Европа и варварите във възрожденското въображение
Europe and barbarity in the imagination of the Bulgarian Revival

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on an insufficiently researched segment of Bulgarian National Revival literature, the textbooks of world history. The emphasis is on the most popular one, that by A. Schlutzer, twice translated into Bulgarian, (by A. Cholakov and R. Blaskov). This book dominated the schools up to the mid-1860s and served in the formation of the most active generations of the national elite. The analysis is oriented in three directions: 1) principles of constructing the Utopian community of mankind; 2) criteria in structuring the opposition ,,barbarity-civilisation"; and 3) mechanisms of integrating Bulgaria into the world history narrative. It is maintained that the textbook was used as a tool of legitimising the hybrid nature of Bulgarian identity, which meets neither the positive nor the negative standards of civilisation.

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