Individual projects

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 research project deals with civilizational analysis in historical sociology and new perspectives on civilizational politics in the field of international relations. Contemporary civilizational analysis as a sociological paradigm devotes considerable attention to civilizational legacies in today’s world. At the same time the research programme of civilizational politics in IR regards civilizations as discursive constructs and focuses on the ways in which political imaginaries become institutionalized. Apparently, these perspectives can be seen as complementary. However, current discussions of Russian ‘civilizationism’ are characterized by selective appropriation of insights from new approaches in IR and general neglect of the findings of historical sociology. The project evaluates recent research on civilizational aspects of Russian politics and stresses the need to reconsider this issue taking into account the contributions of sociological civilizational analysis. The study of social and political imaginaries is a growing interdisciplinary field. It can be argued that the case of post-Soviet Russia is particularly relevant for the discussion of civilizational imaginaries. In particular, the project will focus on the relationship between the concepts of ‘civilization’ and ‘empire’ in construction of Russia’s identity. The project will employ the methodology of comparative-historical analysis.

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.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties of Imperial China, Muslim Chinese scholars translated and transmitted Islamic thought from Persian-Arabian texts to Chinese readership through the intellectual framework and vocabularies of Confucian Chinese tradition. This intellectual thought in Islamic literature was called Han Kitab (Sino-Islamic texts) and those thinkers are known as Confucian Muslims (Hurui). Through this new perspective of Islamic-Confucianism, I propose to carry out a pioneering research project to investigate how leading Confucian Muslims (Hurui) responded, interpreted, and criticized Christian doctrines in the writings of Han Kitab. By selectively translating and analysing Sino-Islamic texts in dialogue with Christianity, this research project attempts to retrieve Muslim Chinese scholars’ responses towards Christian missionaries and the Christian doctrines. Through translating and analysing Han-Kitab, this research project aims at reconstructing the formative encounters and characteristics of Confucian Muslim-Christian relations in the context of Sino-Islamic intellectual tradition.

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.

Notwithstanding the fact that the ideological framework of Balkan nationalism as well as it’s implications in the redrawing of the political boundaries in the Balkans have been intensively studied, the way nations perceived events which led to ideological crisis and/or had disastrous consequences for their expansionist policies undermining their Great Ideas still remains overlooked. By the same token, equivalently unexplored is the issue of a comparative approach with respect to analyzing how nations that shared common paths in their national-building process perceived their national catastrophes. In this respect, this project will attempt to shed light on the vacillations of Greek and Bulgarian national narratives in periods of national disaster, that is the second Bulgarian national disaster of 1919 and the Greek national disaster of 1922, also known as the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The research, which is mostly based upon analysis of the Bulgarian and Greek press, focuses on two main aspects; the intranational and the comparative approach. The intranational approach will attempt to answer the following questions: a) how did public opinion in Greece and Bulgaria cope with events that nullified transborder nationalism leading to national catastrophes? b) Is a national catastrophe capable of putting an end to national expansionism and appeasing national sentiments? c) How do the protagonists of the catastrophic events defend themselves and narrate their version of the story? d) Is the concept of the hostile National Other, which usually refers to nations, internalized and attributed to those who were responsible for the national catastrophe? Based on the results of this intranational research the comparative approach will detect convergences and divergences in the way Greeks and Bulgarians perceived their national catastrophes.

