Реч на омразата или омраза към речта
Hate Speech or Hatred Toward Speech

Summary/Abstract: In times of growing political polarization, language remains the central instrument of power, identity, and legitimacy. The paper analyzes the interaction between hate speech and hatred toward speech in contemporary Bulgarian political rhetoric, focusing on two events from September 2025 — the President’s address on the Day of Unification and the confrontation in front of Parliament. While hate speech manifests through personal attacks, humiliation, and the moral discrediting of opponents, hatred toward speech reveals a deeper crisis — the loss of respect for language as a cultural act. Through rhetorical and proxemic analysis, the study demonstrates how political discourse shifts from argumentation to spectacle, from persuasion to aggression, eroding public trust and transforming speech from a bridge between differences into a weapon of division.

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