Deconstructing and Building Walls in Discourses of Tolerance and Protest
Abstract: The text aims to outline the contours of three different discourses (of power, protest, and tolerance), which change their content over time, but the principles on which they are built remain the same. The article will trace the development of the discourses of protest and tolerance in Bulgaria, which are an alternative way of speaking to the ubiquitous narratives of power and create an ideological pluralism that breaks down walls and serves as a corrective to governance. Two transformations will be outlined: Firstly, that of the nationalist discourse, which in the 19th century was transformed from being a protest against the Ottoman government into serving as authority after the Liberation, when it became singular, suppressing the emergence of other discourses, and became a prerequisite for greater attachment to authoritarian models in Bulgaria, represented in a nostalgia for the totalitarian past. The second transformation is in the paradoxical presentation of nationalist discourse as a voice of protest against European policies of breaking down walls, integration, and pluralism, arguing for the re-building of walls and enclosure in one’s own community, which creates a particular sense of adventure and heroism in nationalist movements in both Bulgaria and Europe and makes them more attractive.
Keywords: protest, tolerance, relations of power, nationalism, walls
Maria Endreva teaches Cultural History and the literature of German-speaking countries. She studied Bulgarian and German philology in Plovdiv and Heidelberg. Since 2001, she has been working in the Department of German and Scandinavian Studies at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. In 2011, she obtained a PhD with her thesis “Die Kunstauffassung in Rilkes kunstkritischen Schriften” (The Concept of Art in the Critical Works of Rainer Maria Rilke). In 2017, she received habilitation with the monographs “Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Mittelalters” (Cultural History of the German Middle Ages, 2015) and “The Principality of Liechtenstein: History, Culture, Identity” (2017), coauthored with Daniela Decheva (in Bulgarian). In 2022, she became a Doctor of Science (Dr.sc.) with a dissertation on “Arbeitswelten im 21. Jahrhundert in Werken der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur” (Worlds of Labour in the 21st Century: Dystopias and Dynamics in Contemporary German Literature), published by Trancript (2024). She also has a monograph titled “Narratives in the German Culture at the Time of the Reformation (1517–1648)” (in Bulgarian. 2023).