Series:CAS Sofia Working Papers

Expert Examination, Norm, and Truth in the Bulgarian Judiciary System

Expert Examination, Norm, and Truth in the Bulgarian Judiciary System

Author(s): Martin Kanushev / Language(s): English

A certain number of crimes happened in Bulgaria in the recent years, committed by parents against their own children. What did those crimes have in common? Do they have an analogical mechanism that makes them possible? Why exactly they attracted public interest?

Becoming Real Men in Socialist Yugoslavia: Photographic Representations of the Yugoslav People’s Army Soldiers and their Memories of the Army Service

Becoming Real Men in Socialist Yugoslavia: Photographic Representations of the Yugoslav People’s Army Soldiers and their Memories of the Army Service

Author(s): Tanja Petrović / Language(s): English

Most of the male citizens of the former Yugoslavia who belong to the middle and older generations share the experience of having served in the Yugoslav People’s Army [Jugoslovenska narodna armija, henceforth the JNA]. The army service was mandatory for all men after they turned eighteen and/or graduated from high school (Milićević 2006: 266). Material signs of this shared experience are photographs made during the army service, which still may be found in family albums, boxes, and drawers in virtually every home in the former Yugoslav lands. The present analysis is based on narratives and photographs collected among the number of former Yugoslav men of all nationalities who served in the JNA

Sitting Together: Local Councils of Vidin County as Domains of Hybridization [1864-1877]

Sitting Together: Local Councils of Vidin County as Domains of Hybridization [1864-1877]

Author(s): Mehmet Safa Saracoglu / Language(s): English

This paper takes the nineteenth-century Ottoman administrative unit of county (liva) as its focus. Moving from a general analysis of its structure, to a specifi c analysis of the local institutions within Vidin County, I examine the politics of administering a county.2 Local administration constitutes a set of practices where local agents and appointed offi cials negotiate within a set of bureaucratic roles, defi ned in idealized forms through rules and regulations issued by a central government

City Dwellers and Institutions: What lies at the Back of the Stray-Dogs Debate in Bulgaria

City Dwellers and Institutions: What lies at the Back of the Stray-Dogs Debate in Bulgaria

Author(s): Yavor Lilov / Language(s): English

The homeless dogs debate presents an interesting phenomenon. The heated exchanges, the arguments, the examples used often shift the attention away from animals to humans, social groups, models for structuring society.

From National Leaders to Politicians: The Head-of-State Institution in Southeast European Post-Communist Countries (1989-2004)

From National Leaders to Politicians: The Head-of-State Institution in Southeast European Post-Communist Countries (1989-2004)

Author(s): Aleksander Vezenkov / Language(s): English

Any survey on publications in the field of political studies would inevitably show that analysis concentrates rather on leaders, elections and crises than on institutions and inter-institutional relations. This is because institutions are perceived as an already existing framework, as something given. Institutions and relations between them change so rarely and/or so slowly that in many cases these changes could be ignored in a short-term analysis. As it came out from my search for secondary literature especially rare are studies on the head-of-state institution. This article tries to demonstrate that such a study can be a helpful tool for the analysis of the establishment of democratic regimes in former communist countries. It can be revealing in terms of understanding authoritarian, paternalist and populist traditions in post-communist societies and their manifestation on the highest level of the political system in the recent decades. The study focuses on the evolution of the head-of-state institution in the Southeast European post-communist states (Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, the successor states of former Yugoslavia), considering other post-communist countries as controlling cases.

The Member of Parliament: Between Personal Prestige and Public Expectations

The Member of Parliament: Between Personal Prestige and Public Expectations

Author(s): Marija Pandevska / Language(s): English

In every society the actors of the institutional culture have their own patterns of discursive and practical behaviour. This approach for analysing the social processes is encouraged by seeking the space of interaction between the role and the identity of social existence. We direct our research towards the functioning of a part of the political elite of the Republic of Macedonia – the Member of Parliament and its opponent – public opinion. So far, in the scholarly research, Parliament has been less interesting as an institution than as a carrier of concentrated political power and authority for regulating social relations. Consequently, the socio-political research, which is concerned with the power of society groups, rarely treats the question of the representatives separately; they are usually analysed as part of the political elite or the elite of power. We shall try and make the necessary distinction and locate some of the specifics of the institution representative, because every social occurrence is connected to the society structure in one way or other.

