The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in commu... more This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in communist Bulgaria. Right after September 1944, the establishment of a system of privileges was initiated, a system that created special categories of citizens opposed in this way to the rest of society. From 1944 on, former partisans became part of the rul-ing elite and granted themselves and their relatives many privileges, transforming themselves into a specially privileged caste. The analysis is based on the archive doc-uments of the Union of the People’s Guerrilla Fighters and the Union of the Fighters against Fascism – institutions existing in the period 1945–1951. The activities of the ‘fighters’ were aimed at substituting in very short terms after the take over the vectors of the public memory in order to legitimize the new power resources. The social system of total control and caste privileges discredited the idea of modern society, social freedom and equality. The author analyses b...
The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
The article studies the issues of russian rock poetry in terms of linguocultural analysis. Diana ... more The article studies the issues of russian rock poetry in terms of linguocultural analysis. Diana Arbenina is a Russian rock poetess, the leader of the rock band "Night Snipers" /Ночные снайперы/. Besides songs and lyrics, Arbenina writes poetry and prose. Over the years of her career, Diana Arbenina has created more than 460 songs and poems which she prefers to call "anti-songs." The article aims to identify the antisongs of Diana Arbenina in the context of modern humanitarian knowledge. The terms "rock text" "poetry", and idiolect are specified. The article addresses a rock text and rock poetry as a complex synthetic phenomenon and concludes that the texts of Diana Arbenina are closely associated with poetry, melody, musical rhythm, and vocal. The accent in the article is devoted to analysis of the Arbenina's anti-songs and contains the description of lexical and syntactic features of her texts, examples of language game, specific features of intertextuality references in the context of nowadays Russian rock poetry.
The paper presents the constructing of the image of “child heroes” in the memory policies imposed... more The paper presents the constructing of the image of “child heroes” in the memory policies imposed by the communist regime in Bulgaria after 1944. The Bulgarian case of establishing patterns of child heroism during the communist regime followed the Soviet examples of policy on the youngsters. In pursuing its own ideological goals, after 1944 the political regime in Bulgaria imposed new content of child education and turned children into an instrument and object of the propaganda of new heroism. The biographies of the “child heroes” were turned into examples of education and identification for the young generations. Despite the fact that several local cases existed, the cases of Mitko Palauzov, the “six children form Yastrebino” and the “heroes of Belitsa” – Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi were presented as the national heroic patterns for the youngsters. The specific case of Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi has been followed in the paper.
This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in commu... more This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in communist Bulgaria. Right after September 1944, the establishment of a system of privileges was initiated, a system that created special categories of citizens opposed in this way to the rest of society. From 1944 on, former partisans became part of the ruling elite and granted themselves and their relatives many privileges, transforming themselves into a specially privileged caste. The analysis is based on the archive documents of the Union of the People's Guerrilla Fighters and the Union of the Fighters against Fascism-institutions existing in the period 1945-1951. The activities of the 'fighters' were aimed at substituting in very short terms after the take over the vectors of the public memory in order to legitimize the new power resources. The social system of total control and caste privileges discredited the idea of modern society, social freedom and equality. The author analyses both legislation as well as the ways in which privileges were constructed in social policies in communist Bulgaria.
This article is a review of the book “Turkology in Exile: Mefküre Mollova. A Biographical Study”,... more This article is a review of the book “Turkology in Exile: Mefküre Mollova. A Biographical Study”, authored by Zeynep Zafer and Murie Muratova. Mefküre Mollova (1927–2009) was the first Turkish woman and university professor in Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted herself to unexplored issues of Turkish dialectology, related to the Turkish dialects in Bulgaria and other linguistic questions. Mefküre Mollova was among the founders of the Turkish Philology at the University of Sofia. She had worked for only about 7 years (1953–1961), when she and her husband were dismissed from their academic positions. Although unemployed and persecuted in communist Bulgaria, Mefküre Mollova continued to publish her work both in the country and abroad. She published her research in four languages – French, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Russian, but mostly in French. Mefküre Mollova was also the first Turkish poet to publish poems in Turkish periodi...
Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted ... more Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted herself to unexplored issues of Turkish dialectology, related to the Turkish dialects in Bulgaria and other linguistic questions. Mefküre Mollova was among the founders of the Turkish Philology at the University of Sofia. She had worked for only about 7 years (1953-1961), when she and her husband were dismissed from their academic positions. Although unemployed and persecuted in communist Bulgaria, Mefküre Mollova continued to publish her work both in the country and abroad. She published her research in four languages-French, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Russian, but mostly in French. Mefküre Mollova was also the first Turkish poet to publish poems in Turkish periodicals and the only woman who managed to publish an independent collection of poems in Turkish in Bulgaria. In addition, she is the first author of several well-written travelogues. Having gained fame and recognition around the world, in her homeland she and her husband Riza Mollov are forgotten and neglected. Their refusal to collaborate with the communist authorities and to falsify academic research stigmatized them for decades and the autors hope that this book will contribute to correcting this injustice.
The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
Balkanistic Forum, SOCIAL ANXIETY AND SOURCES OF MOBILISATION
This article is a review of the study entitled "Explosive Literature: Military Predictions, ... more This article is a review of the study entitled "Explosive Literature: Military Predictions, Partisan Narratives, Party Memoirs", authored by Maya Angelova.
The article explores one of the examples of assimilatory politics to the national minorities in S... more The article explores one of the examples of assimilatory politics to the national minorities in Soviet Azerbaijan, and in particular to the Talysh community. In the 1930s, Talish were the fifth largest national minority in the country. The Talysh nationality erased from Soviet census categorization in 1959. Data from this census were used to support the decade-long political myth of "voluntary assimilation" of the Talish. The article also presents the instrumentalization of political manipulations in scientific discourses - Talysh minority were also recategorized by the ethnographers who consulted on census design and supported these government politics until 1989.
After the Second World War and until 1990, Bulgaria, as most of the former communist countries fr... more After the Second World War and until 1990, Bulgaria, as most of the former communist countries from the Eastern Europe, implemented a Semashko healthcare system developed in the USSR. Named after the First People's Commissar of Health of the Soviet Russia, Nikolai Semashko, Soviet health care was developed as "social health care", trying to also eliminate the social reasons for illness, thus transforming society and economy as a whole. This type of system was based on the centrally planned principles, on rigid management and on the state monopoly. Consequently, the healthcare system created by the Ministry of Health was integrated and centralized, completely controlled by the state. The system of health services in Bulgara from 1944 to 1990 was inspired by the Soviet model Semashko, a centralized state system, which seemed to guarantee "free access to health services for the entire population". In the research the author focuses on the policies in the field of public health in Bulgaria between 1944 and 1951, when the Sovietization in this field took place.
The article presents a specific biographical case for an unrealized female academic career becaus... more The article presents a specific biographical case for an unrealized female academic career because of the changed political regime in Bulgaria after 1944. The documentary traces of Kostadinka (Dina) Tvardishka are preserved and "hidden" in the archive of her husband (the artist Dimitar Rizov) in Bulgarian Central State Archives. In 1941, through the German Scientific Institute in Sofia, K. Tvardishka studied in Germany with scholarships granted by the foundation Alexander von Humboldt. Until the summer of 1944, under the leadership of the famous Prof. Constantin von Dietze, at the University of Freiburg, she developed a dissertation on "Social problems of the Bulgarian village" (Die sozialen Probleme des bulgarischen Dorfes). Her research was almost completed when a pro-Soviet regime of government was established in Bulgaria. Fearing political repression, like dozens of other students and postgraduate students in the Bulgarian-German scientific networks from the ...
The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in commu... more This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in communist Bulgaria. Right after September 1944, the establishment of a system of privileges was initiated, a system that created special categories of citizens opposed in this way to the rest of society. From 1944 on, former partisans became part of the rul-ing elite and granted themselves and their relatives many privileges, transforming themselves into a specially privileged caste. The analysis is based on the archive doc-uments of the Union of the People’s Guerrilla Fighters and the Union of the Fighters against Fascism – institutions existing in the period 1945–1951. The activities of the ‘fighters’ were aimed at substituting in very short terms after the take over the vectors of the public memory in order to legitimize the new power resources. The social system of total control and caste privileges discredited the idea of modern society, social freedom and equality. The author analyses b...
