Ewelina Drzewiecka1; 1 Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Discussion
The aim of the presentation is to address the phenomenon of anniversary in regard to the cultural conditions that are typical of the period of socialism in South-East Europe. The focus is on a jubilee discourse that is generated for the purposes of state commemorations of St. Cyril and Methodius, i.e. the inventors of the first Slavic alphabet and literacy. Being related with the Bulgarian-Macedonian ethno cultural area, the Slavic Enlighteners function as figures of both the Slavic unity and Bulgarian primacy in Slavic (Orthodox) word, although the latter is constantly neg(oti)ated by other national master narratives, especially the Macedonian one. The focus is on the case of People’s Republic of Bulgaria (1946-1990), which is perceived as both an example of rewriting the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition under the local conditions of Communist ideology and a starting point for further inquiries as far as the question of the “indigenization of Marxism” (K. Verdery) is concerned. The presentation discusses the continuity of cultural matrix within the Bulgarian modernity despite the distinct semantic shifts within the Cyrillo-Methodian narrative and suggests a great potential of investigating the phenomena with regard to the past that is nationally shared/contested. A “contrastive grammar” of competing jubilee discourses and practices would be a promising way of interpreting the Bulgarian-Macedonian jubilee confrontations and struggles for primacy that emerged during socialism.
