The cholera dance
The book "The Cholera Dance" looked at the outbreak of the great cholar epidemic in Constantinople in 1865 and its impact on Bulgarians living in the city. In the analysis of the dramatic situation, Bulgarian newspapers, official reports, studies conducted immediately after the epidemic, memoir and Ottoman archival sources are used. The author follows the transfer of the disease from Egypt to the Ottoman capital at the beginning of the summer of 1865 and its distribution in the city, in the Balkans, in the Middle East and Europe. Attention is drawn to the delayed but decisive government measures to combat the disease; the main factors that have facilitated its rapid spread and have caused significant victims; Understanding the disease and concepts of prevention and treatment.
The chlorine epidemic of 1865 was examined in the wider context of cholene pandemics in the nineteenth and twentieth century. As the statistics show, the 1865 epidemic turns out to be the most deadly in Constantinople due to the coincidence of factors such as the greater crowd of pilgrims present at the Curban Bayram holiday in Mecca, the development of global maritime transport and the lack of significant progress in scientific understanding and treating the disease. The various religious and ethnic composition of the population of Constantinople hampers the fight against the disease.
The author pays special attention to the different attitude to epidemic diseases among the various subjects of the Ottoman Empire in accordance with their religion, folk beliefs, traditions and practices. Some Bulgarian poems dedicated to the choller epidemic as well as the new trends in Orthodox iconography affected by Western tradition (death dance) are analyzed in detail.
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