The project continues joint research projects «Balkan and Baltic Holiness – Modern Religiosity and National Identity» (BAN-EAN, 2015-2017), «Sacral Space – Holy Places and Local Traditions (Bulgaria and Estonia)» (BAN-EAN, 2012-2014), «Folklore and identity in the EU – the case of Bulgaria and Estonia» (BAN-EAN, 2009-2011) and «Balkan and Baltic States in United Europe: History, Religions, and Cultures» (BAN-EAN, 2006-2008), developed under the direction of Ekaterina Anastasova and Mare Kõiva.

The project will expand and enlarge existing contacts between the Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, BAS and the Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, which in recent years have fruitful joint cooperation in the field of the study of contemporary cultural and social processes in Bulgaria and Estonia in a new perspective. In the frame of the bilateral project will be continued research about important subtopics (monasteries as nodes of traditions; new religious movements, etc.).

The project is aimed to the study the place of a folklore culture in the state paradigms in Bulgaria and Estonia, as well as the processes of building of local identity (so-called 'local revival').

Comparative character of the project will allow underlying of general and different trends in folklore manifestation in the two countries on the basis of new fieldwork data, as well as the development of empirical, methodological and analytical capabilities in the field of Folklore studies in the Bulgarian and Estonian sciences.

Joint publication:
The Yearbook of Balkan and Baltic Studies (YBBS)