Academic literature on the topic 'Post-communism – Bulgaria'

In this article I examine the repeated material-semiotic mobilization of the trope of the Berlin Wall in post-communist Bulgaria. I show that despite the official dismantlement of the Wall commenced some thirty years ago, the structure’s afterlife continues to exert a unique influence on Bulgaria’s public life today. I explore the function of the Wall as a narrative and political device in moments when the relation to public space is negotiated or when notions of “past” and “present” are short-circuited. By taking up the notion of a “recording surface,” developed by GillesDeleuze and Félix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus, I show how Bulgarian post-communism can be understood as the terrain of a continuous production of consensus. I argue that after 1989 the Berlin Wall has adopted a governing and consensus-building function that contributes to the “smoothening” of political and social differences on the recording surface of Bulgarian post-communism. Yet,what makes the examination of the fictitious successors of the original Berlin Wall an interesting terrain for examination is that their operation is predicated upon a material heterogeneity and dynamism. In the article, I explore the way this trope has been mobilized in four different cases from Bulgaria’s most recent history and demonstrate in what sense its “reactivation” can be seen as contributing to the stabilization of the recording surface of Bulgarian post-communism. Author(s): Neda Genova Title (English): Material-semiotic Transformations of the Berlin Wall in Post-Communist Bulgaria Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 16, No. 1-2 (Summer - Winter 2019) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities - Skopje Page Range: 78-90 Page Count: 13 Citation (English): Neda Genova, “Material-semiotic Transformations of the Berlin Wall in Post-Communist Bulgaria,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 16, No. 1-2 (Summer - Winter 2019): 78-90.

The study sketches out the contexts where Bulgarian film has been developing in the three decades of transition to democracy. The problems associated with the identity crisis, insufficient communication with the national audiences, Bulgarian films’ belonging to the European audiovisual and cultural continuum and critical reflection are partly broached. The cinematic environment has changed in Bulgaria after 2010 with the coming of emerging authors, who gave this country’s filmmaking a new physiognomy. Their works are much more adequate to the globalising world, providing genre diversity and dealing with subjects easier for the audiences to identity themselves with. The plots revolving around the present day and the ramifications of the socialist era prevail. In general, Bulgarian films of the recent decade are in visible demand at international film festivals, attracting the attention of foreign film critics. Awards, however, are not necessarily passports for good reception in the homeland`s milieu. Such is the case with Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova’s directorial duo (Actvist 38) and their two controversially documentary films Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service (2013) and The Beast Is Still Alive (2016). An analysis of their works shows that reverting to the subject of totalitarianism and the attempt at reaching a consensus-based memory onscreen are still risky in Bulgaria’s cultural environment. Their new full-length future film – the emigrant social comedy-drama Cat in the Wall (2019, warmly accepted and awarded abroad) - surprisingly received the national Golden Rose Debut Award 2019, but the Bulgarian critics` stays still undeservedly reserved.

This article explores the status of Turks in Bulgaria under the transition from Communism to post-Communism. After a summary of the demography of the Turkish population in Bulgaria, the paper focuses on developments in three specific areas: religious, political, and educational issues. For each issue a brief historical background is given but the emphasis is on developments since 1989. Since the article is an expanded version of a presentation on East European Linguistic Minorities, the issue of Turkish language and Turkish language education in Bulgaria is discussed in greater detail than religious and political issues. This in no way implies that the latter are any less important.

Despite the fact that its scholarly application has been considered highly problematic in the former Eastern Bloc and barely employed due to the Marxist background, post-colonialism has been recently introduced by a large number of scholars and academics. Yet, theoretical experiments, research, and projection of post-colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe have come to compose an abundant field of reference. Drawing on this theoretical approach, this paper aims to debate the category of post-coloniality in postcommunist Bulgaria in order to better venture the parapet of the post-1989 transition. Employing a ‘minority perspective’, which will reveal minority positionality in the contemporary Bulgarian cultural and political ground, this paper traces potential power actions of (dis)possession of knowledge among subaltern groups, which actions continue to negate, disavow, distort, and deny access to different forms of minority cultures and life visions represented by non-majoritarian segments of the Bulgarian society. In general, this paper digs into the historical experience of the ethnic Turks and Muslim minority groups in Bulgaria prior to the communist experience, throughout and after the collapse of communism, and in the contemporary Republic of Bulgaria. In particular, post-coloniality – understood in terms of ‘coloniality of being’ – shall offer a better and critical angle of investigation over the issues of human marginalisation, cultural subordination, and knowledge exploitation in Bulgaria and Southeast Europe.