Institutional Trust within the Local Society from South Eastern Europe. A Transformation Perspective

Institutional Trust within the Local Society from South Eastern Europe. A Transformation Perspective

Author(s): Stelu Şerban / Language(s): English

The aim of this paper is to identify the incentives of the institutional trust on the regional levels of two neighboring areas along the Danube. The approach is a comparative one; two border zones from northern Bulgaria and southern Romania, having a certain similarity as regards historical past and social organization, are juxtaposed. The research took place both at the level of these circumscribed geographical areas and in particular localities. The hypothesis was that the networks of social trust have a strong infl uence upon the civic and political commitments. By the term ‘commitment’ I mean the social reliability for roles and position takings in the frame of the local institutions (mayoralty, political parties, civic and cultural associations).

Bulgarian School Hygiene at the Beginning of the 20th Century: Cultural Images, Professional Roles and Practices

Bulgarian School Hygiene at the Beginning of the 20th Century: Cultural Images, Professional Roles and Practices

Author(s): Gergana Mircheva / Language(s): English

This text examines the institutionalisation of norms for proper physical and mental status of Bulgarian school youth at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis focuses on two interrelated issues: how certain cultural images of (un)fit body and (ab)normal mind reasoned the introduction of professional (medico-pedagogical) roles in the Bulgarian secondary schools, and how such images prescribed “health selection” in the production of individual and collective identities: “student” – “(school) youth” – “people”/“nation”/ race”).

Kriterion: The Institutionalized Ethnic Identity

Kriterion: The Institutionalized Ethnic Identity

Author(s): András Kányádi / Language(s): English

There is a fashionable motto: “unity in diversity”. On the level of a sheer linguistic abstraction, the “signifier” stands for the integrity of an entity, but also for its specificity, meaning at the same time cohesion and variety. Our study makes an attempt to present the institutional application of the concept of «unity» and that of the «division», promoted and performed by communist institutions, and focuses on a specific case of minority culture in Romania, showing the complex interplay between professional roles and ethnic identity, there the actors, in order to reach their objectives, adopt tricky strategies and various masks. Being a cultural study, it intends also to analyze phenomena of the cultural life of the communist period, attempting to bring together discourse analysis and institutional practice.

Gendered Representations in Slovenian and Serbian Media Discourse

Gendered Representations in Slovenian and Serbian Media Discourse

Author(s): Biljana Žikić / Language(s): English

This paper attempts to challenge the gender universal discourse of the quality press as legitimized institution for producing representations in the period of post-socialist changes.

Who Are The Bulgarians? „Race,“ science and politics in fin-de-siècle Bulgaria

Who Are The Bulgarians? „Race,“ science and politics in fin-de-siècle Bulgaria

Author(s): Stefan Detchev / Language(s): English

Keywords: nationalism; national ideologies and definition of the nations;

In national ideologies and definition of the nations, the issues of „race“ and ethnicity were in many cases central ones. In the 19th century the emerging national consciousness in many cases received rational shape through a scientific revolution. At that time nationalism was, in fact, the driving force behind „racial“ differentiation. In the scientific investigations one obvious area was that of „race,“ which often had political objectives as an attempt to assert the existence of a national identity based on innate „racial“ characteristics. As Barkan emphasizes, the intensification of national rivalry in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century stimulated pursuit of still greater „racial“ differentiation as a mode of justifying nationalism that was sanctioned by the growing repute of biology and evolutionary theory. Part of this process of constructing national ideologies in the 19th century was the search for racial antiquity, „ancestors“ and common descent. Special importance had been assigned to different branches of modern science where the idea of inherent difference found legitimacy, and „race“ was perceived primarily as a scientific concept.2 Inasmuch as national ideologies played a crucial role in the public political domain, the intersection between „race,“ „ancestors,“ ethnogenesis, science and politics was quite obvious.

