Page 115 [115]
Anelia Kassabova
Inclusion and Exclusion:
The Role of Photography in the Nation¬
Building Process in Bulgaria
From Approximately 1860 to World War I
In this article I will highlight the impact of photographic practices on the process
of the historical and social construction of the “national body” in Bulgaria between
1860 and World War I.'! Concepts of presentation and reception must be viewed as
historically specific. Ways of visual presentation are not only embedded in particu¬
lar ocular epistemologies, which are organized by optical and discursive figures, but
also linked to specific discourses and forms of social power and are, consequently, a
particular matrix for organizing relations between the observer and the observed—
the visible and the invisible (Tagg 1988; Jaeger 2000; Sontag 2008; Pinney 2003).
I will elaborate on the work of three generations of photographers Karastoyanoy,
who worked in almost every field of photography: commercial studio photography,
photojournalism, war photography, and art photography. The first photo studio of
Anastas Karastoyanov (1822-1880) was registered in Belgrade in 1862/1863 un¬
der the name “Anastas N. Stojanovi¢.” Soon, Karastoyanov acquired the status of
“court photographer” and became a Serbian resident (podanik). During the Russo¬
Ottoman War of 1877-1878 he moved to Svishtov (contemporary Bulgaria) and
founded one of the first studios in the new capital of Sofia after the establishment
of the Bulgarian national state.
In 1880, Anastas Karastoyanov died, passing on his studio to his sons Ivan
(1853-1922) and Dimitar (1856-1919), who continued the business under the
name “Brothers Karastoyanoy” and with separate studios after 1886. In 1888, Ivan
Karastoyanov became Bulgarian court photographer. Dimitar Karastoyanov worked
together with his wife, Rayna Baldzhieva Karastoyanova (1878-1958). Rayna began
Project “Visualizing Family, Gender Relations, and the Body. The Balkans approximately 1860—
1950,” Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P 22104-G18 at the Centre for Southeast European History
and Anthropology, University of Graz. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Karl Kaser, who
introduced the visual methods in the Southeast European history research, to my colleagues Barbara
Derler and Ana Djordjevié, and to all of the partner institutions that supported this project, providing
digital copies of valuable photographs and postcards for the online Visual Archive of Southeast Europe
(VASE). We owe the online archive VASE to the Center for Information Modelling in the Humanities
at the University of Graz. The online archive VASE is in progress and will contain approximately 2,500
images by the middle of 2013: http://gams.uni-graz.at/context:vase.