НЕ/ПОЗНАТИЯТ ВАЗОВ – ЕРОТИЧНИЯТ ДИСКУРС В РОМАНА „ПОД ИГОТО“
THE (UN)KNOWN VAZOV: EROTIC DISCOURSE IN UNDER THE YOKE

Summary/Abstract: The present study seeks to examine erotic discourse in Ivan Vazov’s novel Under the Yoke, approaching it not as a marginal narrative element but as a key structural and ideological component of the text. The article explores the ways in which intimacy, corporeality, and desire function at the intersection of power relations, moral norms, national ideology, and mechanisms of social regulation. Employing an interdisciplinary methodological framework that draws on the theoretical perspectives of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, the study advances a new reading of the novel’s romantic, scandalous, and tragic stories as manifestations of symbolic transgression and cultural repression. The central argument maintains that the erotic in Under the Yoke plays an active role in shaping the heroic, national, and mythopoetic dimensions of the narrative, culminating in Rada’s sacrifice, interpreted as a synthesis of Eros, Thanatos, and the revolutionary ideal. The scholarly contribution of the article lies in revealing previously underexplored aspects of Vazov’s novel and in proposing a theoretically grounded model for the analysis of erotic discourse in the classical Bulgarian novel.

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