Eric Halsey

В петък в пространството на социален център Хаспел и the fridge той ще говори за проблема за политическо представителство в България от началото на XX век и за алтернативната визия, която предлага БЗНС. След лекцията ще последва дискусия, в която се надяваме да си поговорим и за днешната криза на политическото представителство.
Лекцията ще бъде на английски с превод на български.
Очаквайте подробности!

public lecture by Eric Halsey (USA)
While study on the Bulgarian Agrarian movement has slowed in previous decades, the relevance of that movement and the questions it sought to address has only increased. The first step towards a new, broader understanding is to re-examine the movement through the lens of nationalism.
Eric Halsey is a Fulbright researcher affiliated with Sofia University spending one year researching the relationship between Alexander Stamboliyski and Nationalism in preparation for a PhD.
Discussant: Nicholay Poppetrov (the Institute for Historical Research (Yee) BAS, specialist in Bulgarian history XX century)
Moderator: Tony Nikolov
In English with interpretation to Bulgarian.
Free entrance

In the broader narrative of economic development and nation building it has always been exceedingly easy to fall into the trap of imposing post hoc perspectives. The result is that when constructing these narratives we are understandably drawn to, as the saying goes, write from our own perspective: that of the 'winners.' We can see this effect demonstrated in the perspectives of the Stamboliiski regime, wherein authors commonly 'see the trees and not the forest' as they discuss the regime in narrow political or policy terms and neglect its broader ideological underpinnings.
What has been the result? On the more basic level this thinking has resulted in historical discussions of the Stamboliiski regime which neglect critical ideological aspects. More broadly and importantly, this has resulted in a view of Bulgarian nation-building from the National Revival Period onwards, at least until the establishment of the People's Republic, as moving generally in one direction. Entrenching the view that a Bulgarian nationhood rooted in ethnicity, religion, and language was a foregone conclusion.
The ideology and the policies of the Stamboliiski regime, however, point to a break in this narrative. One in which an attempt was made to fundamentally alter the course of Bulgarian nation building and modernization alike. By bringing this element of history to the forefront it becomes possible to view the broader narrative of these forces in a more complex fashion. In doing so, the extent of the uncertainty and political strife of this period can be brought into a clearer light, and it becomes possible to better understand one of the more intriguing alternate paths Bulgaria could have taken.

When we think of nationalism and its historical relationship to revolution we generally conjure images of the political rhetoric which often binds the two. The idea being that when these two forces exist together, they generally do so overtly. However this perspective draws attention away from cases in which nationalism is used as a component of a revolutionary moment without being emphasized or labeled. One such example is the Agrarian movement of Alexander Stamboliisky which came to power in Bulgaria just after the First World War. By rejecting the notion that his movement was revolutionary – insisting it was organic, inevitable, and therefore not revolutionary – he sought to politically distance himself from the Russian revolution and make his own movement more palatable for domestic and foreign interests. The result was a movement which sought to fundamentally influence many of the most important elements of the Bulgarian economy, society, and political system through a shift in the Bulgarian national identity. This new identity would eventually underpin the Balkan Federation project Stamboliisky was promoting. The result was a case in which a political movement attempted to enact revolutionary changes while distancing itself from the concept of revolution, to create a new nation while distancing itself from what would have been labeled as nationalist elements. How then did these strategies influence the regime's success?  By examining this question it will be possible better appreciate the role nationalist and revolutionary rhetoric play in such movements, contrasting with better known and more overt examples.

There exists a critical gap in the literature between analysis of the regime of Alexander Stamboliski from a basic historical perspective and a broader ideological perspective rooted in nationalism theory.  The result of this gap has been a division of research between those who look simply at the policies of the regime and those who attempt to discuss it in a framework of what is almost always Marxist ideology.  By examining the policies and historical context of the Stamboliski regime in conjunction with analyzing it through the lens of nationalism theory, the depth and importance of the regime become more clear.  Through this framework it becomes possible to view what is often called an anti-national regime as a nationalist regime attempting to reforge the national identities of Bulgaria and, eventually, the entire Balkans.  This comes with implications in how we view nationalism in the Balkans, Agrarianism, and the broader processes of addressing modernization and the region's Ottoman legacy.