Culture of Bulgaria

A number of ancient civilizations, including the Thracians, ancient Greeks, Scythians, Celts, ancient Romans, Goths (Ostrogoths and Visigoths), Slavs (East and West Slavs), Varangians and the Bulgars have left their mark on the culture, history and heritage of Bulgaria. Due to this great variety of influences, Bulgaria has adopted many unusual traditions. Thracian artifacts include numerous temples, tombs, golden treasures and ancient rites and rituals, while the Bulgars have left traces of their heritage in statehood, early architecture, music and dances. Thracian rituals such as the Tryphon Zarezan which is dedicated to Saint Tryphon of Campsada, Kukeri and Martenitsa are to this day kept alive in the modern Bulgarian culture. The oldest treasure of worked gold in the world, dating back to the 5th millennium BC, comes from the site of the Varna Necropolis.

Kukeri in Razlog
Bulgaria functioned as a cultural hub of Slavic Europe during much of the Middle Ages, exerting considerable literary and cultural influence over the Eastern Orthodox Slavic world by means of the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools. Bulgaria also gave the world the Cyrillic script, the second most widely used alphabet and sixth most-used writing system in the world, which originated in these two schools in the tenth century.[2]

Bulgaria’s contribution to humanity continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with individuals such as John Atanasoff — a United States citizen of Bulgarian and British descent, regarded as the father of the digital computer. A number of noted opera-singers (Nicolai Ghiaurov, Boris Christoff, Raina Kabaivanska, Ghena Dimitrova, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Vesselina Kasarova), pianist Alexis Weissenberg, and successful artists (Christo, Pascin, Vladimir Dimitrov) popularized the culture of Bulgaria abroad.

Music
Main article: Music of Bulgaria

Gadulka, a traditional folk instrument.
Bulgaria has a long-standing musical tradition dating to the early Middle Ages. One of the earliest known composers of Medieval Europe, Yoan Kukuzel (ca. 1280–1360), became famous for his work Polieleion of the Bulgarian Woman. About 90 of his works have survived. Kukuzel also reformed the Byzantine musical writing system, and became known as The Angel-voiced for his singing abilities.

The tradition of church singing in Bulgaria is more than thousand years old. In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church there are two traditions of church singing – Eastern monodic (one-voice) singing and choral (polyphonic). The Eastern monodic singing observes the tradition of Greek and Byzantine music as well as the requirements of the eight-voices polyphonic canon of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The second tradition is the choral church music, established during the nineteenth century, when in Bulgaria enters the influence of Russian polyphonic choral church music. Many Bulgarian composers (Dobri Hristov, Petar Dinev, etc.) create their works in the spirit of Russian polyphony. Today Orthodox music is alive and is performed both during church worship services and at concerts by secular choirs and soloists. Contemporary Bulgarian worldwide recognized choirs and singers in whose repertoire permanently takes place the orthodox music are: Yoan Kukuzel Choir, Plovdiv Boys’ Choir ‘Stefka Blagoeva’, Sofia Boys’ Choir, Madrigal Sofia Choir, Sofia Orthodox Choir, Sofia Priest Choir, etc., worldwide famous opera singers Boris Christoff and Nicola Ghiuselev.

The distinctive sound of Bulgarian folk music comes partly from the asymmetric rhythms, harmony and polyphony, such as the use of close intervals like the major second and the singing of a drone accompaniment underneath the melody, especially common in songs from the Shopluk region in Western Bulgaria and the Pirin region.

Musical instruments (also characteristic of the whole Balkan region) include gaida гайда (bagpipe), kaval кавал (rim-blown flute), zurna or zurla зурна (another woodwind, similar to oboe typical among Roma), tambura тамбура (long-necked lute), gadulka гъдулка (bowed instrument held upright).

The gaida of Bulgaria is worthy of its own subsection. In Bulgaria the gaida has been a long symbol of the country and its heritage, and is one of the more well-known instruments of the country. The gaida most widely used is the Thracian gaida. There is in the Rhodope Mountains the deep-sounding kaba gaida. In the north, common of Dobrudzha and the Vlachs there is the dzhura gaida. Also in the Strandzha region near the border with Turkey there is the Strandzha gaida. The bag itself is made of a goat skin turned inside out, and most often the rims of the different parts of the instrument – chanter and drone pipe – have a piece of horn on it.

Dances have complex steps matching the rhythms, and are often fast. Most are circle-dances or line dances called horo; but some are done singly or in pairs.

Although traditional music and dance are not popular among Bulgarian city youth, they are often performed at weddings, and generally in countryside festivals. They are also performed in Bulgaria and abroad by amateur and professional performing artists and choirs.

Regional folk musical styles abound in Bulgaria. Northern Bulgaria, Dobruja, Shopluk, Thrace, Strandzha, Macedonia and Rhodopes – all have distinctive sounds. Much of traditional folk music revolved around holidays like Christmas, New Year’s Day, midsummer, and the Feast of St. Lazarus, as well as the Strandzha region’s unusual Nestinarstvo rites on May 21.

Several world-renowned troupes perform Bulgarian folk music, including the State Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances, founded by Philip Koutev (1903-1982), Trio Bulgarka and the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, who are featured, among others, on the anthologies titled Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, volume 2 of which received a Grammy Award in 1989.

One internationally known artist, Valya Balkanska, sang the song Izlel e Delyu Haydutin, which was chosen to be part of the Voyager Golden Record selection of music sent into space in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir also known as Mystery of Bulgarian voices has also attained a considerable degree of fame.