OCR Output

428

Dobrinka Parusheva

the caricatures representing political developments and images of the Other were
in tune with the current feelings directed to whichever neighbor was dominating
Bulgarian society at the time.

Secondly, it was usually the political leaders who were depicted rather than the
standard stereotypes of the neighboring nations. The principal heroes of the cari¬
catures in Bälgaran and its followers were the heads of state or political leaders of
Serbia and Montenegro, and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; Ro¬
mania; and Greece. Yet, some stereotypical images also appeared on the pages of the
satirical newspapers, as for instance, the Romanian man with his shirt and musical
instrument and the Greek man called Yani. It is not possible to make a clear distinc¬
tion between the various occasions when the caricaturists used a particular image.
The dominance of real political figures results in a representation of the neighbor¬
ing peoples as men. Since politics, which was the main arena for caricatures of the
Other, was still regarded as the domain of men until the great war was over (and for
some time after that), this is easy to understand. At the same time, when a neighbor¬
ing state and not a people or a disputed geographical territory was depicted, it was
sometimes depicted as a woman, for instance, Hellas (Greece) or Lady Thracia. One
can argue that this particular way of imaging the Other stems from the fact that we
were discussing wartime issues. At the beginning of the twentieth century, war—as
politics—still was mainly men’s business: it was men who went to the battlefield
and behaved bravely or with cowardice.

Last but not least, the reader has undoubtedly gotten the impression that the mo¬
tif of Bulgarians as victims—despite their military victories—and the neighbors as
winners was reiterated in a variety of cartoons. Indeed, Bulgarian caricaturists, like
the rest of the Bulgarian population, under the influence of wartime propaganda,
perceived Bulgaria to be the big loser. The Bulgarian army was victorious in almost
all the battles, but in the end Bulgaria still lost the war and found herself in isola¬
tion, “pushed by the winners to the position of an underdog, severely restrained
in her freedom to voice ‘revanchist’ resentments other than the remorse of the vic¬
timized” (Mishkova 1995: 184). The story of friends-turned-foes is the story of
Bulgaria’s stern enemies. Bulgarian caricaturists reflected the predominantly nega¬
tive national attitude toward the neighbors. The Bulgarian “gaze at the Other” in
the Balkans evolved over time as a by-product of the invention and construction
of Bulgarian national identity. Although the attitudes of Bulgarians were shaped
by political propaganda to a certain extent and followed political circumstances,
their establishment also contributed to the attitude and behavior of the neighboring
peoples toward Bulgarians. This has been the case in so many instances of national
image-projection that it has turned into a cliché. Yet, it is one that certainly holds
true for Bulgaria.