Current Programmes

Ever since the Upper Palaeolithic, communities have been making miniature figures, with a peak in figurine usage in the Balkan Neolithic - Chalcolithic (6200 – 3500 cal BC). While endlessly fascinating, these figurines remain enigmatic. The principal shift in approach has been from “What did these figurines mean?” to “What do these figurines do?” – viz., studies of performance and figurine agency. Many see figurines as vehicles for exploring people’s relationships with human bodies. Yet in the last two decades, the pendulum has swung towards agency and away from meaning, leading to a lack of integration of research results. This state of affairs offers an opportunity for new research in which context is central, performance is meaningful and human and object agencies are in dialogue. My main research question is “how were figurines embedded in domestic and mortuary performances through time and space in prehistoric Bulgaria?” I shall answer this question by studying reports on figurine assemblages and first-hand examination of some figurine collections in Bulgarian museums in order to discover the figurines’ depositional circumstances and performative roles. The output would be a chapter in an invited book in the Cambridge Elements “Archaeology and Gender” series on “Female figurines in European prehistory”.

This interdisciplinary project studies the geological exploration of the Balkan Peninsula, focusing on the descriptions and analyses of thermal water that were produced by traveling naturalists and scientists from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the nineteenth. Placing the texts in their proper historical contexts and considering the authors’ agendas and the broader developments within the travel writing genre, the project examines how the exploration of the geology and thermal hydrology of the Balkans was situated in the overall study of the peninsula and what role it played in shaping the travelers’ perceptions of Balkan societies and cultures. I look into how Southeast Europe’s affinity for the healing and sacral properties of spring water informed Western travelers’ perceptions of the region as ‘other’ vis-à-vis the places they were coming from and how the study of the hydrothermal landscapes of the Balkans influenced the formation of a comprehensive image of the region. I use insights from cultural geography and anthropology to show how thermal water played an essential role in place-making in the Balkans and how its scientific exploration was ultimately linked to the study of human culture.

This research explores the dynamics of Bulgarian archaeology during the communist period and the Transition years (1944–2007), examining the profound influence of political ideologies on archaeological research, scientific interpretations and social implications. It is innovative for Bulgarian historiography, as the subject is challenging due to the difficulty of objectively assessing such a recent past. The proposed research is a multifaceted endeavour that requires a comprehensive approach. It aims to examine a wide range of issues, problems and key features, encompassing the historical background of Bulgaria during the communist period and beyond, political ideologies, state institutions and control, international relations, and the influence of political policies on the conservation and management of Bulgaria's archaeological heritage. The proposed research will be organised in several phases according to its main objectives. Using a variety of research methods, including archival studies and comparative analysis with other Eastern European countries, the study aims to stimulate scholarly discourse and inspire further research into Bulgaria's complex scientific past. Ultimately, the project will culminate in a monograph that will synthesise the findings to enrich our understanding of this fascinating historical period.

This research project seeks to comprehensively explore the overlooked and forgotten Turkish literature produced within Communist Bulgaria from 1944 to 1968. Despite comprising approximately one hundred poetry books, long stories, and novels during this period, these Turkish texts have been largely neglected by both Bulgarian and Turkish scholars, remaining mere entries in bibliographies. The primary aim of this research is to unravel the complex interplay between Turkishness, Muslimness, socialism, and peasantism as reflected in these (selected) Turkish literary works published in Bulgaria during the Cold War era. Specifically, this research focuses on texts released by the state-sponsored publishing house, Narodna Prosveta, from 1959 to 1968, as well as contributions to the monthly magazine Yeni Hayat (New Life) (1953-60) and its literary supplement, Çağdaş (Modern). By conducting literary and sociocultural analyses within the context of ideological upheavals during the Cold War, this project aims to illuminate the unique and uneven development of minority literature in Bulgaria. Additionally, it employs archival research to enhance understanding of the relationship between socialism, nationalism, the idea of the land, and Turkish literary culture within this specific historical framework. Furthermore, by conducting a comparative examination between Bulgaria and Turkey—neighboring countries aligned with opposing ideological blocs during the Cold War—the research enriches our comprehension of the diverse trajectories of Turkish literature under contrasting ideological regimes.

Post-socialist Bulgaria was haunted by poltergeists, visited by aliens, and awash with ‘phenomena’ of various kinds. Why were these alternative forms of knowing the world proliferating in the first decades of ‘democracy’? This project combines the histories of late socialism with new research into the post-socialist period to explore the intersection of official and unofficial science and knowledge-making communities. Utilizing archival documents, analysis of literature, digital tools, and oral history, it will uncover the role of socialist science and narratives in the shaping of post-1989 narratives around Bulgarian ‘uniqueness’ but also esoteric expectations about spirits, energies, and aliens. It argues that the print and digital culture of the post-1989 period enabled amateur communities to claim scientific expertise in novel ways, often utilizing but obscuring the theories’ origins in earlier periods. Who could claim truth and how did they defend it? More so, why was post-socialist Bulgaria receptive to such ideas and why do publics continue to flock to and fund such communities? Building on existing literature about both the lost utopias of socialism and the ways post-crisis societies deal with meaning and disenchantment (from political narratives), this project bridges the 1989 divide in political and cultural language in novel ways.

