The making of a “bad” public: Ethnonational mobilization in post-communist Bulgaria

Theory and Society

Volumn 29, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 549-572

  Stamatov, Peter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034345565     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1007060203212     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). It should be noted that the German concept of Öffentlichkeit has a more general meaning than the standard English translation “public sphere" in that it denotes both the institution and the condition of “publicness.
2. See the excellent discussion in Craig Calhoun, “Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996).
3. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 2 The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 36.
4. Dmitri N. Shalin, “Critical Theory and the Pragmatist Challenge,” American Journal of Sociology 98 (1992): 254-256.
5. Jeffrey Alexander, “The Paradoxes of Civil Socieiy,” Occasional Paper 16, Social Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong, 1994, 12.
6. For a critique of Habermas’s view that does not theorize the link between private and public identities and thus tends to reify them, see Craig Calhoun, “The Politics of Identity and Recognition,” in Critical Social Theory: Culture. History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), esp. 217, and Margaret R. Somers, “Narrating and Naturalizing Civil Society and Citizenship Theory: The Place of Political Culture and the Public Sphere,” Sociological Theory 13 (1995): 229-273. Additionally, the public sphere has the performative and normative power to decide what issues are of proper public concern and thus subtly to exclude themes and identities by relegating them to the “private" domain. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problem: An Essay in Political Inquiry (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946), and Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere.
7. For a critique of Habermas’s view that does not theorize the link between private and public identities and thus tends to reify them, see Craig Calhoun, “The Politics of Identity and Recognition,” in Critical Social Theory: Culture. History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), esp. 217, and Margaret R. Somers, “Narrating and Naturalizing Civil Society and Citizenship Theory: The Place of Political Culture and the Public Sphere,” Sociological Theory 13 (1995): 229-273. Additionally, the public sphere has the performative and normative power to decide what issues are of proper public concern and thus subtly to exclude themes and identities by relegating them to the “private" domain. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problem: An Essay in Political Inquiry (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946), and Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere.
8. For a critique of Habermas’s view that does not theorize the link between private and public identities and thus tends to reify them, see Craig Calhoun, “The Politics of Identity and Recognition,” in Critical Social Theory: Culture. History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), esp. 217, and Margaret R. Somers, “Narrating and Naturalizing Civil Society and Citizenship Theory: The Place of Political Culture and the Public Sphere,” Sociological Theory 13 (1995): 229-273. Additionally, the public sphere has the performative and normative power to decide what issues are of proper public concern and thus subtly to exclude themes and identities by relegating them to the “private" domain. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problem: An Essay in Political Inquiry (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946), and Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere.
9. For a critique of Habermas’s view that does not theorize the link between private and public identities and thus tends to reify them, see Craig Calhoun, “The Politics of Identity and Recognition,” in Critical Social Theory: Culture. History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), esp. 217, and Margaret R. Somers, “Narrating and Naturalizing Civil Society and Citizenship Theory: The Place of Political Culture and the Public Sphere,” Sociological Theory 13 (1995): 229-273. Additionally, the public sphere has the performative and normative power to decide what issues are of proper public concern and thus subtly to exclude themes and identities by relegating them to the “private" domain. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problem: An Essay in Political Inquiry (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946), and Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere.
10. See for example, Calhoun, “Introduction,” 37-38 and Geoff Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures." Habermas himself concedes that his initial formulation was premised on an overly holistic conception of “society" ("Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere). Yet he does not engage in a discussion of the importance of particularist identities in the public sphere.
11. See for example, Calhoun, “Introduction,” 37-38 and Geoff Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures." Habermas himself concedes that his initial formulation was premised on an overly holistic conception of “society" ("Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere). Yet he does not engage in a discussion of the importance of particularist identities in the public sphere.
12. See for example, Calhoun, “Introduction,” 37-38 and Geoff Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures." Habermas himself concedes that his initial formulation was premised on an overly holistic conception of “society" ("Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” in Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere). Yet he does not engage in a discussion of the importance of particularist identities in the public sphere.
