Bulgarian Renaissance and German Romanticism – Typological Collision

Abstract

This article marks some of the basic typological correspondences between sociocultural processes in Germany and Bulgaria in the 18–19^th centuries. There are two main fields of discussion: The first one is a requirement that there be a central typological content to the thesis and it refers to the specific events of the Enlightenment (Aufklärung) and German Romanticism, which are postulated in a common logic as one single plot/story.
The text focuses on the specific role of the “French factor” in this proliferation process, of French culture in general – especially the universalistic ideas of the Enlightenment-Lumières and the venture of their real, political importation into Germany by the Napoleonic wars (1806) and the powerful nation-creating effect they had on German collective consciousness – as their opposite reaction. The proliferation of Enlightenment-Romanticism in the “German case” is seen mainly in relation to the existence of a similar syncretism in the Bulgarian setting and the role of the “Greek factor” in the formation of the Bulgarian Revival and modern nationalism.
In the mode of national-ideological strategies and understanding literature as a way to construct them (which also allows for the merger of modern ideology with mythology), the possibility of asserting a heterogeneity in the link between “(Bulgarian) Renaissance – (German) Romanticism” can be eliminated.