Seite 121 [121]
OCR
118 Anelia Kassabova by corresponding to foreign researchers’ expectations. By putting those topics into the center of their own investigations, which were internationally recognized, they adopted to a high degree foreign points of view. Subsequently, in Bulgaria, one’s own emancipation was believed to be achieved through one’s own search for relics, for the “authentically” Slavic, respectively, Bulgarian. An example of the complex interplay between an “insider” and an “outsider” perspective is the collaboration of Felix Kanitz and Anastas Karastoyanov. Felix Philipp Kanitz (1829-1904) enrolled in art studies at the University of Vienna in 1846. He traveled extensively after 1850, visiting Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy, and settled in Vienna in 1856. In 1858, he undertook a journey to Dalmatia, which marked the beginning of his thorough research on the south Slavs as art editor of the journal Illustrierte Zeitung. Apart from Dalmatia, he also visited Herzegovina, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Kanitz had several influential positions in science and society. Between 1870 and 1874, he was the first custos of the Anthropologisch-Urgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna. He was a corresponding member of the geographical societies in Dresden, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna and was counselor of Emperor Franz Joseph I beginning in 1878. Motivated by curiosity to explore the historical and contemporary circumstances in eastern Europe, Kanitz wrote deeply sympathetic reports, rich in illustrations and drawings. His work was very influential in the academic world as well as in the wider public. He met A. N. Stojanovié (Karastoyanov) in Belgrade and became a personal friend of his. Parts of the photographs of the Bulgarian revolutionists (voivodi) and men and women in folk costumes made by Anastas N. Stojanovié (Karastoyanov) have been preserved in the personal archive of Felix Kanitz at the Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Further research is needed in order to determine whether the photographs were commissioned by Kanitz or whether he received them as a gift. The common characteristics between the stylized drawings of Kanitz’ and the arranged outdoor and studio photographs of Anastas, Ivan, and Dimitar Karastoyanov, however, are obvious, especially with regard to the choice of subjects and settings (see ill. 45). Driven by the belief that photography and “photographically” accurate drawings implied a strong degree of “authenticity,” photography and painting analogically embraced pictorial codes to explore folk culture. Seen in the context of sociopolitical history, a historical form of nation-constituting politics expressed itself in the investigation and popularization of customs and national costumes. At the beginning it was articulated in a more symbolic manner by creating feelings of solidarity with and affiliation to the “Bulgarian.” After the establishment of the Bulgarian nation-state and of state institutions like the National Museum, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the University of Sofia, and 7 heep://www.europressbg.net/calendars/kanitz/kanitz.htm (accessed 10. 10. 2012).
