Градът Балчик и дворецът на кралицата. Митове и реалии в балканското културно и художествено пространство (до края на 20-те години на XX век)
The City of Balchik and the Queen's Palace. Myths and Reality in Balkan Cultural and Artistic Space (till the end of the 20s of the 20th century)

Summary/Abstract: In the dynamically changing geopolitical and social-historical circumstances in Southern Dobrudzha, the city of Balchik becomes con­ secutively a zone of the northeastern border of Bulgaria (1878-1913), the most southern point of the Romanian Kingdom (1913-1916), again the northeastern border of Bulgaria (1916-1920), again the most southern point of Romania (1920-1940), again the northeastern border of Bulgaria (since 1940 up to the present). These changes to a large extent explain why in many (academic as well as tourist) publications on Balchik echoed some pre­ conditioned or romanticized national thesis where the objective view on the city and its social life, its natural, social and cultural specificities are twisted or Jost in the jungle of mythologized stories. Subject of the text are the interrelations between the city and the built near it Place of the Romanian Queen Maria, as well as the constructed there villas of Romanian painters and writers. Special attention is dedicated on the reflection of the newly introduced forms of intellectual and worldly court life on the general image of the city, reflected in the city’s social and housing architecture, the environment, in the artistic and social life. On the basis of the accessible at present sources and publication, the text analyses the changes in the city’s life that have taken place as a result of its basic economic profile (from a port and trade center into a sea resort town) and the influence of this change on its further development as a small seaside town and its role in modern reality.

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