Reception of the Bible in Modern Bulgarian Culture: The (Post)Secular and the National
Reception of the Bible in Modern Bulgarian Culture: The (Post)Secular and the National

Author(s): Ewelina Drzewiecka
Subject(s): Cultural history, Theology and Religion, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Bible; modernity; postsecular; national; Bulgarian culture
Summary/Abstract: The paper raises the question of the Bible’s reception in modern Bulgarian literature and literary studies in the perspective of postsecular thought. The main question is interpreted with relation to the place of the Bible in the Orthodox cultural context, as well as the well-established autostereotype of Bulgarian literature as reflecting the pragmatism and religious indifference of Bulgarians. Focusing on the case of Nikolay Raynov’s (1889–1954) blasphemous novel Between desert and life (1919) and the discussion on Pencho Slaveykov’s (1866–1912) ‘religiosity’, the paper reveals the problems with both the notion of ‘religious’ within the framework of modernity and the pressing issue of the Bulgarians’ (ir)religiosity from the point of view of national identity. In this context, the question of how Bulgarian literary studies are bound by the secularization narrative manifests itself as fundamental. The history of the interpretation of the ‘religious’ in literature seems to be a very good indicator of the Bulgarian path to modernity.

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