The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
The article studies the issues of russian rock poetry in terms of linguocultural analysis. Diana ... more The article studies the issues of russian rock poetry in terms of linguocultural analysis. Diana Arbenina is a Russian rock poetess, the leader of the rock band "Night Snipers" /Ночные снайперы/. Besides songs and lyrics, Arbenina writes poetry and prose. Over the years of her career, Diana Arbenina has created more than 460 songs and poems which she prefers to call "anti-songs." The article aims to identify the antisongs of Diana Arbenina in the context of modern humanitarian knowledge. The terms "rock text" "poetry", and idiolect are specified. The article addresses a rock text and rock poetry as a complex synthetic phenomenon and concludes that the texts of Diana Arbenina are closely associated with poetry, melody, musical rhythm, and vocal. The accent in the article is devoted to analysis of the Arbenina's anti-songs and contains the description of lexical and syntactic features of her texts, examples of language game, specific features of intertextuality references in the context of nowadays Russian rock poetry.
The paper presents the constructing of the image of “child heroes” in the memory policies imposed... more The paper presents the constructing of the image of “child heroes” in the memory policies imposed by the communist regime in Bulgaria after 1944. The Bulgarian case of establishing patterns of child heroism during the communist regime followed the Soviet examples of policy on the youngsters. In pursuing its own ideological goals, after 1944 the political regime in Bulgaria imposed new content of child education and turned children into an instrument and object of the propaganda of new heroism. The biographies of the “child heroes” were turned into examples of education and identification for the young generations. Despite the fact that several local cases existed, the cases of Mitko Palauzov, the “six children form Yastrebino” and the “heroes of Belitsa” – Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi were presented as the national heroic patterns for the youngsters. The specific case of Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi has been followed in the paper.
This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in commu... more This article analyses the formation and institutionalisation of the system of privileges in communist Bulgaria. Right after September 1944, the establishment of a system of privileges was initiated, a system that created special categories of citizens opposed in this way to the rest of society. From 1944 on, former partisans became part of the ruling elite and granted themselves and their relatives many privileges, transforming themselves into a specially privileged caste. The analysis is based on the archive documents of the Union of the People's Guerrilla Fighters and the Union of the Fighters against Fascism-institutions existing in the period 1945-1951. The activities of the 'fighters' were aimed at substituting in very short terms after the take over the vectors of the public memory in order to legitimize the new power resources. The social system of total control and caste privileges discredited the idea of modern society, social freedom and equality. The author analyses both legislation as well as the ways in which privileges were constructed in social policies in communist Bulgaria.
This article is a review of the book “Turkology in Exile: Mefküre Mollova. A Biographical Study”,... more This article is a review of the book “Turkology in Exile: Mefküre Mollova. A Biographical Study”, authored by Zeynep Zafer and Murie Muratova. Mefküre Mollova (1927–2009) was the first Turkish woman and university professor in Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted herself to unexplored issues of Turkish dialectology, related to the Turkish dialects in Bulgaria and other linguistic questions. Mefküre Mollova was among the founders of the Turkish Philology at the University of Sofia. She had worked for only about 7 years (1953–1961), when she and her husband were dismissed from their academic positions. Although unemployed and persecuted in communist Bulgaria, Mefküre Mollova continued to publish her work both in the country and abroad. She published her research in four languages – French, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Russian, but mostly in French. Mefküre Mollova was also the first Turkish poet to publish poems in Turkish periodi...
Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted ... more Bulgaria, who gained international fame with her research in the field of Turkology. She devoted herself to unexplored issues of Turkish dialectology, related to the Turkish dialects in Bulgaria and other linguistic questions. Mefküre Mollova was among the founders of the Turkish Philology at the University of Sofia. She had worked for only about 7 years (1953-1961), when she and her husband were dismissed from their academic positions. Although unemployed and persecuted in communist Bulgaria, Mefküre Mollova continued to publish her work both in the country and abroad. She published her research in four languages-French, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Russian, but mostly in French. Mefküre Mollova was also the first Turkish poet to publish poems in Turkish periodicals and the only woman who managed to publish an independent collection of poems in Turkish in Bulgaria. In addition, she is the first author of several well-written travelogues. Having gained fame and recognition around the world, in her homeland she and her husband Riza Mollov are forgotten and neglected. Their refusal to collaborate with the communist authorities and to falsify academic research stigmatized them for decades and the autors hope that this book will contribute to correcting this injustice.
The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initi... more The so-called „patronage movement“„The Hero is always in our lines” was designed as a state initiative in the 1970s. It was part of the ideological scenarios of the late communism illustrating the attempts for establishment of state control over the cultur-al memory in a radical manner. The Bulgarian version of „The Hero is always in our lines” was a response to the similar Soviet model „For That Lad” (Za togo parnia). The basic idea of the campaign was that a team of workers had to choose fallen com-munist „heroes as their „patrons” in order to sustain their memory. The heroes were enlisted in the payroll and work brigades fulfilled additional work assignment on their behalf and received their wages.
