Hristo Botev: The Ekstasis of Non-Belonging and the Route to Modernity
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Dimitar Kambourov
Abstract
Bulgarian literature of the 19th century, although widely unknown abroad, is decisive for the formation of Bulgarian national identity. In this respect, the authority of the ‘national poet’ Hristo Botev has been uncontested for 140 years. Botev has created the Bulgarian mytho-poetic narrative and imposed it as a set of political, social and ethical principles, crystalized to a corrective. Yet, Botev’s poetic agenda is contradictory. His nationalism, based on natural belonging to the people, kin and family, is persistently extended towards social criticism and a utopian longing for class equality. Thus, the prior national unity appears subverted: the representatives of the elite are stigmatized as non-belonging to the nation per se, to ‘the people,’ a collective subject, enslaved, suffering, passive, and mute. Such an irresolvable contradiction between the two struggles – for national liberation and for social emancipation – is additionally complicated by Botev’s third, most intimate longing – for personal unbinding that would take the radical form of self-emerging beyond any kinship and class affiliation. Thus, the mytho-poetic figure of an apocalyptic Motherland had to be re-articulated as the eternal ‘There’ of a coveted death. Finally, Botev’s self-victimization, orchestrated as a rebel raid, is his response to the fallen heroes and their failed sacrifice. Bulgaria’s most powerful national poet gave birth to a national myth of the genius who voluntarily gave up poetry and joined the masses by embracing their role of a victim.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- National Poets and Romantic (Be)Longing: An Introduction
- The Aesthetics and Politics of Belonging: National Poets between “Vernacularism” and “Cosmopolitanism”
- Rocking the Cradle: Making Petőfi a National Poet
- Hristo Botev: The Ekstasis of Non-Belonging and the Route to Modernity
- Contributions
- Vergangene Vergängnis: Für eine Philologie des Stattdessen
- Ruinenlandschaften und Landschaftsruinen in der gelehrten Literatur der frühen Neuzeit
- Werthers verbriefte Liebe
- Eine revolutionäre Solitärin?
- Home in Biblical and Antwerp City Poems – A Journey
- Delving into Impossible Storyworlds of Terror: The Unnaturalness of Hassan Blasim’s Short Narrative Fiction
- Reviews
- Aktualität im Vergangen: Eine Lektüre von The Fate of Art nach 25 Jahren
- Harry Lehmann: Ästhetische Erfahrung: eine Diskursanalyse. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 143 S.
- Alexander Košenina und Stefanie Stockhorst, Hgg.: Lessing und die Sinne. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2016. 272 S.
- Michael Bies, Michael Gamper und Ingrid Kleeberg, Hgg.: Gattungs-Wissen. Wissenspoetologie und literarische Form. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013. 386 S.
- Achim Geisenhanslüke: Trauer-Spiele. Walter Benjamin und das europäische Barockdrama. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 166 pp.
- Rebekka Schnell: Natures Mortes. Zur Arbeit des Bildes bei Proust, Musil, W. G. Sebald und Claude Simon. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 290 S.
- Gernot Wimmer, Hg.: Ingeborg Bachmann und Paul Celan. Historisch-poetische Korrelationen. Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. 200 S.Kim Teubner: „Celans Gedichte wollen das äußerste Entsetzen durch Verschweigen sagen“: Zu Paul Celan und Theodor W. Adorno. Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 2014. 603 S.
- Ottmar Ette: Writing-Between-Worlds. TransArea Studies and the Literatures-Without-A-Fixed-Abode. Trans. Vera M. Kutzinski. Berlin and Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2016. 339 pp.
- Solveig Lena Hansen: Alterität als kulturelle Herausforderung des Klonens: Eine Rekonstruktion bioethischer und literarischer Verhandlungen. Münster: Mentis Verlag, 2016. 378 S.
- Eve-Marie Engels und Thomas F. Glick, Hgg.: The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe. Bde. I–II. London: Continuum, 2008. lxii + 659 S.Thomas F. Glick und Elinor Shaffer, Hgg.: The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe. Bde. III–IV. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. lii + 723 S.
- Donna Haraway: Manifestly Haraway. The Cyborg Manifesto. The Companion Species Manifesto. Companions in Conversation (with Cary Wolfe). Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2016. (Posthumanities 37). 360 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- National Poets and Romantic (Be)Longing: An Introduction
- The Aesthetics and Politics of Belonging: National Poets between “Vernacularism” and “Cosmopolitanism”
- Rocking the Cradle: Making Petőfi a National Poet
- Hristo Botev: The Ekstasis of Non-Belonging and the Route to Modernity
- Contributions
- Vergangene Vergängnis: Für eine Philologie des Stattdessen
- Ruinenlandschaften und Landschaftsruinen in der gelehrten Literatur der frühen Neuzeit
- Werthers verbriefte Liebe
- Eine revolutionäre Solitärin?
- Home in Biblical and Antwerp City Poems – A Journey
- Delving into Impossible Storyworlds of Terror: The Unnaturalness of Hassan Blasim’s Short Narrative Fiction
- Reviews
- Aktualität im Vergangen: Eine Lektüre von The Fate of Art nach 25 Jahren
- Harry Lehmann: Ästhetische Erfahrung: eine Diskursanalyse. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 143 S.
- Alexander Košenina und Stefanie Stockhorst, Hgg.: Lessing und die Sinne. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2016. 272 S.
- Michael Bies, Michael Gamper und Ingrid Kleeberg, Hgg.: Gattungs-Wissen. Wissenspoetologie und literarische Form. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013. 386 S.
- Achim Geisenhanslüke: Trauer-Spiele. Walter Benjamin und das europäische Barockdrama. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 166 pp.
- Rebekka Schnell: Natures Mortes. Zur Arbeit des Bildes bei Proust, Musil, W. G. Sebald und Claude Simon. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2016. 290 S.
- Gernot Wimmer, Hg.: Ingeborg Bachmann und Paul Celan. Historisch-poetische Korrelationen. Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. 200 S.Kim Teubner: „Celans Gedichte wollen das äußerste Entsetzen durch Verschweigen sagen“: Zu Paul Celan und Theodor W. Adorno. Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 2014. 603 S.
- Ottmar Ette: Writing-Between-Worlds. TransArea Studies and the Literatures-Without-A-Fixed-Abode. Trans. Vera M. Kutzinski. Berlin and Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2016. 339 pp.
- Solveig Lena Hansen: Alterität als kulturelle Herausforderung des Klonens: Eine Rekonstruktion bioethischer und literarischer Verhandlungen. Münster: Mentis Verlag, 2016. 378 S.
- Eve-Marie Engels und Thomas F. Glick, Hgg.: The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe. Bde. I–II. London: Continuum, 2008. lxii + 659 S.Thomas F. Glick und Elinor Shaffer, Hgg.: The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe. Bde. III–IV. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. lii + 723 S.
- Donna Haraway: Manifestly Haraway. The Cyborg Manifesto. The Companion Species Manifesto. Companions in Conversation (with Cary Wolfe). Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2016. (Posthumanities 37). 360 pp.