13. Philip Smith has captured well the analytical shortcomings of this mode of thinking in his “Barbarism and Civility in the Discourses of Fascism, Communism, and Democracy: Variations on a Set of Themes,” in Jeffrey C. Alexander, editor, Real Civil Societies: Dilemmas of Institutionalisation (London: Sage, 1998), 116: “In a Weltanschauung of utopian theorizing, where a ‘good’ civil society was conceptually juxtaposed to an ‘evil’ totalitarianism there could be little room for a more analytical and relativistic but less Manichean approach.
14. Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” World Politics 49 (1997): 401-429.
15. Mabel Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).
16. Geoff Eley, “Remapping the Nation: War, Revolutionary Upheaval and State Formation in Eastern Europe, 1914-1923,” in Howard Aster and Peter Potichnyi, editors, Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1990), 226. See also his “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century,” in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), as well as Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, “Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Studies,” in Eley and Suny, editors, Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
17. Geoff Eley, “Remapping the Nation: War, Revolutionary Upheaval and State Formation in Eastern Europe, 1914-1923,” in Howard Aster and Peter Potichnyi, editors, Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1990), 226. See also his “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century,” in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), as well as Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, “Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Studies,” in Eley and Suny, editors, Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
18. Geoff Eley, “Remapping the Nation: War, Revolutionary Upheaval and State Formation in Eastern Europe, 1914-1923,” in Howard Aster and Peter Potichnyi, editors, Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1990), 226. See also his “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century,” in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), as well as Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, “Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Studies,” in Eley and Suny, editors, Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
19. Jeremy King, “Loyalty and Polity, Nation and State: A Town in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848-1948." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1998.
20. David Laitin, “National Revivals and Violence, “Archives Europeennes de Sociologie 36 (1995): 3-43.
21. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), Chris Hann, “Nationalism and Civil Society in Central Europe: From Ruritania to the Carpathian Euroregion,” in John A. Hall, editor, The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
22. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), Chris Hann, “Nationalism and Civil Society in Central Europe: From Ruritania to the Carpathian Euroregion,” in John A. Hall, editor, The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
23. Jeffrey Alexander, “Collective Action, Culture and Civil Society: Secularizing, Updating, Inverting, Revising and Displacing the Classical Model of Social Movements,” in Jon Clark and Mario Diani, editors, Alain Touraine (London: Palmer, 1996), 229.
24. Calhoun, “Introduction,” 37-38, and Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Culture,” 306.
25. Cf. Calhoun, “Introduction,” 37-38, and Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Culture,” 306.
26. An impressive treatment of discursive practices from a similar perspective is Robert Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989).
27. A good overall scholarly treatment of the history and culture of Turks and other Muslim communities in Bulgaria is not available. The views of Turkish national historiography are best represented by Bilâl N. Simsir, The Turks of Bulgaria (1878-1985) (Nicosia: Rustem, 1988), those of its Bulgarian counterpart by Valeri Stoianov, Turskoto naselenie v Bâlgariia mezhdu poliusite na etnicheskata politika (Sofiia: LIK, 1998).
28. A good overall scholarly treatment of the history and culture of Turks and other Muslim communities in Bulgaria is not available. The views of Turkish national historiography are best represented by Bilâl N. Simsir, The Turks of Bulgaria (1878-1985) (Nicosia: Rustem, 1988), those of its Bulgarian counterpart by Valeri Stoianov, Turskoto naselenie v Bâlgariia mezhdu poliusite na etnicheskata politika (Sofiia: LIK, 1998).
29. For a brief overview, see Wolfgang Höpken, “Türken und Pomaken in Bulgarien,” in Georg Brunner and Hans Lemberg, editors, Volksgruppen in Ostmittel-und Siidosteuropa (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994).
