Публичните образи на българския чиновник от края на ХІХ и началото на ХХ век
The Public Image of the Bulgarian State Official at the End of the 19th and the Beginning of 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: The article aims at reconstructing the public image of the Bulgarian state official at the end of the 19th and the beginning of 20th century. It is the time when the foundations of the modern Bulgarian administrative system are laid and the presentations of the professional role are being mixed up, forming complex interrelations of oppositions like: prestigious rank – disrespected occupation, the evil of the institutions – a victim of the institutional practice, an agent of the authority – the authority’s creature. The reconstruction of these oppositions follows the articulations on different discursive levels: etymologies and meanings, inherited from the Turkish period, legislation, media discussions, party program, literary plots. It is based on the conceptual „merging“ of public image with the archive of role, defined as the worked off attitudes, emotions and expectations, which not only reassures the effectiveness of the performance, but embodies it in the social time and space. Hence the notion is used as an instrument for exploring the process of the (de)stabilization of the collective professional identity. It also draws lines of intersection between „formal rationality“ (Weber), „affective structures of body of knowledge“ (Berger, Luckmann) and „interactive symbolism“ (Goffman).

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