Projects Common Central European Networks of the Fourth Union states in the estimations of publicist Georgy Kapchev

Abstract

The aim of this article is study assessments of German and Austro-Hungarian infrastructure projects that presented in Georgy Kapchev’s brochure (1916). Author is a well-known Bulgarian journalist, publicist and emigrant. This work is quite typical for the Russian socio-political discourse of the time. The author’s assessments of the general Central European water and railway network were determined by the situation in the world, as well as the author’s political preferences. Free trade as a concept of foreign trade policy and stimulating economic development was in deep crisis. Relations between the warring camps were remained of mistrust. The propaganda of the warring empires used every opportunity and occasion for discredit of the enemy. That’s why the construction of railways, bridges, and canals was characterized by the author as the expansion of Germany and Austria-Hungary. At the same time, the development of infrastructure could have a positive impact on the economic growth of Central-Eastern Europe in the long term. The author appealed to the emotions, religious beliefs, and collective memory of the reader. He repeated that the Bulgarians are grateful to Russia for their liberation from the Ottoman Empire. He also spread the thesis about the natural sympathy of the Bulgarians for the Russians and unwillingness to fight against the sons of the liberators of their country. Georgy Kapchev’s brochure allowed the Russian public to get acquainted with relevant and quite detailed information about infrastructure projects initiated by Germany and Austria-Hungary. It formed an understanding of the significance of these plans for Bulgaria and other countries of South-Eastern Europe.

However, the emotional presentation of information that placed in propagandistic context clearly prevented the reader from understanding the benefits and prospects for the whole region of Europe with the implementation of Berlin’s and Vienna’s plans.