Maya Boycheva
University of National and World Economy
https://doi.org/10.53656/voc23-450angl
Abstract. The paper is part of an empirical study of Anglophone travel books describing Bulgaria. Its subject are the images through which the topic of ‘Bulgaria’ is communicated to the British public at the beginning of 20th century. These images are found to be informed by the symbols of the dominant discourse iconography as well as by innovative approaches to the representational paradigm. The paper
applies the historical discourse approach to the process of uncovering the link between the representations of Bulgaria in English travel writing and the models of identification deriving from the socio-political reality of the division between the
colonial Great Powers and the marginal newly-liberated states. The constructivist
focus on the continuous mutually constitutive interaction between social reality
and communication is pivotal in the study. The travelogue is interpreted as a communicative act in the course of which the subject and the object position themselves and assume or attribute to each other identities matching their social roles. The images of „gentlemen“, „peasants“, „warriors“, unlock models of identification that either reaffirm the status quo in the British-Bulgarian relations or advocate a closer engagement of Britain with Bulgaria.
Keywords: discourse; identity; image; representation
