Serbs and Bulgarians – Closest Brothers or Most Treacherous Enemies? The Bulgarian Version
Serbs and Bulgarians – Closest Brothers or Most Treacherous Enemies? The Bulgarian Version

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the question of how Bulgarians have constructed the image of the Serbs in the modern era, after the birth and establishment of the modern Bulgarian state in the second half of the 19th century. The ambivalent attitude of Bulgarian intellectuals, writers, historians, and scientists in the last 150 years is presented. The construction of this image and the attitude towards the neighbouring people, close in language, culture, and mentality, often follows the curves of Slavophilic politics in the Balkans, vacillating between complete neglect and unconditional sympathy. Periods of warming political relations and of cruel fratricidal wars alternate, accumulating a number of clichés in Bulgarian journalism, often used for propaganda purposes. The 1990s, a decade associated with the bloody breakup of former Yugoslavia, resurrected a number of these clichés. I will present some of them in my paper, based on publications in the mass media during this period.

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