Publisher: Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS)

Mission [Im]Possible. Identity Crises in the Bulgarian Army‘s Officer Corpus During the Nato Accession

Mission [Im]Possible. Identity Crises in the Bulgarian Army‘s Officer Corpus During the Nato Accession

Author(s): Vennelin L. Stoychev / Language(s): English

Keywords: Bulgaria's NATO-Accession; Bulgarian Military;

Generally speaking, the tensions registered by this study refer to a fundamental problem, namely: the absence of an efficient system for balance of powers and mutual control within the Bulgarian security sector, which allows unchecked manifestations of personal power. The lack of an effective regulatory system, hence, explains the opposition to women’s presence in the army, to the dismissals, to the “modernization” methods, and to the promotion system. Nevertheless, the conclusions that can be drawn from my research are by no means pessimistic.

The Hybridity of Constitutional Courts-Arbiters in the Absence of Rules

The Hybridity of Constitutional Courts-Arbiters in the Absence of Rules

Author(s): Daniel Smilov / Language(s): English

This paper is an attempt to challenge some of the most persistent myths about the link between the institutional role of judges and their political convictions in constitutional adjudication. These myths form together a fable of separation, according to which judicial roles and political convictions should be kept rigorously apart. The ensuing analysis contradicts the fable of separation in important ways. Firstly, it demonstrates that political convictions do play a signifi cant role in adjudication. Secondly, it suggests that diminishing the infl uence of party-related political identities on judicial decision-making does not always have a positive impact on the institutionalization of a judicial body, but rather it may signal its institutional decline. Thirdly, the paper argues that the fable of separation is particularly inapplicable to constitutional courts, since these institutions have hybrid functions: on the one hand, they follow and apply rules (the standard judicial function), while on the other, they sometimes have to decide cases on their merits in the absence of defi native rules (a function of political bodies in constitutional democracy). Finally, the paper argues that the development of judicial policies is an unavoidable element of judicial work and constitutional review: often, the self-declared ambition of judges to refrain from judicial policy making is just a camoufl age for specifi c policies. This should not be read as an accusation of judicial hypocrisy: even bona fi de judges are forced to develop judicial policies, in the elaboration of which their moral and political convictions do play a role.

From “HUSH” to “OFFICIAL” (Fashioning of “Gospodina”) – Masculinity, Identity and Duelling in Bulgaria in the Late Nineteeth Century

From “HUSH” to “OFFICIAL” (Fashioning of “Gospodina”) – Masculinity, Identity and Duelling in Bulgaria in the Late Nineteeth Century

Author(s): Stefan Detchev / Language(s): English

Keywords: honour and duelling; 19th century elites;

In the paper I am going to address the following questions. How was the story presented at the politicized market (conservative, liberal, socialist press) by male writers and how was it interpreted by their readers? How did men from the elite understand honour? What were the social functions of the duel? Why did some contemporaries make attempts to incorporate duelling into a particular way of life and why did these efforts fail? What did the duel reveal about the drive of Bulgarian society towards modernization? What did it reflect in terms of the traditions of Bulgarian society, its cultural norms and forms of behaviour, desires and anxieties? If Kevin McAleer points out that at fin-de-siècle, the Germans were Europe’s most tenacious and serious duelists the historian feels compelled to distinguish the Bulgarian kind of duel from other national styles at the time.

Battles for Truth in a "Country in Clinical Condition"

Battles for Truth in a "Country in Clinical Condition"

Author(s): Aleksander Kiossev / Language(s): English

In this paper I will focus on the crisis functioning of the institutions under public and media pressure. Institutions whose function is to provide truth and justice will be discussed: I will look at them in the light of one particular case which sparked incredible public debate in Bulgaria in 2001 and caused a clash between the fi rst (the executive), the third (the judiciary) and the fourth ‘power’ (the media), provoked nationwide outrage, and brought Bulgaria to the brink of a political and institutional crisis in a truly unprecedented way. The focus of my analysis will be the ‘truth discourses’ of these branches of power, and more specifically the critical intertwining of ‘truths’ produced by the Bulgarian executive, media and judicial institutions about the case in question.

