Lecture by Dessislava Lilova with the topic «Inventing the Ancestors: the Bulgarian history textbooks in the 19th century»

The Institute of Mediterranean Studies / FORTH invites you to a lecture by Dessislava Lilova with the topic Inventing the Ancestors: the Bulgarian history textbooks in the 19th century

Friday, March 22, 2019, at 20.30
IMS Lecture Hall, Nikiforou Fokas 130, Rethymnon


(please see the poster of the event)

The purpose of the lecture is to present the fabrication of normative narrative about the national past in the Bulgarian history textbooks during the last century under Ottoman rule (from the late eighteenth century to the emergence of a sovereign Bulgarian state in 1878). The analysis covers the whole range of history textbooks (Universal, Ottoman and Bulgarian history) used in the educational system in that period. The main task is to rationalize the formation of a foundation myth, the narrative about the fall under Ottoman rule and the construction of national identity rooted in "barbarian" complex.

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