We, the Macedonians - The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912)

We, the Macedonians - The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912)

Author(s): Tchavdar Marinov / Language(s): English

Keywords: Macedonian political emancipation; Congress of Berlin;the Balkan wars; Macedonian Nation-Building;

The present paper sheds light on the most important patterns of Macedonian political emancipation, from the period subsequent to the Congress of Berlin (1878) and prior to the Balkan wars (1912–1913). It focuses on a number of problems addressed by this volume: different modalities of nationalism (supranational, inter-national, etc.); paradigm shifts of national discourses; the relationship between confessional and national identities, and between ethnicity and different political ideologies (liberal, socialist). The timeframe is by no means arbitrarily chosen: while the so-called "Macedonian Question" was generally perceived, already in this period, as a result of a political setting provoked by the decisions taken in Berlin, the context that followed the first division of the region brought about different political commitments deserving further special attention and survey.

Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests - "Ottomanism" as an Identity Politics

Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests - "Ottomanism" as an Identity Politics

Author(s): Aleksander Vezenkov / Language(s): English

Keywords: national traditions of social and political thinking in Southeastern Europe; European nation states; Ottomanism; Ottoman Empire;

The history of the different national traditions of social and political thinking in Southeastern Europe is usually examined in their relationship with the developments in the leading European nation states. This is certainly a legitimate approach, but it should be added that beside the multiple interactions between the "marginalized," "small nations" in the "periphery" and the "European core" there was one more major actor – the multinational empires in the Eastern part of the continent. They had their identity politics, which failed in the long run, but had a considerable influence during the 19th century. In what concerns the Ottoman Empire, almost all studies mention these politics, usually referred to as "Ottomanism," but very few of them examine it. This article focuses on "Ottomanism" as a problem in its own right, but also raises the question of the impact of these politics on the national discourses in the region.

BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED PEOPLE AND BULGARIANS. Definition of Identity in Textbooks and the Press (1830–1878)

BARBARIANS, CIVILIZED PEOPLE AND BULGARIANS. Definition of Identity in Textbooks and the Press (1830–1878)

Author(s): Dessislava Lilova / Language(s): English

Keywords: Bulgarian elite in the 19th century; Bulgarian state-building; Bulgarian nation-building;

Are Bulgarians barbarians or civilized? Answering this question consumed a considerable part of the intellectual energy of the Bulgarian elite in the 19th century. The dilemma was first put up for discussion at the beginning of the century and ever since then, each new generation has been joining a fresh round of the debate. Interest in the topic has been sufficiently lively to lend legitimacy to the "barbarism-civilization" taxonomy as the main framework within which the nation builds its identity. This research aims to explore the origins of this process. The analysis covers the period from the 1830s to the rise of the independent Bulgarian state in 1878. This is the chronological framework in which the intellectual elite imported and promoted the ideological grammar of modernity and the taxonomies of progress. The objective is to shed light on the history, mechanisms and results of their transfer.

THE PEOPLE INCORPORATED Constructions of the Nation in Transylvanian Romanian Liberalism, 1838–1848

THE PEOPLE INCORPORATED Constructions of the Nation in Transylvanian Romanian Liberalism, 1838–1848

Author(s): Kinga-Koretta Sata / Language(s): English

Keywords: Transylvanian Romanian liberalism; national historiographies of 19th-century Transylvania;

