Dimitar Atanassov

The paper is focused on the image of Turkey and Turkish society in Bulgarian academic, school and mass publicity. According to author’s ideas, hard nationalistic narrative was leveled by Turkish telenovellas, which were able to meet viewers’ expectations and to match regional representations about cultural richness and depth. The main methodology frames used are content analysis, representation analysis, receptive esthetics and open reading, taking into account the background of social projects and ideologies.

Studies on “Istoriya slavyanobălgarska” used to conceptualize it in various ways: it was considered as incept of Bulgarian National Revival; as text, written by representative of the oppressed masses and thus matching the idea of proletarian domination; it was also analyzed as a phenomenon, sharing row with European Enlightenment; as a construct, which was applied to build the image of the revival period, thought as time of national awakening. All these interpretation frames didn’t comprise the medieval context of Paisiy’s work, which the author was formatted by. Actually, this context gave birth to the resource, later used by the ideologists of Bulgarian nation.