East Central Europe as a Politically Correct Scapegoat: The Case of Bulgaria

Abstract

Roumiana Deltcheva analyzes in her article "East Central Europe as a Politically Correct Scapegoat: The Case of Bulgaria" the mechanisms of image construction of East Central Europe in the West, taking Bulgaria as a case study as seen in literary and filmic texts. A historical overview of literary and theoretical texts which deal with the cultural semiosphere of Bulgaria is presented to demonstrate that contrary to widely held perceptions in North American (US and Canada) "politically correct" scholarship, Europe is not a homogeneous cultural unity. In fact, a clear centre/periphery situation is established and delineated along the geographical axis West/East (as well as North/South, etc.). In the post-communist period, preconceived notions from earlier times continue to dominate, sustained by the dominant cultural discourses in (East) Central Europe.