The existence of a specific Transylvanian Romanian liberalism, either in the sense of being a fully-fledged movement, or only a more or less clear-cut affective community of individual theorists and politicians, is not taken for granted by the national historiographies of 19th-century Transylvania, either Hungarian or Romanian. The theorists and activists that this paper groups under the heading of Transylvanian Romanian national liberals are most commonly described as members of the national movement in Transylvania, that is, the movement that fought for the emancipation of the Romanian people in Transylvania. It is the argument of this paper, however, that the identity politics devised by the theorists discussed cannot be understood without taking seriously their allegiance to the liberal project of modernity (and modernization) besides their commitment to the national cause. They themselves thought that the two projects, liberal modernization (and its economic corollary, capitalism) and national emancipation were not only reinforcing each other, but could not be conceived of separately. It is this apparently paradoxical concatenation of a progressive and a conservative idiom of political thought, liberalism and nationalism, that the present paper intends to describe through a reconstruction of the Transylvanian Romanian version of liberal identity-building, both political-institutional and cultural.

Jovan Jovanovič Zmaj and the Serbian Identity between Poetry and History

Jovan Jovanovič Zmaj and the Serbian Identity between Poetry and History

Author(s): Bojan Aleksov / Language(s): English

Keywords: Serbian nationalism; Petar Petrović Njegoš; Ivo Andrić

The recent violent outburst of Serbian nationalism has attracted significant interest in the ever-growing field of nationalism studies. In addition, the socalled „cultural turn“ has engaged scholars in the reappraisal of significant aspects of Serbian culture, namely the ones that make it national, such as literature. Two writers – Petar Petrović Njegoš and Ivo Andrić – pillars of the Serbian literary canon, have naturally been debated the most and their works are often referred to either as illustrations of eternal hatred among South Slavs or as providing impetus for the conflicts. Presenting part of this debate to an international audience, Celia Hawkesworth argued that the main problem of the recent reassessment of major literary figures in the former Yugoslavia was the inability of many commentators to separate the political from the artistic, something I believe is both impossible and futile. After all, the characters at stake here were not lonely riders. One was the spiritual and political leader of his (Montenegrin) state in the 19th century, and the other was the highest diplomatic representative of another (Yugoslav) state in the 20th century. Even more instrumental than their political positions was the influence of their literature on political imagining and identity building over the last two centuries. Nonetheless, their influence was not a one-way and one- dimensional phenomenon. Illuminating the interplay between the two is a task for both historians and literary critics.

HISTORY AND CHARACTER Visions of National Peculiarity in the Romanian Political Discourse of the 19th century

HISTORY AND CHARACTER Visions of National Peculiarity in the Romanian Political Discourse of the 19th century

Author(s): Balázs Trencsényi / Language(s): English

Keywords: Romanian discourse of national peculiarity; Transylvanian Greek Catholic elite; genealogical construction

As in most European cases, some aspects of the Romanian discourse of national peculiarity can be traced back to the humanist genre of "Descripţia" of the land, narrating the origins and political history of the respective people, a genre which in the Danubian Principalities reached its climax in the works of the erudite Moldavian prince-scholar Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723).1 The works rooted in the humanist chorographical paradigm of course had a very different discursive function and referential basis than the characterological constructions underpinning the projects of modern nationhood and statebuilding, emerging from the late 18th century onwards, making "national individuality" a key argument of political self-legitimization. Some references to this national individuality can be identified in the political and cultural works of the Transylvanian Greek Catholic elite, which sought to anchor the historical-institutional identity of Transylvanian Romanians in a genealogical construction. They were stressing customs and behavior as the proof of continuity with the Roman colonists of Dacia and accidentally, even the concept of "character" surfaced in some of their writings. Simultaneously, the culturalgeographical literature stemming from the Danubian Principalities (often by travelers or cosmopolitan intellectuals, whose work can be related to more than one national tradition, such as the Greek Daniil Philippide or Dionisie Fotino, both of whom authored geographical descriptions of these lands, or the French Encyclopédiste, J. L. Carra) sought to put these polities on the map of Europe, making references to the customs of the inhabitants. Significantly, the concept of character was already able to become politicized in the late 18th century, as was the case with the reformist discourse of the Moldavian boyar Ionică Tăutul, who deplored the loss of patriotic identification and the growth of egoism on the part of the ruling elite.