In her book Street without a Name, Kapka Kassabova, a Bulgarian author living in Scotland, combines a memoir of her childhood in communist Bulgaria with a travelogue about later return visits to her – now post-communist – native country. In this study, the discontinuous, fragmented and heterogeneous narrative of her autobiographical text is interpreted as an attempt to find an appropriate mode of sharing intimate knowledge of life in communism with a wider reading public in (primarily) Western English-speaking countries. It is demonstrated that Kassabova, writing from the perspective of an expatriate, emphasizes both the uniqueness of life in communist Bulgaria and the commonality of many experiences and values as well as their compatibility with those held by many people in Western countries. By employing a hybrid textual form, she succeeds in rendering her experiences as a child and teenager in communist Bulgaria and as a transnational migrant into the structures, metaphors and themes of a transnational “liquid modernity”, thus appealing to a broad multinational readership.

Marxism dominated in Bulgaria for more than forty years until 1989 and then completely vanished from the public discourse within several years. Where has it gone? The present article addresses this question by noting that even if they are out of the public discourse, remnants of the previously dominant set of ideas should still be found in people’s thinking. It illustrates this general argument by outlining how the survival into post-communism of a pillar of Marxist economic theory—the labor theory of value—can explain several significant discrepancies between facts and perceptions, called the “experience gap,” shown to exist in Bulgaria at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On the other side, the presence of the experience gap in Bulgaria is a factor influencing the availability and the choice of policy options. Thus, the Marxist labor theory of value continues to live in people’s minds and still shapes today’s Bulgarian reality.

This article presents how the political changes in Bulgaria after 1989 have infl uenced the interpretation of 20th century history. The emergence of the new censorship is traced through the introduction of a new canon for presenting the past. Three decades ago, Bulgaria began its transition from Soviet-type state socialism to political democracy. For historians, this meant removing political and ideological censorship. Initially, this freedom gave historians the chance to upgrade historical knowledge with hidden facts that were inconvenient for the BCP government. Soon, however, new political parties came to power and began to impose their political version of history. This meant re- moving facts related to the history of the communist movement and anti-fascism in Bulgaria. The attempts at rewriting history are especially visible in the presentation of the socialist period. The political intervention began with the renaming of streets, towns, and institutions. Names associated with the anti-fascist resistance and Russian and Soviet history were removed. Instead, names from the time when Bulgaria was part of the Tripartite Pact were restored. The modern political censorship is most evident in the rewriting of history textbooks. The new curricula introduced a mandatory positive presentation of the history of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom. The actions of the Communists had to be presented as terrorist, and the entire post-war government was defi ned as totalitarian. Instead of socialism, we should use the term “communism”. In 2019, when approving the new history textbooks for high schools, right-wing non-governmental organizations intervened and, as a result, facts about the socio-economic development of the country in the socialist period were removed.

From a normative standpoint the media are usually seen as one of the pillars of a national integrity system, entrusted with the tasks of exposing and preventing acts of corruption and educating the public of the harm caused by corruption. Nevertheless, corruption continues to be one of the most significant challenges that Europe faces, undermining citizens' trust in democratic institutions and weakening the accountability of political leadership. Evidence suggests that in fragile EU democracies such as Bulgaria, despite more than eight years of full membership and numerous preventive measures, corruption is rife and the press is hardly capable of exposing abuses of power or authority. On the contrary - drawing on in-depth interviews with 35 Bulgarian journalists - this paper argues that since communism collapsed in the late 1980s the media in post-communist societies such as Bulgaria has gradually become an instrument to promote and defend private vested interests, and is plagued by corruption. Senior journalists and editors cast serious doubt over the ability of the post-communist free press and journalism to act as a watchdog for society.

