Maria Todorova's Bones of Contention. the Living Archive Of

Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 256–263 brill.nl/seeu

Maria Todorova’s Bones of contention. The living archive of Vasil Levski and the making of Bulgaria’s national hero (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press: 2009). A Comment

Stefan Troebst Professor of East European Cultural Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany

‘Are you not somewhat Bulgar with your bowels?’

Maria Todorova, author of the international bestseller Imagining the Balkans, prolific writer on the history of Southeastern Europe and untiring editor in the field of memory studies, has published a massive volume with a smart, yet equivocal title: The “contested bones” the book deals with are not just meta- phorical but also concrete ones. The story is about the life, death and afterlife of Vasil Levski (1837–1873), the patriotic icon in Bulgaria’s modern history. Yet it is also about the bitter controversy on where his remains lie—a controversy carried out by intellectuals and scholars in late-communist Bulgaria. As cryptic as the colored book cover is, its subtitle is even more so; I am not quite sure what a “living archive” actually is, and the author’s scant explana- tions (ix–x) are not particularly helpful. Obviously it intends to be a conglom- erate of various kinds of data, documents and information with a certain importance for the present. Yet it is exactly the vagueness of this approach which allows the author to bring together under one roof three rather different stories united only by the figure of Levski: Firstly, the controversy on the loca- tion of his bones which took place in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria; secondly, the process of turning him into a hero in the Principality and the Kingdom of Bulgaria; and thirdly, the efforts to canonize him as a saint in the Republic of Bulgaria of our days. This is not the place to summarize the content of the book since that has been done by knowledgeable reviewers like Richard J. Crampton or Mari A. Firkatian (Crampton 2011; Firkatian 2011). Instead I will look at those

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/187633312X642149 S. Troebst / Southeastern Europe 36 (2012) 256–263 257 sections of Bones of contention which, in Maria Todorova’s view, prove that Bulgaria under the 35-year authoritarian rule of Todor Zhivkov (1911– 1998)—i. e., from his taking over the position of General-Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 to his step- ping down from this post on November 10th, 1989—developed into “an almost completely normal socialist state” (xvi). I quote this stunning assess- ment in its context: By choosing to describe an episode of late communism in Eastern Europe and thus recreating some of the atmosphere in a particular setting, I am not trying to white- wash all the shortcomings, failures or crimes of the communist regimes. I am acutely aware that any “historicization” confronts the past at the same time as it complicated it, and a very fine line runs between complication, understanding and apologia. I don’t believe that tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner. Nevertheless, up until now the litera- ture criminalizing the whole socialist period has been so preponderant that it needs a counterbalance, of course one that is aware of the pitfalls of its own approach. If Bulgaria in the late communist period emerges in this account as an almost completely normal socialist state with its own completely normal intellectual and public debates, so much the better. It will show a country with its own reflections and long- standing traditions, instead of the usual standard, generic and boring narratives of tri- umphant collapse of communism, rebirth of civil society and democracy galore (xvi).

How much this view deviates from the evaluation of the Zhivkov period by intellectuals in Sofia today is demonstrated by a recent interview with a professor of St. Kliment Okhridski University in Sofia—where Maria Todorova got her education and taught history of the Balkans in the 1970s and 1980s: In fact what the Zhivkov administration did in 33 years is not good at all: the worst infrastructure in Europe, an inefficient, but nature-damaging heavy industry, the destruction of the Bulgarian village, an eternal deficit and lines for toilet paper and what not else, electricity shortages. The nomenclature, the apparatus of repressive secret services, functioning till today, like the State Security (DS), the crime which cynically is called “renaissance process,” the concentration camp in Lovech, the pris- ons and institutions for internment, the murder of Georgi Markov, the shooting of hundreds of [East] German youngsters trying to cross the Bulgarian border [into Greece and Turkey], turning Bulgaria into a name for unconditional subordination and servility toward the USSR, for terrorism and for arms trade (Kinteks). Word coin- ings like “Bulgarian umbrella,” “Bulgarian majority” and “Bulgarian trace” which till today are used in European languages—the list is indeed long, but very depressing.1

1) Khvaleneto na nasledstvoto na Zhivkov e plod na sîshtoto nisko chelo i praveshki mantalitet, kazva prof. Vladimir Gradev, rîkovoditel na katedra “Teoriia i istoriia na na kulturata,” SU “Sv. Kliment Okhridski” [The praise for the heritage of Zhivkov is result of the low intellectual horizon typical for Zhivkov and of the mentality of the village of Pravets (where Zhivkov was born – S. T.), says Professor Vladimir Gradev, who holds the chair of “Theory and History of Culture” at St. Kliment Okhridski University Sofia. In:mediapool.bg , November 25, 2011. Available at < http://www.medialpool.bg/news/print_p/186756.html >.