Imaginary Historical Pattern of Family and a Model for Construction of Political and Social Organizations—Extended Family (Zadruga) in Bulgaria

Abstract

The notion of “zadruga” (named by Vuk Karadjić in 1818) was introduced in the scientific research literature, as well as in the social and political discourse, of the then young Balkan countries in the 19th century to mark the multitude of historical forms under which the “complex family organization” was known among the South-Slavic people in the region. The young Bulgarian science adopted this term in ethnographic studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bulgarian scientists, lawyers, and researchers of customary law norms attempted to implement some of the features of this family model in modern Bulgarian legislation. In the period between the two world wars, the nascent cooperative movement in the agrarian sector also used the model of the “partnership” to justify its organization. This paper analyzes similar attempts to use scientific descriptions of the zadruga in the construction of various social and economic associations in Bulgaria during the interwar period. It also analyses the attempts of the new communist leaders to use the traditions of the pre-modern society in terms of communal living in zadruga through the imposition of a cooperative system, and the nationalization of the arable land in the first years under the totalitarian system following the Second World War. Part of the Bulgarian scientific community and Bulgarian ethnography has been involved in these attempts since the early 1950s.