, Massimiano. 2004. Science in Society. An Introduction to Social Studies of Science. Routledge. Buchanan, David, Shaw, Susan, Ford, Amy & Singer, Merrill. 2003. Empirical science meets moral panic: an analysis of the politics of needle exchange. – Journal of Public Health Policy, 24, 427-444. Callinicos, A. 2007. Social Theory. An Introduction. Second edition, Polity. Cole, Stephen (ed.). 2001. What’s Wrong with Sociology? Transactions Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Cole, Stephem. 2006. Disciplinary Knowledge Revisited: The Social Construction of Sociology. The American Sociologist, Summer. Collins, Randall. 2001. Why the Social Sciences Won’t Become High-Consensus, RapidDiscovery Science. – In: Cole, Stephen (ed.). What’s Wrong with Sociology. Transactions Publishers, New Jersey.

Di Mauro, Diane, & Joffe, Carole. 2007. The religious right and the reshaping of sexual policy: an examination of reproductive rights and sexuality education. Sexuality Research and Social Policy. – Journal of NSRC, 4 (1), 67–92. Epstein, Steven. 2006. The new attack on sexuality research: morality and the politics of knowledge production. Sexuality Research and Social Policy. – Journal of NSRC, 3(1), 1–12. Foucault, Michel. 2003. Society must be defended. LIK, Sofia. (In Bulgarian) Funtowicz, Silvio and Ravetz, Jerome. 1990. Global Environmental Issues and the Emergence of Second Order Science, EUR 12803 EN. Ispra, Italy: Joint Research Centre of the Commission of the European Communities. Gallino, Luciano, 2011. The economic crisis as a crisis of civilization. – In: Rethinking progress and securing future for all: what we can learn from crisis. Trends in social cohesion, No. 22, Council of Europe Publishing. Heffernan, Margaret. 2012. Wilful Blindness. Simon & Schuster. Kasperson, Roger. 1992. The Social Amplification of Risk: Progress in Developing an Integrative Framework. – In: Krimsky, Sheldon and Golding, Dominic (eds), Social Theories of Risk, Praeger. Lyng, Stephen. Edgework, Risk, and Uncertainty. – In: Zinn, Jens (ed.), Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty. An Introduction, Blackwell Publishing, 2008, p. 106 Massey, Douglas. 2006. Doing Social Science in Anti-Scientific Times. – The American Sociologist, Summer 2006. Minev, Douhomir. 2013a. Risks in Using Bibliometric Indicators for Performance Evaluation of Scientists. – In: International Journal “Information Theories and Applications”, Vol. 20, No 1. Minev, Douhomir. 2013b. How societies go where they do not wish – methods, interpretations and rationality of societies. Alya, Troyan. (In Bulgarian) Moore, Wilbert and Tumin, Melvin. 1949. Some Social Functions of Ignorance. – American Sociological Review, 14 (6); 787-795. Cit. after Gross, Matthias. 2010. Ignorance Surprise. – Science, Society and Ecological Design. MIT. Myrdal, Karl. 1977. Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations. London: Penguin. Pinker, Steven. 1997. How the Mind Works. Penguin Books. Ravetz, Jerome. 1971. Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Ravetz, Jerome. 1990. The Merger of Knowledge with Power. NY: Mansell. Salomon, Jean-Jacques. 1970. Science et politique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Simon, Herbert A. 1957. Administrative Behavior. A Study of Decision Making Process in Administrative Organization. The Macmillan Company, New York. Turner, Jonathan. 2006. American Sociology in Chaos: Differentiation without Integration. – The American Sociologist, Summer 2006. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1998. Utopistics of historical choices of the twenty-first century. New York: The New Press. Weitzer, Ronald. 2007. The social construction of sex trafficking: ideology and institutionalization of amoral crusade. – Politics & Society, 35, 447–475. Weitzer, Ronald.2010. The Mythology of Prostitution: Advocacy Research and Public Policy. – Sex Res. Soc. Policy, 2010, 7:15–29 (DOI 10.1007/s13178-010-0002-5). Yeo-Chi King, Ambrose, Tse-Sang, Wang. 1978. The Development and Death of Chinese Academic Sociology: A Chapter in the Sociology of Sociology. – Modern Asian Studies, (Cambridge Univ. Press), Vol. 12, No 42.

Zibertowicz, Andzei. 2005. Anti-Development Interest Groups. – Polish Sociological Review, 1 (149). Zinn, Jens. 2008. A Comparison of Sociological Theorizing on Risk and Uncertainty. – In: J.O. Zinn (ed.). Social Theories of Risk and Uncеrtainty. An Introduction. Blackwell Publ.

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

SOCIOLOGY

A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO SOCIAL SURVEY RESEARCH ON THE “SHADOW ECONOMY” Emilia Chengelova Abstract: The measurement of economic activities performed in violation or disregard of formal regulations has been the object of increased research interest in the last twenty years. This field of study is many-sided and has been illuminated to various degrees, but scholarly efforts have ultimately been aimed at establishing the relative share of shady activities within the official economy. This article offers a brief overview of the methods that have so far been applied within the frameworks of various paradigmatic approaches for the study and explanation of shady economic practices in Europe and the world. The author traces the epistemological and instrumental particularities of applying the sociological approach to the study of this category of economic activities. The article presents and grounds an original methodology for research on the “shadow economy” in referring to the experience of a Bulgarian research team working on measuring non-legitimate economic activities. The article argues that, due to the complex and internally contradictory nature of informal economic activities, their study requires the application of a holistic methodological approach. After applying this research strategy, the general conclusion is that the study of the shadow economy using sociological methods is expedient and constructive from a methodological point of view, both in epistemological terms and as regards the possibility it affords to construct and correct the national policies. JEL: E26, O17, D73

1. Notes on methodology 1.1. Approaches to conducting survey research on informal economic activities In the context of the globalizing world and the interconnectedness of national economies as highly interdependent systems, informal economic activities are considered to be a parallel economic reality affecting both the dynamism and development trends of those national economies and whole regions of the world, as well as economic growth on a worldwide scale. An analytical overview of the emergence and establishment of the topic of informal economy as a research field shows that in the last two decades shady economic activities have permanently become a focus of research interest. This is evidenced by the growing number of theoretical and empirically oriented

