The bulgarian quest for origins 1879s –1914 (1918)

The Bulgarian Quest for Origins 1879s –1914 (1918)

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Stefan Detchev During the nineteenth century the construction of modern national ideologies took place. Part of this process was “the search for racial antiquity”, for “ancestors”, “origin”, and “common descent” (Smith, An. 1983, p. 180; 1981, pp. 66-67; 1986, p. 147; 1991, pp. 21-22.; Gellner, 1983; Eriksen, Th. 1993; Barkan, 1991, p. 17). Moreover, it is well known that ethnicity is determined by the people who are in question. Ethnicity depends on common descent, “blood”, a shared history, or myth of origin. Of course, selfawareness is the key ingredient here. It is this self-awareness that was determined by the “story” concerning the origin of the people. That was the reason why the quest for origins grew in importance in European culture. The word “ancestors” was used more broadly. In the early nineteenth century it appeared the notion of an Ur-Volk, the Aryans, who had supposedly migrated from northern India to invade and populate the European continent in prehistoric times. By the mid-century the category was established across European scholarship. European ethnic and cultural origins were detached from the JudaeoChristian tradition and the authority of the Bible. Transposing linguistic affinities to ethnic ones, virtually all Europeans were Aryans but because of interbreeding some were less than others (Burrow, 2000, pp. 106-107). At the turn of the century the “Aryan Myth” was central not only in Germany but also in Britain and the United States. It was seductive to the European mind because it posited a racism underwritten by an increasingly reputable science.

The quest for origins is closely connected with the increase of nineteenth century race science. The proponents of what was viewed as race science believed that in the concept of “race” they held the key to history, culture and civilization (Fenton, 1999, p.

5). As D. Blackbourn emphasized arguments about “race” in the discriminatory sense became more common in prewar Europe (Blackbourn, 1998, p. 432.). One should keep in mind that in the context of growing nationalism and scientific revolution “race” and “racial differences” had political objectives. Especially nationalism was sanctioned by the growing repute of biology and evolutionary theory (Barkan, 1992, p. 17). “Race” was perceived primarily as a scientific concept (Fenton, St. 1999, p. 69; Christie, Cl., 1998, p.

36). Especially after the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) explanations in racial terms became popular. Even Darwinian evolutionism and genetics, provided racism with what looked like a powerful set of “scientific” reasons for keeping out strangers. The late nineteenth and the very beginning of the twentieth century was characterised with antiliberal shift in politics as well. Moreover, the intellectual environment of the period was impregnated with cultural pessimism, growing militarism and the emergence of a new imperialism. The scientific “racial” discourse achieved increasing power and nationalism became more racial. Social Darwinism was omnipresent throughout European higher culture. As a result, contemporaries began to use the terms “race” and “nation” as interchangeable. It appeared amalgam of biological theories of social change known since 1890s as “Social Darwinism” (Weindling, P. 1989, p.56). “Nation” was portrayed in organicist terms as a social organism with its historical development and unity.

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In the Bulgarian case after 1879 among the Bulgarian political elite circulated ideas and concepts of the “people” (“nation” etc,) originating in the French Enlightenment, French Jacobinism, Aglo–Saxon liberalism and civic humanism.

However, the Herderian idea of Volk (people) that formed a Blutsgemeinschaft (community of blood), the Volksseele (national soul), and the Volksgeist (national spirit), prevailed and the Tyrnovo constitution (1879) bear witness to those alignments. That is why the idea of “national character” remained as the essence of a nation that remained fixed once and for all. In this regard, in the quest for origins many authors essentialised the alleged “national characteristics” and the supposed “national uniqueness”. In fact, in the period mentioned Bulgarian national ideology was strongly influenced by the model of German Romanticism as well as its Russian Slavophile version (including N. Danilevski) and E. Renan’s concept about the nation. Nevertheless, the German Romantic insights really prevailed and it marked the notions about the medieval times as well. Despite Renan’s idea that “nations are not something eternal” and they are “something fairly new in history”, having in mind the Balkan peninsula, the Bulgarian scholar and politician M. Balabanov regarded the nations as something eternal. He wrote explicitly how the “different peoples fall silent” during the “4-5 ages under Turkish domination” keeping their “tribal affiliations” when began to “awake” during the nineteenth century. Moreover, this statement was made despite the fact that according to Balabanov the Bulgarian nation still had to be forged. Of course, this notion was part of Renan’s concept. As Martin Thom underlines Renan have never denied the particular contribution of the French revolution for proclaiming the existence of a nation of itself.

