The Bulgarian PEN Club: A Study in Interwar Cultural Internationalism

Abstract

This article reconstructs the history of the Bulgarian section of the International PEN. The PEN (initially standing for Poet, Essayists and Novelists) remains a global society of writers, founded in London in 1921, with the intent of promoting international understanding and higher social standing for writers and literature. The Bulgarian PEN was formed in 1926 by authors seeking to break the international isolation of Bulgaria, a former member of the Central Powers. The International PEN enabled Bulgarian literati to engage as non-state agents in cultural diplomacy of their own and to expand their intellectual and professional networks. Based on a variety of sources, the article analyzes the hopes, real limitations, and actual achievements of the Bulgarian PEN until its closing in 1941. It uses the organization’s interwar history to examine the workings in eastern Europe of what Akira Iriye called “cultural internationalism.” It demonstrates that while global literary and cultural relations remained inherently unequal, as discussed by Pascale Casanova, the International PEN did afford opportunities to smaller nations and literatures to establish regional and global contacts and become integrated in continental literary networks.