studies on the different aspects of informal economic activities. The International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have made it one of their constant priorities to conduct research on the informal economy. Initially, work on this topic was done by anthropologists and economist of world repute [Koch, 1980; Tanzi, 1982; Frey, 1983; Feige, 1990; Welfens, 1992; Schneider, 2002, 2005; 2007; 2011]; at a later stage, experts on transitology, political scientist; later, sociologists joined in the discussions [Grossman, 1989; Koryagina, 1990; Manusov, 1996; Glinkina, 1996; Shanin, 1999; Glinkina, 2001; Latov, 2000; 2001; Granovetter, 2002; Chavdarova, 2001; Yalamov, 2002, Chengelova, 2012, 2013]. In an epistemological aspect, each of the approaches and methods used has its advantages but also its obvious instrumental shortcomings; hence the knowledge obtained through them may be adequate to different degrees, i.e., it may deviate to some degree from the true picture. These differences in methods are largely due to the fact that they lean on different basic definitions of shadow economic activity â&#x20AC;&#x201C; here the greatest variation of definitions pertains to the inclusion or non-inclusion of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;black economyâ&#x20AC;? within the scope of researched shadow economic activities. Understandably, different choices on this issue would lead to different values of the estimates. These differences of assessments are additionally enhanced by the differing methodological approaches in constructing the research tools used for seeking information by specific traits. Thus, even when one and the same objective economic reality is being studied, the different methods used yield different estimates as to the levels of the shadow sector. An overview of the basic methodological approaches indicates that the different approaches, methods and concepts used correspond to different cognitive goals. Only in a rather small share of the studies do researchers look for knowledge about the society as a whole that might explain the nature of the informal economic activities. Most of the studies conducted within the EU are emphatically oriented to the perspective of administrative management and they are pursued in view of the needs to optimize the national statistical accounts and to specify the relative share of the shadow economy within the national economies of the EU (deductions from tax revenues and payment of national contributions to the EU budget). This is one of the important paradoxes of research on informal economic activities. Despite the great variety of aspects and forms of the informal economy, astoundingly, the efforts of most econometric measurements are intent on obtaining a single number: the range of the shadow sector in proportion to the GDP. The search for this single number creates many difficulties, both at the stage of designing the research tools and when interpreting the obtained empirical data. The present article intentionally disregards the specifics of researches by economists, transitologists and statisticians1. The object of analysis here 1 In the study of informal economic activities, four basis approaches are used: anthropological, sociological, statistical, and macro-economic. Within these approaches researchers

is the epistemological, cognitive and instrumental potential of Social Survey Research on informal economic activities, research based on a sociological system approach and that, through a scientifically grounded methodology and research techniques, uses direct (qualitative and quantitative) methods to collect empirical information and thereby reconstruct the reality under study. 1.2. The sociological approach as a Social Survey Research technology for the study of informal economic activities The sociological approach is essentially different from other ones mentioned. By its very nature, the sociological approach must go beyond the seeming obviousness of the facts and try to take the interweaving, empirically verifiable â&#x20AC;&#x153;grainsâ&#x20AC;? of truth in order to reconstruct the regularities, the essential characteristics and the persistent models of interaction between the subsystems of society. When applied specifically to the study of informal economic practices, this approach demonstrates its vast cognitive potential. The quantitative parameters of phenomena are indeed important, but they are interpreted here with a view to disclosing the nature, the causal determination of the informal economic activities, the specific functions of these activities in the framework of the social economic system as a whole, the incentives that drive social actors to take part in shadow activities, and the social economic consequences of the use of shadow practices. Thus, the sociological approach both captures the picture of the phenomenon (quantitative parameters) and interprets and enriches the ontological elements of the object of study. While other approaches mainly use quantitative data gathered through the national statistical offices, the sociological approach leans on the opinions and assessments of the concrete participants in economic processes. One might object that here lies the chief shortcoming of this approach: since it deals with opinions and value judgments, there is a risk that the information might be purposely distorted from the start, before we use it to reconstruct the processes under study. Such fears are not groundless, but only when violations have occurred respecting the methodological requirements for the theoretical design of the survey, respecting the field work and the subsequent statistical-mathematical processing of the aggregate empirical data. Unfortunately, the current practice of surveying is full of negative examples in this respect: 1) The social research on informal economic activities is fragmentary and narrow in scope, so that separate aspects of the problem are overstressed while other no less important elements remain outside the scope of research interest. This produces a distorted picture of the informal economy, which af-

elaborate relevant methods for measuring, studying and explaining shady economic reality. Across the wide variety of methods used, three large groups of methods for measuring and studying the shadow economy emerge: mediated, non-mediated and model methods. The fact that the different approaches and methods result in different assessments provokes serious thought (and partially mistrust) as to their epistemological and instrumental potential, as to their limitations, and the risk that they might produce distorted knowledge (thus becoming part of the global production of meta-ignorance, to use Minevâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s term [Minev, 2011].

terwards has serious consequences in respect to the formulation of national priorities and the construction of institutional environment. 2) Despite the experience in carrying out this type of research, there is still a serious lack of clarity with respect to the expediency of the methods used to gather empirical data. One or several quantitative methods are generally applied for obtaining primary data (mostly the face-to-face interview or the direct fill-in questionnaire survey). But the informal economy is a complex phenomenon ridden with inner contradictions and can neither be comprehended as a whole nor be explained through qualitative or quantitative methods alone. The solution would be to make a methodologically expedient combination of the two broad categories of methods, but unfortunately, examples of such a combined approach are rather an exception, while methodological treatments of these approaches are entirely missing. 3) Not rarely, the methods for collecting primary information are applied without the necessary grounding as to the epistemological relevance of the choice of methods. The use of various methods does not take into account the particularities and limitations of the potential sources of information, and there are many problems arising in the operationalization of concepts and their transformation into empirical indicators; the design of relevant research tools is problematic, as is likewise the subsequent gathering of primary information. 4) But the most serious misapplications and problems occur when interpreting the gathered information: the chaotic terminology resulting from the use of different concepts of informal economic activity recurs with new intensity at this stage. The data are interpreted arbitrarily, the direct conclusions drawn from these data are faulty, the final conclusions drawn are extreme and scientifically unfounded, and groundless comparisons are made. Given the existence of such serious methodological oversights, at least two questions logically arise: 1) Considering that the science of sociology and Social Survey Research has such a rich tradition of methodology, why are such numerous and serious mistakes being made in the study of informal economic activities? The problem lies first of all in the specific nature of the subject of research: it is heterogeneous, contradictory, dynamically developing and ambiguous. Secondly, while at the theoretical level the informal economy has been quite widely dealt with, so far only rare methodological studies have been made on the complex and multiple-component procedure of constructing methodologies and methods for empirical research on informal economic activities. The OECD handbooks for measuring informal labour, including informal employment, and some of the separate theoretical models of European researchers, can serve as a good foundation for developing methodologies, but they are not enough. Most researchers improvise, so that in conducting their surveys they â&#x20AC;&#x153;learn by doingâ&#x20AC;?. This shows that empirical researches on informal economic behaviour are still at the stage of experimentation and verification through practice. This field has still been poorly elaborated with respect to methodology, and there is a lack of methodologically grounded approaches that might substitute systematic and grounded research strategies in place of the fragmentariness and guess-work as to the right approach to use.

