The collection of articles “Wandering Ideas on the Paths of Humanities. Studies in Folkloristics, Cultural Anthropology and Slavistics” is dedicated to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Katya Mihaylova, a prominent contemporary Bulgarian scholar of Slavistics, and to her important contributions over the last four decades in the fields of folklore studies, cultural anthropology and ethnology. It includes articles by scholars from various fields of humanities at over 50 research institutes and university departments in Bulgaria and abroad. Dr. Mihaylova has been working together with many of them either on several research projects, or on editorial boards, international commissions and associations.
The 81 articles are published in the original languages in which they were written and organized in 14 sections. Most themes correlate with Dr. Katya Mihaylova’s fields of research such as: myth, archetype and folkloric text; images and symbols in folklore; calendar rituals and festivities; folk songs, epic songs and performance; folk religion; official and folkloric hagiography; history, collective memory and folklore; contemporary ideologies, politics and identities; power and opposition during socialism and post-socialism; regional specifics and identities; borders, migrations and cultural heritage; digital culture and folklore; history, present state and research fields of Slavic folkloristics.
The collection represents many contemporary research trends concerning problems of folklore studies, cultural anthropology, ethnology and Slavistics in a number of European countries. With its richness of themes and interdisciplinary character it will be of interest to the specialists in humanities and social sciences as well as to a broader circle of readers.