Rewriting History and breaking taboos: on the representation of historical character in contemporary Bulgarian novels

This article aims to examine some aspects of the attitude to wellknown historic facts as presented in Milen Ruskov’s “Summit” („Възвишение“, 2011) and Alek Popov’s second novel on the lives and adventures of the Palaveevi sisters („Сестри Палавееви – по пътя към новия свят“, 2017). The former book deals with the period of Bulgarian national revival in the 19th century and with the controversy surrounding the figure of Dimitar Obshti. The latter novel narrates the tale of the partisan resistance of 1940s. Both periods have a very special and important meaning in Bulgarian history and for the Bulgarians. Ruskov’s novel can be read in close dialogue with the romantic and Kantian idea of the sublime. The novel of A. Popov mimics the story lines of the chronicles, approved by the Bulgarian Socialist Party, about the communist resistance and its struggle with both fascism and capitalist class society, among which is I. Hadzhimarchev’s “The Shepherd Kalitko” („Овчарчето Калитко“, 1946). At times Popov’s novel reads as a classic comic book in the style of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. M. Ruskov and A. Popov rewrite and deconstruct the myths surrounding both periods in Bulgarian history, and reincorporate both the National revival and the partisan movement in the contemporary ever-changing outlook on the country’s shared political, literary and historical background. The question is, can literature do what both politics and history proper have failed so far to accomplish, to alter and still preserve the memory of past events? The paper uses texts of E. Fromm, W. Benjamin, B. Latour and D. Matravers.