2) The second serious question in this situation is whether it is possible, using the methods and research procedures of the sociological approach, to collect reliable empirical information that should enable us to describe the quantitative and qualitative parameters of the informal economic activities. 2. A concrete methodological application that demonstrates the efficiency and expediency of the sociological approach in the study of informal economic practices The analysis of previous measurements of and studies on informal economic activities demonstrates that in order for an experimental social survey research in this field to be successful, it is necessary to precisely define the researcher’s standpoint on several key issues: i. What exactly is being studied: what is the object of the study; what concept or concepts of shadow activities will be used, what are the contents of these concepts, what are the basic manifestations and measures of informal activities. ii. What approaches and methods will be applied: a well-grounded choice of approaches must be made, together with a detailed description of the methods to be used for gathering primary empirical data and the methods for statistical-mathematical processing of these data. iii. What kind of information will be obtained: objective, concrete, measurable indicators of economic and financial activity of economic agents or information about the structure of social attitudes and assessments. iv. How will the obtained information be interpreted: the relative share of the informal economy as a percentage of the GDP will be calculated or the relative shares of shadow economic activities and of employers violating the regulations will be ascertained. This article is based on the findings of one of the Bulgarian research teams measuring and studying informal economic activities; we propose a methodological solution that has proven its efficacy. The approach has been developed and applied in the framework of the project2 Restriction and Prevention of the Informal Economy, conducted by the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA), in partnership with the CITUB (this abbreviation stands for the name of one of the biggest syndicate organisation: Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria – editor’s note) and with the financial support of Operational Programme Human Resource Development 2007-2013, co-funded by the EU Social Fund and the Republic of Bulgaria. The project’s research strategy is based on a holistically oriented methodology for survey research on informal economic activities.

The author of this article holds the position of a “key expert sociologist” in the framework of the cited project and in this capacity has developed the methodological approaches, described in this article, for measuring the attitudes, assessments and representations regarding informal economic activities in Bulgaria. 2

2.1. Basic methodological assumptions In the search for an optimal methodological solution, the following significant methodological assumptions have been made: First, it is assumed that informal economic activities are universal in nature. Since such activities are an objectively intrinsic characteristic of all modern societies, their existence in the economic life of changing Bulgarian society should be viewed as an objectively occurring feature. Informal practices are not sporadic, temporary conditions of societies in transformation – the practice of violating the official rules is the result of a new economic rationality that is a distinctive feature of the globalizing society today. Secondly, the existence of an informal part in the economy can be considered a function of intensified state intervention and excessive regulation by the state. But even when the state’s economic policy involves only moderate regulation and provides a favourable business environment, the informal sector still exists: it is typical for self-employed persons, it is prevalent among employed immigrants, and it often occurs among housewives and other vulnerable groups on the labour market. Hence, informal economy must be seen from a different angle: simply calling it a social “sore” and something “undesirable” would lead the debate in the wrong direction3. Evidently the informal sector is present in the social-economic tissue in a complex and imperative way. To use Polanyi and Granovetter’s terms, economic relations are inevitably built into the social structure. But informality is an inherent property, an inner characteristic of human societies: it is a principle in the construction of social groups; and in the course of institutionalization of norms and rules, set as written laws and regulations, it tends to become “socialized” by adopting conventional forms, becoming codified and becoming part of the official code of socially desirable behaviour (in all aspects: economic, political, social, moral, cultural, familial, etc.). But informality continues to be latent beneath the surface of socially acceptable behaviour. Thirdly, interpreting informal economic activities as a social-economic “ulcer” is correct yet one-sided. It is believed that when informal practices attain 40 or 50 % of the GDP, serious risks arise for the stability of the social-economic system, and the policies relevant to the pillars of social solidity are infringed upon. Together with this, informal economic activities perform important social functions (as compensations, as social buffers and shock absorbers). Thus, from an instrumental aspect, it would be more reasonable to view informal activities in their functional complexity; we should see the obvious: informality is a universal and inevitable characteristic of modern economies.

Researches in the last thirty years have convincingly shown that the informal economy is something unavoidable. But there are different models for interpreting the contents of the concept of informal economy, and differing assessments have been made as to the proportion of shady activities within the total national economies and in the world. [Koch & Grupp, 1980; Tanzi, 1982; Frey & Weck, 1983; Feige, 1990; Welfens, 1992; Schneider, 2002, 2007]. These issues raise yet another challenge to economic science. 3

Fourthly, the beginning of the new century marks a sort of turning point in the research on informal economy in Bulgaria, and particularly in presentday Bulgarian society in course of transformation. This increased interest has greatly been influenced by international research on transformation processes in Southeast Europe, particularly in Bulgaria. The theoretical work of transitologists, their attempts at finding a conceptual key to explaining the trends, has certainly contributed to the construction of schemas for interpretation [Grossman, 1982; Burawoy, 1985, 1992; Brenner, 1989; Mingione, 1991; Sik, 1992; Stark, 1992; Frydman & Rapaczinsky, 1994]. The explanatory models are situated in the continuum between neo-liberal, neo-classical and neo-institutional paradigmatic approaches. The formation of the shadow sector as an implicit inbuilt element of social and economic life in the economies of countries is directly correlated to the nature and contents of the preceding path of development of those countries [North, 1990; Stark, 1992], which explains the differences in the scope and range of the concrete informal practices in the post-socialist economies [Grossman, 1982; Koryagina, 1990; Manusov, 1996; Glinkina, 1996, 2001; Latov, 2000; Radaev, 2000, 2001; Chavdarova, 2001; Stoeva, 2009]. Fifth, an additional difficulty in defining informal economic activities stems from the fact that in the specialized literature on the topic there is no agreement as to defining the structural purpose of informal economic activities. At first, studies on informal practices referred to an informal sector – which implied informal labour, i.e., occupations lying outside the official state forms. Assuming that informal practices in their totality constitute a certain sector of the economy of a given country, this sector would have to be viewed as separate from and contrary to the officially existing economic sectors. Viewing informal economic activities as a separate sector of economic life would entail bunching together activities that cannot be put under the same category (for instance, different kinds of services, small craft activities, domestic production, etc.). Such an interpretation would mean putting all informal activities in one common sector and seeing them as opposed to all the other sectors of a national economy. The unifying feature of this kind of activities could be that they are all carried out in violation of the official rules. But even this trait does not justify putting them all into a common sector: for they are present in all the different economic spheres and appear under multiple and varying aspects. That is why, from the perspective of Social Survey Research on informal economic activities, it would be more rational to perceive these as a parallel economic reality that penetrates all spheres and sectors of social and economic life and performs specific social and economic functions (depending on the nature of a specific production, the particularities of the kinds of work done in these spheres, and the types of production and exchange that informal activities duplicate). Sixth, there is the issue of grounding the correct use of the term “shadow economy”4. The theoretical construct “shadow economy” has been elaborated 4 In world and European research practice at least 25 different terms are used, all of which claim to designate the same informal economic activities. These terms include: informal