Visualizations of the Past in Transition: Museum Representations in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria after 1989

Visualizations of the Past in Transition: Museum Representations in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria after 1989

Author(s): Nikolai Vukov / Language(s): English

The goal of the current text is to study the changed meanings and functions of museums in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria after 1989. Focusing on a set of most representative examples of museum representations in these three countries, the article will explore how these institutions refl ected the changes of 1989, how they dealt with the ambivalences arising in the period of ‘transition,’ and how they developed new narratives of the past in a ‘post-socialist mode.’ The paper will refl ect on the major challenges faced at the attempts to represent the recent past in museum forms: the pluralization of memory and the ensuing symbolic struggles; the fragmentary and often unjustifi ed actions for making new uses of the inherited historical and visual material; the attempts for sublimation, displacement, and forgetting of the recent past; the shifting from the memory of socialism to the realm of show business, entertainment and tourism, etc. Taking its launching point from the relationship between memory, institutions, and public space, the article will demonstrate how the museum practices in the three countries faced the crisis of the historical narratives after 1989, and how they responded to this crisis: by a leaning towards nationalism, by discourses of communal martyrdom; by abortive attempts, or a refusal, to supply a historical representation.

When Tradition is Given a Trademark. Artisanship Within the Museum Folk-Fairs in the 2000s Romania

When Tradition is Given a Trademark. Artisanship Within the Museum Folk-Fairs in the 2000s Romania

Author(s): Marin Constantin / Language(s): English

My text is an attempt to characterize artisanship in Romania following a field research conducted in 2005 within five folk fairs set up by the Museum of Peasants and the Village Museum (Bucharest), the Museum of Villages in Banat (Timisoara), the Astra Museum (Sibiu), and the Museum Complex of Suceava and Bucovine (Suceava).

From Banishment to Ascribed Residence: Controlling Internal Movement in Socialist Bulgaria (1944-1989)

From Banishment to Ascribed Residence: Controlling Internal Movement in Socialist Bulgaria (1944-1989)

Author(s): Rossitza Guentcheva / Language(s): English

This paper seeks to address one mobility-preventing mechanism, namely restriction on internal movement in socialist Bulgaria (1944-1989). Through a series of measures – ranging from banishment to dislocation to residence legally inscribed in the passport – the state engaged in spatial stratification and geographic management of its population. Its officials had elaborated categories linking human rights to a specific geographical location, while state and local authorities implemented in practice human rights’ successful territorialisation. In both cases, infringement on free movement was aimed at the cultivation of a perfect socialist society, where the moral recovery of unhealthy elements was achieved through removal and isolation.

Temporary Migrants: Beyond Roles, Across Identities

Temporary Migrants: Beyond Roles, Across Identities

Author(s): Petya Kabakchieva / Language(s): English

In this text I would not reflect upon different approaches towards migration; many books deal with this issue (to point just a few: Chow R. 1993; Baubock R. 1994; Cesarani D. and M. Fulbrook 1996; Appadurai 1996; Massey et all, 1998; Brettell and Hollifi eld 2000; Wallace and Stola 2001). Here I want to focus on a specific type of migration – temporary migration and its influence upon the self-perception of temporary migrants. My paper is based on a qualitative study of Bulgarian gastarbeiters in Western European countries that are members of the EU.

A Japanese Zaibatsu in the Balkans: Intermediate Structures of Sociability as Growth Engines of Bulgarian Economic Modernization

A Japanese Zaibatsu in the Balkans: Intermediate Structures of Sociability as Growth Engines of Bulgarian Economic Modernization

Author(s): Martin Ivanov / Language(s): English

When drafting my research proposal nearly a year ago, I had decided to put the stress on the factors that drive, in my humble opinion, Bulgarian economic and social development during the Interwar period. In that research proposal I was contesting the conventional wisdom of correlating Bulgarian economic development to just a few key factors, the state and the investment banks (Gerschenkron, 1966). Moreover, it was my belief that other social structures had so far been omitted in the yet sluggish debate on Bulgaria’s effort towards modernization. Via my research I intended to insert other variables in the equation which Fukuyama (1995) calls ‘intermediate structures of sociability’ – the large corporations, the different forms of social activism and the political parties.