However, he believed that the principle of nationality was both the creation of more recent period (1813-15) and of a more distant one concerning Germanic invasions (Thom, Martin, p. 29).

The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 and the establishment of the Modern Bulgarian State (1879) just strengthen virtually axiomatic idea about the Slavic origin of the Bulgarians as well as the self-perception of the Bulgarian elite that the Bulgarian nation was part of the “Slavic tribe”. Even in the beginning of 1880s, many representatives of the Bulgarian political class already shared the theory about “the Turkic” origin of the Old Bulgars in private discourse or as far as “science” was concern.

However, as P. R. Slaveikov admitted in a private conversation with K. Irechek, they were alerted of its public recognition because of “political reasons”. This firm identification with the Slavic pedigree and avoidance of the "Tartars" or "Ugro-Fins" was one of the ways to emphasize that the Bulgarians were "Slavs" and "Europeans". In this study I choose the period roughly from the 1880s until the Balkan wars and the First World War, including so called “long nineteenth century” chronology. In this regard, one should keep in mind that many trends that were typical for 1880s and 1890s, and especially about the first decade of the new century, managed to unfold during the war period. Then the behaviour and culture of the nations involved became to be explained through their origin and ancestors.

Most of the previous Bulgarian historiography had interpreted the problems concerning Bulgarian origins imprisoned within the nationalist essentialist perspective itself and the “primordialistic” approach to ethnogenesis. For the majority of the Bulgarian scholars there is a linguistic concept of the “Slavic family of languages.” For them there exists a group of languages that linguists agreed to call “Slavic”. However, the

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”Slavs” never existed in any meaningful sense, although it is perfectly reasonable for us to discuss and analyze the extent to which languages which we classify as Slavic were spoken at any given time. There is never likely to have been a “Slavic nation” if that term implies an association of populations speaking different languages and possessing some coherently unified social organizations. The notion springs from the erroneous view that there is a familial linguistic relationship between populations and polities. Moreover, there is no contradiction in denying the existence of Slavic ethnicity, yet in recognizing the importance of ethnicity among those whom we call the “Slavs”. Of course, “Slavs” is an ethnonym often recorded to us. However, whether there was any awareness of unity and solidarity beyond the local level. The term “Slavs” was externally imposed by the Greek and Roman geographers. There is no reason to suppose that those groups thought of themselves as related in any way, or called themselves “Slavs”. The population designated as “Slavs” was not a single “people” or an ethnic unit. The notion of “Slavs” is relevant only for designation of a language family.

Methodologically my study will be informed by the insight that ethnic categories could thus be considered as concepts in the process of construction, much more plural, complex, and subtle than the traditional concepts in social sciences and humanities. One should underline that even if “Slavic” languages were spoken in some places they may not have been called, or recognized as, “Slavic” by their speakers. Perhaps “Slavs” was just the name that Roman and Byzantine authors used to call them. These descriptions were geographical and cultural. It did not indicate that these people spoke Slavic or called themselves “Slavs” as ethnonym.

Moreover, the ethnic/“racial” language and many writings on “race” by some Bulgarian major politicians, writers, journalist, and academicians are largely ignored in Bulgarian historiography. How did Bulgarian medieval period was appropriated, used and misused by contemporaries in the end of the “long nineteenth century”? Perhaps one of the reasons is that the appropriation should be hidden because it is very closed to the new one. In this regard, leaving aside for a moment the question whether there is such a thing as a “race”, I am going to subscribe to the prevailing view, that an ethnic group should be sharply distinguished from a race in the sense of a social group that is held to possess unique hereditary biological traits that allegedly determine the mental attributes of the group (Smith, 1991, p. 21). Moreover, I will be against any essentialist view of the languages themselves or of the mental powers of their speakers. I will be also against any insights that took into consideration the genetic composition of any population. This could lead us to some simplistic classifications in terms of racial or ethnic units. And last, but not least, as A. Smith (1991, p. 22) emphasized it is myth of common ancestry, not any fact of ancestry (which is usually difficult to ascertain), that are crucial. It is a fictive descent and putative ancestry that matters for the sense of ethnic identification.

