Resignation of Sergej Ignatov from his post of the minister responsible for science in Bulgaria may follow by changes in directions of development of culture in Bulgaria. Sergej Ignatov has been a respected scholar and personality, with very solid education from “Leningrad” (Saint Petersburg) proved by a series of scientific works including Habilitation Doctor Thesis.
Unfortunately, today the situation in Bulgaria is critical – there are missing core national values since the politics and past dominate. Bulgaria cannot find strong honest personalities for the social stage, with the humanistic values of global society. The main heroes are the ones who occupied mostly in corrupted manner the cultural segments during the communist regimes and their values have been reproduced by young people enculturated similarly. It is impossible to make conclusion for anybody if you do not know personally and in depth since everybody can easily falls in the trap of misleading. Bulgarians are probably among the top personalities today who can mislead because of existed very thick type of dishonest people who have been using all kinds of behavior for personal success. Honesty and respectful collaboration becomes a challenge in Bulgarian context.
Very fresh is the example with one electronic archaeological journal which main editor is also educated in Russia “scholar” – Maria Gyurova. However, when one sees the resumes of Sergej Ignatov and Maria Gyurova (close educational generations), immediately comes the difference that shows that generalizations are absolutely impossible. While Ignatov has even Habilitation Doctor Thesis, the archaeologist does not have even one monograph although has a position of Scholarly secretary of National Archaeological Institute and Museum.
Most current result of reproduced corruption in leadership is publishing in the electronic archaeological journal a non-scholarly theoretical article on prehistory with advisers of a group of western prehistorians some of which considered as big authorities in this field. This fact opens the curtain of past crucial problems of archaeology – the cover of Dubene-Balinov Gorun affair, giving higher academic titles of H. Todorova and other corrupted to criminal acts related to Gyurova as one of the leaders of National Archaeological Institute.
There are social realities in Bulgaria: 1. Very large segment of poor population. 2. Highly corrupted politization of the social life which prevents the majority to enjoy the high subsistence level of everyday life which is typical of western civilizations. 3. The deeply embedded corruption has been used even by some Americans for increasing the crisis instead rebirth of democracy (e.g. some activities in the field of archaeology by America for Bulgaria Foundation related to The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois). 4. People still think as citizen of small country which depends either on Russia or on Western countries, as well as politicians use this psyche for their success.
Changes of leadership in science do not guarantee that they will be positive for Bulgarian culture. Globally, science is a field with rooted reproduced corruption and people with connections, then, to change the direction of science, means rebirth of new science which looks almost impossible in the current cultural context. However, any attempt may result at least in making the dark cloud smaller and increasing of the role of humanity which gradually may penetrate in the academic field as well.
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