This article deals with the changes in Bulgarian culture after the fall of the Communist regime in Bulgaria in 1989. The first sections sketch the state of the Bulgarian culture and society during the later years of the communism. They describe the change in official ideology, i.e. the return to nationalism. The controversial role of the Communist regime in the modernization process of society is analyzed, with its simultaneous modernization and counter-modernization heritage. Then we shift to the changes in society and culture that have taken place since the fall of the regime. Attention is focused on the new mass culture, the embodiment of the value crisis in which the post-Communist Bulgarian society is located. The radical transformations in the field of the so-called ‘high’ culture are examined, especially the financial difficulties and the overall change in the social status of arts and culture. The basic trauma of the Bulgarian culture embodied in the constantly returning feeling of being a cultural by-product of the West is brought out. The article concludes that Bulgarian post-Communist culture has failed to create a more complex and flexible image of the “Bulgarian” that can use the energies of globalization without feeling threatened by disintegration.

AbstractThe problem addressed in this article is the adequacy of the recently developed quality of democracy model in analyzing post-communist democracies in the context of their recent accession into the European Union. In order to provide some clarification of this question, the conceptual framework is utilized in light of past and recent political developments in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Several procedural and substantive dimensions of the model are examined, particularly participation and competition, accountability, governance, rule of law, corruption and aspects of popular legitimacy. The main conclusion is that while the model proves its ability to understand some of the specific dynamics and peculiarities of these cases, it is less successful in showing how democratic legitimacy becomes institutionalized.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on February 26, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. J. Kenneth Benson. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis analyses linguistic policies in Bulgaria, during the Ottoman, monarchical, communist and post-communist periods and its effects on the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. The linguistic policies in Bulgaria did not follow consistent policies
on the contrary, it followed different policies in different periods. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how the Turkish minority experiences and perceives linguistic rights in the post-communist period, such as study of and in Turkish language, Turkish minority media, use of minority personal names, naming of topographical places and the status of Turkish language in official and administrative institutions. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were carried out in ISiklar (Samuil) municipality in Bulgaria, where Turks constitute the absolute majority of the population. As a result of the analyses of the experiences of the Turkish minority, it was observed that (Turkish) linguistic rights and language were experienced by the Turkish minority in terms of ethnolinguistic identity. It is concluded that symbolic power and diglossia relationships between Turkish and Bulgarian languages affected the ways of perception of (Turkish) linguistic rights by the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

This study is devoted to politics of nationalism under Bulgarian communism (1944-89). The research aims to analyse the actual content of the Bulgarian communist policies on three main national questions and the ideas behind them. How did Bulgarian communism understand nation and nationalism? How did the Bulgarian Communist Party policy on issues of nationalism change over time? What was the legacy of communist politics of nationalism after the fall of the regime in 1989? This thesis focuses on three national questions in Bulgaria: `the Macedonian Question', the position of the ethnic Turkish minority, and the politics of Jewish identity. It argues that revealing the ideas behind the communist policies in relation to these questions explains how communism understood national identity in Bulgaria. Chapter 1 provides an overview of theories of nationalism and communism in relation to Bulgarian communism. Chapter 2 analyses the understanding of communist internationalism and nationalism of the founders of Bulgarian communism and their followers in the contest of Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism. Chapter 3 discusses Bulgarian communist mythology and argues that under communism Bulgarian national mythology was at the basis of promoting cultural nationalism which in its own turn was used for political mobilisation against ethnic diversity. Chapters 4,5 and 6 are dedicated to the three national questions mentioned above and their development under communism. Chapter 7 examines politics of nationalism after the fall of the communist regime in Bulgaria in 1989 and argues that by promoting cultural nationalism based on ethnic homogeneity the policies of the BCP in relation to ethnic minorities determined the politics of nationalism during post-communism in Bulgaria. The chapters are linked by the argument that Bulgarian communism changed its original idea of building a communist ration-State as a political community with class identity at its core to building an ethnically homogenous nation-state with ethnic Bulgarian identity as its organising principle.