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Moreover, often language could be equated with ethnicity but this observation does not hold for language families. The notion of Indo-European language family is just scientific term. The term “Indo-European” has adequate meaning only in the strictly linguistic sense. It is a construct in the field of historical linguistics. There had never been ethnic unite which could be properly described as “Indo-European”. It could be supposed that there was “Proto-European ancestral population” before the separation of IndoEuropean languages, but the idea that those people thought of themselves as a welldefined ethic group is highly doubtful.

THE goal of this study is to investigate political instrumentalization of the quest for origins in the political public sphere as well as in supposedly scientific discourse.

- I am going to investigate how thinking about medieval period in Bulgaria was a combination and a mixture between German Romanticism., E.Renan’s insights and N. Danilevski’s philosophy. Historiography was irrevocably bound up with the ideas of nation and nation-state. There was an insight of an ”organic nation”. The organicism somehow presupposed genetically transmitted differences and genetic inheritance. I will demonstrate how important and fundamental historiographic notions about a Blutsgemeinschaft (community of blood), Volksseele (national soul) and Volksgeist (national spirit) entered in the presumably scientific disciplinary language. In the Bulgarian case, I will reveal how one can come across organicist teleologies inherent in romantic and Schlegelian concepts of the tribe-nation”. Following this German Romantic fashion it was believed that nation is defined in terms on biological origin. For organic nationalist ethnic views of history prevailed and the romantic quest for “our true ancestors” was essential to the cause of the nation. Thus several myths of ethnic origin appeared combining historical fact and legendary elaboration. They will be part of my study.

- I am going to demonstrate the great influence of German Romanticism (Herder) and quest for origins. I am going to trace how it was obvious in different journals like “Сборник за народни умотворения, наука и книжнина”, “Периодическо списание на Българското книжовно дружество”, “Известия на Историческото дружество”, “Bulgarian review”. I will discern how Herderian notion of “history of fatherland” really prevailed among the professionally trained historians and specialists in humanities. I will try to reveal the role that was played by the Bulgarian Historical Association that was established to study most of all “history of the fatherland” in 1901. In fact, following the German model of Volk, the Bulgarian national view addressed the entire Bulgarian ethnic community, a Volk united by blood as well as language and culture. As in the German case, in fact, the notion of Volk could be attached to both democratic and racialist/ethnic interpretations of Bulgarian history.

- I will demonstrate how even the French liberal history underpinned in the Bulgarian context a kind of history that was called to demonstrate how the unified and homogeneous community somehow remain the same despite the process of historical change over centuries.

- Special importance I will dedicate to the role of the translations made from Russian language (books, brochures, newspaper and journal articles) that continued to be a major source for Bulgarian public to be acquainted with the current Western European thought about medieval history and quest for origins in many places. This strong Russian mediation is very obvious in the Bulgarian newspapers and journals at the time.

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- I will reveal how some traces of racial thinking widespread in Europe at that time entered on the pages of the Bulgarian academic journals. I will demonstrate how according to M. Balabanov, “the peoples from this white race” were called “with justice” “the peoples of history”; how referring to Bluntschli, M. Balabanov quoted that “they create the destinies of the world” and celebrated their “intellectual development and their energy.” Following quoting Bluntschli he represented how ”these peoples” were separated into “two grand families: Semitic and Aryan, or the so called Indo-German…” (p. 705).