Balkanistic Forum, SOCIAL ANXIETY AND SOURCES OF MOBILISATION
This article is a review of the study entitled "Explosive Literature: Military Predictions, ... more This article is a review of the study entitled "Explosive Literature: Military Predictions, Partisan Narratives, Party Memoirs", authored by Maya Angelova.
The article explores one of the examples of assimilatory politics to the national minorities in S... more The article explores one of the examples of assimilatory politics to the national minorities in Soviet Azerbaijan, and in particular to the Talysh community. In the 1930s, Talish were the fifth largest national minority in the country. The Talysh nationality erased from Soviet census categorization in 1959. Data from this census were used to support the decade-long political myth of "voluntary assimilation" of the Talish. The article also presents the instrumentalization of political manipulations in scientific discourses - Talysh minority were also recategorized by the ethnographers who consulted on census design and supported these government politics until 1989.
After the Second World War and until 1990, Bulgaria, as most of the former communist countries fr... more After the Second World War and until 1990, Bulgaria, as most of the former communist countries from the Eastern Europe, implemented a Semashko healthcare system developed in the USSR. Named after the First People's Commissar of Health of the Soviet Russia, Nikolai Semashko, Soviet health care was developed as "social health care", trying to also eliminate the social reasons for illness, thus transforming society and economy as a whole. This type of system was based on the centrally planned principles, on rigid management and on the state monopoly. Consequently, the healthcare system created by the Ministry of Health was integrated and centralized, completely controlled by the state. The system of health services in Bulgara from 1944 to 1990 was inspired by the Soviet model Semashko, a centralized state system, which seemed to guarantee "free access to health services for the entire population". In the research the author focuses on the policies in the field of public health in Bulgaria between 1944 and 1951, when the Sovietization in this field took place.
The article presents a specific biographical case for an unrealized female academic career becaus... more The article presents a specific biographical case for an unrealized female academic career because of the changed political regime in Bulgaria after 1944. The documentary traces of Kostadinka (Dina) Tvardishka are preserved and "hidden" in the archive of her husband (the artist Dimitar Rizov) in Bulgarian Central State Archives. In 1941, through the German Scientific Institute in Sofia, K. Tvardishka studied in Germany with scholarships granted by the foundation Alexander von Humboldt. Until the summer of 1944, under the leadership of the famous Prof. Constantin von Dietze, at the University of Freiburg, she developed a dissertation on "Social problems of the Bulgarian village" (Die sozialen Probleme des bulgarischen Dorfes). Her research was almost completed when a pro-Soviet regime of government was established in Bulgaria. Fearing political repression, like dozens of other students and postgraduate students in the Bulgarian-German scientific networks from the ...
Review of the book of Dominik Gutmeyr “Borderlands Orientalism or
How the Savage Lost his Nobilit... more Review of the book of Dominik Gutmeyr “Borderlands Orientalism or How the Savage Lost his Nobility. The Russian Perception of the Caucasus between 1817 and 1878”, Studies on South East Europe, Vol. 19, Wien: Lit, 2017, 316 pp., ISBN 978-3-643-50788-4
The main goal of the book is to contribute to the history of the social policies and public healt... more The main goal of the book is to contribute to the history of the social policies and public health practices with respect to the so called “social diseases” and in particular to tuberculosis in Bulgaria from the turn of the 19th century up to the 1950s – between social initiatives and state institutional engagements. The research is based on original archival materials – arhives in Bulgarian Central State Archive of the Main Department of Public Health, the Civil Sanitary Direction, the Bulgarian doctors’ Union, the Society for the Fight against Tuberculosis in Bulgaria, the Rockefeller Foundation in Bulgaria, the Near-East Foundation in Bulgaria etc. In the analysis additional sources were attracted: books, press materials and historiography. The book provides a reconstruction of the general institutional frames, the interaction between the state and private institutions under the influence of the international medical organizations. From the second half of the 19th century, tuberculosis increasingly engaged public attention, being identified as one of the most frequent reasons for sickness and death – thousands of people annually died and hundreds of thousands became invalid. Public discussions concerning the topic permanently reminded that the disease affected particularly the young and “prospective” generation. In Bulgaria tuberculosis considerably began to be viewed as a social problem at the end of the 19th century and all experts shared the same opinion: the fight against tuberculosis had to be preventive, that meant: improvement of hygiene and labor conditions, overall information about the disease aimed at reaching widest circles of the population and last not least, medical treatment. In the early 20th century in Bulgaria 20 000 persons annually died from tuberculosis, which was one of the highest percentages in Europe at that time. The conquest of the tuberculosis seemed possible with the tools at hand. These tools included, first, isolation