Sociology in Bulgaria, 1945–2005: Facing the Scientific and Social Challenges of Disciplinary Construction
Sociology in Bulgaria, 1945–2005: Facing the Scientific and Social Challenges of Disciplinary Construction

Summary/Abstract: The interpretation proposed here is an attempt to understand the challenges facing the disciplinary construction of sociology in the specific social and historical conditions of Bulgarian society which underwent two major transformations in the twentieth century: the advent of the communist regime after World War II and the fall of communism at the end of 1989. The historical analysis of the development of sociology under the Communist State-Party (1945–1989) shows that the process of its cognitive and social legitimation has involved winning of the zones of autonomy on two planes: on the institutional plane, through a set of role strategies, organizational innovations and devices taking advantage of the structural specificities and interstices of the totalitarian state; and on the cognitive plane, through a transition from speculative theoretical knowledge to empirical science; a movement towards theoretical and methodological heritage of the discipline, expansion of the empirical basis of sociological argumentation and search for cognitive assistance in different branches of human, social and natural/mathematical sciences. The post-1989 processes in Bulgarian sociology can be generalised as a ‘movement from controlled diversification towards uncoordinated heterogeneity’. On the basis of analysis of the transformations in the field of sociological knowledge several cleavages are identified: in the institutions of teaching and research, the forms of knowledge production, the frameworks of conceptualisation of social problems. Becoming aware of these processes of which sociology is both a part and a product is the first step to its development as a discipline and a social practice.

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