Nasheto Selo published its first issue on a wintry Saturday morning in February
1932, and in doing so it became part of a long tradition of educational publication in the Bulgarian periodical press. The first ever Bulgarian language newspaper, Zornitsa [Morning Star], had a strong educational component. Published in 1864 by an American, Albert Long, who was then living in Constantinople, the paper sought to, “elevate the moral education of the Bulgarian people.”147 If we consider Benedict Anderson’s emphasis on the importance of the development of a periodical press for the creation of national identity, it is perhaps not surprising that the blossoming of the Bulgarian language press should happen amidst the years of revolutionary upheaval before the formation of an autonomous Bulgarian state in 1878.
However, though common language was undoubtedly important, the educational component of these newspapers should not be overlooked. At any given time, overtly educational newspapers and magazines were only a small portion of the periodical press. However, there was often an educational element alongside a newspaper’s general content of daily news or politics. And here is where Roger Brubaker’s idea of “groupness” is particularly useful. The active construction of groups played a huge part in
147 K. S. Charndan, La Press Bulgare: De Son Origine à Nos Jours (Paris: Publications Contempraines
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Bulgaria’s periodical press from the beginning. Often the group under construction was a national one.
In the late Ottoman period, this kind of didactic print was particularly associated with the idea of “National Revival” and became intertwined with the rabble rousing émigré press which sought to incite rebellion and foster nationalist sentiment among the Bulgarian people.148 For example, the 1867 a journal entitled, provocatively, Svoboda [Liberty] sought to “defend the interests of Bulgarians and to set the Bulgarian people on a route to arrive more easily at perfect moral and political independence.”149 Mingled with a stream of bellicose texts, these journals sought to educate and elevate Bulgaria’s primarily rural population. The goals of fostering national consciousness and of raising the educational level of the Bulgarian people were indivisible.150 Not only was the education of the peasant masses essential to their ability to actually read nationalist texts and participate in their ‘imagined community’, but it was also essential to the creation of a “Modern” Bulgarian culture distinct from its Ottoman past.151 However, the national group was not the only one under construction.
148 The exact dates of Bulgaria’s National Revival, that is the period during which the idea of Bulgaria as a nation took root, are disputed, with some tracing the era back as far as the late 18th century, and others situating its beginnings to the era of Ottoman reforms in the 1820s. The time period most commonly associated with the Revival (often called the “Late Revival Period) is from 1862-1878. The Revival is associated with an economic boom and a corresponding boom in arts, crafts, literature and architecture. 149 Charndan, La Presse Bulgare, 22.
150 It should be noted here, as well, that most of the elites involved in this process were themselves former peasants.
151 A large part of this project of separation and “modernization” occurred outside the printed type set of the periodical press. As we have seen, part of this project was undoubtedly reclaiming folk culture and coding it as Bulgarian in the inconvenient salons of the National Ethnographic Museum. Urban planning and hygiene campaigns provided another route towards the “modernization” of Bulgarian village culture. Here we must clarify that “nationalism” and “modernization” are concepts which, though frequently
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The last decade of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century not only saw a rise in educational opportunities in the countryside, but also a rise in political engagement of the rural population. This opened up the possibility of a different kind of group-making, one based on class rather than national interests. A flurry of Agrarian party-affiliated publications addressing the political interests of the Bulgarian peasantry emerged including, Selski Vestnik [Village Newspaper] (1893-1908), Oralo [Plough] (1894-1898), and Seach [Sower] (1896-1900).152 A few years later saw the release of inaugural issues of the Agrarian party newspapers, Selska Probuda [Village Awakening], and Zemedelsko Zname [Agrarian Banner], beginning what would be Bulgaria’s turbulent history of peasant political activism, culminating in peasant uprisings at the close of the First World War that led to Stamboliski’s “peasant republic.”153 But, although this period saw the height of peasant political power, the Agrarian political voice was but one among many during this period, which saw an explosion of publications catering to particular political interests.154 Among these newspapers, the interests of the village remained an important topic, not just in the field of political publications, but also in the many special
intertwined in Bulgaria, were not synonymous. Take, for example, the “modernization’ of village culture through hygiene campaigns. In a recent conference paper, Mary Neuburger described how, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American missionaries went door to door to instill moral values and hygiene among the village populations. These women felt that “the ‘pagan hearth’ was their explicit target— washing bodies, clothes, and floors was as important—and indeed integral to washing away the sins of the world.” Mary Neuburger, 'Sanitizing Faith: Protestant Missionaries and the Making of Modern Bulgarians', ASEEES (New Orleans: unpublished, 2012). Yet, very similar work done at that time by government workers, took on a distinctly nationalist valence. (see Chapter 4)
152 Roumen Daskalov, Bŭlgarskoto Obshestvo 1878-1939, Tom 2: Naselenie. Obshtestvo. Kultura (Sofia:
Ik "Gutenberg", 2005), 478.
