Baba Wanga

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Wanga

Wanga ( Bulgarian Ванга , actually Ewangelia Pandewa Guschterowa , mak Вангелија Пандева Гуштерова, born. Ivanova ; * 31 January 1911 in Strumnitza , Ottoman Empire (now Strumica, Northern Macedonia ); † 11. August 1996 in Sofia , Bulgaria ), was the most famous Bulgaria's recent seer and was venerated as a “living saint”. Under the names Baba Wanga (bulg. Баба Ванга, dt. About grandmother Wanga or the old Wanga ) and the seer of Petritsch , she was known in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union except in Bulgaria .

Live and act

Childhood and youth until 1940

According to her niece, the orientalist Krasimira Stojanowa, Wanga's parents were poor farmers whose ethnic origin is difficult to determine. The father Pande Surtschew was involved in the pro-Bulgarian Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization , the mother died early.

When Wanga was twelve years old, the impoverished Dimitrows moved from Strumica to Novo Selo (now North Macedonia ), the father's nearby hometown, and lived with the larger family. There she was seriously injured in a cyclone when she was 13 years old . Despite medical treatment, she gradually lost her eyesight until she was completely blind at the age of 16. This event is commonly seen as the trigger for their visionary experiences.

During a two-year stay in a sanatorium in Zemun near Belgrade, she learned the skills required for housekeeping again. From the age of 18, Wanga ran the family household and raised her siblings because the stepmother had died shortly before. When the father also died in 1940, the family was at the bottom of the social ladder. According to relatives, she has since stated that she communicated with saints .

Wanga's house in Petritsch

Beginning of their "visions"

When her first prophecy was made public in early April 1941, a “shining rider” allegedly revealed to her in several visions that “terrible things” would soon happen. On April 6, the German Wehrmacht's campaign against Yugoslavia, to which this part of Macedonia then belonged, began. It is reported that Wanga changed dramatically in the ensuing period and began telling neighbors and relatives about their relatives who were absent from the war.

Rumors of Wanga's alleged clairvoyance spread and she was consulted as a seer and healer by soldiers of the Bulgarian occupation forces and local smallholders during the war. One of them was Dimitar Guschterow, whom she married in 1942. Wanga moved with him to his Bulgarian hometown of Petritsch, around 50 kilometers to the east . Under the name "the clairvoyant of Petritsch" ( petričkata gledarica ) she quickly gained reputation, so that in 1943 she was also the Bulgarian King Boris III. whose untimely death she allegedly predicted.

Repression from the late 1940s

From the late 1940s, Wanga had to adapt to the new social rules of the communist regime , which strove for modernization and national homogeneity . The local party structures tried to stop their activities; she was monitored by the police. Rumored to be the most popular person in the area by 1950, Baba Wanga was so well known that she attracted people from all over Bulgaria. After the death of her husband in 1962, the police control decreased in parallel to the family pressure.

Rehabilitation and Scientific Research

During the 1960s, the conditions for Wanga's activities changed radically. Educated people in Bulgaria and the new socialist intelligentsia became increasingly interested in them.

From 1967, Wanga was a state employee at the Institute of Suggestology, which had been established at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. To investigate Baba Wanga's abilities, a building was built in the Rupite area, 15 kilometers away from Petritsch, in which she received those seeking advice. Investigations of Wanga's prophetic predictions - especially when finding missing relatives - allegedly showed a "hit rate" of 80 percent, while other psychics would only achieve 20 percent.

Sweta Petka Balgarska Church in Rupite

The state management took care of the regular process and, as relatives claim, collected the fees from up to 100 daily visitors. In the 1980s, it was almost impossible to get into Baba Wanga without relationships. The official waiting time was about a year. During the last years of communism it was good form, especially for the party elite, the intelligentsia and personalities from the capital, to show themselves with Baba Wanga in public.

One year after the political change, Baba Wanga announced her decision to build a church in Rupite , which was consecrated in 1994 under the name Sweta Petka Balgarska . Wanga died on August 11, 1996 in Sofia and was buried at “her church”. Since May 5, 2008, a museum has been set up in her home in Petritsch in her memory.