and affirmed among researchers by the Austrian macro-economist F. Schneider [Schneider, 2002]. The construct is taken to be synonymous with the terms “grey economy” and “hidden economy”. To put it quite briefly, the theoretical construct “shadow economy” should be understood as referring to the part of the economy that is carried out in the shadow of the law – such are the economic activities that are legally permissible and for which a legislative basis has been created (laws, sub-laws, statutes and other normative regulations) but in the course of whose performance various kinds of violations are committed. The effects of these violations are social-economic but in most cases the violations are liable to administrative penalties alone; only in occasional cases are they liable to criminal prosecution. The process of carrying out shadow activities primarily involves performing activities that are legally permissible, but some of them involve activities that can be prosecuted under criminal law. What is essential about these economic activities is that they are parasitic and are made possible by the deficits of the laws (omissions, logical inconsistencies, the possibility of ambiguous interpretation, or simply “loopholes” left in the laws on purpose). That is why it would be more precise to say these activities lie in the shadow of the law. Judging by the origin, nature, functions and mechanisms of these activities, the shadow economy is an alternative economic reality that is socially legitimate and functions as a reflection and “shadow” of the official, formal economy. The core of the shadow economy consists in the economy that is under the protection of political umbrellas provided at the highest level. This core may conventionally be called an economy of “trusted people”5. Unlike other more widely used terms, the construct “shadow economy” is most comprehensive with respect to the measurable indicators by which we may estimate the scope of the activities that violate the formal rules and remain unregistered by the state statistics. This quality of the term makes it optimal for use in survey study of economic activities pursued parallel to the official economy. „Shadow economy” can be defined as a set of economic activities allowed by the law and which a) are conducted by economic entities that are either legal or exist unofficially, b) are carried out in committing some or

economy, shadow economy, grey, hidden, black, coloured, underground, secret, shady, invisible, unofficial, unregistered, unregulated, marginal, double, dual, parallel, irregular, non-market, alternative, domestic, social, communal, ex-polar. 5 Only some Russian scholars refer to this type of informal activities [Latov, 2000; Radaev, 2000], calling it rosy economy; they use the term to designate that specific segment of economic activities that, in the course and as a result of the large-scale transformation of the postsocialist regulations, have been entrusted to a small group of privileged people. In addition to acquiring exceptional rights/privileges of access to the national resources and production, these people are exempt from the laws, and the risk of penalties is reduced to nil for them; their activities are enshrouded in comfortable political and governmental protection. It is a debated issue whether these economic entities conduct only legally permissible activities (informal but legal) or whether they carry out criminal activities as well (trading in arms, in strategic raw materials, production and traffic of drugs, human trafficking, etc.).

systematic violations of the formal rules of economic activity (rules relative to taxation, social insurance and healthcare laws) – only in some cases are the violations punishable under criminal law. This definition posits two delimiting criteria. The first criterion is related to identifying economic entities in legal terms. According to this criterion, economic entities are divided into officially functioning ones (formally registered economic units, visible to the law and to statistics) and informal ones (not registered and invisible to the trade registers but in fact existent and active). The second criterion refers to the legitimacy of the economic activities under law and considers whether the regulations and rules of business are abided by. Under this criterion economic entities differ in a specific feature of the economic activity they conduct – whether it is permissible or not permissible under law - but also by the extent to which they abide by taxation rules, by the laws of taxation, social insurance and healthcare insurance. In this context informal entities can be divided into two basic types: legal informal ones (entities that carry out activities permissible under law) and illegal informal ones (entities that deal in criminal activities). As concerns research, an important epistemological consequence of adopting this definition of shadow economy is that in studies based on it the collected opinions and assessments concern legal activities. Also falling under the category of “shadow economy” are those activities that are permissible under law but are conducted by entities without official registration. Falling outside the topic of research are the opinions and assessments concerning activities that are criminal according to Bulgarian law – these are considered to be “black economy”. Also falling outside the scope of research are the economic activities that are traditionally considered to be part of the subsistence economy (domestic or social economy). The analysis of the nature and functions of informal economic activities indicates that it would be expedient to add three more distinguishing criteria to the two above-mentioned ones – this would make the first two more concrete and make it possible to distinguish the structural elements of the “shadow economy” construct. i. The first of these additional criteria takes into account types of violations of law and distinguishes between entities according to the types of violations they commit (labour law, social insurance law, financial law); ii. The second criterion refers to the frequency of violations: it distinguishes occasional violations and systematic ones. iii. The third criterion takes into account the consequences and effects of the violations – whether they impact on society as a whole, on the process of redistribution, on the social systems, on the individuals at present or on the individuals in the future. As a result of the assumptions we have made, the system of distinguishing criteria finally appears thus: 1) The status of economic entities under law; 2) The legitimacy of economic activities; 3) Types of violations;

4) Frequency of violations; 5) Consequences and effects of violations. According to these five criteria, the structure of the “shadow economy” construct may have five sets of divisions: 1) According to the first criterion shadow economy is divided into grey and hidden economy; 2) According to the second criterion shadow economy is divided into legal and semi-legal; 3) The third criterion distinguishes between grey capital, grey production, grey labour relations, grey turnover, grey profit, grey market for end products and commodities; 4) According to the fourth criterion employers committing violations of the formal rules may be divided into occasional offenders or systematic offenders; 5) The fifth criterion classifies the shadow economy according to its effects: these may be entirely negative, somewhat positive and mixed (in cases when effects that are positive for part of society necessarily entail negative effects for other elements of the social system). In themselves, the five criteria are a theoretical tool for conducting systematic analyses of the construct “shadow economy”. But as regards building a methodology for survey research on the “shadow economy”, it is necessary further on to operationalize the construct and present it in a form that can be subjected to survey research. The first degree of concreteness would require a clear distinction between grey economic entities and hidden ones. The second degree of concreteness involves operationalizing the two concepts – grey or hidden – from the perspective of their actual, empirically identifiable economic behaviour. 2.2. The nature of the holistic approach to constructing a methodology of Social Survey Research on the “shadow economy” A starting point in designing a methodology for this research is considered to be the grounding, elaboration and application of a holistic research approach aimed at identifying 1) the main features of the shadow economy (its nature, forms, models, and mechanisms of functioning); 2) the sensitivity and tolerance of society to it and the willingness of different categories of the Bulgarian population to take part in shady economic activities; and 3) the actual economic behaviour of the population, including the involvement of people in shady practices. The holistic approach to the methodology of Social Survey Research is elaborated through a conscious effort to overcome the fragmentary nature, subjectivism, and initially posited limitations of scientific research in certain areas of knowledge. Applying a holistic approach to methodology of Social Survey Research signifies: i. Encompassing all components that have structure-defining functions with regard to the object of study and are absolutely necessary for the existence and functioning of the object as an integral whole and as a developing system;

