Anti-Fascism and Ethnic Minorities: History and Memory in Central and Eastern Europe, 2023
Bulgarian Jews to a large extent escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, yet their opposition to th... more Bulgarian Jews to a large extent escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, yet their opposition to the antisemitic policies of Bulgarian governments during the war led a disproportionate number of them to join left-wing opposition groups and eventually perish in the anti-fascist struggle. Fallen Jewish partisans, relatively well-known during the socialist period, were nevertheless commemorated first and foremost as communists, rather than as heroes from one of Bulgaria's minorities. The communist post-war regime's reluctance to recognize Jewish anti-fascist activity separately and the mass exodus of Bulgarian Jews to Israel, as well as the persistent antisemitism within the Eastern Bloc, all contributed to the marginalization of the memory of Jewish anti-fascism before the collapse of communism. The 1989 transition resulted in further neglect of Jewish suffering and martyrdom as the very premise of their heroic actions – anti-fascism – was erased and replaced by the new anti-communist mnemonic canon. Post-1989 Bulgaria even gradually rehabilitated controversial figures from the pre-1944 ruling elite by virtue of their anti-communist credentials. Curiously, a single fallen female Jewish partisan, Violeta Yakova, has received public attention that has evaded her fellow martyrs. Her name resurfaced as Bulgarian nationalists began organizing the annual Lukov March – a torch-lit procession commemorating a pro-fascist interwar general assassinated by Yakova. The case of the Bulgarian-Jewish partisan can therefore provide a much-needed revisiting of the way that Jewish anti-fascism has been commemorated and reveal the complex dynamics of contemporary memory politics, antisemitism, and right-wing populism in Bulgaria.
Cultures and Politics of Remembrance: Southeast European and Balkan Perspectives, 2021
Mnemonic debates around historical figures seem to provide unique vantage points to gauge the cur... more Mnemonic debates around historical figures seem to provide unique vantage points to gauge the current political and ideological climate in a society. Their potential to initiate both deep polarisation and general consensus makes them indicative of the existing patterns of remembrance and how they evolve over time. The different post-mortem memorialisation of three female assassins – Mencha Karnicheva, Mara Buneva and Violeta Yakova – highlights the entanglements of regional, national and transnational dimensions of memory politics in Bulgaria and illuminates the latest mainstreaming of nationalist discourses. Those discourses deemed the memory of the communist partisan Violeta Yakova to be a surplus, a remnant from the abjected communist past that had to be erased from the new post-1989 pantheon of national martyrs. In her place, the memory of two activists of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, Mencha Karnicheva and Mara Buneva, was restored as the two women’s allegiance to a seemingly national idea as opposed to a political ideology made them fit with the growing national populist political landscape. The chapter tries to problematise this simplistic division into national heroines and political terrorists and traces the path of Bulgaria’s culture of remembrance towards its current state, dominated by exclusionary nationalist discourses.
Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe, 2021
The chapter is a case study illuminating the role of events in pushing forward a revisionist hist... more The chapter is a case study illuminating the role of events in pushing forward a revisionist historical narrative that aims at legitimizing contemporary Bulgarian national populism. The event, Lukov March, which started as a marginal commemoration of a pro-fascist interwar leader, has become a major battle in the memory and historical politics of postsocialist Bulgaria. Despite initial support from only a dozen radical nationalists, the event offered a “template of possibility” for the rising Bulgarian far right to revive the interwar roots of Bulgarian nationalism. At its 16th anniversary, Lukov March symbolizes much more than a mere manifestation of Bulgaria’s nationalism – it reveals the danger of leaving memory politics and historical debates in the hands of extreme nationalists who might be pushed aside by the more politically adept national populists. On a larger scale, the chapter gives insights into the memory politics in contemporary Bulgaria, the nature of Bulgarian populism and the strategies that national populists utilize to construct revisionist historical narratives that ultimately call into question and redefine the crucial concepts of national self and identity as well as memory and the lessons of Europe’s violent 20th century.
An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South ... more An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism" was held in the Great Conference Hall of the Hotel Majestic in Belgrade on 7-8 April 2022. The conference was part of the ongoing project "The Serbian Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1934-1941" supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, PROMIS, Grant No. 6062708, SerbRightWing. Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference. The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.