Bulgarian Personal Home Pages and Blogs on the Web: Hybridization of the Public and Private Spheres in Cyberspace

Bulgarian Personal Home Pages and Blogs on the Web: Hybridization of the Public and Private Spheres in Cyberspace

Author(s): Orlin Spassov / Language(s): English

Although they do not lead to radical changes in publicity, phenomena like blogs and personal homepages have the potential to stimulate the renegotiation of existing relationships between society and the internet. A number of new questions appear. What are the effects of the hybridization of the public and private spheres in cyberspace? How does the Internet, characterized by non-hierarchical communication, gradually sprout new, non-standard forms of institution-alization? How does software and the statistics of sites and blogs serve to regulate the user’s behavior, roles and expectations? What are the democratic potential and the social effi cacy of these new practices? I will try here to answer some of these questions by looking into the development of Bulgarian personal homepages and blogs.

Expert Examination, Norm, and Truth in the Bulgarian Judiciary System

Expert Examination, Norm, and Truth in the Bulgarian Judiciary System

Author(s): Martin Kanushev / Language(s): English

A certain number of crimes happened in Bulgaria in the recent years, committed by parents against their own children. What did those crimes have in common? Do they have an analogical mechanism that makes them possible? Why exactly they attracted public interest?

Becoming Real Men in Socialist Yugoslavia: Photographic Representations of the Yugoslav People’s Army Soldiers and their Memories of the Army Service

Becoming Real Men in Socialist Yugoslavia: Photographic Representations of the Yugoslav People’s Army Soldiers and their Memories of the Army Service

Author(s): Tanja Petrović / Language(s): English

Most of the male citizens of the former Yugoslavia who belong to the middle and older generations share the experience of having served in the Yugoslav People’s Army [Jugoslovenska narodna armija, henceforth the JNA]. The army service was mandatory for all men after they turned eighteen and/or graduated from high school (Milićević 2006: 266). Material signs of this shared experience are photographs made during the army service, which still may be found in family albums, boxes, and drawers in virtually every home in the former Yugoslav lands. The present analysis is based on narratives and photographs collected among the number of former Yugoslav men of all nationalities who served in the JNA

Sitting Together: Local Councils of Vidin County as Domains of Hybridization [1864-1877]

Sitting Together: Local Councils of Vidin County as Domains of Hybridization [1864-1877]

Author(s): Mehmet Safa Saracoglu / Language(s): English

This paper takes the nineteenth-century Ottoman administrative unit of county (liva) as its focus. Moving from a general analysis of its structure, to a specifi c analysis of the local institutions within Vidin County, I examine the politics of administering a county.2 Local administration constitutes a set of practices where local agents and appointed offi cials negotiate within a set of bureaucratic roles, defi ned in idealized forms through rules and regulations issued by a central government

Institutional Trust within the Local Society from South Eastern Europe. A Transformation Perspective

Institutional Trust within the Local Society from South Eastern Europe. A Transformation Perspective

Author(s): Stelu Şerban / Language(s): English

The aim of this paper is to identify the incentives of the institutional trust on the regional levels of two neighboring areas along the Danube. The approach is a comparative one; two border zones from northern Bulgaria and southern Romania, having a certain similarity as regards historical past and social organization, are juxtaposed. The research took place both at the level of these circumscribed geographical areas and in particular localities. The hypothesis was that the networks of social trust have a strong infl uence upon the civic and political commitments. By the term ‘commitment’ I mean the social reliability for roles and position takings in the frame of the local institutions (mayoralty, political parties, civic and cultural associations).

Bulgarian School Hygiene at the Beginning of the 20th Century: Cultural Images, Professional Roles and Practices

Bulgarian School Hygiene at the Beginning of the 20th Century: Cultural Images, Professional Roles and Practices

Author(s): Gergana Mircheva / Language(s): English

This text examines the institutionalisation of norms for proper physical and mental status of Bulgarian school youth at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis focuses on two interrelated issues: how certain cultural images of (un)fit body and (ab)normal mind reasoned the introduction of professional (medico-pedagogical) roles in the Bulgarian secondary schools, and how such images prescribed “health selection” in the production of individual and collective identities: “student” – “(school) youth” – “people”/“nation”/ race”).