ii. Identifying the mutual connections between these structure-defining elements, describing the areas of interaction between elements and the consequences of this interaction for the functioning of the object as a system on one hand and, on the other hand, for the functioning of the society at large as a system (of which this object of study is a component); iii. Identifying the optimal methodological approaches and solutions to be used for creating conditions and ensuring guarantees for obtaining reliable and representative information about the object under study. By applying the holistic approach in this particular case, it is possible: 1) To ascertain the real facts about the economic behaviour of Bulgarians and to measure the degree of the population’s involvement in shady economic practices; 2) To study those representations, attitudes and assessments of various categories of the population that, as a whole, shape the image of the shadow economy as perceived by Bulgarians; 3) To study the structure of public opinion about the informal economy (stereotypes and models of thinking about the economy) and to identify people’s preferred models of doing business (observing the regulations or doing business outside the law); 4) To ascertain the extent of shady economic practices; this study is tested for the basic paradigms of the “rational economic man” and the “social man”, including motives for working in the grey sector, ratio of rationality and irrationality in deciding to work in the shady sector; 5) In this perspective, we seek to explain why the shady economic sector is attractive to people and why Bulgarian employers and the population in general are willing to use shady economic practices (motives for taking part in shady practices); 6) To study the sensitivity of society to shady practices and to test the possible approaches (measures) for reducing the grey sector of the economy; In deciding on the scope of the research, the basic differentiating criterion is taken to be the place of individuals within the structure of production activities and relationships. According to this logic, the basic carriers of empirical data on the shadow economy are: 1) the population, which holds and expresses the widespread stereotypes about the shadow economy and the models of how it is assessed and experienced; 2) the employers, who in their quality of economic agents carry out economic activity on the territory of the country and play a potentially active role in starting and maintaining shadow economic practices; and 3) the economically active persons, who, as employed, tend to become (consciously or not) part of the grey economic practices, which makes them a reliable source of information about the grey sector of the economy in the country. The designed set of sociological Social Surveys based on the holistic approach described above was implemented in the period 2010-2013. This yielded an impressive amount of empirical databases drawn from three basic sources: the adult population of Bulgaria, the employers, and the hired employees in Bulgaria. The analysis of the data is the topic of other publications. The

empirical data from the surveys6 demonstrate that the informal economic practices and in particular the “shadow economy” are a complexly organized subsystem of social-economic relations that is tightly interwoven with the structure of transforming Bulgarian society. Regardless of the differences of assessments as to the relative share of shady economic practices, what is predominant in public opinion is the assessment model according to which in the period 2010-2013 about one third of economic activities in Bulgaria were carried out in violation of the formal (official) rules. In a comparative European perspective, this places Bulgaria in one of the top positions by relative share of its shadow economy as a proportion of the GDP. Survey research has shown that not only is the size of shady practices very large in our country, but so also is the range of these practices. As a result the annual losses for society are calculated to attain about 13 billion BGN. The research conducted using the devised research strategy has confirmed that the “shadow economy” is perceived as a socially legitimated and economically expedient parallel economic reality, which consists in a set of well-thought-out life strategies for not complying with, neutralizing, or adapting, the formal rules. In the context of the transformation processes taking place in Bulgarian society, shady economic practices are assessed to be a necessary social-economic “compromise”, which covers the costs of the transition to a market economy and of the neo-liberal models of management. REFERENCES Глинкина, С. П. 1996. Теневая экономика в России. Москва: ИМЭПИ РАН. 237 с. Глинкина, С. П. 2001. Теневая экономика в глобализирующем мире. – Проблема прогнозирования, № 4: 64–73. Грановеттер, М. 2002. Экономическое действие и социальная структура: проблема укорененности. – Экономическая социология (електронний журнал), том 3, март, № 3: 44–58. Корягина, Т. И. 1990. Теневая экономика в СССР. – Вопросы экономики, № 3: 110– 120. Латов, Ю. В. 2000. Экономика преступлений и наказаний: тридцатилетний юбилей. – Истоки. Вып., 4: 228–270. Латов, Ю. В. 2001. Экономика вне закона. Очерки по теории и истории теневой экономики. Москва: МОНФ, сс. 23–35. Манусов, B. M. 1996. Неформальная экономика: механизмы функционирования и территориальная организация. Москва: Институт проблем рынка – РАН. 218 с. Минев, Д. 2011. Социология, власт и общества. Незнанието, което разрушава света на хората. Троян. Радаев В. 2001. Новый институциональный подход и деформализация правил российской экономики. Препринт WP1/2001/01, Серия WP1, Институциональные проблемы российской экономики. Москва.

6 This refers to studies conducted in the framework of the project Restriction and Prevention of the Informal Economy, conducted in the period 2010-2013.

Радаев В. 2000. Теневая экономика в СССР/России: основные сегменты и динамика. – Восток, № 1. Скритата икономика в България след икономическата криза. 2011. – Policy Brief, N28. София, Център за изследване на демокрацията. 28 с. Стоева, С. 2009. Социологическо разследване не феномена хищническа култура? – В: Социологията пред предизвикателството на различията. Сборник, посветен на 30-годишнината на катедра „Социология“. София: УИ „Св. Климент Охридски“, 2001: 273–294. Худокормов, А. Г. 2009. Экономическая теория. Новейшие течения Запада. Москва: Инфра. 211 с. Чавдарова, Т. 2001. Неформалната икономика. София: Лик, 2001. 339 с. Ченгелова, Е. 2012. „Човешките измерения“ в сивата икономика. Работодатели и наемен труд в търсене на оптимални модули за оцеляване в криза. – В: Глобалната криза в България – социално-икономически и демографски проблеми и хуманитарни аспекти. София: Фондация „Човещина“, с. 162–171. Ченгелова, Е. 2013. Холистичен подход за изграждане на методология за емпирично изследване на „икономиката в сянка“. Дисертационен труд за присъждане на научната степен „Доктор на социологическите науки“. София: Академично издателство „Проф. Марин Дринов“, 381 с. ISBN 978954-322-596-5. Шанин, Т. 1999. Неформальная экономика. Россия и мир. Ред. Т. Шанина. Москва: Логос. 576 с. Ялъмов, Т. 2002. Сивата икономика в информационния сектор. София: Фондация „Приложни изследвания и комуникации“. 118 с. Brenner, R. 1989. Economic backwardness in Eastern Europe in light of developments of the West. – In: Chirot, D. (Ed.). The Origins of Backwardness...,pp. 15-52. Burawoy, M. and J. Lukacs. 1985. Mythologies of Work: A comparison in Firms in State Socialism and Advanced capitalism. – American Sociological Review, 50. December: 723-737. Feige E. 1990. Defining and Estimating Underground and Informal Economies: The New Institutional Economics Approach. – World Development, Vol. 18, No 7: 9891002. Frey В., H. Weck. 1983. What Produces Hidden Economy? An International Crosssection Analysis. – Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 49, No 3: 822-832. Frydman, R. & A. Rapaczinsky. 1994. Privatization in Eastern Europe: Is the State Withering Away? London: Central European University Press. Grossman, G. Informal Personal Incomes and Outlays of the Soviet Urban Population. – In: Portes, A., M. Castells, L. Benton (eds.). Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Koch, J. V., Grupp S. E. The economics of drug control policies. The economics of crime. Cambridge (Mass.), 1980, pp. 339-351. Mingione, E. 1991. Fragmented Societies. A Sociology of Economic Life Beyond the Market Paradigm. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. North, D. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: University Press. Schneider, F. 2002. The Value Added of Underground Activities: Size and Measurement of the Shadow Economies of 110 Countries all over the World. – Johannes Kepler University of Linz, June, 2002, pp. 16-56. Schneider, F. 2005. Shadow Economies of 145 countries all over the World: What Do We Know? CREMA, Paper No.13.