- This study is going to explore to what extent Renan’s reception in Bulgaria influenced the Bulgarian quest for origins as well. It will demonstrate how M. Balabanov, translating E. Renan, in order to describe ethnic or ligusitic differences instead of “tribe” used “раса” (“race”), word that he describes as “foreign”, together with other factors forging the nation as “language”, “geography”, “religion” etc. I will show how Balabanov felt a need to clarify how those 4-5 main tribes or races were different in color of the body, yet different in their intellectual qualities, in their capabilities or inabilities for state organization, in their historic development or centuries-old stagnation” (p. 705.).

- It deserves mentioning that the Bulgarian historians and scholars were committed to the national paradigm but they were rarely openly racist. I am going to demonstrate how the Bulgarian university professor M. Balabanov defintely opposed racial theory himself. I will sho how more strictly speaking he was against the hierarchy among the “white race” or “Indo-German race” according to their “intellectual development” and “state life”. (p.

706). He wrote that, treating the topic of “races”, some authors had already made some exaggerated statements. (p. 706) Balabanov quoted Bluntchli who subscribed for the “inity of human kin” and “common human nature even in the lowest tribes” emphasizing the importance of this unity for “every one civilized state.” (p. 706).

- I am going to demonstrate how the professionalization of the Bulgarian science was not a linear process and it had its discontinuities. I am going to demonstrate many other instances when university scholars were against racism. I will reveal how they represented their liberal views explaining the differences in the institutions of different people with “geographical” and “cultural” factors, not with racial ones. I am going to address how if there was nationalism in Bulgarian authors like in Ranke’s case it was characterized by enlightened universalism. Enlightenment and cosmopolitanism were typical to Herder and Bulgarian humanities at the time.

- I am going to demonstrate how M. Balabanov referred to N. Danilevski in order to attack one racial theory according to which the Slavs were racially inferior in comparison with the peoples from “Aryan” or “Semitic tribes”. He quoted Danilevski’s idea that the future belongs to the “Slavic tribe”. (p. 707). Later referring to Emilè Montèynt, Balabanov attacked the idea to search in the origin of the peoples for the “secret of their destinies” and the role of the “race” in historical explanation (p. 710).

- I am going to investigate different theories - that the Bulgarians or “Bulgars” of Asparuh were "Tartars" or “Turks” and contemporary Bulgarians “Slavinized Tartars”.

However, the idea about the general Slavic origin of the Bulgarians overwhelmingly dominated in the “Revival period” and the notions about "Tartar", "Hun", "Turkic", “Fin” or "Hungarian" origin of the “old Bulgars” were totally rejected or cover with negligence. I will demonstrate with many details how especially in the periods 18861896 or 1915-1918 some Bulgarian politicians and journalists tried to find an escape

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from the idea of Slavicdom. In this regard they evoked the origin of Asparuh's Bulgarians and underlined it with its different versions – Tartar, Fin, or Turkic. I am going to represent the typical racial language that spoke about Bulgarian “talent”, “innate instinct”, and “gift”. In this regard, I am going to represent many examples when different virtues were depicted as qualities inherited by “our ancestors” represented as Asparuh’s Bulgarians. I am going to give examples how when it was confessed that “in our veins there is certain Tartar blood” this “blood” was depicted as a determinant of the military qualities of the Bulgarians. I am going to reveal many examples when some virtues were represented as intrinsic and inherited by “our ancestors” referring to Asparuh’s Bulgarians. I will try to reveal how these versions were evoked within a context when the racial language became more visible in the Bulgarian public sphere. In these cases “temper” and “qualities” of a “people” were represented not as products of history, culture or social conditions but as determined by “descent” from a certain “race”.

I am going to represent how these examples also indicate that the vision of racial mixture was seen as something superior and not leading the nation to “degeneration”. In fact, the other elements of Bulgarian origin coming from Protobulgarians were seen as something that situated contemporary Bulgarians higher than the “Pure Slavs”. The multiple origin gave a chance to the Bulgarian politicians and journalists to depict richer transmission of some values. Moreover, one should keep in mind that the question of whether language relationship corresponded to biological relationship was hardly discussed at that time. It was believed that all peoples belonging to the same linguistic family had the same ancestors.