30. The relatively sharp distinction between “Turkish" and “Bulgarian" names is deeply embedded in the patterns of the hegemonic Bulgarian national culture as it crystallized with the process of nation-and state-building. A good example of the nationalist “scholarly" ideology of what proper “Bulgarian" names are, is Nikolai Mizov, Tainata na lichnoto ime (Sofiia: Partizdat, 1978). Several personal names of old pre-Ottoman Turkish origin, for example, are considered “Bulgarian" because they were the names of legendary old Bulgarian rulers, the old Bulgarians themselves being one of the pre-Ottoman Turkish tribes. In general, the allegedly pure reservoir of real “Bulgarian" names in fact consists of borrowing from various ethnocultural traditions. Nor is the nomenclature of “Turkish" names less heterogeneous. It contains layers of traditional Turkish names, post-Ottoman modern Turkish names, traditional Muslim names, etc. See Ilhan Basgöz, “The Meaning and Dimension of Change of Personal Names in Turkey,” Turcica 15 (1983): 201-429.
31. The relatively sharp distinction between “Turkish" and “Bulgarian" names is deeply embedded in the patterns of the hegemonic Bulgarian national culture as it crystallized with the process of nation-and state-building. A good example of the nationalist “scholarly" ideology of what proper “Bulgarian" names are, is Nikolai Mizov, Tainata na lichnoto ime (Sofiia: Partizdat, 1978). Several personal names of old pre-Ottoman Turkish origin, for example, are considered “Bulgarian" because they were the names of legendary old Bulgarian rulers, the old Bulgarians themselves being one of the pre-Ottoman Turkish tribes. In general, the allegedly pure reservoir of real “Bulgarian" names in fact consists of borrowing from various ethnocultural traditions. Nor is the nomenclature of “Turkish" names less heterogeneous. It contains layers of traditional Turkish names, post-Ottoman modern Turkish names, traditional Muslim names, etc. See Ilhan Basgöz, “The Meaning and Dimension of Change of Personal Names in Turkey,” Turcica 15 (1983): 201-429.
32. Stoianov, Turskoto naselenie, 160-124. It is not clear what the exact reasons for the authorities to start this unprecedently violent campaign were. It is beyond doubt that they wanted to mobilize public opinion by an appeal to nationalism, as one of the reviewers suggested. Why they were determined to use violence, however, remains a mystery.
33. Yulian Konstantinov, “An Account of Pomak Conversions in Bulgaria (1912-1990),” in Gerhard Seewann, editor, Minderheitensfragen in Südosteuropa (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1992).
34. Stoianov, Turskoto naselenie, Krâstio Petkov and Georgi Fotev, editors, Ethnicheskiiat konflikt v Bâlgariia 1989: Sotsiologicheski arkhiv (Sofia: Institut po sotsiologiia pri BAN, 1990).
35. Ibid. The stream of Turks emigrating to Turkey has never ceased since the creation of the modern Bulgarian state. Immediately after the installation of the state-socialist regime in 1945-1948, a peak was reached in 1949-1951 when more than 150, 000 Turks were basically expelled by the Bulgarian government. In the following years, the flow dwindled, but the paths of emigration remained well trodden: around 130, 000 Turks left Bulgaria between 1963 and 1978. Another peak was reached with the mass exodus of 1989. See Wolfgang Höpken, “Emigration und Integration von Bulgarien-Türken seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich der Auswanderungswellen von 1950/1 und 1989,” in Gerhard Seewann, editor, Minderheitensfragen in Südosteuropa (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1992) and Huey Louis Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957).
36. Ibid. The stream of Turks emigrating to Turkey has never ceased since the creation of the modern Bulgarian state. Immediately after the installation of the state-socialist regime in 1945-1948, a peak was reached in 1949-1951 when more than 150, 000 Turks were basically expelled by the Bulgarian government. In the following years, the flow dwindled, but the paths of emigration remained well trodden: around 130, 000 Turks left Bulgaria between 1963 and 1978. Another peak was reached with the mass exodus of 1989. See Wolfgang Höpken, “Emigration und Integration von Bulgarien-Türken seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich der Auswanderungswellen von 1950/1 und 1989,” in Gerhard Seewann, editor, Minderheitensfragen in Südosteuropa (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1992) and Huey Louis Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957).