Schneider, Fr. 2007. Shadow Economies and Corruption in Transitiopn Countries: Some Preliminary Findings, рp. 4-6. Schneider, Fr. 2011. The Shadow Economy and Shadow Economy Labour Force: What Do We (Not) Know. Inc.Marketing & Communications, рp. 2-9. Sik, E. 1992. From Second Economy to Informal Economy: The Hungarian case. Program on Central and Eastern Europe, Working Paper Series N23, Harvard University. Stark, D. 1992. Path Dependence and Privatization Strategies in East Central Europe. – East European Politics and Societies, 6: 17-51. Tanzi, V. 1982. A second (and more skeptical) look at the underground economy in the United States. – In: Tanzi, V. (ed.). The Underground Economy in the United States and Abroad. Welfens, P. 1992. The Socialist Shadow Economy: Causes, Characteristics, and Role for Systemic Reforms. – Economic Systems, Vol. 16, No. l: 113-147.

Correspondence address: Emilia Chengelova – Assoc. Prof. PhD Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 13А, Moskovska Str. 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria Phone: 0885 127 094; 0888 547 207 e-mail: chengelova@gmail.com

Papers of BAS Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 1, No 1, 2014

SOCIOLOGY

INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON CONFLICTS IN BULGARIAN FIRMS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Mayiana Mitevska-Encheva Abstract: The research analysis is oriented towards the establishment of the dynamics of organizational culture and its relation to organizational conflicts in two different periods of time. The purpose of this analysis is to identify dominant value practices. A comparative analysis of two groups of people, working in the information technology, mechatronics and automation sectors over a period of five years - 612 people in 2008 and 580 people in 2012, is presented. Data are processed with the standard package statistical programs SPSS-16. A frequency distribution of data is made as well as correlation and regression analyses. Conclusions about the essential differences in the choice of dominant value orientation are drawn. The analysis and evaluation of the results of this survey reveal trends in value orientation in the organization and makes possible their change, consolidation and development. Key words: organizational culture, types of organizational conflicts.

Introduction Organizational culture is defined as a set of norms, values, attitudes that can predict future behaviours, forms of communication, and can also be a prerequisite for effective management of the organization. Organizational culture is considered a multidimensional concept, which includes different components that remain stable for short periods of time, and is subject to changes and development [Ilieva, 2006: 7-13]. Some of the indicators of the organizational culture status are the types of conflicts in the workplace, which in its turn gives grounds to test the types of conflicts, as well as the impact of organizational culture on them. In this sense, the conflicts, which are rooted in different dominant value orientations, would correlate to a different type of organizational culture. Causes for emerging conflicts are explained by frustration and the presence of divergence of interests and values [Rigio, 2006: 331-339]. The study analyses the types of organizational culture and conflicts. Constructs allow their adequate measuring and reporting back of the impact they

have on a number of organizational factors. Thus, sound psychometric and quantitative tools can be applied. Also, through a package of statistical programs, those variables with the greatest impact expected to be deduced. Culture in an organization can be considered as microculture that interacts directly with the culture medium [Morgan, 1986: 23-45]. Macroculture is made up of national and international cultures, political, economic, educational and other systems. Microculture is expressed through a system of beliefs, values, norms, organizational structure, etc. Macroculture and microculture of the organizational environment are in a state of continuous communication. Values, beliefs and convictions relate meaningfully to the organization (groups, activities, etc.), as well as to the environment (competitors, local community, etc.) [Karabelyova, 2011: 25-46]. The interactions of organizational culture with cultural systems such as the national and the individual, determine much of its appearance. In this sense, organizational culture corresponds to the internal and external environmental factors and is subject to change. This gives grounds for a comparative analysis of two different time periods â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2008 and 2012. Frequency distribution is used to track down the average arithmetic and standard deviations for the types of organizational culture and conflicts, as well as to reveal their specificity. Significant relationships and those variables that have the strongest deterministic role in different time stages are deduced via correlation analysis. Regression analysis reveals the main factors of influence of organizational culture on the types of conflicts in the organization. Data were processed with the standard package statistical programs SPSS- 16. The object of this research is organizational culture and conflicts for different time periods: in 2008 - 612 respondents, and in 2012 - 580 people, working in the field of mechatronics and information technologies in Bulgarian organizations. Sample. Respondents were divided into groups depending on the studied demographics: gender, age, status in the hierarchy of the organization, experience in organization and general service as well as the number of people in the work group. Women (63.3%) were approximately two times more than men (36.7 %). Depending on the position in the organization: managers - 15.8%, and executives - 84.2%. According to the experience on the specific workplace, respondents are divided into three groups: up to 2 years - 35.5%, from 2 to 7 years - 30.4%; over 7 years - 34.1%, and based on total service: up to 2 years - 16% ; up to 5 years - 15.9%, up to 10 years - 16.3% ; up to 15 years - 16.6%; up to 20 years - 16.3% ; over 20 years - 15.9%. Depending on the number of members in the group: up to 6 people - 33.8%, from 7 to 13 people - 32.2%; over 13 people - 30.0%. METHODS Research methods allow the establishment of causal and consequential links of culture with conflicts within the organization: the method used is â&#x20AC;&#x153;FOCUSâ&#x20AC;? [Van Muijen et al., 1996]. According to the latter, organizational culture is seen as a model of competing values, including four value orientations: towards objectives, support, innovations and rules. Individual dimensions of organizational

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culture are determined in 35 statements. The questionnaire includes an assignment to assess how typical of the organization, according to the respondents, are certain allegations. Typical items for rules culture are: “How often does management emphasize on stability in the functioning of the organization” or “How often is work carried out according to specific procedures?” The second component consists of five statements that describe support-oriented culture, e.g. “How many people are given new opportunities after they have experienced failure?” or “How often are managers interested in and concerned about the personal problems of their employees?”:. The third subscale outlines the organizational culture of innovations and includes the statements: “How many people use new ways of working?” or “How often does your organization look for new markets for existing products?”. The last subscale, describing goals culture includes statements such as: “How many people are responsible for implementing their own purposes?” or “How often the remuneration you get depends on your performance?” For the purpose of the study, Likert’s 6-point scale has been used, ranging from “never” to “always”. The reliability of the questionnaire is very high (a = 0.86), individual subscales show good reliability as per Cronbah’s a coefficient and are similar to those of other researchers who have applied the questionnaire [Ilieva, 2006: 128-138; Karabelyova, 2011: 139-149]. The set of tools that are used has been developed under the leadership of Afzala Rahim [Rahim, 1997], where the types of conflicts are divided into three dimensions: cross-group, intra-group and roles conflicts. It is composed of 21 statements that reveal respectively the presence or absence of conflict. The first subscale consists of 6 items, characterizing cross-group conflict. Cross-group conflicts are revealed in statements such as: “There is understanding between my group and the other groups” or “Other groups withhold information, necessary for the performance of our tasks.” The following statements can be pointed out for intragroup conflicts research: “In my group there is harmony and cooperation” or “We argue a lot about who does what in our group.” The third subscale determines role conflicts and is marked by rationales such as: “I like the tasks I perform more than the other tasks performed in the organization“ or “My skills are fully used in this job”. High degree of agreement is related to the lack of conflicts and is an indicator of personal harmony, group cohesion and cooperation among the groups. Low values reveal the presence of conflicts on a particular dimension. For each type of conflict 7 items are set and there are some reversible among them. Evaluations are given after Likert’s 5- point scale, starting from 1 - completely disagree, to 5 - completely agree. The reliability of the questionnaire is very high (a = 0.89). Individual subscales show good reliability according to Kronbah’s coefficient a. It is assumed that organizational culture, characterized by the choice of communication, would have a direct impact on the types of organizational conflicts. It is expected to confirm, in this way, the assumption that organizational culture and conflicts play an important role in the organization. It is also assumed that the effect of the different types of organizational culture and conflicts over different periods of time undergoes certain changes.