By engaging with ‘realism’ in the context of Socialist Realism in Bulgaria, a notion that inhabits the space in between fine art, ideology and art history, this practice-based research offers new insight into the examination of continuities between fine art during Communism and post-Communism, exploring the relationship between the abstract and the figurative and their functioning both within, and exceeding, the pictorial space of painting. The two main research questions that inform the studio work and underpin this study have been: How can art practice explore the official representations of Socialist Realism in post-Communist Bulgaria in the axis between photography and painting? How can this process affect an understanding of the relationship between abstract and figurative painting within the context of ‘realism’ of Socialist Realism and contemporary fine art in the country? By focusing on these research questions, this study conceptualises the relationship between the abstract and the figurative in the context of Socialist Realism in fine art in Bulgaria and its official representations after the collapse of the Communist regime. This relationship marked one of the central oppositions in fine art during the Communist era in the country, often constituting a dividing line between what was considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ art. This study is concerned with the differences in the definitions of ‘realism’ within Socialist Realism in Bulgaria over the years, differences which may be considered as ruptures in its development. Yet it acknowledges these differences within the framework imposed by the Communist ideology. The latter remained unchangeable, yet had a determining impact on the development of fine art throughout the Communist period. Furthermore, the study explores how fragments of this framework are transferred into the post-Communist period, and how they function in state-funded institutional representations of Socialist Realist works and in examples of former ‘official’ artists’ works, as well as in the readings of Socialist Realism after the fall of the Communist regime, readings which fluctuate between the oppositions of ‘official or unofficial’ art, praise or disavowal of Socialist Realism. In order to explore both the ruptures and the continuities, the research looks at Socialist Realism and its specificities in Bulgaria in relation to Socialist Realism in fine art in the Soviet Union and other post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe. The relationship between the abstract and the figurative is situated within this context and explored through a series of transformations of photographic sources into paintings. These transformations are performed by my practice, engaging with the photographic sources’ production, dissemination and display in relation to ‘realism’ in Socialist Realism.