37. Ibid. The stream of Turks emigrating to Turkey has never ceased since the creation of the modern Bulgarian state. Immediately after the installation of the state-socialist regime in 1945-1948, a peak was reached in 1949-1951 when more than 150, 000 Turks were basically expelled by the Bulgarian government. In the following years, the flow dwindled, but the paths of emigration remained well trodden: around 130, 000 Turks left Bulgaria between 1963 and 1978. Another peak was reached with the mass exodus of 1989. See Wolfgang Höpken, “Emigration und Integration von Bulgarien-Türken seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich der Auswanderungswellen von 1950/1 und 1989,” in Gerhard Seewann, editor, Minderheitensfragen in Südosteuropa (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1992) and Huey Louis Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957).
38. “10 November 1989: A Coup or a Resignation,” The Insider (1990): 39-42.
39. In 1985 the country had reached the lowest level of economic growth after WWII. The trend had not been reversed by late 1989 despite half-hearted attempts at radical economic and political reforms in the atmosphere of Gorbachev’s glasnost. See Wolfgang Höpken, “Perestrojka oder potemkinsche Dörfer? Zum Stand der Umgestaltung in Bulgarien,” Südosteuropa 38 (1989): 277.
40. Radost Ivanova, Sbogom, dinozavri, dobre doshli, krokodili! Ethnologiia na promianata (Sofiia: Akademichno izdatelstvo “Prof. Marin Drinov,” 1997).
41. Petâr Mladenov, who replaced Zhivkov, confronted the issue of the ethnic Turks four days after his ascension to power. On November 14, 1989 he had a meeting with intellectuals where he sought their support for the political reform his team wished to introduce. He stated then that the assimilatory policies must be discontinued, but that the government needed to act with caution. These considerations seem to account for the relatively late date on which the Party leadership tackled the issue: almost two months after Zhivkov’s resignation.
42. The officials’ statement was reported by the national news agency BTA, the national news agency on December 30, 1989.
43. There are no reliable data on the number of members in this organization. Subsequently, the Committee and the avowedly nationalist parties that sprang from it failed to rally more than marginal mass support.
44. Ivanova, Sbogom dinozavri.
45. There are no exact data available on the precise numerical strength of these protests. In the district center of Kârdzhali (with around 50, 000 inhabitants) 10, 000 were reported by Reuters to have demonstrated on the main square on January 2, 1990. In Shumen, the capital of another district with mixed Bulgarian and Turkish population, the Bulgarian national radio reported 2, 000 demonstrants five days later. These figures are most probably exaggerated given that at this point in time the news media were able, for the first time in decades, to “make" news without censorship and direction by party-state authorities. This possible amplification of the scope of ethnonational mobilization by the media, however, is important by itself. The heightened attention of hungry media made the salience and impact of the nationalist protests disproportionately high relative to the numeric strength of the demonstrations.
46. Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), Mihály Vajda, Orosz szocializmus Közép-Európában (Budapest: Századvég, 1994), and, less ambitiously, Marin V. Pundeff, “Nationalism and Communism in Bulgaria,” in Bulgaria in American Perspective: Political and Cultural Issues (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994).
47. Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), Mihály Vajda, Orosz szocializmus Közép-Európában (Budapest: Századvég, 1994), and, less ambitiously, Marin V. Pundeff, “Nationalism and Communism in Bulgaria,” in Bulgaria in American Perspective: Political and Cultural Issues (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994).
48. Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), Mihály Vajda, Orosz szocializmus Közép-Európában (Budapest: Századvég, 1994), and, less ambitiously, Marin V. Pundeff, “Nationalism and Communism in Bulgaria,” in Bulgaria in American Perspective: Political and Cultural Issues (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994).
