Bones of Contention
This article was originally printed in the November 1999 issue of CLASnotes.
Historian Maria Todorova employs unusual case study to explore the mechanisms of hero worship, nationalism and the processes and politics of historical memory
Vasil
Levski is no ordinary historical figure. Revered by Christian and atheist,
left and right alike, he is the only uncontested national hero of Bulgaria,
and his story is chock full of conflict and intrigue. Perfect for a novel or
biography. Or, in historian Maria Todorova's case, a theoretical inquiry. As
the center of Todorova's new project, Bones of Contention: the Making of
a National Hero, Levski provides the CLAS professor a focal point around
which to examine the mechanisms of hero worship, nationalism, and the processes
and politics of historical memory.
Levski (1835-1873) became a revolutionary hero when Bulgaria was still under Ottoman rule. He organized an intricate network of committees against the Ottoman Empire, but in 1873 he was caught, hanged and buried in a criminal graveyard. Five years later Bulgaria gained independence, and in the half century following independence, Levski gradually won the status of national hero. "This doesn't mean he wasn't a hero before that," says Todorova, "but the fact that he became the sublime, the greatest, the pinnacle of the pantheon of heroes happened 50 years later."
In a recent paper, Todorova analyzed the dynamics of Levski's heroicization by looking both at text books and fiction and by visiting classrooms. "It was clear that Levski was introduced primarily through the texts of poems and short stories written about him by the greatest epic writer of the 19th century, Ivan Vazov. Children were (and still are) socialized to this image of the hero in literature, and then they reproduce it as adults. When the works of this particular writer became part of the canon of Bulgarian literature, Levski was symbolically 'canonized' in the process."
Reflecting Levski's "sublime" status, in the late 1920s, rumors spread that surely the Bulgarian nation had not been indifferent enough to let their hero rot in a common grave. Instead, according to the legend, on the very night Levski was hanged, his body was removed from the criminal graveyard and reburied in the apsis of a Sofia church.
When Bulgaria became communist after WWII and the government began building what Todorova calls "huge Stalinist monstrosities" in Sofia—including big hotels, department stores and the large Central Committee building—the mystery of Levski's remains resurfaced, literally. Archeologists conducting excavations on the grounds of a small 14th or 15th century church located right in the middle of Sofia's construction zone uncovered a burial site. Dissent erupted almost immediately as to the origin and age of the bones, with some archeologists labeling them late Roman despite evidence of modern burials which fed persistent lay sentiment connecting the remains to Levski.
"In the mean time, during the excavation and removal of artifacts (which took several years)," explains Todorova, "they managed to lose the bones! So now you have this wonderful story with all the facts, but none of the facts because the bones are missing." Ironically, she continues, when Levski became a revolutionary (he was previously a church deacon), he cut off his long hair and gave it to his mother, who preserved it. This means that if the bones had not been lost, conclusive DNA testing would now be possible.
In the 1980s, the controversy re-ignited yet again when a popular Bulgarian writer published several books that not only maintained the Sofia bones were, in fact, Levski's, but also chided the archeologists for conducting sloppy work. "The archeologists flung accusations back at the writer—that he and his supporters were nationalists and dilettantes," says Todorova. Their heated debate raises a new line of inquiry in her case study. "Are dilettantes allowed to speak for history? This dynamic concerns all of us, not only there in Europe, but to us here in the university and everywhere," she says. "Are professional historians entitled to monopolize the way one thinks and writes about history or not? So my project also encompasses historiography, methodology, the profession of history and so on."
Another fascinating aspect of Todorova's case study concerns the malleability of historical interpretation. A boggling array of political parties and social groups continuously appropriate the great Bulgarian hero for their causes. "Levski is the hero of conservatives, of arch nationalists, even of the near fascists," says Todorova. "He is also the hero of the extreme left, of both Christians and atheists, republicans and monarchists. It is very interesting to see exactly what these conflicting groups manage to carve out from his material and writings to tailor Levski to their needs."
After two extremely busy years, due in large part to the success of her last book, Imagining the Balkans (see below), Todorova is in the process of applying for funds to support a year off to complete and write up the Levski study. "It is turning into quite a fun project," she says. "The case I think is very attractive—among other things, it allows me to look at different theoretical problems in an analytical way, such as nationalism, the mechanism of historical memory, hero worship or other comparative processes within a Balkan or general European context. But also, I wanted to experiment with the genre and how one can squeeze good analytical problems out of an attractive narrative."
Imagining the Balkans
Maria Todorova's 1997 book, Imagining the Balkans, is now available or near completion in eight languages (English, Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Croatian, Turkish, Romanian and German), and the French and Italians hope to publish her book in their countries, too.
Todorova translated the Bulgarian edition and edited the others, supplying new introductions meant for each particular public. She also traveled to each country to introduce the book. Although this extra work has been time consuming, delaying other projects, Todorova says it's been quite gratifying to see her word spreading.
She explains: "The central idea of Imagining the Balkans is that there is a discourse, which I term Balkanism, that creates a stereotype of the Balkans, and politics is significantly and organically intertwined with this discourse. When confronted with this idea, people may feel somewhat uneasy, especially on the political scene."
But overall, she says, the book has received good reviews, not only in the academic community, but in political circles as well—there were even a couple of US Senators carrying around the book during the Balkan crisis. "The most gratifying response to me came from a very good British journalist, Misha Glenny, who has written well and extensively on the Balkans. He said, 'You know, now that I look back, I have been guilty of Balkanism,' which was a really honest intellectual response."
