Bulgaria Imagined: English Travelnotes on Bulgaria from Mid 19th Century
Bulgaria Imagined: English Travelnotes on Bulgaria from Mid 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: The article starts from the contemporary political situation in Britain and the resistance to acceptance of immigrants from the former "East-European" countries. The situation looks strangely familiar; it turns out that the failure to accept the "other" has its precedent in one of the earliest travelogues about Bulgaria written by English travelers. The travelogue is presented in details: Residence in Bulgaria; or Notes on the resources and administration of Turkey: The Condition and character, manners, custom, and language of the Christian and Mussulman populations, with reference to the Eastern Question. Its authors are Stanislas St. Clair and Charles A. Brophy. The second part of the article makes typological comparison of the cultural situation of a phenomenon since the beginning of the XXI century: novels on the communist past of Bulgaria, created and published first abroad by Bulgarian immigrant writers. In this article is applied the methodology of contemporary postcolonial studies.

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