Spreading CULTure on BORDer regions

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Best Practices Manual - SCULTBORD Project

Scultbord was thought to be a meeting point among six different European institutions: a Spanish Regional Government, a Greek Municipality, a European Association of Border Regions, a Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce, a Hungarian non‐profit Development Agency on a border region and a Portuguese Foundation. Six different profiles, from six different geographical places but linked by fact of being on borders.

Robert Schuman said that frontiers are the scars of the History, and it is true that History cannot be rubbed. But the drawbacks of the old frontiers can become opportunities when living in Europe without borders. In fact, there are no longer physical barriers, but cultural barriers still exist. Only when these obstacles disappear, Europe will get an integrate development.

Culture is the most powerful weapon to give Europe social cohesion and to create a common space free of the prejudices between old neighbours. Regions near the frontiers need to know about the culture of the other countries because that is a first step to collaborate without misunderstandings.

Scultbord has been a project built through five workshops: Évora, Portugal (November 2010); Kavala, Greece (September 2011); Mérida, Spain (October 2011); Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria (May 2012); Szeged, Hungary (June 2012). The AEBR (Association of European Border Regions) has been the sixth column of this project, spreading the information and acting as a link with all the partners. As it was planned at the project, this Best Practises Manual collects not only the cultural activities organized by partners, but also some other examples an experiences which have been carried out by other institutions in their regions. These examples have got a linking element among them: Events and activities focused on adult population to spread the culture of the other country, the culture of our neighbours.

Perhaps some of those examples are difficult to be transferred to other places in Europe, but there are always some ideas that could be implemented everywhere. That was the aim of the project: Try to make our experiences useful for other regions.

This Best Practices Manual is available (pdf) sending an e-mail to: scultbord@gmail.com

Published: 31st July 2012

Wednesday 18 July 2012

4th Workshop in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria)

Bulgarian and Local Culture focused in History, Language, Orthodox Christianity and Folklore

On the first day of the project workshop, the participants

learned about the Bulgarian wonders of nature,

history and culture.

Bulgaria with an area of 111.000 km and a population

about 7 millions, offers a lot of

UNESCO World Heritages. The population has

been higher in former times, but due to the fact

that a lot of educated young people left Bulgaria it

has declined by the last years. In Blagoevgrad you

will find the opposite: Due to its 2 universities, the

American and the University of Blagoevgrad, the

young generation in this city is very high.

Bulgaria as a crossroad of ancient civilizations like Thracians, Romans, Slavs and Bulgarians, experienced a lot of wars in the past. This country is the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, developed in Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools during the 10th century. The 24th May is celebrated for Bulgarian alphabetic.

On the second day the participants learnt about the traditional culture of Bulgaria. Mrs. Mariella Bogdanova, ethnologist, told about her experiences in tradition by showing some examples of her family's life. She showed with a huge proud her traditional skirt, which was passing from generation to generation within her family. This skirt lets her remember from where she is coming. On 1st March the people of Bulgaria gift their friends and relatives with Martenitsa. On this particular day the Bulgarians have the custom of putting Martenitsa on their dresses. They are worn on clothing, or around the wrist or neck, until the wearer sees a stork or swallow returning from migration, or a blossoming tree, and then removes the Martenitsa and hangs it on a blossoming tree. Baba Marta, the name of this special day, represents the ending of stale winter and arrival of spring. 3rd March is the National Day of Bulgaria on which the Independence Day of Bulgaria is celebrated.

One unique Bulgarian custom is “Lazarka”. This name is given to little girls, participating in the rituals on “Lazarovden” - a celebration dedicated to nature and life’s rebirth. The name Lazarisa symbols health and long life. On the last Saturday before Easter all Lazarki go around the village, enter in every house and sing songs to each family member. There is a different song for the lass, the lad, the girl, the child, the host, the shepherd and the ploughman. This tradition can be seen only in Bulgaria.