The Dead Female Body and Necropolitics. The Topos of a Walled-up Woman in Bulgarian Modernist Plays
The Dead Female Body and Necropolitics. The Topos of a Walled-up Woman in Bulgarian Modernist Plays

Summary/Abstract: In Bulgarian folk tradition, the topos of a woman entombed in a wall is a remnant of a dead myth that is still commemorated in the canon of that culture. In the 19th and 20th century, it became the subject of creative recycling in literature and visual arts. The article presents the results of my research on the topos of a walled-up woman in four plays written in the first four decades of the 20th century by Petko Todorov (Зидари), Anton Strashimirov (На без-кръстните гробове), Ana Karima (Яниният извор), and Stilyan Chilingirov (Мост на река Струма). The analysis focuses on the issue of the protagonists assigning meaning (determined by cultural gender) to women’s remains “acquired” through the ritual of immurement. It also discusses the ways in which authors employed this “remnant” of national/folk archaic material, which continued to raise moral concern throughout the 20th century and in the 21st century may prove an interesting topic for post-humanist reflection.

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