Regimes of ‘Degeneration’ and ‘Regeneration’: Eugenics and Modernization in Bulgaria before the Second World War

Abstract

The focus of this article is the under-studied discourse of eugenics in Bulgaria, from the early twentieth century to the Second World War. Bulgarian eugenic projects are addressed here as a contribution to the heterogeneous intellectual and polit. ical strategies of reconstructing modernity, national identity, and the forms of experiencing time during this period. The analysis is based on the understanding of collective identities as dynamic cultural constructions, subject to negotiations over meanings of belonging, sameness and difference, continuity and change. The consolidation of the ‘we’ consciousness inevitably entails the sharing of sym. bolic codes of becoming and being a collective self. Therefore, identity formation and representation are always linked to a ‘regime of historicity,’ perceived as ‘the method of self-awareness in a human community’ (Hartog, 2005, p. 8). The inter. pretation of the ways in which the discourse of eugenics in Bulgaria participated in the renegotiation of modern national identity refers also to the restricted meaning of the ‘regime of historicity’ concept as ‘the way in which a society considers its past and deals with it’ (Hartog, 2005, p. 8). Central to this study are the explicit strategies of reshaping (especially the interwar) experience of crisis — of time, modernity, and national self.