Le thème que nous nous proposons d’aborder dans la présente thèse est celui du populisme comme idéologie avec ses manifestations dans le monde, en Europe et surtout en Roumanie, où ses amples développements ont été à notre avis insuffisamment explorés jusqu’ici. L’hypothèse que nous avançons et que nous essaierons de valider par notre étude est celle que le populisme roumain n’est pas récent ou de fraiche importation, mais qu’il est solidement enraciné dans l’histoire et que ses évolutions ont un intérêt académique certain. L’interrogation méthodique, approfondie de la bibliographie spécialisée nous a révélé l’existence d’un intérêt minimum pour les variantes roumaines du populisme. La bibliographie internationale sur le populisme roumain est restreinte (Ghiţă Ionescu, Aurel Braun, Vladimir Tismăneanu, tous d’origine roumaine, sont actuellement les références citables). En Roumanie, quelques recherches isolées, surtout des dix dernières années, ont abordé des aspects ponctuels.Notre démarche tient sur trois piliers. Un premier chapitre théorique vise à interroger et clarifier la notion de populisme. Nous sommes partis à la recherche du populisme en utilisant la méthodologie de Margaret Canovan et Guy Hermet. Nous avons donc entrepris de refaire l’histoire du concept (narodniki russes, populistes américains, agrariens est-européens de l’entre-deux guerres, populismes latino-américains et d’Europe occidentale d’après guerre. L’étude taxonomique s’est accompagnée d’un passage en revue des conditions locales ayant généré les avatars du populisme sur quatre continents. Nous avons par la suite procédé à un état de la recherche sur la notion de populisme pour aboutir à une définition propre qui intègre des éléments dus à Jaguaribe, Hermet, Albertazzi et Mc Donnel, Laclau.Forts de la définition, nous avons passé en revue les rapports entre populisme et les diverses variantes du nationalisme, en insistant sur le national-populisme théorisé en première par Gino Germani, fort présent en Europe centrale et orientale et sans doute en Roumanie. Nous avons insisté sur les spécificités et les variables (temps, existence d’un leader charismatique) du populisme dans cette région, en retraçant, à la manière de Hermet, l’histoire politique de ces pays (Bulgarie, Hongrie, Pologne, République Tchèque, Roumanie, Slovaquie) avec un accent sur les mouvements considérés (à raison ou à tort) comme populistes.Le premier chapitre constitue la trame de fond du second, qui fait un panorama des avatars du populisme roumain des origines et jusqu’au début de la seconde guerre mondiale. Nous y avons surtout utilisé des sources roumaines (monographies de courants idéologiques, biographies, études et synthèses historiques, collections de revues et journaux, documents d’archives). En Roumanie, le populisme s’est manifesté depuis les débuts de la modernité politique, au XIXe. Le problème paysan a représenté la matrice du populisme roumain et l’examen des solutions pour y répondre constitue le fil conducteur de ce chapitre. Nous en avons dressé l’inventaire :populisme d’État modernisateur à la Peron (prince Cuza), socialisme de Gherea avec la paysannerie en arrière-garde du prolétariat, radicalisme bourgeois de gauche (le poporanism de Stere), populisme romantique et passéiste (le semeurisme de Iorga), boulangisme tardif (général Averescu), paysannisme avec sa doctrine coopératiste (PNP de Maniu et Mihalache), mais aussi le fascisme déviant de la Garde de Fer, qui a ciblé elle aussi les campagnes. Tous ces projets politiques ont illustré l’échec du populisme face aux problèmes de la société roumaine en voie de modernisation.Le troisième chapitre est consacré à la récrudescence populiste après la longue parenthèse communiste. Une analyse du national-communisme de Ceauşescu nous permet d’identifier bien des facteurs ayant façonné la société roumaine de 1989. Le national-populisme a connu un important essor en Roumanie post-communiste. Nous avons mis à profit des recherches internationales (De Waele, Tismăneanu), mais aussi locales comme des discours, articles de presse, sondages, archives électroniques. Nous avons accordé une attention particulière au Parti de la Grande Roumanie de Corneliu Vadim Tudor, le cas typique auquel nous avons consacré une étude. D’autres formations (PUNR, PNG de George Becali, Parti du Peuple – Dan Diaconescu, les anémiques héritiers du Mouvement Légionnaire) ont été passées en revue, pour constater leur inconsistance doctrinaire et leur faible impact électoral. De même, nous avons conclu que le national-populisme roumain post-communiste s’inscrit dans la continuité du national-communisme et très marginalement dans celle de ‘entre-deux-guerres. S’adressant aux perdants de la transition, ces partis ont failli à laisser leur marque. Deux leaders ayant fini en prison, un autre mort, la voie populiste semble momentanément fermée, bien qu’elle ait réussi une percée récente dans le discours des partis mainstream. Notre thèse retient une fin qui saurait aussi bien s’avérer un nouveau commencement.
The theme we intend to investigate in this dissertation is populism as an ideology with its embodiments throughout the world, in Europe and most of all in Romania, where its vast developments have been in our view insufficiently explored until now. The hypothesis we submit and which we shall try to validate by our research is that Romanian populism is not recent or freshly imported, but it is deeply rooted in history and its evolutions are of undoubted academic interest. The deep, thorough examination of specialized bibliography revealed us a limited interest for the Romanian variants of populism. The international bibliography on Romanian populism is far from extensive (Ghiţă Ionescu, Aurel Braun, Vladimir Tismăneanu, all of Romanian origin, are now the quotable references). In Romania, the research is not abundant either, but over the ten last years some individual aspects of the topic have been investigated. Our approach is threefold. A first theoretical chapter aims to questioning and clarifying the notion of populism itself. We set off in search of populism making use of Margaret Canovan and Guy Hermet’s methodology. We have thus ventured to trace back the concept’s history (Russian narodniki, American populists, East-European agrarianisms in-between the world wars, Latin-American and Western European populisms after WWII. The taxonomic study was accompanied by a review of local contexts having generated the avatars of populism on four continents. We have subsequently drawn a state-of-play of the research on populism as a concept in order to come up with our own definition which integrates elements