49. Many of the arguments in this and the following subsections are elaborations on the succinct formulations in Gerald W. Creed, “The Bases of Bulgaria’s Ethnic Policies,” The Anthropology of East Europe Review 9 (1990): 12-17.
50. On the frequently neglected crucial role of lower ranking Communist officials in the disintegration of state-socialist regimes, see Daniel V. Friedheim, “Regime Collapse in the Peaceful East German Revolution: The Role of Middle-Level Officials,” German Politics 2 (1993): 97-112.
51. In a survey taken between December 25 and 28, 1989, 75 percent of 713 Communist Party officials at the local level expressed distrust in the central party leadership. See Petkov and Fotev, editors, Etnicheskiiat Konflikt, 208.
52. Stephen Ashley, “Territorial Feudalism Attacked,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1987): 9-14. A similar crusade against bureaucracy was the initial inspiration for Milosevic’s populist nationalism in Serbia. See Veljko Vujacic, “Communism and Nationalism in Russia and Serbia,” Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, 1995.
53. Stephen Ashley, “Territorial Feudalism Attacked,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1987): 9-14. A similar crusade against bureaucracy was the initial inspiration for Milosevic’s populist nationalism in Serbia. See Veljko Vujacic, “Communism and Nationalism in Russia and Serbia,” Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, 1995.
54. Stephen Ashley, “Problems and Controversies over the New Regional System,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1987): 3-7.
55. Of the leading district officials, 29 percent were replaced in the first round of reform in 1986. Two of the four district secretaries in the “Muslim" region of Shumen were replaced. In addition, the district leadership there, as well as the leadership in another mixed region, the Kârdzhali district, was severely criticized by central authorities for not performing the right “ideological work" among the Muslim population. In the course of the administrative reform in 1987, only 16 percent of the District Committee Secretaries of the Communist Parties preserved their top positions. See Ashley, “Problems and Controversies,” 13, and “Major Changes in the Districts Prior to the BCP Congress,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1986), 15.
56. Of the leading district officials, 29 percent were replaced in the first round of reform in 1986. Two of the four district secretaries in the “Muslim" region of Shumen were replaced. In addition, the district leadership there, as well as the leadership in another mixed region, the Kârdzhali district, was severely criticized by central authorities for not performing the right “ideological work" among the Muslim population. In the course of the administrative reform in 1987, only 16 percent of the District Committee Secretaries of the Communist Parties preserved their top positions. See Ashley, “Problems and Controversies,” 13, and “Major Changes in the Districts Prior to the BCP Congress,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1986), 15.
57. Stephen Ashley, “New Regional System Introduced,” 6. Höpken, “Perestroika,” 288, gives a higher total of 28, 000 people.
58. Stephen Ashley, “New Regional System Introduced,” 6. Höpken, “Perestroika,” 288, gives a higher total of 28, 000 people.
59. Michael D. Kennedy and Ireneusz Bialecki, “Power and the Logic of Distribution in Poland,” East European Politics and Societies 3 (1989): 300-328.
60. On the numerous visits of highly placed central officials to these regions, see G. S., “Officials Say There Are No Turks in Bulgaria,” RFE Bulgarian Situation Report (1985): 4-7.
61. Turkish protests were guided quite often by the assumption that the renaming campaign had been the project of local authorities acting without the knowledge of the central government. See Petkov and Fotev, editors, Etnicheskiiat Konflikt, 267.
62. Stephen Ashley, “Ethnic Unrest during January,” RFE Report on Eastern Europe (1990): 4-11. The meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party on which the reversal of policies was discussed had a duplicitous agenda. On the one hand, there was the need to reverse the policies of the regime. On the other hand, the record of those who had been involved in their design and implementation and who still occupied high positions in the Communist hierarchy had to be cleansed. The Communist establishment in East Central Europe had developed a ritual of denouncing its “errors" without undermining the strong bases of its power. For the first time, this ritual was practiced after Stalin’s death when in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites Stalin and his associates were criticized for their abuse of power. Yet this critique did not bring about any radical changes in the priorities or the power base of the Communist Party. Since then the ritual had been repeated in different countries in periods of crisis or intra-party elite shifts. It was the same ritual practice that the Central Committee followed at its meeting on December 29, 1989.