153 Charndan, La Presse Bulgare, 42. 154 Ibid, 45.
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interest papers published during this period. 155 Interestingly, although the peasants no longer held power after the brutal assassination of Stamboliski and the collapse of the Agrarian government in 1923, this pandering to peasant interests in the periodical press remained fairly constant.
Undoubtedly, the central role of peasants in the economy meant that their interests could not be entirely marginalized.156 In order to garner support, the new reactionary government led by Alexandur Tsankov would not only continue, but would expand the redistribution of land begun by Stamboliski’s government and would continue to support the peasant cooperatives and initiatives for agricultural improvement.157 Although the peasants were pretty much crippled as a political force, they remained an important symbol and cause for groups across the political spectrum. Despite the many issues, which fragmented the political spectrum in the 1920s and 30s, there were some commonalities as well. From the radical Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization [IMRO] to Tsankov’s reactionary government and the more moderate Andreĭ Liapchev,158 these groups all took a decidedly paternalistic view of the peasant grower.159 The peasantry needed to be cared for and educated, rather like a child. This
155 Daskalov, Bŭlgarskoto obshtestvo 1878-1939, 482. 156 Neuburger, Balkan Smoke, 119.
157 Crampton, A Short History of Bulgaria, Crampton, A Concise History of Bulgaria, 100.
158Andrei Liapchev took over in 1926, when continued violent political turmoil (including two dramatic assassination attempts on Tsar Boris III) caused the Tsar to encourage Tsankov to resign in Liapchev’s favor.
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position demanded the continuation of educational newspapers, and, before 1934, left room for “group making” along class lines.
In 1926, in the midst of this political turmoil, at a time when the peasantry was emphatically not in power, an Agrarian educational newspaper Selo [Village] wrote:
The Bulgarian village today is not the same as it was before liberation. […]All is changed and we ourselves change. […] but when we compare the condition of our villages with those in advanced countries, we see there [in the advanced countries] prosperity, but here, [we see] poverty; there, [we see] a humane, rational way of living, and here [we see] a painful and wretched way of living. What does this show us? This shows that we still must work more to improve all aspects of our villages, so that they begin to resemble the villages of advanced countries. […]
We live in a beautiful and fruitful earth. It could become a paradise. […] Our hardworking nation deserves better fate than our current lot. The newspaper Selo is working to create Bulgaria’s bright future[…]160
In other words, although Western-style modernity was generally associated with urbanization and rapid industrialization, it was the field and not the factory which held the key to Bulgaria’s position among more “advanced” countries. 161 In the years between the collapse of the Agrarian government and the military coup of 1934, this “alternative modernity” found its voice in the peasant press and provided a basis for the construction of a peasant-based community.
The actual content of these peasant interest newspapers, including both the newspaper Selo and the early years of Nasheto Selo, was not limited to technical
160 ‘Zadachitie za nashiia vestnikŭ,’ Selo, August 3, 1925, 1.
161 Now, Bulgaria’s admiration for the “advanced” West was often more ambiguous than was expressed in
this newspaper. Simultaneous with positive images of the West as a model of success to be emulated, there were competing images of the West as exploitative and corrupt, a concept which must have been
exacerbated by the stringent terms of the Treaty of Neuilly at the end of World War I. Neuburger, The Orient Within, 3.
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agricultural advice, but also included what might be termed “group making” articles. That is, every week, several articles emphasized the community of peasants, their relationship to each other, the nation and the outside world.162 There were actually two groups, which emerged from the short-lived newspaper Selo. One was the peasant community; the other was the nation. In Selo, modern peasants were the active foundation and builders of the modern Bulgarian nation. As we shall see however, after 1934, this concept of an independent and empowered peasant community is replaced by a national community where the peasantry is symbolically powerful, but politically marginalized.