Bulgarians Remain Ambivalent Over Europe*

23:12 – 29.04.2005
By Matthew Brunwasser**

SOFIA (IWPR)–Sofia residents celebrated signing of treaty bringing
them into EU, but many still have mixed feelings about whole project.

Several thousand participants in the “Euro BG Street Parade” gathered
in front of the national cathedral in Sofia on April 25 to celebrate
Bulgaria’s signing of the EU accession treaty that day.

Dressed in traditional costumes from towns throughout the Sofia
region, they joined marching bands, folk dancing groups,
baton-twirlers and groups of fur-clad “kukeri” (masked dancers),
chasing away evil spirits with clanking cowbells.

Organized by the youth wing of the ruling National Movement for Simeon
II, the event was clearly designed to squash fears that EU membership
will meana loss of national identity.

When Romania and Bulgaria signed the EU accession treaty on April 25,
they made a fifth round of EU expansion irreversible.

The two poorest states of the former Soviet Eastern Bloc will become
EU members on January 1, 2007 unless Brussels deems them “manifestly
unprepared to meet the requirements of membership”.

If so, membership may be delayed by up to a year. Either way, January
1, 2008 will be the latest possible membership date.

The four more developed ex-Eastern Bloc countries, known as the
“Visegrad 4”, namely, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, joined the EU in the fourth round of expansion on May 1,
2004.

Apart from sharing a relative economic strength, they also shared a
sentiment that EU membership marked their long-awaited “return” to
Central Europe and to a place they occupied before the Red Army
separated them from the West after the Second World War.

For them, EU membership has simply healed an artificial division that
was created by Stalin.

But for Bulgaria and Romania, joining the EU poses different
challenges. Bulgaria’s history, for example, has followed a very
different path from that of the Visegrad 4 states.

A Turkish province for 500 years, it only became formally independent
from the Ottoman Empire in 1908. Located in the continent’s deprived
southeast, Bulgaria was never closely integrated with Europe,
politically or economically, in the modern era.

However, in spite of centuries of subjugation by the Ottoman and
Soviet empires, Bulgarians are proud of their democratic and European
traditions.

The Bulgarian constitution of 1879 was more liberal than most in
Europe at the time. In the early 20th century, Bulgaria took in
thousands of Armenians refugees from Turkey while in the Second World
War, the country saved all 50,000 of its Jewish citizens from
deportation to Nazi death camps.

Ivaylo Ditchev, a professor of cultural anthropology at Sofia
University, said, “Bulgaria is joining the European Union because we
aspire to a commonidea of what a European country should be.”

But many of those watching the unruly procession winding through the
center of Sofia this week were more ambivalent about their European
destiny than the professor’s words suggested.

Ivan Georgiev, 32, a computer programmer, said, “I hope we change the
EU’s culture and that they don’t change us. I hope we don’t accept
blindly what they offer.”

Maria Papazova, 25, was equally unsure what a meeting between Europe
and Bulgaria would achieve. “I’m sure the EU will do positive things
for Bulgaria, but also bad ones,” she said.

Television shows have picked up on this air of ambivalence about the
European future. A humorous TV debate show called “Sblusuk”
(collision), satirized the fears of many about life in the EU.

One episode showed a delicious Bulgarian tomato, some homemade rakia
(grape brandy) and pirate software speaking out against EU membership,
as they feared for their existence.

A policeman was shown worrying that after prices go up in 2007, his 10
lev (five euro) customary bribe would also have to jump to 20
euro. “No one will want to pay me. How will I live?” he wailed.

Humorous skits like that try to reflect the uneasy balancing act that
many Bulgarians have with their respective Balkan and European
identities.

The ambivalence about the West dates back at least to the early 19th
Century, when wealthy Bulgarians began sending their sons to Europe to
be educated, only for them to return with western ideas and find their
efforts to modernize the country frustrated by oriental sloth.

Bulgarian culture shares many traits and customs with other former
provinces of the Ottoman Empire, including foodstuffs, drinks, music,
expressions, social customs and many other traditions.

The country’s unease about its Balkan heritage has ranged from simple
derision to violent denial, most recently in the 1980s, when the
communist regime forced the large ethnic Turkish minority to adopt
Christian-sounding names.

Mixed feelings about “Balkan-ness” remain strong today, concerning
such issues as popular folk music, which is Turkish influenced and
seen by some as eastern and vulgar.

“The elite in Bulgaria feels deep shame about what is called pop-folk
music, which they consider degrading and uncivilized,” said Ditchev.

“But when tourists come, the first thing they buy is pop-folk music
because they consider it the natural folklore here – the music people
live by.”

As the pro-EU procession in Sofia ended near the National Palace of
Culture for a concert given by a cast of celebrities, Tsvetana
Rangelova, 83, watched from a nearby stall.

“My life is over,” she said, bluntly. “What can [the EU] possibly mean
for me?” she asked, motioning to a small battered stand, displaying
sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

“But for the young people who want to do something, I hope it means
something happier.”

—————-

* This article was made available to the bnn for publishing by the
Sofia Office of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London.

**Matthew Brunwasser is contributor to the Balkans Investigative
Reporting Network, BIRN – a newly localized IWPR project in the
region. /bnn/