Attitude of the Bulgarian and Russian Orthodox Churches

The Bulgarian and Russian Orthodox Churches strictly reject the work of Wanga. Among other things, she taught the belief in rebirth , called the spirits of the dead and practiced forms of witchcraft that were incompatible with the Christian faith.

literature

  • Galia Valtchinova: State Management of the Seer Vanga: Power, Medicine, and the “Remaking” of Religion in Socialist Bulgaria. In: Bruce R. Berglund (Ed.): Christianity and modernity in Eastern Europe. CEU Press, Budapest 2010, ISBN 978-963-9776-65-4 , p. 245. (English)
  • Galia Valtchinova: Between ordinary pain and extraordinary knowledge: the seer Vanga in the everyday life of Bulgarians during socialism. In: Aspasia. Volume 3 (2009), Berghahn Books, New York 2009, ISSN  1933-2882 , pp. 106-130. (English)
  • John R. Eidson (Eds.): Frances Pine, Deema Kaneff, Haldis Haukanes: Memory, Politics and Religion . The Past Meets the Present in Europe. In: Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia . Volume 4. Lit , Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-8051-6 . (English)
  • Kasimira Stoyanova: Wanga. The phenomenon - the seer von Petritsch. Translated from Bulgarian by Ines Sebesta. Ennsthaler, Steyr 2004, ISBN 3-85068-618-3 .
  • Helena Verdel, Traude Kogoj, Diana Karabinova, Lojze Wieser (eds.): The 100 most important women in Eastern Europe . Wieser, Klagenfurt 2003, ISBN 3-85129-421-1 .
  • Deema Kaneff: Why People Don't Die "Naturally" Any More. Changing Relations Between "The Individual" and "The State" in Post-Socialist Bulgaria. In: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute . Vol. 8, No. 1, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, March 2002, ISSN  1359-0987 , pp. 89-105. (English)
  • Ilia Iliev: The Social Construction of a Saintly Woman in Bulgaria . In: A Captured Moment in Time: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, Vol. 10, 2000.
  • Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder: PSI - The scientific research and practical use of supernatural powers of the mind and soul in the Eastern Bloc . Scherz Verlag , Bern / Munich 1975, ISBN 3-502-13538-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Archaeological-epigraphic communications from Austria-Hungary . tape 9-12 . C. Gerold's Sohn, 1885, p. 84 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Leonhard Schultze-Jena : Macedonia landscape and culture images . Verlag Gustav Fischer, 1927, p. 217 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ A b Petko Ivanov, Valentina Izmirlieva: Betwixt and Between: The Cult of Living Saints in Contemporary Bulgaria. In: Folklorica. Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association. Volume VIII, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 33–53 Link to the Internet edition
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Galia Valtchinova: Constructing the Bulgarian Pythia. In: Frances Pine, Deema Kaneff, Haldis Haukanes (eds.): Memory, Politics and Religion. The Past Meets the Present in Europe. Lit Verlag, Münster, 2004, pp. 179–183, In: Christopher Hann , Richard Rottenburg, Burkhard Schepel, Shingo Shimada (Genhrsg.): Hall Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
  5. ↑ a b Diana Karabinova: Wanga Vangelija Pandova Guscherova. In: Lojze Wieser (ed.): The 100 most important women of the European East. Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2003, pp. 290-296.
  6. ↑ a b c d Kasimira Stojanowa: Wanga - The Phenomenon. Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr 2004.
  7. ↑ Kasimira Stojanowa: Wanga - The Phenomenon. Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr 2004, pp. 19-21.
  8. ↑ Claudia Schwamberger: healer beings in Bulgaria: Traditional healers versus psychotherapists. Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8309-8022-3 . Pp. 79-83, 146.
  9. ↑ Valtchinova gives the source: Kasimira Stojanowa: Vanga. Nauka i Izkustovo, Sofia 1989 and Z. Kostadinova: Prorochestvata na Vanga. Trud, Sofia 1989, p. 12. According to Valtchinova, this encounter is mentioned in various reports during the years of communism, all of which equate Wanga with the Delphic Pythia .
  10. ↑ Kasimira Stojanowa: Wanga - The Phenomenon. Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr 2004, pp. 21-25.
  11. ↑ Valtchinova gives the source: Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder: Psychic Discoveries behinde the Iron Curtain. Bantam Books, Toronto 1971, p. 279.
  12. ^ Ideological Drive Against Paraperception ( Memento of May 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Web.archiv.org) Radio Free Europe Research, Background Report / 60 (Bulgaria), March 24, 1983.
  13. ↑ Kasimira Stojanowa: Wanga - The Phenomenon. Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr 2004, p. 8.
  14. ^ Magdalena Rahn: Prophetess Baba Vanga's Petrich house becomes museum . on sofiaecho.com, May 6, 2008.
  15. ↑ За Дънов, Ванга и православния фанатизъм • Православие.БГ . In: Православие.БГ . March 17, 2011 ( pravoslavie.bg [accessed August 6, 2018]).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Baba Wanga
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guschterowa, Evangelia Pandewa; Гущерова, Вангелия Пандева (Bulgarian); Баба Ванга
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bulgarian seer
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Strumica (city) , Macedonia , Ottoman Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1996
Place of death Sofia , Bulgaria