Anti-Fascism and Ethnic Minorities: History and Memory in Central and Eastern Europe, 2023
Bulgarian Jews to a large extent escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, yet their opposition to th... more Bulgarian Jews to a large extent escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, yet their opposition to the antisemitic policies of Bulgarian governments during the war led a disproportionate number of them to join left-wing opposition groups and eventually perish in the anti-fascist struggle. Fallen Jewish partisans, relatively well-known during the socialist period, were nevertheless commemorated first and foremost as communists, rather than as heroes from one of Bulgaria's minorities. The communist post-war regime's reluctance to recognize Jewish anti-fascist activity separately and the mass exodus of Bulgarian Jews to Israel, as well as the persistent antisemitism within the Eastern Bloc, all contributed to the marginalization of the memory of Jewish anti-fascism before the collapse of communism. The 1989 transition resulted in further neglect of Jewish suffering and martyrdom as the very premise of their heroic actions – anti-fascism – was erased and replaced by the new anti-communist mnemonic canon. Post-1989 Bulgaria even gradually rehabilitated controversial figures from the pre-1944 ruling elite by virtue of their anti-communist credentials. Curiously, a single fallen female Jewish partisan, Violeta Yakova, has received public attention that has evaded her fellow martyrs. Her name resurfaced as Bulgarian nationalists began organizing the annual Lukov March – a torch-lit procession commemorating a pro-fascist interwar general assassinated by Yakova. The case of the Bulgarian-Jewish partisan can therefore provide a much-needed revisiting of the way that Jewish anti-fascism has been commemorated and reveal the complex dynamics of contemporary memory politics, antisemitism, and right-wing populism in Bulgaria.
Cultures and Politics of Remembrance: Southeast European and Balkan Perspectives, 2021
Mnemonic debates around historical figures seem to provide unique vantage points to gauge the cur... more Mnemonic debates around historical figures seem to provide unique vantage points to gauge the current political and ideological climate in a society. Their potential to initiate both deep polarisation and general consensus makes them indicative of the existing patterns of remembrance and how they evolve over time. The different post-mortem memorialisation of three female assassins – Mencha Karnicheva, Mara Buneva and Violeta Yakova – highlights the entanglements of regional, national and transnational dimensions of memory politics in Bulgaria and illuminates the latest mainstreaming of nationalist discourses. Those discourses deemed the memory of the communist partisan Violeta Yakova to be a surplus, a remnant from the abjected communist past that had to be erased from the new post-1989 pantheon of national martyrs. In her place, the memory of two activists of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, Mencha Karnicheva and Mara Buneva, was restored as the two women’s allegiance to a seemingly national idea as opposed to a political ideology made them fit with the growing national populist political landscape. The chapter tries to problematise this simplistic division into national heroines and political terrorists and traces the path of Bulgaria’s culture of remembrance towards its current state, dominated by exclusionary nationalist discourses.
Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe, 2021
The chapter is a case study illuminating the role of events in pushing forward a revisionist hist... more The chapter is a case study illuminating the role of events in pushing forward a revisionist historical narrative that aims at legitimizing contemporary Bulgarian national populism. The event, Lukov March, which started as a marginal commemoration of a pro-fascist interwar leader, has become a major battle in the memory and historical politics of postsocialist Bulgaria. Despite initial support from only a dozen radical nationalists, the event offered a “template of possibility” for the rising Bulgarian far right to revive the interwar roots of Bulgarian nationalism. At its 16th anniversary, Lukov March symbolizes much more than a mere manifestation of Bulgaria’s nationalism – it reveals the danger of leaving memory politics and historical debates in the hands of extreme nationalists who might be pushed aside by the more politically adept national populists. On a larger scale, the chapter gives insights into the memory politics in contemporary Bulgaria, the nature of Bulgarian populism and the strategies that national populists utilize to construct revisionist historical narratives that ultimately call into question and redefine the crucial concepts of national self and identity as well as memory and the lessons of Europe’s violent 20th century.
An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South ... more An international conference entitled "The Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in Interwar South Eastern Europe: Between Conservatism and Fascism" was held in the Great Conference Hall of the Hotel Majestic in Belgrade on 7-8 April 2022. The conference was part of the ongoing project "The Serbian Right-Wing Parties and Intellectuals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1934-1941" supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, PROMIS, Grant No. 6062708, SerbRightWing. Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference. The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.
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Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference.
The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.
Over the two days 24 papers were presented both on-site and online via Zoom (three presenters were, unfortunately, unable to join us) divided into seven thematic panels. There was a nice mixture of both established and emerging scholars from the field coming from a number of countries. Professor António Costa Pinto from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, delivered a keynote lecture “Building Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. A Global View” on the second day of the conference.
The organizers, Dragan Bakić, Dušan Fundić and Rastko Lompar from the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, would like to extend their thanks to all the participants. It is their intention to publish an edited volume consisting of the conference proceedings which will, hopefully, be out in print next year.