Buying into the American Dream Reforming National Symbols in Bulgaria

Abstract

The A. examines the way in which national political symbols have changed in Bulgaria during the last decade. Using a comparative approach with examples from both the socialist and post-socialist periods, he observes two important trends. The first is that changes in the use of symbols reveal rural-urban divisions that have arisen as a consequence of post-socialist reform. The second trend is that there has been a notable shift away from symbols that give primacy to the political domain and towards ones rooted in the economic sphere of social life. Such observations provide a valuable insight into the particular direction that post-socialist reforms are taking in one east European context.