of infectious cases — concerns about heredity and constitution were replaced by concerns about infection- and, second, provision of rest, good nutrition, fresh air and education. But the elimination of tuberculosis required much more: it required above all official and voluntary action; patients should comply with all elements of control; betterment of those marginalized in society should be reached. Discipline and control became an increasingly dominant part of the treatment, being considered rather as end than means. Later, as tuberculosis control became a public responsibility, the state sanatoriums preempted the private institutions in terms of the numbers of beds, services offered, and public recognition. The First World War marks a turning point in the overall orientation of Bulgarian antituberculosis efforts. Tuberculosis was considered as “social disease”. In the interwar period this term meant those diseases which are usually related to a given set of living or working conditions and were most common among specific socioeconomic groups. In the Bulgarian case tuberculosis, malaria, venereal diseases, alcoholism and, from the second half of the 1920s, also cancer, were treated as social diseases. Tuberculosis, in particular, plagued the lower classes, due to their living and working conditions and poor nutrition; because of its epidemic character tuberculosis was considered a danger to the general state of health, economic productivity, military strength, and to the reproductive capacity of the society and the nation; many experts feared that tuberculosis was a symptom of the degeneration of the biological substance of the nation or race and that it was the mechanism through which hereditary weakness was perpetuated. There is a reliable statistic for the death-rate and partly for the tuberculosis morbidity for the towns from 1925, when a statistic was established that registers death reasons in the towns. With the acceptance of the new Public Health Law in 1929 it is made obligatory to report the tuberculosis death-rate (but still there no data for morbidity). The nation’s arsenal of dispensaries, sanatoriums, and related institutions which declared “war on tuberculosis”, in the reformers’ military terminology, was subject to increasingly anxious inventory and scrutiny. While Bulgaria have been slower than other countries in building antituberculosis facilities, it was hardly alone in allowing social anxieties and stereotypes to determine its response to the disease. Other preoccupations came to the fore when tuberculosis was perceived as a social problem or as a threat to the nation. In Bulgaria, efforts to curb the ravages of tuberculosis took place within a general framework that Paul Weindling has called “the hygienization of private life.” In the crusade to bring more “air, light, and space” into the everyday lives, the blame for tuberculosis was related to poor diet, unsanitary living and working conditions, and alcoholism. Bulgarian reformers (doctors and hygienists) placed also special emphasis on personal responsibility in the fight against tuberculosis. They promoted moderation, cleanliness, and a temperate lifestyle. The ethos of the individual responsibility in Bulgaria left a little space for genetic reasons, which were downplayed as a cause of tuberculosis. Spitting became central in the social etiology of tuberculosis. From the early 20th century a group of physicians attempted to define the health problems within social and economic discourse, while protesting about the absence of public health statistics and the lack of public health system. The Anti-Tuberculosis Society set up in 1909 served as a typical example of facing such criticisms carried out by various charitable societies, established by medical authority. These active hygienists, educated abroad usually worked as medical officers and tried to fund TB dispensaries, sanatoria or other institutions for the relief of tuberculosis patients. Moreover they attempted to educate people by explaining sanitation in simple terms to the public and convincing politicians to provide against contagious diseases and to take action in order to strengthen those susceptible to diseases, particularly children. Vigorous campaigns against spitting have been a nearly universal feature of the battles against the disease in this period. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the state started to introduce standards and common bureaucratic rules of social work and centralized the public health care, including the fight against tuberculosis. International models and standards influenced the tuberculosis control policies in Bulgaria – especially the activities of the League of Nations Health Organisation, the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Near East Foundation. Throughout the 1930s the balance between state and public initiatives, state institutions, media and societies was reached and new forms of collaboration were discovered. These new forms made possible free expression of different ideas, inspired by humane, religious, modern or nationalistic, socio-controlling and eugenic views. Keeping pluralism intact meant rivalry, but it also called for coordination between the separate institutions. The legislation tried to balance between the State and the associations, and to assist for the formation of partnership between them. However, the centralization effect gave rise to fears of excessive “nationalization” of the social activities in public health sphere. After 1934, the state introduced standards and common bureaucratic rules of social work and centralized the public health care. International models now influenced the social care organization in a rather tangible way – these international models and