owed to Jaguaribe, Hermet, Albertazzi & Mc Donnel, Laclau.On the solid ground of the definition, we have reviewed the relationships between populism and the diverse variants of nationalism, focusing on the national-populism first theorized by Gino Germani. National-populism is to be widely encountered in Central and Eastern Europe and undoubtedly in Romania. We have insisted on the specificities and variables (time, existence of a charismatic leader) of populism in this region, by recounting in the manner of Hermet the political history of these countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) with special regard to movements rightly or wrongly considered as populist. The first chapter sets the framework of the second one, which brings about a panorama of the Romanian populist avatars from its origins to the start of WWIII. We have mostly made use of Romanian sources (monographs of ideological trends, biographies, historical studies, collections of magazines and newspapers, documents from the archives).Populism has been a constant presence in Romania, since the beginnings of the country’s political modernity in the 19th century. The peasant problem represents the matrix of Romanian populism and the review of the foreseen solutions to solve it represents the unifying thread of this chapter. We have proceeded to an inventory :modernizing state populism à la Peron (prince Cuza), Gherea’s socialism with the peasantry seen as the rearguard of the proletariat, left bourgeois radicalism (Stere and his poporanism), Romanticist & revivalist populism (Iorga and his sămănătorism), late boulangisme (General Averescu), agrarianism with the underlying cooperatist doctrine (National Peasant Party of Maniu and Mihalache), but also the Iron Guard’s deviant fascism, which targeted rural areas as well. All these political projects illustrated the failure of populism to address the problems of Romanian society on its way to modernity. The third chapter deals with the populist revival in Romania after the fall of communism in 1989. An analysis of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s national-communism enables us to identify many factors having shaped the Romanian society of 1989. National-populism enjoyed massive success in post-communist Romania. We took advantage of international (De Waele, Tismăneanu), but also local research and explored speeches, press items, polls, electronic archives.Particular attention was paid to Corneliu Vadim Tudor’s Greater Romania, the typical case which we studied. Other parties (PNUR, George Becali’s NGP, Dan Diaconescu’s People’s Party, the feeble heirs to the Legionary Movement) were reviewed, only to conclude to their doctrinal shallowness and weak electoral impact. We have come to the conclusion that Romania’s post-communist national-populism is based on the legacy of national-communism and only marginally on the heritage of Romania’s interwar populisms. Targeting the losers of transition, these parties failed to achieve major success. Two of their leaders ended up in prison, a third one is dead, so the populist path seems momentarily shut, though it has managed a recent breakthrough into the discourse of mainstream parties. Our dissertation closes on an end note which may well prove a new beginning.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Les révolutions de l’Est ont induit la fragmentation des Etats qui s’est accompagnée, sur le plan interne par une renaissance des partis ethniques ; ce qui ne va pas sans poser de problèmes à la démocratie politique. Les transitions et a fortiori les consolidations démocratiques font émerger un double phénomène d’interaction entre les acteurs et le système, dans la recherche d’un nouvel équilibre. Les partis ethniques se politisent alors que le système s’ouvre à l’acteur ethnique. On assiste donc à un réajustement évolutif du système devant la nouvelle donne. Le système s’ouvre aux nouvelles demandes à caractère ethnique de différentes façons et à différents degrés : entre la légalisation et la tolérance. Côté acteurs, les partis ethniques rentrent progressivement dans le jeu politique ; de différentes façons et à différents degrés. Dans notre champ problématique les relations interactives se déploient entre acteurs multi-niveaux (partis-Etats) et dans les divers champs (politique, sociétal et juridique). Leurs connexions sont croisées entre l’espace étatique et internationale, public et civil, politique et sociétal ; avec les Etats d’accueil ou d’origine, mais aussi, les Etats-tiers. Ils sont à velléités indépendantistes ou simplement des lobbies politiques. Nous avons essayé de mettre en lumière les principaux aspects de la complexité de la question ethnique dans les jeunes démocraties politiques ‘‘en consolidation’’. La problématique ethnique des PECO peut-elle nous aider à compléter en actualisant certaines visions généralistes des sciences politiques ? Les acteurs impliqués sont ainsi invités à éviter les pièges des nationalismes perçus comme ‘‘mesquins’’, voire ‘‘chaotiques’’ tout en servant la cause d’une plus souple intégration politique alias la ‘‘paix démocratique’’
The revolutions of Eastern induced fragmentation of States were accompanied internally by a revival of ethnic parties, which is not without its problems in political democracy. Transitions and even more democratic consolidation are emerging a double phenomenon of interaction between actors and the system in search of a new equilibrium. Ethnic parties then politicize the system opens the ethnic actor. We are witnessing an evolutionary adjustment of the system to the new situation. The system opens to the new demands ethnic ways and to different degrees: between legalization and tolerance. Side actors, are gradually returning ethnic parties in the political game, in different ways and to different degrees. In our problem the field deploy interactive relationships between multi-level actors (parties-States) and in the various fields (political, societal and legal). Their connections are crossed between the State and international space, public and civil, political and social, with host countries or origin, but also the third States. They are separatist ambitions or simply political lobbies. We tried to highlight the main aspects of the complexity of the ethnic issue in young democracies political '' in consolidation ''. The ethnic problem of CEEC can help us to complete updating some general visions of political science? The actors involved are invited to avoid the pitfalls of nationalism perceived as '' petty '' or '' chaotic '' while serving the cause of a more flexible policy integration to the ‘‘democratic peace’’

