Symbols have by definition many interpretations, but the key question of this article is: should those interpretations have limits, especially when the symbol is a real historical figure, perceived as a cultural hero. Can a popular cultural hero, in this case Vasil Levski, legitimize any messages totally different from his own writings? When a symbol turns into its opposite? The paper analyzes the presentations of Vasil Levski in the newly adopted textbooks ‘History and Civilization’ for the 6th grade; bodily visualizations of Levski – tattoos and others; fascisoid political uses of the “Apostle of Freedom” by the ultras of the football club “Levski” and by the paramilitary formation “Committee for National Salvation Vasil Levski “. It defends the thesis that the limits of the symbolic uses of the cultural hero Vasil Levski are put by his own messages. Those messages assert a civic national identity, focused on republican values rather than on the dominance of the Bulgarian ethnicity.

The paper is elaborated especially for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: symbol, symbolic interpretations, cultural hero, Vasil Levski, civil patriotism

Thе paper discusses some applications of the image of the ‘Apostle’ of the Bulgarian freedom Vasil Levski during the communist and post-communist decades in Bulgaria. The survey examines a chronologically wide empirical territory outlined by the socialist press and literature of the 1960s and 1970s, but also approaches models of interpretation in two contemporary lyrical anthologies devoted to the ‘Apostle’ (2000 and 2017).  Models of ideological “absorption” of the figure of the ‘Apostle’ are analyzed in the context of the socialist anniversary procedures most of which are dominated by the marking of his death. The text focuses further on specific cases that reconstruct totalitarian imagery and language practices in representative artistic editions from the last two decades of XXI century.

The paper was especially elaborated to consult the work for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: Vasil Levski, national hero, socialist press, fiction, contemporary lyrical anthology

The paper treats the problem of so-called “consumption of identity” (Anne-Marie Thiesse), being based on material from the National Museum “Hristo Botev” in Kalofer.

Visitors’ impressions, taken from impressions’ books of the museum from 1945 to 2017, are considered. Particular attention is paid on the problem how the political context was influential on the tourists’ mentality, and how deep was the match between ideological change and peoples’ viewpoints as reflected in the comments by them. A considerable part of visitors’ texts, left by people with various social profiles, are dedicated to reproducing the history and literary history narrative about Hristo Botev in its most canonical version. There are also notes, deliberately distanced from the canon. Most of them thematize problems like how the national hero and his attributes were exposed, whether they were displayed properly and how the exposition was matchable to ordinary peoples’ expectations, inspired by popular nationalism mainly. There are written impressions, focused on museum facilities like toilet maintenance and hygiene.

The way visitors reflect the mission of the museum as education institution and how it operates on that level is also analyzed. The slowly advancing consumerism in background mode is also included with its heuristic potentials.

The paper was especially elaborated to consult the work for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: Botev, museum, tourists’ impressions books, consumption of identity, grand narrative, socialism, post-socialist reflexes, consumerism.

This article focuses mainly on iconographic politics of the Missul circle with regard to the heritage of the national poet Botev. I put forward four theses starting from the categorical emancipation of the poet Botev from his revolutionary profile, made precisely by the leading theoretician of the circle Dr. Kristev. The observation that Botev is a poet of the present is the core statement. I consider the relationship between iconicity as a social practice and iconography as a literary-historical canonizing procedure. Although the emphasis is on iconography, I consider that this concept cannot deal with the negative attitudes of the Missul circle with regard to Botev both as poet and revolutionary.

The paper was especially elaborated to consult the work for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: Missul circle, iconography, iconicity, national poet, Botev

What happens when the genre you are developing dies? What happens with the Estrada musicians when the whole industry of socialist Estrada entertainment dies with the abandonment of the word ‘Estrada’? The text summarizes the results from a research of 10 newspapers, 2 online publications and the so called music reality TV shows on Nova TV and bTV as well as ‘The best years of our lives’ show on BNT in the period 1990 – 2017. The music contests add another category which the contestants abide by: ‘we must be proud as nation’ – the country is not doing well, but we are a nation of talented singers. The main results show that the musicians recreate this specific ‘national mystical language’ as Milena Iakimova defined it (Iakimova, 2011:76). The fault for the state of the Estrada music after 1990 is in ‘our own media’ which don’t play their music. Patriotism is seen as a main strategy for their role on the stage of the folk entertainment.

Keywords: Estrada music, television, media, people, patriotism

The article analysis “Bulgarian embroideries” as a specific case of a construction and usage of the cultural heritage. The text presents the diversity of actors, active in the use of this heritage and aims to interpret the modes and practices for negotiating the relations between ethnic-national-global. The thesis is that “ethnic” invades the national and the global at the same time, being constructed as “natural” and non-political, and at the same time suitable to be transformed into a commercial commodity. Shortly, the text presents the “ethnic” as an “assemblage” and argues that in the process of constructing “cultural heritage” conservative definitions of the world turn into public consensuses.

The paper is elaborated especially for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: ethnicity, cultural identity, popular culture, social media

This article looks at the scandal around the so called Мyth of Batak as a case of political mobilization of “scientific” and popular discourses in relation to a historical event. The polemic started in April, 2007, when the scholars Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunbauer were accused of questioning official historical accounts which led to public outcry, attempts to change legislation concerning freedom of speech and even threats for physical harm. The scandal involved a variety of actors – the media, nationalist political parties, public intellectuals and scholars, as well as key figures in the Bulgarian government. Since 1989 a number of projects in the humanities and social sciences explored the formation and construction of Bulgarian national myths and stereotypes, but none of them had led to such a violent public confrontation as in the case of Batak. Why then the Myth of Batak caused such a fierce outburst? Baleva and Brunbauer shook in uncertainty one of the most stable historical narratives surrounding the nation building in Bulgaria – the Batak massacre. I analyze the controversy in the context of emerging material and discursive practices of reactive nationalism and Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. The article is a contribution to the understanding of larger political and cultural implications in the mobilizing of national myths and their relation to contiguous power in intellectual and political circles.

The paper is elaborated especially for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: nationalism, national myths, Bulgarian historiography, discourse, Batak massacre

In the last 25 years the entire liberal democratic world witnessed a wave of electoral behaviours and flirting with them political messages that together shaped a political phenomenon. Various analysts (to mention just Ivan Krastev) called it an ‘illiberal  revolution’ – a revolt against the meritocratic elites and against the principle of meritocracy itself. After the political opportunists who were first to ride this populist wave, a lot of ‘systemic’ political subjects adopted pieces of this vocabulary and entangled the issues of social justice with the rhetoric of isolationism, calling this mixture ‘national sovereignty’. This move replaced the deliberative forms of negotiating collective identities with collective myths. The question of this paper is what social anxieties and frustrations in Bulgaria got relieved by this replacement. The answer is sought through an analysis of focus group discussions and points towards a general feeling of displacement shared also by some intellectuals. Briefly: what reward do people expect for their participation in the collective myths in question, myths that turn victimhood into a source of pride? It is a relief from the feeling of delocalization. This longing for relocalisation that backs up the populist usage of patriotism, through the mechanism of projection is however resentful toward the delocalized (the migrants and minorities). This frustration and the outlined mechanism to cope with it fuel hate speech and turn the national feeling into its insulted form (to follow Isaiah Berlin) – nationalism.

The paper is elaborated especially for The Political Uses of Revival: Historical Heritage and Contemporaneity Project, supported by the National Fund for Scientific Research, Bulgaria, 2017 – 2020.

Keywords: nationalism, resentment, parrhesia, Bulgaria, injustice