26 
 

Various News Items and Reports 
 

News from Abroad: Racism in Bulgaria 

 

Our colleagues in Bulgaria have made the news. The following was published in the 

January 25 issue of The Economist under the title, "Anthroapologists":  

Bulgaria has mobilised its scientists In an effort to support its government's claim that the 

country's 800,000 or so ethnic Turks are in fact full-blooded Bulgarians. An article in a national 

daily, Otechestven Front, has analysed the results of "anthropological tests" supposedly 

conducted over the past 30 years by anthropologists from the Sofia Institue of Morphology in 

three districts which contain many members of Bulgaria's Turkish, Macedonian and Greek 

minorities. The scientists' finding: the Bulgarian nation is pure and uncontaminated, and has 

remained unchanged since the Middle Ages.  

According to the anthropologists, the Bulgarian people took shape in the ninth and tenth 

centuries as a blending of Slavs, Thracians, and Asiatic tribes. This mixture evolved into a 

homogeneous entity, the people now called Bulgarians. The foreign invasions of the past Winter 

1987-Spring 1988 1,000 years left no racial mark, it seems. The implication is that members of 

the Turkish minority are merely Bulgarians who happen to speak Turkish.  

Experts at the Bulgarian Institute of Brain Research - Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency 

reports - have meanwhile been studying the Bulgarian brain. Their preliminary findings, just 

released, show that it has been toughened by centuries of hardship and has developed its own 

peculiar way of thinking. But the researchers also found evidence to suggest that Bulgarians are 

not using their grey matter enough. The institute's director is said to have called on "owners of 

Bulgaria's 9m brains to keep thinking as much as possible". They might start by reflecting on the 

validity of the sort of research into racial purity which went out of fashion with Nazi Germany.  

 

Bread in the USSR 

We only recently found the following news bulletin:  

In December of 1986, in response to complaints of poor quality and rapid spoilage, the 

Soviets announced the introduction of standards for 6 new higher quality varieties of bread. The 

prices of these new varieties will be higher than those of existing types and reflect the better 



27 
 

quality flour, the increased yeast, and the reduced moisture and acid content. The moisture and 

salt content of existing varieties will be reduced, but without any price change. The new varieties 

will be introduced in measure as the bakeries can be geared up to produce them. No increases in 

government budgetary revenues turnover tax) are planned to be imbedded in the new prices. 

(Planovoye Khozyaistvo, January 1987.)  

Does this mean that the Soviets are also eating Wonder Bread these days?  

 
Organizations 

The Social Science History Association 

We wish to draw your attention to an organization which seems relevant to the interests 

of many EEAG members. The Social Science History Association is committed to the view that 

systematic inquiry into the past, using the tools of scientific investigation, is of central value to 

historians and historiography. . .and that the historical perspective is equally crucial to the 

scientific study of society. The Association was founded in 1974 to bring together historians and 

social scientists - those scholars who believe that interdisciplinary approaches are of vital 

importance to the understanding of societies, past and present. The Association publishes a 

journal, Social Science History, and a series of books, "New Approaches to Social Science 

History," co-edited by Stanley Engerman and John Model. Annual dues are $20.00 ($12.00 for 

graduate students) and include a subscription to Social Science History. To join, contact Social 

Science History, Duke University Press, 6697 College Station, Durham, NC 27708.  

The Association will hold its thirteenth annual meeting November 3-6, 1988, at the 

Bismarck Hotel, 171 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL. Sessions are planned on migration and 

immigration, religion, family history and historical demography, rural history, women's history, 

economic history, political history, urban history, criminal justice and legal history, the history of 

education, labor history, and methods and theory.  

 

Europeanist Group Organized at IU 

The Department of Anthropology at Indiana University - Bloomington recently 

announced the formation of a Europeanist group, which provides courses and dissertation 

supervision in European ethnology and archeology. Europeanist anthropologists on the faculty 

include Richard Bauman, Joelle Bahloul, Michael Herzfeld, Jerome R. Mintz, Christopher S. 



28 
 

Peebles, Anya Peterson Royce and K. D. Vitelli. Of these, Herzfeld (an ethnologist specializing 

in Greece) and Vitelli (an archeologist specializing in Greece) represent Eastern Europe. For 

further information, contact the Chair, Michael Herzfeld, Department of Anthropology, Rawles 

Hall 108, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, or telephone (812) 335- 1203.  

 
CONGRATULATIONS! 

We have just learned that in late July, during the 12th International Congress of 

Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences held in Zagreb, Linda Bennett was awarded The 

Order of the Golden Circle and Star by the Yugoslav federal government. Congratulations, 

Linda!  

 
The Future of EEAG 

Response to our ballot mailed early this winter was very positive. We got 36 replies, all 

but two of them in favor of continuing the EEAG and many of them offering to participate in the 

work of the group. In consequence, we feel justified in proposing arrangements for the future, 

along the following lines:  

1) OFFICERS. On the basis of the activities each of you offered to participate in, we 

propose two slates of new officers. We ask that anyone who wishes to nominate him/herself or 

someone else for one of these positions write to David Kideckel (Central Connecticut State 

University) or Linda Bennett (Memphis State University) by September 1 (please do not write to 

Katherine Verdery, who will be in Romania). Also, if anyone nominated below is not willing to 

serve, please write to David or Linda withdrawing your name. The positions are for members of 

the steering committee in charge of membership and program. The membership job will consist 

of keeping track of who has paid dues and of who has expressed interest in one or another 

activity; our ballot provides the basis for this, which will need only to be updated. The program 

job will consist of paying for the room for our meeting at the annual AAA convention and 

organizing or asking someone else to organize a session for the convention; responses to our 

mailed ballot show that many people are willing to organize such a session or give papers, so the 

program chair will have minimal work along these lines. Neither of these jobs requires much 

work or any expense (costs will be reimbursed by the EEAG).  



29 
 

We wish to emphasize that only some of those who expressed willingness to be involved 

in one or another task appear on our list of nominations; we will keep a record of your responses 

for future elections to office. (You may, of course, nominate yourself now if you wish to serve.) 

We very much appreciate the positive response that enables us to propose several people for each 

position and have some "in reserve."  

We will mail a ballot in early fall with definitive slates and will install our two new 

officers at the meeting in November. Proposed candidates for Membership are: Stephen Dunn 

(Highgate Road Social Science Research Station), Mark Forry (University of California at Los 

Angeles), Shirley Hauck (Anchorage, AL) and Joel Marrant (Linfield College). Proposed 

candidates for Program are Susan Gal (Rutgers University), Eva Huseby-Darvas (University of 

Michigan at Dearborn), and Judith Rasson (Pacific Lutheran University).  

2) NEWSLETTER. It is not yet certain who will take over the Newsletter from Bill 

Lockwood. A couple of people expressed interest but cannot commit themselves until their job 

situations are clear. A gratifying number of you expressed willingness to contribute columns to 

the Newsletter, so if we can come up with an institutional home, the new editor will have a lot to 

work with. We hope to be able to announce something definitive in November.  

Since this is Bill's last issue as editor, we wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to him 

for the energy and dedication he has given to the Newsletter. Everyone's responses to the ballot 

made it clear that the Newsletter is the one thing we all want. Thanks, Bill, for creating such a 

valuable resource for us.  

 

Linda Bennett 

Memphis State University 

 

Katherine Verdery 

John Hopkins University