standards covered also social care for children, mothers-workers, destitute peasants, consumptive patients. After 1945 the tendency to "nationalization" all practices of social assistances affected the Society for Fight against Tuberculosis as well. Until 1945 the Society formally existed in unchanged format with the main difference that from the winter of 1944 the former key figures in the Central Committee and in the Sofia branch of the Society were changed. In 1945 the Society was turned into the state National Union for Fight with Tuberculosis. The National Union continued to exist till July 1948, when with reference to the consolidation of the organisations and obeying to the decision of the Ministry Council, the Union dissolved in the Central Union of the “Red Cross”. Some of the statements printed in the reports of this First Congress in 1947 figured out the notions of the new rulers for former activities of the Society for Fight against Tuberculosis. The main motives in these statements focuses on the changes “before and after the 9th September 1944”. The speakers of the Congress qualified the anti-tuberculosis fight before the establishing of the “new power” as “an organization of cheap clemency and private charity” and insist in transforming the Union for Fight against Tuberculosis into a “mass” organization, which became a fact in 1948 – the Society was transformed in a state organization and became a part of the Soviet system for health services.
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Papers by Milena Angelova
political regime in Bulgaria imposed new content of child education and turned children into an instrument and object of the propaganda of new heroism. The biographies of the “child heroes” were turned into examples of education and identification for the young generations. Despite the fact that several local cases existed, the cases of Mitko Palauzov, the “six
children form Yastrebino” and the “heroes of Belitsa” – Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi were presented as the national heroic patterns for the youngsters. The specific case of Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi has been followed in the paper.
political regime in Bulgaria imposed new content of child education and turned children into an instrument and object of the propaganda of new heroism. The biographies of the “child heroes” were turned into examples of education and identification for the young generations. Despite the fact that several local cases existed, the cases of Mitko Palauzov, the “six
children form Yastrebino” and the “heroes of Belitsa” – Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi were presented as the national heroic patterns for the youngsters. The specific case of Vasil and Sava Kokareshkovi has been followed in the paper.
How the Savage Lost his Nobility. The Russian Perception of the Caucasus between 1817 and 1878”, Studies on South East Europe, Vol. 19, Wien: Lit, 2017, 316 pp., ISBN 978-3-643-50788-4
From the second half of the 19th century, tuberculosis increasingly engaged public attention, being identified as one of the most frequent reasons for sickness and death – thousands of people annually died and hundreds of thousands became invalid. Public discussions concerning the topic permanently reminded that the disease affected particularly the young and “prospective” generation. In Bulgaria tuberculosis considerably began to be viewed as a social problem at the end of the 19th century and all experts shared the same opinion: the fight against tuberculosis had to be preventive, that meant: improvement of hygiene and labor conditions, overall information about the disease aimed at reaching widest circles of the population and last not least, medical treatment.
In the early 20th century in Bulgaria 20 000 persons annually died from tuberculosis, which was one of the highest percentages in Europe at that time. The conquest of the tuberculosis seemed possible with the tools at hand. These tools included, first, isolation of infectious cases — concerns about heredity and constitution were replaced by concerns about infection- and, second, provision of rest, good nutrition, fresh air and education. But the elimination of tuberculosis required much more: it required above all official and voluntary action; patients should comply with all elements of control; betterment of those marginalized in society should be reached. Discipline and control became an increasingly dominant part of the treatment, being considered rather as end than means. Later, as tuberculosis control became a public responsibility, the state sanatoriums preempted the private institutions in terms of the numbers of beds, services offered, and public recognition.
The First World War marks a turning point in the overall orientation of Bulgarian antituberculosis efforts. Tuberculosis was considered as “social disease”. In the interwar period this term meant those diseases which are usually related to a given set of living or working conditions and were most common among specific socioeconomic groups. In the Bulgarian case tuberculosis, malaria, venereal diseases, alcoholism and, from the second half of the 1920s, also cancer, were treated as social diseases. Tuberculosis, in particular, plagued the lower classes, due to their living and working conditions and poor nutrition; because of its epidemic character tuberculosis was considered a danger to the general state of health, economic productivity, military strength, and to the reproductive capacity of the society and the nation; many experts feared that tuberculosis was a symptom of the degeneration of the biological substance of the nation or race and that it was the mechanism through which hereditary weakness was perpetuated.
