“The First Foretaste of the True East” – A Polish Reporter in Post-Ottoman Ruse

Abstract

The article confronts the urban myth about Ruse as the “most European city” in the Bulgarian lands with the reports from October 1886, published in Antoni Zaleski’s book "Z wycieczki na Wschód. Notatki dziennikarza" (From a trip to the East. A journalist’s notes). The comparison of the Polish observer’s notes with the most persistent elements of this myth reveals diametrically opposite notions about the city’s role in the modernization of Bulgaria during the second half of the 19th century. The key points in the narrative on Ruse as “the city of first things” and “the Gateway to Europe” include the Islahhane grand hotel as “the pearl” of modern Bulgarian accommodation and hospitality facilities; Ruse as a “Little Vienna” because of its architecture; Ruse as an important diplomatic center due to the presence of numerous consulates; the railway from Ruse to Varna as proof of the successful integration of the Bulgarian lands into the European transport system; and social and cultural life in Ruse as evidence of the break with the Oriental lifestyle. The article shows that the city regarded by its inhabitants as a “gateway to the West” was perceived by foreign visitors as a true “gateway to the East.” Zaleski builds his reports on the categories of East and West, European and Ottoman, Bulgarian and Turkish; his portrayal of the city puts it in the frame of an unquestionably Eastern, mixed Turkish-Bulgarian, post-Ottoman reality.