- I am going to represent how influenced by contemporary views and some Hungarian authors some Bulgarian writers emphasized in suitable political and international context how Proto-Bulgarians and Hungarians (Madzhars) were close by origin and how the Southern Slavs were without state organization before the Coming of Proto-Bulgarians who were their saviors.

- I am going to study the process of Bulgarization of medivel history and underestimation of other ethnic elements in the Bulgarian quest for origins. I am going to reveal many interesting examples of ethnicization or racialization of monarchical fugures and their imaginary connections with contemporary Bulgarian population through “Bulgarian blood”. Moreover, how “pure” “Bulgarian” and “Slavic” this “blood” was? It is very well known that Proto-Bulgarian Dulo dynasty had had monarchical lineage that had come from the designation “Bulgarian” not as an ethnonym but as politonym.

Although identifying themselves with Bulgarian political and monarchical tradition, the ethnic descent of King Samuel and his brothers is contestable and perhaps Armenian. The same political identification was also valid for the three dinasties of the Second Bulgarian kingdom – Asens’, Terters’ and Shishmans’. However ethnically they were predominantly of Kuman descent.

- I am going to devote special attention to the popular periodical journals and their special status at the time. It should be known that those periodical journals were very prestegos and they were read by pedagogical, high schools or secondary schools teachers.

- I will pay attention to school textbooks as well. There the interpretation of “ancestors” also followed the version that had been basically established in the late 1860s and the beginning of 1870s. The problem of the pedigree of the Protobulgarians was not emphasized as well. “Finic Bulgarians” were easy melt into the Slavs and “Bulgarian

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people” was coming from a “pure Slavic tribe”. It is evident that there were no governmental efforts to make changes in those interpretations as well. I could demonstrate how at turn of the century one can come across the renewed importance of the Aryan myth in a world-wide context that was visible in some Bulgarian textbooks for the first time. That is why one can see descriptions of the “Slavs” represented already explicitly as “Aryans”.

- Studding the Bulgarian newspapers, journals, books etc., special emphasis I will put on art images and imaginations. How did the Slavs are represented? What about Proto-Bulgarians? What is the relation between those images and the image of the Balkan man? Very special emphasis I will put here on gender and masculinity studies perspective that could enriched my approach. I am going to demonstrate how the quest for origins and the racial explanations and speculations, like in many other cases at that time in Europe, were charged with a gender perspective. (some salient influences by authors like Jules Michelet and Gustave Le Bon, Hippolyte Taine, Ch. Darwin). - the intellectual fashion in Europe at that time - heredity and racial generalizations that were full of prejudices - the very category of race was dressed up with the authority of contemporary science and references to foreign authors.

- Special importance I will pay to the topic that was not that part of the histoirical or historiographical studies. It is very interesting for me to follow the changes in the politicised journalistic discourse. In this regard, one should take into consideration that national ideologies played a crucial importance in public political domain. That was the reason why the intersection between “ancestors”, ethnogenesis, science and politics was quite obvious. Here I am going to trace diffirent regimes of speech and different contraversial representations of Bulgaria, once defined as “Slavic” and Bulgaria defined as a product of ethnic diversity. It is very interesting to trace how did Bulgarian authors imagine and appropriate Bulgarian “descent” and the vision of Bulgarian “ancestors”.

- I will try to reveal the social meanings attributed to differences that were supposed to be “racial”; that took into consideration some racial or ethnic characteristic concerning Bulgarian origins. I will not miss to emphasize the interactions and the energies between different domains – politics, literature, journalism, and science. I am going to represent many examples that connected the quest for origins with the notions of social groups, castes and classes influenced by racial language and the fashionable idea about the conflict of races within nations.

- I am going to demonstrate how in the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, following the European fashion and notions about medieval period, “race” as a term, and evolutionary, and medical language influenced by Ch. Darwin, entered intensively in the historiographic discourse and especially politics, literature, and journalism, even more than professional historiography.

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- I am going to represent Zlatarski’s scientific evolution as a representative example for the developments of the Bulgarian medieval historiography at the time. He was not able to avoid a cluster of contemporary Herderian and German Romantic terminology that concerned the national development and the process of nation-building.

