MEMORIALIZATION OF MEMORY SPACES OF THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH WAR, 1877-1878 IN SOFIA LATE 1870s – MID 1880s

Abstract

The politics of memory during the formative period of Bulgarian statehood has not yet become the subject of a comprehensive specialized study. Historiography so far has addressed only certain commemorative practices of this time. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the process of employing historical events associated with Russia’s involvement in the establishment of Bulgarian statehood in the memorialization of sites of memory related to the war of 1877–1878 in Sofia. The implementation of projects to erect monuments to the Russian army was hindered by the deterioration of relations between Sofia and Saint Petersburg in 1885, caused by Alexander III’s reluctance to support the unification of the Bulgarian Principality with Eastern Rumelia. Moreover, Sofia’s refusal to comply with the ultimative demands of the tsarist government regarding the resolution of the political crisis that erupted in Bulgaria in 1886 led Russia to unilaterally sever bilateral diplomatic relations. The participation of Bulgarians in the war found no reflection in the memorialization processes, which otherwise could have contributed to the formation of collective memory of the Bulgarian national liberation movement. The cult of gratitude to Russia clearly dominated all others. In the memorialization of sites of memory related to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the following featured prominently: the Russian Empire as a state, Emperor Alexander II, Saint Alexander Nevsky, the Russian army as a whole and, in particular, its commanders and medical personnel as a separate category, representatives of the Provisional Administration, and the mystical “miraculous salvation of Sofia.”