http://www/jean.cuisenier.free.fr Europe as culture Odysseus' navigations French country houses A journey threw Balkans J.C.'s bibliography and biography
EUROPE
AS CULTURE
  THE TERRITORY AND THE MEANING OF THE PLACE :
(texte français: cliquez ici)   A church and a fortress

 

In the same way, a construction like the church of Bansko (Bulgaria) proceeds from a real challenge, both religious and political. Its design, structure, materials, are those of a real fortress.
INTRODUCTION
FOREIGN LOOK, INNER LOOK
TECHNIQUES, EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGES
TERRITORY AND MEANING OF THE PLACE
1 Places have a life
2 A refuge for heroes
3

A church and a fortress

4 A dwelling house and a bastion
5 Giving sense to places
KINSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION
CUSTOM, CEREMONIAL AND RITE
TALE, LEGEND, ART OF NARRATION
EPIC, DEPHTS OF HISTORY
WHAT IS CALLED VAMPIRE
IMAGINE AND THINK THE NEXT WORLD
Church of Bansko (Bulgaria) : tower and fortified outer walls pierced with loopholes.
 
A three meters high massive curtain wall, built of stones inserted from place to place in a plane tree structure (...). Two entrances barred with heavy oak doors, defended by two loopholes disposed on each side to enfilade the street and cross the fires. Inside, a high square tower with loopholes, too, situated in such a way that from its top one can see the plain of the Mesta up to a great distance and the gardens and orchards up to the forest and montain. Situated in such a way that it dominates the network of neighbouring streets and their habitations and permits, through the loopholre, to defend the access to the two wall doors. In the middle, a vast and high stone building, the church, bordered with a wooden galllery. This architectural complex is unique in this part of the Balkans : each constitutive part and element has a signiffication and most original meanings deposited here can be deciphered today by means of most common cultural codes (...). Very strong reasons must have presided to such a construction in the Otttoman timers. Many people in Bulgarian still wonder at it. The Turkish regime forbid the construction of buildings destined to worship use whose height exceeded that of ordinary houses. It prohibited the erection of towers used as belfries, reserving to mosque minarets the privilege of erecting high in the sky to signal a Muslim settlement.  next
    J.C. Les Noces de Marko, le rite et le mythe en pays bulgare, Paris, PUF, 1998, p.75
   
 
 
Texts and pictures are protected by copyright. Please send me a mail by clicking on the left icon for permission to reproduce any of them for any other purposes than private use.
NB: Please d on't be surprised if I don't answer you immediately, since I am frequently working in the field or on nautical expedition.