Talking about the medieval phenomena, in his text he spoke about “raising of national spirit” and “the establishment of the popular ideal”.

- I will pay special attention to Iv. Shishmanov who marked the fundamental shift in treating the problem of Bulgarian ethnogenesis. Not discussed in the history textbooks the problem of the origin of Ptoto-Bulgarians was already represented in academic writings in the end of nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Mentioning the long debated hypothesis of “Turco-Tartarian origin” of Protobulgarians – and the “development of linguistics” he did not miss Bogdanov’s insight that the “contemporary Bulgarian craniological type” was the one of the “very mixed population.”

- This direction in the academic field brought to debates about ethnic duality and even plurality in Bulgarian history. I will reveal how academic scholars were still caution in applying racial methods for resolving social and cultural issues. As the mentioned above overview of the historical discourse shows, the notion of possible “racial mixture” in Bulgarian origin was not totally unclear for the Bulgarian public. The most prestigious anthropological studies at the time saw contemporary Bulgarians as “very mixed population”. It was also considered obvious from the first glance. (S. Vatev) - I will present overwhelming number of examples how in journalism, literary history, non-academic historiography, literature, these ideas were much more received and they became part of new directions in the thematization about Bulgarian origin, political and cultural figures, different segments of the Bulgarian population and the way of “mapping” of some regions. In this regard I am going to present a rich collection of thematizations about the possible Bulgatroan ethnic origin. I will demonstrate how on the eve of the wars the term “race” or “потекло” (“lineage”, “stock”) was used much more often. It coincided with the increased appropriation of the term “nation” together with “nationality” and already less “народност”. It was combined with constant usage already of racial terms like the “Bulgarian tribe” referring to “blood” and the proverb “Blood does not become water”. Гидиков, 1911, IX, с. 1236. However, even now it was the term “tribe”, not “race” that was very telling. The Bulgarian public was aware that “it almost does not exist nation in which some race to be kept pure.” (Гидиков, 1911, II, 143).

According to St. Gidikov: “Noone can deny that for biological (! S.D ) and historical conditions, some groups had been created that are called nations, differing one from another in specific psychology.” (Гидиков, 1911, II, с. 144). He added as well the following: “The ostensible sameness hides deep differences in racial temperament or the historically established psychology of every nation.” Гидиков, 1911, II, с. 145).

Moreover he spoke about “national peculiarities”, “national character” seen openly as “biologically” determined. (Гидиков, 1911, II, с. 146.) Gidikov speaks about the “Slavic tribe”, “racial community” of the Slavs that predetermines “close psychology”. (Гидиков, 1911, III, 279). Contrary to Renan’s view, ethnographic principle was celebrated because without “political unification”, according to Gidikov, there would not be possible to have “complete national unity with respect to spirit and culture”. (Гидиков, 1911, III, 284; Гидиков, 1911, IX, с. 1239) I will demonstrate how on the eve of the war the model of German Romanticism with the notion of “genius” and Fichte’s

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insight about personal character carried in the blood were part of Bulgarian public discourse concerning the quest for origins.

- I am going to represent a huge variety of examples thematizing on Bulgarian origin, They will come from university theacher in history of Bulgarian law P. Odzhakov who represented women as symbolic bearers of the nation and speculate about young females virginity; about “Slavic” female that was endowed with virtues; about female chastity that was not preserved among the Ancient Thracians; how it was explained as a supposed vestige of an ancient Thracian custom.

- I will present very many concrete examples written by authors like Kiril Hristov, Anton Strashimirov, Petar Neykov and others based on the way contemporary Bulgarians normatively imagined their “ancestors” and the real knowledge about ethnic complexity of the Bulgarian past. I will investigate with many concrete examples how symbolically the “Slavic” was supposed to mark what was closer to the European norms of politeness and morality. What was “ill-looking”, “dark”, “yellow”, “Mongolian”, “Protobulgarian”, “Oriental-Tartarian” was supposed to designate what was considered “Asian”, “barbaric”, “primitive”, “plebeian” and “uncivilized.” I am going to represent how some representatives of the Bulgarian political, social and cultural elite, living in the newly established capital of Sofia, experienced increasing contact with people geographically, culturally, and linguistically, if not phisically, different from people familiar to them.

