Writers of the nation: Intellectual identity in Bulgaria, 1939--1953

This dissertation explores the experience of a little known cohort of interwar Bulgarian poets, novelists and critics at the intersection of two historical periods---the authoritarian 1930s and communist-dominated 1950s. As a study of intellectual life through the prism of the nation, it offers a new reading of the relationship among cultural producers, state, and ideology in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. I suggest that the participation of writers in the cultural policies of both fascist and communist Bulgaria was motivated by shared concern for the nation rather than sheer opportunism or blind commitment to an ideology. In this framework, the disappearance of prominent literary figures from public and cultural life in early socialist Bulgaria is a result of the rise of a new notion of the intellectual as a politicized civil servant, an ideal that came in conflict with the intellectual identity of the interwar literati.; By bridging two distinct historical eras, this project strives to overcome the current chronological divide in 20th-century Bulgarian history of September 9, 1944, the date when a left-wing coalition took power and reversed the direction of the political, social and economic development of the country. Real as the distinctions between the Saxe-Coburg monarchy and the People's Republic are, the focus on lived individual experience reveals important continuities between the two periods. This work is, hence, part of a general recent scholarly trend to highlight the common threads that weave the Bulgarian and European twentieth century together.; Finally, this dissertation helps resurrect from oblivion of an entire generation of non-leftist interwar intellectuals, who were purged from national and cultural memory after WWII. By focusing on the way in which these writers, their associates and friends negotiated social expectations of service to the nation with personal career decisions, material demands and aesthetic and political inclinations, it casts new light on the political and social history of this dynamic period. "Writers of the Nation," therefore, seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the intellectual, cultural and social trends in interwar, wartime and postwar Bulgaria and Eastern Europe.