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4.30 4.20 4.10 4.00 3.90 2008 year

3.80

2012 year

3.70 3.60 3.50 3.40 3.30

Rules

Innovation

Goal

Support

Fig. 1. Descriptive statistics of the types organizational culture in 2008 and 2012

In order to prove or disprove deduced hypotheses, the differences in the types of organizational culture and conflicts for specific years in the particular area of activity are researched; relationships between types of organizational culture and conflicts are established; the types of organizational culture that have an impact on the types of organizational conflicts are analyzed, and a comparative analysis over the years is carried out. With the help of the methods used in this research, the degree of influence of certain factors is estimated as well as the reasons of substantial importance. “X” indicates the average statistics values, “sd”- the standard deviation. Over the years, changes in the dominant value preferences have been registered. The results of the descriptive statistics (see Fig. 1) attribute the highest values to support culture for 2008 (x = 4.26; sd = 0.99) in contrast to the dominant values of the respondents in 2012, where goals culture is ranking first at the choice of behavior (x = 4.01; sd = 0.67), orientation to support ranks last (x = 3.66; sd = 1.04). The standard deviation is in its highest range. This shows significant variations and fluctuations when choosing in the range “never” to “always”. The differences between the dominance of support culture and goals culture in 2008 are very small (x = 4.25; sd = 0.57). These results suggest a transition to a market type culture in the researched period. It may be assumed that this is a consequence of changes in the external environment. Combining market-oriented values with values, oriented towards human relationships, is replaced by the dominant preferences towards seeking a competitive edge, dynamics, innovations, and creativity. Support culture is characterized with aspiration for creating a sense of members’ satisfaction in the organization, an atmosphere of mutual understanding, empathy and tolerance, while prevalent in goals culture are high demands on people regarding their work, high personal commitment and responsibility for their tasks, as well as the fact that their work is controlled by rules and proce-

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dures. Power is associated with the position and status in the organization, not with the individual. Innovations culture is characterized by a pronounced emphasis towards applying new methods of management and production while, at the same time, suggesting flexibility and adaptation to the requirements of the situation. However, according to the results of this study there is a decline towards this type of orientation in 2012 (x = 3.78; sd = 0.81). The comparative analysis of preferences for certain organizational values shows that with innovations (x = 4.15; sd = 0.73) - for 2008 and (x = 3.78; sd = 0.81) - for 2012 and those of the support (x = 4.26; sd = 0.99) for 2008 and (x = 3.66; sd = 1.04) the difference is most considerable. There is a decreasing tendency in the aspiration to preserve tradition, and orientation is directed towards the external environment (x = 4.20; sd = 0.73) - for 2012 and (x = 3.84; sd = 0.78) - for 2008. Orientation is primarily aimed at achieving the strategic objectives of the organization. Dominating values are more related to the development of human potential than to the creation of atmosphere of mutual understanding and assistance. Conflict situations are an indicator of the accepted values and behaviour, as well as of the dominant type of organizational culture. They are one of the important factors for the functioning of an organization. Therefore, the way that conflicts are perceived has been interpreted. The scales used for studying the various types of organizational conflicts are three â&#x20AC;&#x201C; inter-group, intra-group and roles. In order to determine the type of conflict employees in researched organizations collide most frequently with, a descriptive statistics has been elaborated. Regardless of the researched period, the values of role conflict: (x = 4.037; sd = 0.708) - for 2008, and (x = 4.037; sd = 0.708) - for 2012, are most pronouncedly manifested, followed by intragroup conflict with a relatively large difference: (x = 3.259; sd = 0.431) - for 2008, and (x = 3.335; sd = 0.451) - for 2012. Crossgroup conflict, without any change in the selection over the years, occupies the final position: (x = 3.182; sd = 0.407) - for 2008, and (x = 3.445; sd = 0.561) - for 2012. It should be borne in mind that the set of tools about the types of conflicts measures the perceptions about the lack of certain type of conflicts rather than their availability (see Fig. 2).

5 4 3

2008

2012

1 0

Intergroup

Intragroup

Role

Fig. 2. Descriptive statistics of the types organizational culture in 2008 and 2012

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Role conflicts are characterized by personality frustrating situations, mostly related to misunderstanding the place and role of a personality in the group and organization, which leads to blocking the intention to achieve organizational goals. The contradictions that arise between the different role positions and personalities, together with the uncertainty and excess tension in the course of the activity, lead to role conflicts. Discrepancies in the initial positive and unrealistic expectations when starting the job can also cause personal disagreements. However, due to the fact that this method measures the absence, rather than the presence of conflicts, we can claim that susceptibility to role conflicts is low. According to research data role contradictions are more likely to cause aspiration for higher and faster results. Clarity on the role in the group and the place of an individual in the organization reduces the degree of personal conflicts. The preferences of a particular individual and of the groups are supposed to be directed at avoiding tension and severe stress situations. Values such as cooperation and good interpersonal communication make possible asserting one’s opinion as well as participation in the work activities of the group. This way of perceiving work paves the way for positive emotions and managing criticism and conflict in an appropriate way. Perhaps this is a good approach to create mechanisms for resolving conflicts. Inter-group conflicts arise from stated differences, related to power, competition and lack of tolerance for the other groups in the organization. The survey results show low values of this type of contradictions for both periods that have been researched. Interpersonal misunderstandings lie at the heart of the conflicts in the studied organizations. However, they fail to develop into crossgroup ones. In order to confirm or refute deduced conclusions, and because of the presence of other typical characteristics of organizational culture and conflicts, establishing the degree of connectivity and influence among the variables was sought after. Data from the research are subjected to correlation analysis. The coefficient of correlation is the quantitative measure - “r”, while “p” is guaranteed probability, which ensures the correctness of the evaluation in the way of scholastic error. According to research data, regardless of the research period there is a positive correlation between role conflict and each of the organizational cultures (see Table 1). Although not very high, the correlation with goal culture (r = 0.111; p < 0.01) is most pronounced, followed by support culture (r = 0.104; p < 0.05) and rule culture (r = 0.080; p < 0.05) for 2008. The focus on collaboration turns competitiveness into advantage. Values of communication in the organization are manifested in maintaining the integrity of the organization and mastering the intergroup conflicts (r = – 0.089; p < 0.05). According to respondents, the main task of working in the organization is that it leads to efficiency, good results and profit. The main prerequisites for success are associated with adopting high degrees of control, aiming at success on the market, which in its turn maintains, to a large degree, tolerance in the organization during the research periods of time.

