Enlightenment

This article examines one of the main research projects of Nedka Kapralova, namely, the practice of sponsorship during the Bulgarian National Revival and its importance for understanding the processes that accompanied the transition to modernity in the Bulgarian lands. The new historical era gave rise to new social actors. Literature would begin to “produce” those actors and circulate them as cultural models. The Enlightened European, the National Awakener, and the Teacher became symbolic images charged with the notions of a new and desired cultural space. These figures had their antipodes: the Phanariot and the Pseudo-Civilizer, both rooted in the enemy aggressor stereotype. The collective self-envisioned images of “We, the Bulgarians” and “We, the Enlightened Bulgarians” were gradually affirmed by being juxtaposed with, and contrasted against, the above-mentioned antipodes. The phenomenon of sponsorship, as analyzed by Kapralova, reveals the mechanisms through which new normative frameworks were established. It highlights notable cases in the legitimization of an emergent modern culture, with its guilds and its respective new social networks and circles. The study further attests to the mentoring ethos of the men of letters and offers intriguing insights into the self-determination of the Enlightened. Another line that is traced is represented by the shifts in attitudes and moral orientations of successive generations of intellectuals of the Revival period.

The article focuses on the dialogue “Lugubrious Nights” by José Cadalso and analyses it from the point of view of its Gothic and Enlightenment traits. While Tediato, the protagonist, embodies the ideas of the Enlightenment, the Gothic is associated with the atmosphere of horror and the constant presence of the supernatural. The dichotomies, constituent of the poetics of the Gothic, between the supernatural past and the devoid of supernatural present are transformed in the dialogue into oppositions between the rational Tediato and the superstitious Lorenzo. Thanks to the genre of the dialogue the tension between the two poles remains constant which on its turn enhances the impact of “Lugubrious Nights”.