Seite 120 [120]
OCR
Inclusion and Exclusion: The Role of Photography in the Nation-Building Process in Bulgaria legitimacy. Stimulated by the ideas of Historism, which were gaining adherents throughout Europe from the second half of the eighteenth century onward, a historical self-confidence of the nation developed in the Balkans under the heading of “self-consciousness.” The orientation to the past/history and the search for roots depended on the requirements of social practice. This concept proved to be exceptionally fruitful because it combined the idea of horizontal unity with the idea of vertical continuity. They were believed to contain the essential traits of the “national character.” Some basic characteristics of the consolidation process of the Bulgarian nation are to be noted. The central meaning of free peasant in the economic and social structure of Bulgarian society in the late nineteenth century is indisputable—until World War II about 80 percent of the population still lived in rural areas. Hence, the socioeconomic structure formed a widely realistic basis for designating the rural culture as the national culture. At the same time, however, this was a period during which rural society was developing through the introduction of a market economy— including increased goods production, trade, and investment capital—intensified relations (economic and cultural) within Europe; and increasing mobility. This went along with the resolution of traditional relationships. Politically speaking, high symbolic value as a connecting element for the nation was ascribed to rural culture in general. Village and rural folk were considered to be the keepers of Bulgarian language and culture, and as such primarily valued from outside. This reflected the dominant attitudes toward folk culture in contemporary German and Slavic scholarship with romantic ideas of the Enlightenment’s leading scholar, Herder, who insisted on respecting, preserving, and advancing nations, understood to be linguistic and cultural groupings (Herder 1985). The process of self-identification is inseparable from processes of identification outside the country. The decisive conceptual-theoretical basis of this time was that of evolutionism. Without underestimating the differences in definitions and methods between the various authors, it is important to underline that evolutionism conditioned a search for archaic relics in their own society (particularly in German-speaking areas). At the same time, it reinforced an interest in the outside world, in non-European and Slavic peoples. The structure of society was believed to display remnants of archaic institutions (Kassabova 2002). Researchers from outside saw in the Slavic region “an ethnographic museum,” which could deliver material for investigating allegedly overcome evolutionary stages in the “Western” societies (Tylor 1878; Maine 1870; Gabr 1886; Laveleye 1885; Turner 1874; Miiller 1897). A definition of what was considered significant had an essential influence on the perception of foreign societies and at the same time strongly influenced local societies and sciences.° Local researchers and photographers could attract interest and international recognition © About photography in the context of the discourses of Balkanism and Orientalism—see Kaser 2012; Kaser 2013. 117
