The Idea of “Europe” as a Factor in the Building of the Bulgarian Legal Identity
The Idea of “Europe” as a Factor in the Building of the Bulgarian Legal Identity

Summary/Abstract: This paper tries to provide a comparative historic analysis of the three waves of Europeanization and legal and political modernization in Bulgaria. The first wave encompasses the period from the reestablishment of the Bulgarian state in 1878-1879 until the inclusion of Bulgaria in the Soviet sphere of influence in 1944. The second phase covers the communist regime from 1944 until 1989. The third phase is an ongoing one and has commenced with the fall of communism in 1989. In should be mentioned that there was also one preliminary phase of incremental modernization and Europeanization of the Bulgarian society – the Tansimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire and the process of the Bulgarian revival. However it consists of modernization and Europeanization of the Bulgarian society only since the Bulgarian state has emerged several decades later in 1878. The legal modernization is understood as normative and institutional modernization, as political practice and as a socio-legal and political discourse. The paper will present the different socio-legal discourses of “Europe” as one of the key formative concepts of the Bulgarian modernity. Special attention will be devoted to the analysis of the European ideas as identity building factors in Bulgaria and more precisely on the scope and durability of the impact of the European normative ideology and of “Europe” as a normative idea on the Bulgarian legal identity.

• Details
• Contents