Tsarigrad/Istanbul and the Spatial Construction of Bulgarian National Identity in the Nineteenth Century
Tsarigrad/Istanbul and the Spatial Construction of Bulgarian National Identity in the Nineteenth Century

Author(s): Boyko Penchev
Subject(s): Political history, 19th Century, Period(s) of Nation Building
Published by: Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS)
Keywords: Bulgarian Nation-Building;
Summary/Abstract: The point of departure of the following paper is the question how and why Istanbul, or Tsarigrad, as Bulgarians used to call the capital of Ottoman Turkey in 19th century and later, has been inscribed in different spatial frameworks during the second half of 19th century. My interest is how representations of big cities, i.e. Tsarigrad/Istanbul, participate in the construction of a unifi ed national identity or, to put it another way, how the multiethnic city of convergent cultures has been appropriated in the imaginary geography of the diverging culture of nationalism.

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