Women and the Emancipative Projects of Bulgarian Modernity
Women and the Emancipative Projects of Bulgarian Modernity

Summary/Abstract: The main focus of the current study is the role of periodicals in the emancipation of the womanin a modernizing Bulgarian society. From a social and political perspective, female virtues, rightsand duties become an object of varied debates in Bulgaria at the end of the 19th – beginning of the20th centuries. Women’s newspapers and magazines participate actively in these debates whilstfamiliarizing their female readers with the ideas and struggles of women in Western Europe, presentingdiverse philosophical concepts, and discussing established cultural models. In these periodicalsthere appear materials which endeavour to cultivate models of emancipative behaviour;these publications include translations and authentic literature with a „feminine” axis. Femaleidentity in this period gets formed within respective periodicals and the circles clinging to them,and it comes to represent a complex entity of, on the one hand, radical concepts stressing equalityand female rights, and, on the other, conservative perceptions of the place of the woman in themodern household environment.

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