Rumyana Damyanova

Laughter as a Cultural Emotion

The article exposes in the form of theses the problem of laughter as a cultural emotion, which has its social manifestations in the manner of thinking and the behavior of the Bulgarian Revival man. The methodological basis for the interpretation of laughter is presented on the first place by the theory of H. Bergson and especially his book “Le Rire, essai sur la signification du comique”. The Bulgarian contributions to the eventual phenomenology of laughter are the books of M. Dimitrov “Psychophysiology of laughter” (1924) and I. Passy “The laughable” (1971) which have been reviewed as a conceptual approach to the investigation of the laughter, the comic and the irony. The laughter of the Bulgarian Revival man has been studied as a possibility of expression in three directions – the publicist laughter, the comedy as a projection of the comic and the irony. The special participation in the process of interpretation of laughter of T. N. Shishkov and his foreword to his comedy “It wouldn’t be possible! - or spoilt Mircho” has been discussed, which, though being a compilation, presents the choice of the Bulgarian Revival man.