When we ask ourselves what are the objects of our visual perception, the most intuitive answer that comes to mind is that we perceive the things that constitute our reality or external world, e.g. buildings, trees, tables, etc. In philosophy of perception, this account came to be known as common sense realism, naïve realism or direct realism. Regardless of its intuitiveness, however, direct realism nowadays has close to none supporters to endorse it.

The project explores the predicament of Bulgarian cultural and artistic intelligentsia in the unexplored post-socialist period when, for the first time in their two-century history, intellectuals were becoming uniquely insignificant figures. The project is envisioned as a social–historical and cultural analysis of how Bulgarian intellectuals, artists, writers, poets, and filmmakers experienced first the liberal-intellectual and then the social revolution engendered by the transition from state socialism to neol-iberal capitalism. It explores the paradox that while East European intellectuals and dissidents were instrumental in the demise of communism, it was ironically under neo-liberal democracy that they were relegated to a life of cultural and social irrelevance. Methodologically, the project will weave an economic analysis of the impact of the new market economy on intellectual and artistic production together with a cultural analysis of intellectual and artistic reactions to the cultural and political transformations of the 1990s and 2000s. Examining intellectuals’ attitudes towards such issues as nationalism, pro-EU or pro-US sentiment, political activism, and post-communist nostalgia, this project seeks to understand how the marginalization of the intelligentsia has affected not only post-1989 cultural and intellectual life, but also social and political mobilization.

Nothing quite captures the historical imagination like warfare. And very few stories of conquest can match the Ottoman military expansion from Gallipoli to Vienna and its consolidation of power over the Balkan peninsula. This project proposal aims to re-evaluate the accounts on four prominent battles through an integrated battlefield archaeology approach. The selected case studies include the battle of Ihtiman (c. AD1355), the battle of Maritsa (AD1371), the battle of Nikopol (AD1396), and the battle of Varna (AD1444). In the centre of the approach offered here is the understanding that battle sites are not merely the setting for interpersonal violence rather than culturally and socially constructed landscapes of conflict. Thus, the material signature of organized warfare holds a particular value for long-term commemoration and cultural heritage. Finally, the comparative and interdisciplinary analysis on these foci of the Ottoman conquest aims to integrate them in the ongoing European-wide reappraisal of battlefields.

The project aims to shed light on the complex dynamics of heritage production and consumption in Southeastern Europe, with a particular focus on nowadays Bulgaria. It critically examines the concept of the ‘crossroad of civilisations’ as a representation of a historical amalgamation of various cultures and religions, and argues that this idea often neglects or obscures specific layers of cultural heritage. The project employs Critical Heritage Studies to challenge power structures, dominant narratives and cultural conventions surrounding heritage-making. Through investigating different heritage fragments in Bulgaria – both nationally celebrated and contested ones – the research explores interrelations, dependencies, and hierarchies between them. The processes of heritagization are examined in relation to regional and European dynamics that reinforce or question the notions of Europe’s core and periphery. The study focuses on three recent Bulgarian exhibitions at the Paris Louvre Museum, with an aim to investigate and analyse their respective heritage discourses. The hypothesis suggests that a collective examination of these cases can reveal interdependent relationships and hierarchical structures, which have the potential to deepen our understanding of current European heritage politics. Furthermore, this project intends to broaden conventional approaches towards interpreting heritage within the region while making valuable contributions towards advancing the discipline of heritage studies as a whole.

The research in object-based teaching and learning at US colleges and universities, as well as Dr. Milkova's pedagogic practice at leading institutions such as Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Oberlin College, has been at the forefront of innovating and updating 21st-century liberal arts education in the US. The project she proposes encompasses research towards a book-length manuscript that introduces to academics and museum professionals in Bulgaria the pedagogic value and benefits of teaching with collections across academic disciplines. Building upon her previous publications in English, drawing on recent scholarship in museum and higher education, and based on new research and data she obtains as a CAS fellow, Liliana will put forward (in Bulgarian) strategies applicable to different types of collections and museums in the country. The CAS fellowship will enable her to research and write the final book chapter that translates and adapts practices well-established abroad for Bulgaria’s specific context. To do this, she will investigate existing approaches to museum education through first-hand observations and interviews, workshops for faculty, students, and museum specialists that she will lead, and through a review of the relevant scholarly literature produced in Bulgaria in the last two decades.