Defence date: 23 September 2005
Examining board: Prof. Philippe C. Schmitter (European University Institute, supervisor) ; Prof. Jan Zielonka (Oxford University/European University Institute) ; Prof. Ivo Banac (Yale University, external co-supervisor) ; Prof. Stefano Bianchini (University of Bologna)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

This concluding chapter discusses the Bulgarian diet, cuisine, and food transformation under communism. It elaborates on the transformative nature of food by referencing the context of modern Bulgaria. The communist period witnessed a veritable revolution in food, but the post-1989 period had wrought change that was just as far-reaching. The Bulgarian communist legitimacy placed great importance over the pleasures of food, drink, flavor, and experience alongside nutrition. Moreover, the communist regime enacted conditions of production and cultures of consumption that ensured that meat, dairy, and produce would be consumed regularly regardless of season or social class. The chapter also recognizes the work of Bulgarians trying to preserve the ingredients of the past while formulating further recipes for the future.

This chapter explores the influences of modern bioimaginary on modern changes in Bulgarian food production, consumption, and exchange. It elaborates on biopolitics being used to define the ways a variety of actors intervened to make decisions about how bodies should be nourished, disciplined, regulated, and mobilized. Bulgaria was under socialism following the post-Word War II period, which resulted in the imperative to catch up to the West and trigger a transformative new bioimaginary and resultant biopolitics. As the Soviet Union had been born of hunger, food, like bread, was used as a tool for establishing and maintaining power. The chapter notes Bulgaria's level of development in food had not been able to keep up with the United States before communism.

The Virgin Mary as such cannot be examined scientifically. We can, however, examine her ‘apparitions’ in the world, as well as the innumerable variants of Marian devotion and cult. This volume focuses on her manifestations in the post-Communist region with some geographical spillovers. It is either because post-Communist transformation concerned not only the former socialist countries, but also had an impact on the entire European region and was part of the overall post-modern and post-Communist reconfiguration of the European area. Another factor is that Marian worship is not controlled by political borders of present-day nation states. It has a wider transnational potential and impact. Nevertheless, we focused our viewfinder primarily on the post-Communist region, as we believe that thanks to its geographical and symbolic location and economic position in Europe, as well as its historical roots and traditions and common Communist history and heritage, it not only shows different traits of modernity compared to ‘Western Europe’, but we also face specific features and forms of worshipping of the Virgin Mary. We therefore decided to present in this volume the traces of the Virgin Mary by means of more in-depth analyses from selected countries of the post-socialist region. By means of this publication, we can observe how the Virgin Mary is manifested in the faces of seers and pilgrims and how audio-visual means are becoming a direct part of Marian apparitions in Germany in the modern era (H. Knoblauch and S. Petschke); how she speaks through the mouth of a blind Roma woman and pacifies the ethnic and religious tensions between various groups in Romania (L. Peti); how she attributes meaning to meaningless places on the map by reallocating her presence through the geo- graphical and time distribution of Marian dedications in Slovakia (J. Majo); how, after the fall of Communism, she revitalises the old places of her cult with new power, bringing together traditional and non-traditional forms of worship in the secular Czech Lands (M. Holubová); how her messages are spread on the websites of new non-traditional Marian movements and how their apocalyptical warnings are being updated and localised into the specific national environment in Czechia (V. Tutr); how she addresses the readers of Marian literature differently on the shelves of book- stores in Slovakia and Austria (R. Kečka); but also how the Virgin Mary absorbs ultra-modern millennial and spiritualistic concepts of Mother Earth and Mother of the Universe, becoming the speak- er of the great unified Hungarian nation (J. Kis-Halas); how she is becoming the re-discovered herald of Serbian national identity (A. Pavićević); how she absorbs the local forms of faith and folk Christianity in modern era and is thus the manifestation of grass- root Christianity and local religious culture in Bulgaria (V. Baeva and A. Georgieva); and how the path from a private to an officially recognised apparition depends not only on the Virgin Mary and the seer, but also on the overall constellation of the audience and the ability to offer a religious ready-made event (T. Zachar Podolinská and L. Peti). This publication observes the current diversity of the forms of Marian devotion in post-Communist countries through different national and geographically defined contours and, in particular, the ability of the Virgin Mary to satisfy the hunger for modern spirituality and authentic religiousness, give voice to unofficial and popular religions, revitalise and redefine old places of cult and add new ones, appease war conflicts, speak out on behalf of nations and marginalised ethnic groups, and guard national and conservative values. The post-modern and post-Communist Mary thus restores ruptured traditions with love and enchants the violently atheised European region with new miracles and apparitions, regardless of whether top Church and state representatives like it or not.