Българското „духовно възраждане“ в междувоенния период: мистични общности, морализаторски проекти и националистични програми
Bulgarian „Spiritual“ Revival in the Interwar Period: Mystic Communities, Moralising Projects and Nationalist Agendas

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyzes the discourse of the so-called „spiritual revival“ in Bulgaria in the interwar period, tracing back the history of various periodicals and organizations with non-material and non-secular aims. The latter are compared and opposed on the base of (non)belonging to the orthodox faith and the institutional basis of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and respectively are seen as two different responses to the increased search for moral and existential alternatives. Thus the orthodox charity promoted by parish confraternities and journals is presented as a platform for legitimizing the intervention of the Church in the social sphere after WWI, while the varied and complex networks of Tolstoists, theosophers, Dunovists, Masons among others, are discussed as blending the individual mystic transformation with a return to the centuries-old folk traditions and to the practices of Christian neo-gnostic sects such as Bogomilism. The paper, however, outlined the common discursive environment of these two branches of the Bulgarian spiritual revival movement, growing from the postwar anti-liberal attitudes and projecting the development and welfare of the society in retroactive, nationalistic terms.

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