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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 caricatures 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; Romania; 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 distinction between the various occasions when the caricaturists used a particular image. The dominance of real political figures results in a representation of the neighboring 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 neighboring 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 motif 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 isolation, “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 victimized” (Mishkova 1995: 184). The story of friends-turned-foes is the story of Bulgaria’s stern enemies. Bulgarian caricaturists reflected the predominantly negative 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.
