Kuzmanova, Aneliya Yordanova; (2024) Projecting Modernity on a Local Scale: Momina Tsarkva in the Whirlpool of Multiple Modernities. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis examines the heterogenous modernisation experiences of a rural Bulgarian community from the late 19th century until today using the theoretical basis of the multiple modernities paradigm, corrected by the framework of longue durée and the dichotomy of low/high modernism. The thesis argues that western modernity is hardly the only viable modernist alternative, and using the local experiences of one rural community discusses the three separate outlets of religious, agrarian and socialist modernisation which have attempted to achieve this task. Their deficiencies were found to be attributed to a number of factors including those characteristic to a transformation from low to high modernity, due to the latter’s supreme self-confidence in authoritarianism and scientific rationality, but also its contempt of the practical vernacular knowledge of local agents and of local-central cooperation. The findings of this thesis challenge the marginalisation and neglect of the historical experiences of villagers and seek to do justice to peasants’ self-understanding through a real inclusion of the relegated eastern European studies. The research comprised archival analysis, ethnographic research and in-depth interviews conducted in Momina Tsarkva itself, as well as in several other Bulgarian villages and towns. Social media ethnography was also elemental to the study, particularly in the interrogation of the current period of global transformations and open-ended rural engagements with diverse aspects of the notion of modernity. The thesis contributes to a novel understanding on how the temporal philosophies of different social groups, such as Orthodox priests reveal them as key proponents of the modern time. The treatment of the countryside as a modern locus affords a fresh perspective on Europe’s interwar period. And the introduction of urban patterns in the countryside during the socialist modernisation pattern brings to light the unintended outcomes of the modernising experiences. Moreover, the micro level of analysis helps to investigate empirically the changes of border regimes in Bulgaria preconditioned by state independence, Cold-War realities and most recently by the end of socialism and Bulgaria’s turning into an outpost of the EU.

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