This article deals with the changes in Bulgarian culture after the fall of the Communist regime in Bulgaria in 1989. The first sections sketch the state of the Bulgarian culture and society during the later years of the communism. They describe the change in official ideology, i.e. the return to nationalism. The controversial role of the Communist regime in the modernization process of society is analyzed, with its simultaneous modernization and counter-modernization heritage. Then we shift to the changes in society and culture that have taken place since the fall of the regime. Attention is focused on the new mass culture, the embodiment of the value crisis in which the post-Communist Bulgarian society is located. The radical transformations in the field of the so-called 'high' culture are examined, especially the financial difficulties and the overall change in the social status of arts and culture. The basic trauma of the Bulgarian culture embodied in the constantly returning feeling of being a cultural by-product of the West is brought out. The article concludes that Bulgarian post-Communist culture has failed to create a more complex and flexible image of the "Bulgarian" that can use the energies of globalization without feeling threatened by disintegration.
The current research focuses on the investigation of shrubland vegetation in Dragoman municipality. The study is motivated by the willingness of the authors to check the shrubland habitats' territorial extent and their importance to ecosystem processes, following the increased degree of succession over the last three decades. On the other hand, governmental subsidizing has been common for the last decade, leading to a clearance of lands with shrubs. Shrublands were studied through the application of the Braun-Blanquet approach and were defined by the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) classification. One main habitat type with three subtypes have been defined. Those are the Subcontinental and continental deciduous thickets (F3.24) that covers the largest area, Peri-Pannonic dwarf almond scrub (F3.24122), Moesian oriental hornbeam thickets (F3.2431), Moesian lilac thickets (F3.2432), covering a total area of 52.32 km2. Secondary succession has to be considered among the main reasons for shrubland distribution. The lower number of grazing animals and forest clearings act as boosters for this ecological process. Large areas in Dragoman municipality are characterized also by shallow soils that are unable to sustain forest vegetation, thus giving way to shrubs.
The current research focuses on the investigation of shrubland vegetation in Dragoman municipality. The study is motivated by the willingness of the authors to check the shrubland habitats' territorial extent and their importance to ecosystem processes, following the increased degree of succession over the last three decades. On the other hand, governmental subsidizing has been common for the last decade, leading to a clearance of lands with shrubs. Shrublands were studied through the application of the Braun-Blanquet approach and were defined by the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) classification. One main habitat type with three subtypes have been defined. Those are the Subcontinental and continental deciduous thickets (F3.24) that covers the largest area, Peri-Pannonic dwarf almond scrub (F3.24122), Moesian oriental hornbeam thickets (F3.2431), Moesian lilac thickets (F3.2432), covering a total area of 52.32 km2. Secondary succession has to be considered among the main reasons for shrubland distribution. The lower number of grazing animals and forest clearings act as boosters for this ecological process. Large areas in Dragoman municipality are characterized also by shallow soils that are unable to sustain forest vegetation, thus giving way to shrubs.
[Aim]To analyse the biogeographic patterns of Temperate Deciduous Forests (TDFs) in Western Eurasia based on different life-forms and forests layers and explore their relationships with the current climate, Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) climate and topography. ; [Location] Western Eurasia. ; [Methods] We delimited nine regions encompassing the variability of TDFs in Western Eurasia and collected 1000 vegetation plots from each. We deconstructed the plant communities into three layers, tree, shrub and floor. We used (i) generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) to analyse the influence of current climate, historical climate and topography on species richness by accounting for regional effects and (ii) redundancy analysis (RDA) with variance partitioning to describe the variation in life forms along abiotic gradients. The three forest layers were analysed jointly and separately. ; [Results] The Balkans, Alps and Carpathians appeared to be the richest in plant species, whereas the British Isles and the Hyrcanian region were the poorest. Annual temperature range and annual mean temperature were the best predictors of species richness for the whole dataset and for the shrub layer. The tree layer richness was mainly explained by the annual temperature range and by elevation, whereas the forest floor richness was more related to the annual temperature range and the annual mean temperature differences between the LGM and current climate. The current climate was the main predictor of the composition of the whole community, the tree layer and the floor layer, while the shrub layer was also influenced by historical climate. ; [Main conclusions] Our overview of the diversity of temperate deciduous forests in Western Eurasia demonstrates different patterns and drivers across life-forms and forest layers. While the diversity of trees is mainly linked to current climatic conditions, the shrub layer is also driven by postglacial-glacial climatic stability, suggesting a different origin from forest trees. ; The authors are indebted to the custodians of the EVA databases for providing the vegetation-plot data, and to all the scientists who sampled these plots. MC, IK, PN and CM were funded by grant no. 19-28491X of the Czech Science Foundation and JL, IB, JAC and CM by grant no. IT936-16 of the Basque Government. The data used for this survey have been extracted with the permission of the EVA (European Vegetation Archive) and the Hyrcanian Forest Vegetation Database. ; Peer reviewed