„Degeneration“ and „Regeneration“ in Regimes of Historicity: Biosocial Engineering in Bulgaria from the End of the XIX Century to the Second World War Cover Image
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„Израждане“ и „възраждане“ в режими на историчност: биосоциално инженерство в България от края на XIX век до Втората световна война
„Degeneration“ and „Regeneration“ in Regimes of Historicity: Biosocial Engineering in Bulgaria from the End of the XIX Century to the Second World War

Author(s): Gergana Mircheva
Subject(s): History, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Cultural history, Sociology, Local History / Microhistory, Social history, Modern Age, Culture and social structure , Sociology of Culture
Published by: Фондация за хуманитарни и социални изследвания - София
Keywords: Degeneration; Revival; regimes of historicity; eugenics; racial anthropology; folk psychology; mental hygiene

Summary/Abstract: The article studies the specifics of the visions of degeneration and regeneration in Bulgaria within the eugenics discourse and other intellectual and political discourses with which it interceded. Hence, certain concepts of modernity, historical time and identity are reconstructed as a result of biosocial engineering in Bulgaria at the end of the 19th century and especially during the interwar period. The analysis is structured in several sections, which address the following topics: biological images of social time as elaborated at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century; the racial anthropological perspective of the biologist Metodiy Popov towards national historical time; the psychologizations of the „national soul“ envisaged as undergoing social progress and/or decay, as well as the scientific-political versions of a „New Revival“ of the Bulgarian collective organism. The theme of biopolitical regeneration is interpreted as enriching the conceptual background of the „revivalist imagination“ in Bulgaria.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 50/I
  • Page Range: 47-64
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Bulgarian