They felt evident sense of cultural superiority towards the population of the surrounding region. In this regard I am planning to present many examples of depictions in terms of “shops”. In the very beginning of the twentieth century many authors were quite overt talking about “tribe” or “race”, outward appearance, “temper”, connections with certain “culture” and “civilization”. As far as “backwardness” connected with “origin” was concerned, national writer Ivan Vazov referred to historical populations like “Pechenegs” and “Kumans” - subscribing to purely racial explanations concerning origins of the Bulgarian population at certain regions.

- I am going to present overwhelming number of examples for similar “racial” explanations of social phenomena – e.g. how certain tensions, divisions, and weaknesses within the Bulgarian nation were explained envoking the thematization of “origin” or “origins” of the Bulgarian nation; how in popular histories Bulgarian origins were thematized to explain in terms of origin even the contemporary political behavior of regions and large parts of Bulgarian population invoking medieval ethnic migrations and fusion of ethnic groups (S. Radev); how there were cases when the political stand of the population North and South of the Balkan mountain was explain in terms of ethnic origin.Those explanations in terms of ethnic origin were influenced by the French and British schools and the whole intellectual fashion from the “long nineteenth century.”

- I will represent and analyze many concrete examples of political speculations concerning the insistence on “our ancestors the Slavs” and racialization of political adversaries, personal enemies or part of the Bulgarian subjects. I will reveal how in those cases facial features should indicate that those persons, political figures, certain segments of the Bulgarian population had at least symbolicaly lower status within the Bulgarian community. It was usually combined with medieval language and medieval terms and it relied on knowledge from medieval historiography about Protobulgarians”, “OrientalTartarian type”, “pure Mongolian”, “Protobulgarian from the time of Krum”, “Pechenegs”, and “Kumans”. Usually Bulgarian authors used and misused stereotypes

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about the lowest level of the established racial hierarchy among the “Whites” or the “Europeans”. Moreover, their liminal position, even within the Bulgarian context, endowed them with an Asian, “barbaric”, “Mongolian”, and “yellow” status.

- As it is evident from the title I am planning to include war period as well – Balkan wars and First World war as well. That period is very interesting because Russia was ally in the first war and enemy in the second. Moreover, during the wars in Bulgaria historians and other scholars had consensus on national matters. In 1912 and 1915 intellectuals rallied to the national flag. Fin-de- siècle legacy on the racial thought after the beginning of the wars was additionally developed, elaborated and appropriated. The focus was again upon national community, “national self”, and “national character”. In this regard, it was impossible the trends towards more racial phraseology and explanation, even in its moderate versions, not to enter historical discourses. The overwhelming number of political pamphlets and books, as well as Bulgarian press at the time, supported this statement concerning the past. The above-mentioned intellectual atmosphere substantially influenced Bulgarian science as well (sociology, collective psychology, history etc.) They were marked by a trend towards more racial explanations and the appropriation of racial language concerning ethnic past. The war atmosphere strengthened the idea of “ancestors” and some different focuses as far as this topic was concerned, strongly influenced by war alliances and conjuncture (e.g. T. Panov, G. Cenov and many others). Moreover, the influence of race phraseology was so overwhelming that it even influenced the writings of some left, socialist thinkers who were far from the mainstream nationalism and racial language (e.g. Socialist Janco Sakazov spoke about “race”, “Greek race”, “Turkish dominating race”, etc.). At the same time, the role of historical knowledge and different regimes of historicity became even more important (e.g. the first complete history of the Bulgarians was written by a politician at that time, Sakazov, 1917).

- In 1917 it appeared the first Bulgarian medieval history written by the Bulgarian historian V. Zlatarski. This history was non-racist and followed a discourse of objectivity and distance marking the growing professionalization of science. There was less ethnicity and less influence of current First World War atmosphere as one could expect. It spoke about the period of “Hunno-Bulgarian domination” that was followed by an epoch of “slavanization”. Nevertheless, I will reveal how Zlatarski spoke about “formation of the Bulgarian nationality (narodnost)” and “the final ethnic physiognomy of the Balkan peninsula – Slavic” He explicitly mentioned two ethnic elements Slavic and Bulgarian and he spoke about “Slavic-Bulgarian state and nationality” as well as “etnhnic dualism”.

