ideology

The article comments on the denial of the Ottoman heritage in the Bulgarian culture and the marginalization of the love poetry during the Bulgarian National Revival. Subject to the observations are song books from the past three decades before 1878, containing Turkish songs printed in Cyrillic alphabet. On The grounds of factology we can summarize, that under the pressure of national ideology the reception of love songs is depreciated and the role of the Turkish literature and vocabulary is denied radically in the cultural transfer in the Balkans in the 19th century. The reprinted "most used" Turkish folk songs are a testament to the multi-faced and multi-voiced Bulgarian Revival period; they emphasize the conceptual significance of the regional and marginal in the genre preferences during the specific political and socio-cultural context.

The analysis is the first comprehensive look at the failed novel by P. Vezhinov and more exactly in its first authentic Stalinist version from 1952. The text tracks in details the ideological profiling of the characters, tied to gender and lifestyle, as well as the erasement and the concealment of these two realities in the novel, their perverse, "negative" events. Highlighted in the foreground is the intriguing identity between lordly / household / feminine / female. Apart from the precise ideological scheme, carefully thought out in the novel, there is an attempt to note also toposes and spaces issuing grueling, hoary, gloomy atmosphere in Bulgaria in the 50s of the twentieth century. Instead of final conclusions, the text ends with proposals for three film versions, as interpretations of the failed novelistic narrative of P. Vezhinov, that might be seen as emblematic of the three types of cultural (movies) conjectures.

The analysis attempts to recreate the ideological parallel – on the basis of the genetic cohesiveness between two texts (novel “Nad tvoya dom spokojstvie” [Calmness over your home)] – 1962; 1967) and the essayist tract "Nishkite, koito se prekzsvat” [The Strands That Interrupt] – 1967. The ideology here is thought not as narrowly political as a limited doctrinaire, but by the model of Karl Mannheim – as a way of giving the world a total view, to build apart, contrasting, vivid images of reality. In this sense, ideology is valued for its creative potential: through its overwhelming prospect, the great narrative of alienation has been built, a socio-cultural phenomenon is seen in its historical continuity, the fraudulent similarity of its manifestations, its misleading unity. By means of ideological prejudices, the image of the West – the true event, the scene of evil, the place that has refused the same dialogue – was outlined and subsequently refilled. The West of Tsvetan Stoyanov is long-lived to be ideologically rejected. It is a place of premonition differences, but also of spontaneous, suddenly noticed similarities. Within its limits and vision of comfort, settling and affection to home is also seen, where the figure of the philistine, is the basis of the ideological writing of Svoyanov. The Philistine is a figure that collects epochs, infinite in its incarnations; it is the bearer of the author's incoherent idea of organic, warmth and fullness of being. This anathematic vision consistently undermines the grounds for an ideological description of the world. In the thinking of the remarkable Bulgarian erudite, the two obligatory poles are emerging – the food-saturated West and the ascetically-scattered, “shaggy communism” of the Red Guards in China. The unexpected, but clearly visible, image of the slightly outspoken socialist society, whose utopian horizon has not yet been revoked, emerges unexpectedly among them.

The paper is focused on ideological modeling of the image of Hristo Botev, regarded as national hero, during the Interwar period. Three particular works are analyzed: “The poet rebel: Hristo Botev” by Theodosy Anastasov, “Veneta” by Fany Popova-Mutafova, “Hristo Botev (Historical novel)” by Georgy Savchev. All these texts were published in the same year – 1935, and this fact could be considered as one of the arguments for grouping them together. They could be seen as representative for various prose genre forms. Authors of them demonstrated different attitude towards the established (canonical) historical and literary-historical narrative, both popular and academic, dedicated to Botev. While interpreting them, the paper is aiming at outlining both points of ideological match and tensions between literature and history as disciplinary fields.

The article starts from two translations of historical (Roman) dramas during the Bulgarian Revival – “Belisarius“ and “Cremutius Cordus“ – and two theatrical performances – “Long-suffering Genoveva“ and “Belisarius“ (Lom, 1856) – to discuss the problem of ideological effectiveness of theater during the Revival epoch compared to literature. Theatrical performance in its entirety (mise-en-scène, sceneries, properties, and especially the “alive“ play) is seen as essential, languagelly relevant to the voluminous, multi-layered naive-folk thinking, pre-aesthetic and prehistoric, as opposed to the flat ideological logos of the modern one. – The unpretending, weak writer and theatrical worker Kr. Pishurka is the personification of the first type of thinking, and Botev – the genius of the epoch – of the second type.

This paper analyzes an episode of the life of the young Petko Slaveykov, related to the comedy “The bishop of Lovech, or a misfortune of the watchmaker of Lovech” (1863) by Teodosiy Ikonomov and discuses the tension between morality and ideology. Slaveykov was a witness and took part in the events from 1847-1848, on which the comedy was based. The paper touches on the connection between the motif about the infidel wife, presented similarly in Molière’s play “George Dandin ou le Mari confondu”, the actual events and the political implications of the author, in the context of the Greek-Bulgarian ecclesiastical conflict.

The paper interprets the critical (and readers’) success of Georgi Gospodinov's novel “Time Selter”, linking it to the potential crisis of contemporary liberal consciousness. Richard Rorty's concept in his book “Chance, Irony, and Solidarity” (1989) is used as a theoretical approach to defining liberal cultural consciousness. The article analyses the asymmetry in the representation of private self-creation and the construction of collective forms of identity. The main focus is on the workings of memory and the different modes in which the past functions in the construction of private and collective identity.