There is a reliable statistic for the death-rate and partly for the tuberculosis morbidity for the towns from 1925, when a statistic was established that registers death reasons in the towns. With the acceptance of the new Public Health Law in 1929 it is made obligatory to report the tuberculosis death-rate (but still there no data for morbidity).
The nation’s arsenal of dispensaries, sanatoriums, and related institutions which declared “war on tuberculosis”, in the reformers’ military terminology, was subject to increasingly anxious inventory and scrutiny. While Bulgaria have been slower than other countries in building antituberculosis facilities, it was hardly alone in allowing social anxieties and stereotypes to determine its response to the disease. Other preoccupations came to the fore when tuberculosis was perceived as a social problem or as a threat to the nation. In Bulgaria, efforts to curb the ravages of tuberculosis took place within a general framework that Paul Weindling has called “the hygienization of private life.” In the crusade to bring more “air, light, and space” into the everyday lives, the blame for tuberculosis was related to poor diet, unsanitary living and working conditions, and alcoholism.
Bulgarian reformers (doctors and hygienists) placed also special emphasis on personal responsibility in the fight against tuberculosis. They promoted moderation, cleanliness, and a temperate lifestyle. The ethos of the individual responsibility in Bulgaria left a little space for genetic reasons, which were downplayed as a cause of tuberculosis. Spitting became central in the social etiology of tuberculosis.
From the early 20th century a group of physicians attempted to define the health problems within social and economic discourse, while protesting about the absence of public health statistics and the lack of public health system. The Anti-Tuberculosis Society set up in 1909 served as a typical example of facing such criticisms carried out by various charitable societies, established by medical authority. These active hygienists, educated abroad usually worked as medical officers and tried to fund TB dispensaries, sanatoria or other institutions for the relief of tuberculosis patients. Moreover they attempted to educate people by explaining sanitation in simple terms to the public and convincing politicians to provide against contagious diseases and to take action in order to strengthen those susceptible to diseases, particularly children.
Vigorous campaigns against spitting have been a nearly universal feature of the battles against the disease in this period. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the state started to introduce standards and common bureaucratic rules of social work and centralized the public health care, including the fight against tuberculosis. International models and standards influenced the tuberculosis control policies in Bulgaria – especially the activities of the League of Nations Health Organisation, the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Near East Foundation.
Throughout the 1930s the balance between state and public initiatives, state institutions, media and societies was reached and new forms of collaboration were discovered. These new forms made possible free expression of different ideas, inspired by humane, religious, modern or nationalistic, socio-controlling and eugenic views. Keeping pluralism intact meant rivalry, but it also called for coordination between the separate institutions. The legislation tried to balance between the State and the associations, and to assist for the formation of partnership between them. However, the centralization effect gave rise to fears of excessive “nationalization” of the social activities in public health sphere. After 1934, the state introduced standards and common bureaucratic rules of social work and centralized the public health care. International models now influenced the social care organization in a rather tangible way – these international models and standards covered also social care for children, mothers-workers, destitute peasants, consumptive patients.
After 1945 the tendency to "nationalization" all practices of social assistances affected the Society for Fight against Tuberculosis as well. Until 1945 the Society formally existed in unchanged format with the main difference that from the winter of 1944 the former key figures in the Central Committee and in the Sofia branch of the Society were changed. In 1945 the Society was turned into the state National Union for Fight with Tuberculosis. The National Union continued to exist till July 1948, when with reference to the consolidation of the organisations and obeying to the decision of the Ministry Council, the Union dissolved in the Central Union of the “Red Cross”. Some of the statements printed in the reports of this First Congress in 1947 figured out the notions of the new rulers for former activities of the Society for Fight against Tuberculosis. The main motives in these statements focuses on the changes “before and after the 9th September 1944”. The speakers of the Congress qualified the anti-tuberculosis fight before the establishing of the “new power” as “an organization of cheap clemency and private charity” and insist in transforming the Union for Fight against Tuberculosis into a “mass” organization, which became a fact in 1948 – the Society was transformed in a state organization and became a part of the Soviet system for health services.