Kriterion: The Institutionalized Ethnic Identity

Kriterion: The Institutionalized Ethnic Identity

Author(s): András Kányádi / Language(s): English

There is a fashionable motto: “unity in diversity”. On the level of a sheer linguistic abstraction, the “signifier” stands for the integrity of an entity, but also for its specificity, meaning at the same time cohesion and variety. Our study makes an attempt to present the institutional application of the concept of «unity» and that of the «division», promoted and performed by communist institutions, and focuses on a specific case of minority culture in Romania, showing the complex interplay between professional roles and ethnic identity, there the actors, in order to reach their objectives, adopt tricky strategies and various masks. Being a cultural study, it intends also to analyze phenomena of the cultural life of the communist period, attempting to bring together discourse analysis and institutional practice.

Gendered Representations in Slovenian and Serbian Media Discourse

Gendered Representations in Slovenian and Serbian Media Discourse

Author(s): Biljana Žikić / Language(s): English

This paper attempts to challenge the gender universal discourse of the quality press as legitimized institution for producing representations in the period of post-socialist changes.

Who Are The Bulgarians? „Race,“ science and politics in fin-de-siècle Bulgaria

Who Are The Bulgarians? „Race,“ science and politics in fin-de-siècle Bulgaria

Author(s): Stefan Detchev / Language(s): English

Keywords: nationalism; national ideologies and definition of the nations;

In national ideologies and definition of the nations, the issues of „race“ and ethnicity were in many cases central ones. In the 19th century the emerging national consciousness in many cases received rational shape through a scientific revolution. At that time nationalism was, in fact, the driving force behind „racial“ differentiation. In the scientific investigations one obvious area was that of „race,“ which often had political objectives as an attempt to assert the existence of a national identity based on innate „racial“ characteristics. As Barkan emphasizes, the intensification of national rivalry in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century stimulated pursuit of still greater „racial“ differentiation as a mode of justifying nationalism that was sanctioned by the growing repute of biology and evolutionary theory. Part of this process of constructing national ideologies in the 19th century was the search for racial antiquity, „ancestors“ and common descent. Special importance had been assigned to different branches of modern science where the idea of inherent difference found legitimacy, and „race“ was perceived primarily as a scientific concept.2 Inasmuch as national ideologies played a crucial role in the public political domain, the intersection between „race,“ „ancestors,“ ethnogenesis, science and politics was quite obvious.

We, the Macedonians - The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912)

We, the Macedonians - The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912)

Author(s): Tchavdar Marinov / Language(s): English

Keywords: Macedonian political emancipation; Congress of Berlin;the Balkan wars; Macedonian Nation-Building;

The present paper sheds light on the most important patterns of Macedonian political emancipation, from the period subsequent to the Congress of Berlin (1878) and prior to the Balkan wars (1912–1913). It focuses on a number of problems addressed by this volume: different modalities of nationalism (supranational, inter-national, etc.); paradigm shifts of national discourses; the relationship between confessional and national identities, and between ethnicity and different political ideologies (liberal, socialist). The timeframe is by no means arbitrarily chosen: while the so-called "Macedonian Question" was generally perceived, already in this period, as a result of a political setting provoked by the decisions taken in Berlin, the context that followed the first division of the region brought about different political commitments deserving further special attention and survey.

Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests - "Ottomanism" as an Identity Politics

Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests - "Ottomanism" as an Identity Politics

Author(s): Aleksander Vezenkov / Language(s): English

Keywords: national traditions of social and political thinking in Southeastern Europe; European nation states; Ottomanism; Ottoman Empire;

The history of the different national traditions of social and political thinking in Southeastern Europe is usually examined in their relationship with the developments in the leading European nation states. This is certainly a legitimate approach, but it should be added that beside the multiple interactions between the "marginalized," "small nations" in the "periphery" and the "European core" there was one more major actor – the multinational empires in the Eastern part of the continent. They had their identity politics, which failed in the long run, but had a considerable influence during the 19th century. In what concerns the Ottoman Empire, almost all studies mention these politics, usually referred to as "Ottomanism," but very few of them examine it. This article focuses on "Ottomanism" as a problem in its own right, but also raises the question of the impact of these politics on the national discourses in the region.