Moreover, Shishmanov emphasized “the quantitative increase of the Slavs in the state” and how “Bulgarian Lords made a sacrify of their nationality (narodnost)”. Zlatarski subscribed to the view that Proto-Bulgarians were from Turcic or Hunn origin. He added that they had common Turcic origin with the Hunns and they were part of common history of the Hunn peoples. According to him, the Hunns were Turks that came from China. Usually, Zlatarski used the term ethnic community and he did not use the term “race”. Zlatarski was very firm in his conclusion that “the Bulgarians by origin are Slavs, crossed with Proto-Bulgarians and other Turcic peoples; by language – totally Slavs, however their state is a deed of a Turcic people.”

- At the same time it was Gancho Cenov, who defended the thesis that Bulgarians were “Hunns” but the Hunns or the Bulgarians have not come from China. According to

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Cenov, they were “old Danubian people, who lived in Thracia from pre-historic times.”

As Cenov wrote “the Hunns are Thracians, but not Chineses.” Generally speaking, according to Cenov, “Bulgarians are old Thracians, but they are old Troyans as well.”

- In the prewar period as well as during the war years, some authors referred to Hungarian linguists Budenc, Munkachi and Gomboc. They emphasized their insights that there were hundreds of Turcic words with Bulgarian origin in the Hungarian language.

Also Finish scholars like Mikkola and Pasonen supported the view that there were many Proto-Bulgarian borrowings in contemporary Hungarian language.

- I am going to reveal how the mentioned above views took different direction of development in non-scientific discourse. Authors like the writer Kiril Hristov (19131916) referred to race and racial policy and they spoke with proud about “TartarBulgarian” origin. During the First World War one can come across views how, according to science and important scholars, in Europe the Hungarians “have no closer relatives than us.” Authors like An. Strashimirov also tried to find some racial explanations concerning Bulgarian origin.

- There are several other issues that could be addressed about the war period. To what extent the war period emphasized the quest for origins? What were the links between historians and other scholars in humanities and literature, on the one hand, and political movements, including nationalist movements, on the other. What was the influence of Neo-Rankeans or post-Risorgimento historiography on Bulgarian regimes of historicity between 1912-1918? What was the influence of race and psychoanalyses, Freud’s ideas and Jung’s notion of “archetypes”? Were there any applications of the concepts of “collective soul” and “race soul”? What other kinds of influences one could trace? - to what extent “race” was applied as a scientific category or Bulgarian authors carry on subscribing to insight that historical change has nothing to do with race but with economic and social conditions and political institutions. To what extent Social Darwinist traces expressed through a diffusion of organic imagery and other racial overtones could be distinguish in their writings. Why even some socialist thinkers were influenced by racial discourse and ideas (e.g. P. Neykov) --- How did Bulgarian scholars cope with German idea about racial inferiority, especially of the Slavic peoples? How did they cope with German “Aryan” and already firmly Nordic, not Indian concept? How did they domesticate theories of racial gradations (“good” German, “worse” Slav and “degenerate” French). How can one trace the relations between ethnically oriented nationalism and racial ideas. In this regard, what were the influences of Slavophilism and German Sonderweg. (e.g. P. Mutafchiev) --- How did Bulgarian thinkers cope with such interconnected themes everywhere in Europe as “ancestry” and “race”? What were the trends and differences in comparison with the prevailing paradigm from the beginning of the century? In this regard what was the influence of the intellectual developments in Europe? How can one define and estimate the typical application of the category of “race” and racial thought in the Bulgarian intellectual context? What were the features of “race biology of the Bulgarian people” (M. Popov); the concept of “Bulgarian race” or “Bulgarian tribe”; the visions about “mixture of blood” and “psychological chaos” (K. Hristov); What were the visions as far as the notions of homogeneous or heterogeneous nation were concerned?

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