Има една брилянтна мисъл на Александър Дюма-баща „Историята е само сбор от сухи факти, всичко зависи от това кой я разказва и защо“. Тази мисъл до голяма степен илюстрира ролята на историята в живота на обществата и най-вече в зоните, където е имало продължителни конфликти и неразрешени спорове. Балканският полуостров е една такава територия, където между почти всички съседи е имало конфликти през XX и XXI в., неразрешени териториални спорове, случаи на етнически прочиствания и асимилации, незатворени рани от войните и спорни казуси до ден днешен. И всеки използва историята така, както му е изгодно на него самият.Идеята на проекта ми е провокирана от втория ми роман “Аbsolvo te” и третият, който разработвам в момента. “Absolvo te” се базира на две истински истории, едната от Втората световна война, Холокоста и концлагерите Аушвиц и Дахау, и една от арабо-израелския конфликт. И в двата случая народите имат огромна нужда от преработването на историята, за да намерят път към бъдещето. И докато при арабо-израелския конфликт генезиса е много дълбоко в историята, конфликтът е действащ и в момента и преработването на историята е много трудно, то за германския народ това е въпрос, който се разисква вече повече от седемдесет години.От края на Втората световна война са минали точно седемдесет и седем години, а немците продължават да преработват историята от ужасите и зверствата на Холокоста. Оказва се, че четири поколения преработват тази история и все още има неразрешени моменти, знаем, че непосредствено след войната над Германия ляга сянката на „страшното мълчание“, т.е за да могат да продължат напред, те не се обръщат въобще назад, не се говори, не се дискутира Холокоста, не се пишат книги, не се правят филми. Едва поколението, раждано след войната, когато достига зряла възраст, започва да задава въпроси на своите родители как са могли да бъдат част или дори само да са допуснали зверствата на нацизма и тогава разривът между поколенията е много дълбок.В романа си „Absolvo te” аз се занимавам точно с темата за чувството за вина на германския народ и с това как обикновените, нормални хора са увлечени от насилствената машина за смърт на нацизма и нацистката идеология. Историята на този период все още не е преработен напълно от немците и днешните поколения продължават да го преработват. И до ден днешен, когато се отбелязва Денят на Холокоста и жертвите на нацизма част от германците искат да говорят по темата, искат да се отърсят от чувството за вина и да измолят макар и символично прошка, докато останалата част не иска въобще да се говори по темата и се „затварят“ в това, че е минало, че те не са били част от този процес и няма как да носят отговорност за него.В новия си роман разглеждам една много болезнена тема за България и Балканите, темата за Македония през призмата на една много болезнена част от нейната история, периода 1902 - 1919 г. Според мен, големите противоречия, които днес има между България и Република Северна Македония са защото на Балканите, за разлика от Германия, не се опитваме дори да преработваме историята, нито заедно да я дискутираме, а всеки се е хванал за своята си истина и не иска да се пуска от нея.Сърцевината на проекта е да видим как немците преработват своят най-мъчителен етап от съвременната си история и как това може да ни помогне на нас, на Балканите, и в частност на българите и македонците. Това да бъде пречупено през призмата на историята, географията и литературата.

When war broke out in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine in 2014, numerous charitable organizations, local and international NGOs and development aid programs began to offer immediate humanitarian relief in frontline communities. Today, eight years since the start of the war, their active engagement remains a valuable contribution to peacebuilding efforts and social assistance to the most vulnerable social categories. At the same time, pressure from donors and priorities of long-term engagement beyond short-term immediate relief, pushes the humanitarian sector to redefine their understanding of “vulnerability”. Development aid projects are gradually moving away from material assistance in the form of basic necessities, towards more long-term projects of community development, capacity-building, resilience and empowerment. My research project is situated in this context of international development actors redefining vulnerability in frontline communities of the Donbas. I want to explore, firstly, which social groups are identified as vulnerable and in greatest need of humanitarian assistance; secondly – how these understandings of vulnerability evolve over time when the war is no longer seen as an emergency but rather as an ongoing day-to-day reality in frontline communities, and finally – how changing understandings of vulnerability reflect ideological and bureaucratic shifts in the development aid sector.

The Concordat that the post-1918 Romanian state signed and ratified with the Holy See was a highly controversial document that had enormous consequences. There is apparently no other international document in the history of modern Romania to demand almost one decade to be enacted. Nevertheless, the research on this affair is almost non-existent after 1989. The project proposal focuses on the Concordat during its first draft (1921) until the unilateral denunciation (1948). Working on a diversity of unexplored primary sources, the project aims at documenting the legal, political, religious debates that the Concordat generated and analyzing the effects it produced upon the nation-building and the society. The project will employ an interdisciplinary approach and it will make some comparative references to the other states from the Eastern Europe.

The end of the Cold War evoked hope and despair in the USSR. As the lived experience of systemic transformation in the (former) Soviet Union remains understudied, post-Soviet opinion leaders sustain a myth of the ‘wild 1990s’. In order to justify repressive measures at home and aggressive policies abroad, for example, Vladimir Putin claims that the dismantling of authoritarian controls produced economic hardship, social discord, and cultural stagnation. My history of show business challenges these politicised narratives by exploring how producers and consumers of popular culture engaged with market reform. Reflecting distinct commercial and political pressures, and reaching diverse audiences, pop provides a prism for understanding the interplay between economic, social, and cultural change. Leading to the publication of a monograph, my project investigates how the privatisation of show business transformed cultures of entrepreneurship, the limits of permissible expression, and Cold War mental geographies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.