NARRATING »THE PEOPLE« AND »DISCIPLINING« THE FOLK The Constitution of the Hungarian Ethnographic Discipline and the Touristic Movements (1870–1900)

NARRATING »THE PEOPLE« AND »DISCIPLINING« THE FOLK The Constitution of the Hungarian Ethnographic Discipline and the Touristic Movements (1870–1900)

Author(s): Levente T. Szabó / Language(s): English

Keywords: Hungarian nation-building;

Preparadigmatic and early paradigmatic ethnographic imagination and practice played a crucial role in mid- and late 19th-century Hungarian nationbuilding. Different versions of national identity competed within the new discipline called ethnography. They used, translated, transformed, and remade the emerging discipline. In order to map these transformations, I will focus both on the ideological transfers and on the internal cleavages to simultaneously see the sources, and the reception of texts and phenomena that are used in the crossings and interactions of this disciplinary formation. At the same time, this train of thought is also a broad history of the early (preparadigmatic and early disciplinary) phases of Hungarian ethnography. As such, it will try to follow the history of the professionalization and „disciplinarization“ of ethnography along several shifts: from the mainly textual interest of Hungarian ethnography of the 1840s-1860s to the „visual turn“ and exhibition of folk objects of the 1870s, and to the complex interaction of the phenomena of tourism and ethnography in the last two decades of the 19th century. In following these shifts, it will attempt to understand and analyze how the emergence of this new discipline coincided with the rise of the nation-building process of modernity, and what were the consequences of their complex and multi-layered relationship.

Shemseddin Sami Frashëri (1850–1904): Contributing to the Construction of Albanian and Turkish Identities

Shemseddin Sami Frashëri (1850–1904): Contributing to the Construction of Albanian and Turkish Identities

Author(s): Bülent Bilmez / Language(s): English

Keywords: Shemseddin Sami Frashëri; Turkish nationalism; Albanian nationalism;

This paper deals with representative writings of an Ottoman intellectual, Shemseddin Sami Frashëri (1850–1904), who has simultaneously been represented in contemporary Turkey and Albania as one of the fathers of Turkish and Albanian nationalisms, respectively. Accordingly, he is known with two different names in these countries: „Sami Frashëri“ in Albania and „Şemseddin (or Şemsettin) Sami“ in Turkey. In order to avoid partisanship in this question, either his full name (as in the title) or the short version „Sami“ will be used in this paper.

Faik Konitza, The Modernizer of the Albanian Language and Nation

Faik Konitza, The Modernizer of the Albanian Language and Nation

Author(s): Artan Puto / Language(s): English

Keywords: Albanian National Movement; Albanian Communist Regime; King Zogu I;Faik bej Konitz;

Faik bej Konitza was an important figure of the Albanian National Movement. During the communist regime in Albania he was labelled a „reactionary,“ and therefore no studies could be undertaken on him. His main sin was to have served as minister in Washington, for King Zog I (1928–1939). With the end of isolationism and fall of the communist regime in 1990, the road for thousands of Albanians to leave the country and for Konitza to come back home, once and forever , was opened. His remnants were brought to Albania in 1995. His simple tomb in the park of the capital Tirana has thus fulfilled his last wish, to be interred in his „fatherland’s soil.“ I present him here as the subject of a case study for three main reasons. Firstly, he was one of the main figures of the second phase of the Albanian National Movement (1878–1912). This allows for some comparative approaches in relation to the „fathers,“ or the first generation of Albanian nationalist intellectuals, one of the most important among them being Shemseddin Sami Frashëri (1850–1904). Secondly, considering the discursive articulation and political instrumentalization of the concepts of folk, people, nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it should be noted that Konitza, more than anyone else among Albanian nationalist intellectuals of his time, stressed the importance of an Albanian literary language in forging an Albanian nation.