63. Stefan Troebst, “Nationalismus als Demokratisierungshemmnis in Bulgarien: Von der Verfassungsdiskussion zur Präsidentschaftswahl (Mai 1991-Januar 1992),” Südosteuropa 101 (1992), 194.
64. Thus, in the fall of 1986 alone, a total of 1, 300 school teachers were settled to work in the district of Kârdzhali (Stephen Ashley, “’Territorial Feudalism’ Attacked,” 13).
65. This is what an ethnographer reports on the attitude of ethnic Bulgarian workers in a factory in a mixed region after the Turks’exodus: “All [workers] believe that they [the Turks] should not be admitted back to Bulgaria mainly because they will bring many diseases with them. Yet from our conversations … we believe that the main argument behind the Bulgarians’ unwillingness to see those who left for Turkey come back is the fear that many property problems will arise. There was hardly anyone who had not benefited in some way from the situation by buying a house, selling a car, taking over cattle or an abandoned plot of land. Everybody’s material interests would be hurt if a mass return started" (Petkov and Fotev, editors, Etnicheskiiat Konflikt, 267, emphasis in the original). This negative attitude toward a possible return of the Turks is all the more startling since workers experienced many difficulties after the exodus. For example, they had to work long shifts in order to make up for the absent Turkish workers. Ibid.)
66. This is what an ethnographer reports on the attitude of ethnic Bulgarian workers in a factory in a mixed region after the Turks’exodus: “All [workers] believe that they [the Turks] should not be admitted back to Bulgaria mainly because they will bring many diseases with them. Yet from our conversations … we believe that the main argument behind the Bulgarians’ unwillingness to see those who left for Turkey come back is the fear that many property problems will arise. There was hardly anyone who had not benefited in some way from the situation by buying a house, selling a car, taking over cattle or an abandoned plot of land. Everybody’s material interests would be hurt if a mass return started" (Petkov and Fotev, editors, Etnicheskiiat Konflikt, 267, emphasis in the original). This negative attitude toward a possible return of the Turks is all the more startling since workers experienced many difficulties after the exodus. For example, they had to work long shifts in order to make up for the absent Turkish workers. (Ibid.)
67. After the signing of the Neuilly convention between Bulgaria and Greece in 1919 about 123, 000 Bulgarian immigrants from Greece were settled in areas where Turkish communities live. (Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement, 90). Between 1920 and 1934 forty-five newly formed settlements inhabited mainly by ethnic Bulgarian refugees were given the official status of selo (village) and makhala (neighborhood). See Petâr Koledarov, Promeni v imenata i statuta ra selishtata v Bâlgariia (Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1973).
68. After the signing of the Neuilly convention between Bulgaria and Greece in 1919 about 123, 000 Bulgarian immigrants from Greece were settled in areas where Turkish communities live. (Kostanick, Turkish Resettlement, 90). Between 1920 and 1934 forty-five newly formed settlements inhabited mainly by ethnic Bulgarian refugees were given the official status of selo (village) and makhala (neighborhood). See Petâr Koledarov, Promeni v imenata i statuta ra selishtata v Bâlgariia (Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1973).
69. For the case of Kârdzhali, see Rumian Slavov, “Sindromât na nedoverieto,” Pogled, January 15, 1990.
70. Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).