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Table 1 Correlations between types of organizational culture and the types of conflictsin 2008 and 2012 Year

2008

2012

Conflicts

Intergroup

Intragroup

Role

Rules Innovations Goals Support Rules Innovations Goals

-0.036 -0.044 -0.089* -0.051 0.055 0.075 -0.116

-0.001 0.019 -0.052 -0.011 -0.069 -0.060 -0.030

0.080* 0.069 0.111** 0.104* 0.327** 0.191* 0.028

Support

0.186

-0042

0.337**

Culture

***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p <0.05

In 2008, compared to 2012, there is no significant correlation with goals culture. A new positive correlation appears though – that of role conflict with innovations culture (r = 0.191; p < 0.01). Once again, for the same period of time, other significant correlations between the types of organizational culture and conflicts are not reported. The essence of role conflict is in the competition between an individual and a group or between particular individuals for limited resources, power, and prestige and good reputation. Typical of innovations culture are the basic prerequisites defining innovative initiatives as a key to success. This correlation is assumed to be logical, on the one hand, because of the specifics of work - mechatronics, automation, information technologies, and on the other hand – because of dynamic changes in the external environment, associated with the development and implementation of new products and services in this area, are observed. Based on correlation analysis data, it can be stated that a tendency for the development of prerequisites where customers are seen as partners is adopted. Qualities such as loyalty and willingness to participate in organizational life are displayed (r = 0.337; p < 0.01). Core values require strengthening of the control system, reliability of work performance, speed and efficiency (r = 0.327; p < 0.01). Thus, in the long run, the organization is directing towards building stability and predictability using support, keeping the rules and spirit of enterprise. In order to verify the hypothesis of the impact of culture on conflicts in the organization, a regression analysis has been carried out, examining the processes of influence of certain factors on a number of random variables with an existing linear relationship between them. Beta (β) is the regression coefficient which measures the changes occurring in the phenomenon-consequence on the phenomenon-factor in order to demonstrate cause-and- effect relationship and dependence, “ΔR2” is the percentage of variation, “p” is the level of significance, no more than 0.05.

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Table 2 Influence of the types of organizational culture on the types of conflicts in 2008 and 2012 Culture Conflict

Rules

Innovations

Goal

Support

Year

2008г.

2012г.

2008г.

2012г.

2008г.

2012г.

2008г.

2012г.

ΔR2

0.005

0.077

0.004

0.058

0.023

-0.022

0.012

0.084

β=0.016; p >0.05

β=-.072; p >0.05

β-0.079; p >0.05

Inter- β=-.058; group p>0.05

β -0.107; β=-0.148; β=-0.076; β=0.067; p <0.05 p >0.05 p >0.05 p >0.05

Intra- β=0.002; β=-0.079; β=0.029; β=0.137; β=-0.042; β=0.047; β=-0.008; β=0.019; group p>0.05 p>0.05 p>0.05 p >0.05 p>0.05 p>0.05 p >0.05 p >0.05

Role

β=0.094; β=0.350; β=0.080; β=0.260; β=0.144; β=0.033; β = 0 . 1 2 3 ; β=0.307; p>0.05 p<0.05 p>0.05 p<0.05 p<0.05 p >0.05 p <0.05 p <0.05

The results of the regression analysis (see Table 2) confirm the partially raised hypothesis. Data show that organizational culture in the first stage of the research – in 2008, performs its integrating function when implementing intergroup processes when it is necessary to achieve certain organizational and personal goals (β = – 0. 107, p < 0.05 ). Afzal’s methodology explores the absence of conflicts in particular. Therefore, intergroup and role conflicts are not an obstacle to solving organizational problems (β = 0. 144, p < 0.05). Support culture plays an integrating role both in the first stage - 2008 (β= 0. 123, p < 0.05), and in the second one - in 2012 (β = 0.307, p < 0.05). Compliance with the rules defines the specific place of the individual in general organizational context and enables the display of individual qualities to a greater extent in 2008 than in 2012, when competitive antagonism (β = 0. 350, p < 0.05) stands out. Role conflicts are not presented as a serious obstacle to the emergence of innovative ideas and the performance of entrepreneurial tasks (β = 0. 260, p < 0.05). Therefore, the types of organizational culture that influence the types of conflict contribute to a better interpersonal communication, empathy and support. They can be used for an adequate display of emotions and for the implementation of innovative ideas, and they can also help observing the organizational rules and goals. The formulated hypothesis about the influence of the types of organizational culture on the types of conflicts has been confirmed partially - registered value orientations are, for the most part, with an average degree of impact. The percentage of variation is not large. Organizational culture determines mostly role conflicts.

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Conclusions The following conclusions can be drawn, based on obtained results: In the researched organizations and years, dominant cultural value preferences towards goals culture have been observed. The picture is similar for the two periods of the research. In 2012, unlike 2008, a tendency for value orientation towards innovations management was observed as well as continuous improvement. At relatively lower values of intergroup conflict in researched organizations, the following conclusion was drawn - most of the conflicts are not due to inaccurate or poorly regulated distribution of the resources. Situations that would cause instability between the groups are rare. Estimates are that it would hardly lead to intensifying the differences and to an abrupt change of value preferences in both organizational norms and the willingness for integration. Data from correlation analysis of the types of organizational culture and conflicts for the two periods of the research show a tendency towards creating a dynamic work environment, associated with entrepreneurial and creative activity that focuses on observing rules and attention to well-being in interpersonal relations in the long run. Based on the conducted regression analysis, the following conclusions can be drawn: statistically significant indicators of the impact of the types of organizational culture on conflicts are displayed on the second stage of the research period (in 2012). No organizational culture influences on intragroup conflicts have been observed at any time stage of the research. This fact is probably related to the sustainable characteristics of the perceptions of the organizational environment. It has been established that all types of organizational culture have their influence on role conflicts. This is registered more clearly in 2012 with rules, innovations and support cultures, and in 2008 with goals culture and support culture. Goals culture influences two of the types of organizational conflicts inter-group and role conflicts, but only in the first period of the study – in 2008. Support culture determines role conflicts significantly, regardless of the stages of the research. In the end, it can be concluded that an emphasis is put not only on the ongoing processes in the organization, but on the formation of effective interpersonal support as well, which probably helps to find an adequate response to the unexpected changes outside the organization. REFERENCES Велев, E. 2010. Постмодерна информационна среда и съвременно изкуство. София: За буквите. 227 с. Гарванова, М. 2008. Изменчивост и стабилност на ценностите на българските бизнесмени (1995–2005 г.). – В: П. Димитров (съст.). Сборник научни доклади. V-ти национален конгрес по психология, София 31 октомври – 2 ноември 2008 г. С., ИК „Изток–Запад“, с. 437–446. Дебрюне, Н. 2012. Социализация на частни археологически колекции в България 1995– 2011. София: За буквите – О писменехъ. 154 с.

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Correspondence address: Mayiana Mitevska-Encheva – Associate Professor University of Library Studies and Informational Technologies Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 119, Tsarigradsko shosse Blvd Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: majana@abv.bg