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Inclusion and Exclusion: Ihe Role of Photography in the Nation-Building Process in Bulgaria
but the underlining of the Bulgarian sufferings during "the Ottoman Yoke" and
the heroism of uprisings/revolts during the period of the Bulgarian Revival/Renais¬
sance was imminent. The Bulgarian fight for freedom was interpreted as a sacred
act of heroes, which showed that liberty was hard-fought and deserved.’
Modern memory relies on the visibility of the image (Nora 2010). In the cre¬
ation of sites of memory—the so called lieux de mémoire—photography played an
important role. With the establishment of the Bulgarian state in 1878, such places
of memory were designated to mark Bulgarian nationhood.‘ Provisionally we could
distinguish two main categories of sites of memory.
1. Places of martyrdom, of great suffering and sacrifice, such as the places of
Bulgarian anti-Ottoman uprisings/revolts, especially the uprising in April
1876. The April uprising was a failure as a revolt, because of the lack of de¬
mographic, military, and other possibilities of success against the Ottoman
Empire, which was still militarily resilient. But the rebellion showed that
Bulgarians toiled under dire circumstances against it. The publicity that
was given to the reprisals that followed the April uprising led to European
demands for reform of the Ottoman Empire, and to the end of the Russo¬
Ottoman War (1877-1878). So the military failure turned into moral suc¬
cess and granted the Bulgarians the right to be free (see ill. 38).
2. Places of heroic victories in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire,
such as the Shipka Pass, which achieved prominence during the Russo¬
Ottoman War (see ills. 33, 34).
Lieux de mémoire were created by a complex interplay of individual and collec¬
tive memory and institutionalized historiography (Nora 1999; Todorova 2009). To
begin with, there must be a will to remember—both individual and collective. The
process of establishing national sites of memory included the recollections and life
experiences of living generations, and at the same time it concerned collective refer¬
ences to the past that are culturally determined and handed down through various
media such as writing, pictorial images, and rites. The process of materialization of
memory became centralized and institutionalized, whereby, state institutions took
upon the lead. The centralized materialization of memory proceeded through the
strategic highlighting of selected samples and multiplying examples. A repertoire
of what might have had to be recalled was established. Liewx de mémoire and cul¬
tural memory have an abstract, often sacral, and solemn quality. As they are bound
up with the identity of a group, their cultivation and transmission are not left up
3 This process started in the early 1880s. Under the most important authors, who became leading
figures of Bulgarian political and public life, are Ivan Vazov, Zahary Stoyanov, and Stefan Stambolov,
among others.
4 Maria Todorova offers a detailed analysis of the question of public, social, or collective memory; the
nature of national memory in comparison to other types of memory; and the variability of memory over
time and social space (Todorova 2009).
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