71. Beside the many national flags the protesters waved at a rally in front of the Parliament building in Sofia on January 6, 1990 there were placards with slogans such as “Bulgaria is not Cyprus" (referring to the long-standing conflict between Turks and Greeks on the island) and “Bulgaria united and indivisible." These statements were based on the typical nationalist assumption of an ethnic “slippery slope": once rights are granted to non-titular minorities, confict and secession will be the inevitable outcomes. At the same rally “many speakers spoke about sabotage and provocations committed by Islamic fundamentalists: drawing crosses on the doors of Bulgarian homes, waving Turkish flags in Bulgarian territory, [and] deliberately destroying valuable products." (BTA, January 6, 1990).
72. As reported by BTA on the same day.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. Valentin Georgiev of Razgrad on Radio Sofiia, January 4, 6: 30 pm.
76. Cf. Andrea L. Press, “The Sociology of Cultural Reception: Notes toward an Emerging Paradigm,” in Diana Crane, editor, The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
77. Gary Alan Fine, “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams,” American Sociological Review 44 (1979): 733-745, and Wilbur Schramm, Men, Messages, and Media: A Look at Human Communication (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 206. See also Michael Schudson, “How Culture Works: Perspectives from Media Studies on the Efficacy of Symbols,” Theory and Society 18 (1989): 153-180, on the importance of “resonance" of symbols with the presuppositions of the audience.
78. Gary Alan Fine, “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams,” American Sociological Review 44 (1979): 733-745, and Wilbur Schramm, Men, Messages, and Media: A Look at Human Communication (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 206. See also Michael Schudson, “How Culture Works: Perspectives from Media Studies on the Efficacy of Symbols,” Theory and Society 18 (1989): 153-180, on the importance of “resonance" of symbols with the presuppositions of the audience.
79. Gary Alan Fine, “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams,” American Sociological Review 44 (1979): 733-745, and Wilbur Schramm, Men, Messages, and Media: A Look at Human Communication (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 206. See also Michael Schudson, “How Culture Works: Perspectives from Media Studies on the Efficacy of Symbols,” Theory and Society 18 (1989): 153-180, on the importance of “resonance" of symbols with the presuppositions of the audience.
80. Theda Skocpol, “Cultural Idioms and Political Ideologies in the Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power: A Rejoinder to Sewell,” Journal of Modern History 57 (1985): 86-96.
81. Radina Springborn, “Die bulgarische Nationalbewegung,” in Norbert Reiter, editor, Nationalbewegungen auf dem Balkan (Berlin: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983), Marin V. Pundeff “Bulgarian Nationalism,” and “Les racines du nationalisme Bulgare,” in Bulgaria in American Perspective.
82. Radina Springborn, “Die bulgarische Nationalbewegung,” in Norbert Reiter, editor, Nationalbewegungen auf dem Balkan (Berlin: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983), Marin V. Pundeff “Bulgarian Nationalism,” and “Les racines du nationalisme Bulgare,” in Bulgaria in American Perspective.
83. See Mark Baskin, “Bulgaria: From Critique to Civil Society?" in Raymond Taras, editor, The Road of Disillusionment: From Critical Marxism to Postcommunism in Eastern Europe (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), for the mild nationalist critique articulated by Bulgarian intellectuals in the 1980s and Iliia Iliev, “The Proper Use of Ancestors,” unpublished manuscript, for their historiographic strategies.
84. Katherine Verdery, “Nationalism and National Sentiment in Postsocialist Romania,” in What was Socialism.
85. In 1988 Zhivkov’s government established a Committee on Human Rights as a proof for its concern with these matters. See Duncan Perry, “From Opposition to Government: Bulgaria’s ‘Union of Democratic Forces’ and its Antecedents,” in Wolfgang Höpken, editor, Revolution auf Raten: Bulgariens Weg zur Demokratie (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1996), 28.
86. David Stark, “Recombinant Property in East European Capitalism,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (1996): 993-1027.
87. Craig Calhoun, Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
88. Juan J. Linz, and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
89. On the role of gatekeepers and interpreters in transnational cultural flows, see Ulf Hannerz, Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organisation of Meaning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).